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Alphanumeric! A "ReBoot" (1994 - 2001) documentary series and remaster

Gaith

Gaith

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I just learned of ReBoot Rewind, a brand new eight-episode retrospective documentary series about the making of ReBoot. I'm currently making my way through the first episode, and it's pretty great so far! I always knew the show was Canadian, but had no idea it was first dreamt up in London.

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... But that's not even the really amazing part. That would be the recent announcement that, while the digital source files are of course long gone, the original master D1 tapes (720x576), the highest-quality export of the show ever made, have been re-scanned for the first time just this year! Mainframe's official YouTube channel has posted the pilot, "The Tearing," in HD, and it's far sharper than the 2011 DVD release by Shout Factory. Just look at the level of detail - it's beautiful!

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There's been no official word of a Blu-ray or digital HD release yet, and this GoFundMe page linked by the Reboot Rewind FB page indicates restoration and archiving efforts are ongoing. Sweet!
 
I remember watching some episodes with the kids back in the day and thought it was pretty good but other than the graphic design I don't remember anything about it.
 
Gaith said:
I always knew the show was Canadian, but had no idea it was first dreamt up in London.
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You can tell there were British people amongst the show's creative staff from the various Easter eggs to British entertainment seen throughout the show. Like the penguin from Wallace and Gromit, or the joke about about Mrs Slocombe's pussy from Are You Being Served.
 
I might have to check out the documentary, I used to be a big fan of Reboot back when it originally aired.
 
This show was so exciting as a kid who was enamored with the possibilities of computer animation after Jurassic Park came out.
 
Welp, I finished the eight-part retrospective series ReBoot Rewind, and it's excellent! Lots of great stories, fascinating interviews, and glimpses of the HD master tapes throughout. (Amusingly, the fiasco of the Netflix spinoff series The Guardian Code, which ReBoot's creators had nothing to do with, isn't even mentioned.) I wish they'd gone even more into depth on some of the narrative decisions from the third and fourth seasons, but it would be churlish not to delighted and satisfied with the hours of free material. Highly recommended!

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There's some truly impressive work going on with this restoration effort!

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Another update... the series has now been fully scanned for posterity, with minor touch-ups as needed in progress!

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Gaith said:
Welp, I finished the eight-part retrospective series ReBoot Rewind, and it's excellent! Lots of great stories, fascinating interviews, and glimpses of the HD master tapes throughout. (Amusingly, the fiasco of the Netflix spinoff series The Guardian Code, which ReBoot's creators had nothing to do with, isn't even mentioned.) I wish they'd gone even more into depth on some of the narrative decisions from the third and fourth seasons,
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The third season is easier to explain: Dan Didio was story editor of season 3 and his go-to tactics is to make the status quo darker/edgier and to age up the kid-appeal characters like what happened to Enzo. He did exactly the same thing during his tenure running DC Comics into the ground.
 
^ To clarify, I think the first and final 4-episode arcs of S3 are fantastic; I just thought those narrative decisions could have been more fully explored.
 
IIRC, since ABC cancelled the show after the second season, there was no American network overseeing the third, meaning they didn't have to worry about American Broadcast Standards and Practices. They only had to worry about Canadian policies, which are far more lenient with television than American. Indeed, YTV in Canada basically told Mainframe "as long as people are watching, we don't really care what you do."
 
Man, I haven't thought about ReBoot in decades. Absolutely loved the show as a kid, so it's great to see an effort is being made to preserve and restore it!
 
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