Of course, computer animation has long since replaced the classic cartoon. The Pixar studios paved the way for this in 1995 when they released “Toy Story,” the first ever fully computer-animated feature film. But strictly speaking, three smaller Canadian studios went ahead of the animation giant, which still sets the tone, and beat Pixar in the race for the first fully computer-animated production: In 1994, Mainframe Entertainment, Alliance Distribution and BLT Productions released a TV series called “Restart” away from herewhich had four seasons and a live-action remake on Netflix and spawned a computer game of the same name.
When “Toy Story” was released in November 1995, the fifth episode of the second season of “ReBoot” was already flickering on Canadian television sets – even as the show was under constant threat of cancellation.
What is ‘ReBoot’ about?
“ReBoot” is all about the so-called guardian Bob and his companions Enzo and Dot Matrix, who live in the computer networking city of Mainframe – and are tasked with protecting the system from the malicious viruses Megabyte and Hexadecimal. But there are other threats, namely Mainframe’s users: every time one of them loads a video game, the city is in danger. Because if the user wins, their inhabitants turn into bloodsucker-like horror creatures, so-called nulls…
So “ReBoot” is kind of a confused precursor to “Ralph has had enough“ from the early days of computers, which completely subordinates its story to the technical possibilities of the time: simply because our reality would have been much more difficult to animate, the series takes place entirely in the rather abstract interior of the computer system. Of course, Pixar was already further ahead, albeit a little later – because ‘Toy Story’, which became the most successful film of the year and spawned a popular franchise, not only creates a relatively complex world, but can also last almost 30 years . (!) Still visible years later. The animations of “ReBoot”, on the other hand, seem rather outdated and improvised.
And yet: Although the series is largely forgotten today, it still did some real pioneering work – so it doesn’t have to hide from Pixar & Co.!