The ’90s Sci-Fi Series That Needs Help Being Saved
Did you know that audiences were into cutting-edge computer animation long before Toy Story was even a twinkle in Pixar’s eye? The CGI-animated show ReBoot premiered way back in 1994, and it blazed the trail that some of the biggest animated films in history (including Frozen) would follow.
Now, two Canadian superfans (Jacob Weldon and Raquel Lin) are working on a documentary of the show and have found the original master tapes, but they need help from the fandom to get the rare Bosch BTS D1 deck needed to play them.
What Is ReBoot About?
The premise of ReBoot is very meta: it takes place inside Mainframe, a special system inside of a larger computer.
Our primary hero is Bob, a Guardian who is charged with safeguarding the digital citizens who live inside the system. Those citizens’ lives are constantly in danger because of the machinations of two evil viruses (Megabyte and Hexidecimal)
But while those villains are predictable in their malice, Bob must also save the denizens of Mainframe from a much more unpredictable threat.
Reboot Inside A Computer
Since the conceit of ReBoot is that it takes place inside a computer, the characters are aware of a god-like being known as “the User” who is actually the owner and operator of the computer.
The User likes to play video games, and in Mainframe, this results in quadrants of the virtual city getting ensconced inside giant purple Game Cubes. Everyone caught inside becomes enemies who must now fight against the User in his chosen game.
If they lose the game, they are transformed into mindless Nulls, so Bob and his friends are constantly trying to get inside the Cubes and defeat the User.
These scenes, while very memorable, are mostly an excuse for the show to do fun action set pieces in each episode.
The Purpose of the Documentary
Jacob Weldon and Raquel Lin set out to create a ReBoot documentary they felt the show never gets enough credit for its amazing legacy.
We arguably wouldn’t have the current boom of CGI animation if ReBoot (and the spiritual sequel series, the Transformers spinoff Beast Wars) hadn’t been for the show’s success.
In the course of working on the documentary, these two filmmakers have also spoken to fans who went into animation specifically because of ReBoot. And the show has created a “ripple effect that has kind of created waves that no one really knows about.”
The Documentary Hits Digital Paydirt
The original studio that created ReBoot, Mainframe, permitted the documentarians to search their studio for the show’s master tapes.
Many thought the tapes had been lost, but they found hundreds of tapes featuring “original resolution, original frame rate, uncompressed” video quality.
Many fans would kill to see ReBoot in the highest possible quality, but those fans won’t actually have to resort to murder…they’ll just have to help the documentarians secure one of the rarest pieces of equipment in the world.
The Future of the Master Tape Is Now In Fans’ Hands
If you were wondering why the documentarians haven’t already released the master tapes of ReBoot, it’s because they were recorded on D1 digital tapes.
That tech was rare back in the ‘90s and it’s even harder to find now, so Jacob Weldon and Raquel Lin have now put out the call to fans to help them secure a functional Bosch BTS D1 deck that will let them play the tapes and incorporate footage into their documentary.
Reboot Fans
Are you a ReBoot fan who happens to have this exotic technology kicking around the house?
If so, go drop a DM to the @ReBootReWind Twitter account. Just as Bob helped save countless denizens of Mainframe, you may be able to save this show from relative obscurity and help it secure its rightful place in animation history (that’s right: move over, Disney).
