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Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: 3/1/2011
Director: Dick Zondag
Cast: Kathleen Barr, Michael Benyaer, Gary Chalk, Tony Jay
Year: 1994 - 1995
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The Movie:
ReBoot, which originally debuted in 1994, was the first fully computer animated series to air on TV and while its animation style may look like a product of its time (because quite obviously it is a product of its time), the series actually holds up really well in terms of design, creativity and most importantly, storytelling. Produced in Vancouver, British Columbia as a joint venture between Mainframe Entertainment, Alliance Communications, and BLT Productions the show was created by Gavin Blair, Ian Pearson, Phil Mitchell and John Grace and ran for four seasons. It was originally shown on the YTV (Youth Television) network in Canada and was picked up in the US by ABC.
The show did seem to be more popular in Canada than the United States, though it did find a pretty decent audience on both sides of the border. In its homeland, however, there were all manner of games, toys, and home video releases that cashed in on the show's popularity at the time.
The show is set in 'The Mainframe,' a world that exists inside a computer that, just like any other world, contains different areas with different types of populations. The central character is Bob (voiced by Michael Banyaer), who is essentially the 'Guardian of the Mainframe' and it's his job to keep viruses out of the Mainframe where they could wreak havoc and cause all kinds of trouble. When regular people use their computers for everyday use, the populace of the Mainframe world will wind up competing in different 'Games' that can decide the fate of the Mainframe world.
Helping Bob keep the Mainframe free of virus activity are his friend Dot Matrix (Kathleen Barr) and her brother Enzo (Jesse Moss). Complicating matters for them is the presence of a few bad guys, primarily Megabyte (Tony Jay) and Hexadecimal (Shirley Millner). Megabyte is established as the series' main villain and is referred to as a 'command and conquer virus' while Hexadecimal, who is his sister, is an older 'chaos virus.' The two siblings are able to merge into one even more sinister foe and form Gigabyte (Blu Mankuma). The series more or less revolves around the conflict that exists between Bob and his crew and the evil virus characters.
The CG animation in the series looks very dated and this will probably be an issue for first time viewers - it hasn't aged very well and looks almost primitive, showing just how far the technology has come in the time since this series was made. That said, the show itself is still an enjoyable one. It's a very creative series with some trippy sequences and interesting characters and one which is surprisingly high concept for something that was originally geared towards a kids' audience. The first season takes a while to get going, but once the characters and their various motivations are established and explained and the basic set up is out of the way, the pacing picks up and the episodic earlier episodes give way to more structured continuity driving stories.
What's interesting about the series is how it predates a lot of current pop culture trends. The games that take place in the series can run the gamut from logic type puzzles to 3D shooters while the animation style would go on to not only influence Mainframe Studios' next project (the digitally animated Transformers Beast Wars) but animation as a whole. The simple character models show their age, sure, but the work here is pretty pioneering in many ways and it's interesting to see it again even if some of its flaws are more obvious than they were when it seemed fresh, new and groundbreaking in 1994.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The episodes are all presented in their original 1.33.1 fullframe aspect ratio, which is how they were originally broadcast on TV those many years ago. The material looks about as good as you could realistically hope for. Some of the digital animation looks quite dated by modern standards but that's half the appeal of the show in the first place. Overall the image is clean, clear and well authored without any compression artifacts or noticeable problems to report.
The same can be said of the English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo tracks on the discs - they sound fine, demonstrating well balanced effects and music against clean, clear dialogue.
Extras in the set are basically limited to a series of commentary tracks moderated by Shout! Factory DVD producer Brian Ward which feature series' producers Chris Brough and Blair Peters and animator Ezekiel Norton. This talk spans the first three episodes of the series, so when the episode ends, the commentary does too, picking up where it left off on the next episode, which can be a bit jarring (and it results in a few gaps and chopped sentences) but when you listen to all three tracks back to back you do wind up getting a pretty good feel for what went into getting this series off the ground and how it was all put together. Animated menus and episode selection are also included.
The Final Word:
Those who remember the series from its original mid-nineties run will get a pretty hefty nostalgia rush from this release and those who don't will find that ReBoot is a pretty entertaining and underrated series. The dated style might take some getting used to for those unfamiliar with the show but the storytelling is good and if the show takes until half way through the first season to hit its stride, well, so be it. Shout! Factory's DVD release is a good one, offering up every episode of the first two seasons in nice quality and throwing in some solid commentary tracks as well. All in all, this is a pretty impressive time capsule of sorts, here's hoping seasons three and four hit DVD soon.
