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Animation Insider
Published: July 30, 2007 (Part I) 'ReBoot': Back to the Drawing Board July 30th, 2007
'ReBoot' News
Bringing a popular animated property back into development is never easy. Bringing a popular animated property back into production isn't any easier. Bringing back a quality computer animated TV series whose groundbreaking debut was so frighteningly ahead of its time, as one might imagine, may be even more difficult. But if there's one property whose fanbase wholeheartedly trusts the title's production group to redevelop such a key component of the history of television animation, it's ReBoot. Now, nearly a decade and a half after its broadcast television debut ReBoot is heading back to the drawing board, courtesy of Rainmaker Entertainment, Inc., in every way possible. ReBoot, the tale of what goes on inside your computer… the tale of one courageous man, his comrades and the many viruses and users they encounter in their survival of the system; ReBoot is a computer animated property whose place in television history is both creatively and technically relevant.
The first fully-computer animated television series; the show premiered on YTV (Canada), ABC (United States) and later on Cartoon Network (United States), the world within program being an exquisitely detailed rendering of the human imagination, limitlessly innovative. ReBoot was original, smart, creative, beautiful to watch, fun to engage, and perhaps most impressive of all, accessible by multiple demographics.
Rainmaker Entertainment, Inc.--who acquired ReBoot-creator Mainframe Entertainment last year for some $13.8 million--has announced that they will be putting the ReBoot back into development. "The idea is to re-launch the brand in a new way," Rainmaker Animation executive vice president Paul Gertz commented.
Gertz, who will oversee the new project, made it clear that Rainmaker Animation intends to develop an as of yet to be determined ReBoot-relevant plot scenario into a trilogy of feature-length films. And not only will the company develop and produce three films based on the property, Gertz also made it clear that the company in no way is going to put a stranglehold on the creative process…
Rainmaker Animation and Zeroes 2 Heroes Online, a newly launched social network for fans of comics, have entered into a strategic alliance to further the redevelopment effort of ReBoot. Five undiscovered writers have been selected to work with the professionals at Rainmaker to develop their individual and separate pitches for the beloved series' new storyline. The Zeroes 2 Heroes website, currently live, has available portals of information where web browsers can learn of each writer's collaboration with a Rainmaker production team to prepare a presentation pitch--also currently live on the site--of which fans can actively view and critique. "We want to get rid of the gatekeepers and help forge a genuine dialogue between producers and fans," Matt Toner, president of Zeroes 2 Heroes Online, commented in a press release from Rainmaker Entertainment, Inc., "when it comes to longstanding genre entertainment properties, the fans are the real experts and their goodwill shouldn't be taken for granted."
For the next month of the website's public access, those of the ReBoot nation will have the opportunity to go over every detail of each of the five proposals. The fans will have the rare opportunity of interacting with each production team, tweaking and refining each pitch, which will be up for vote after a designated time period.
Drawing on the powerful and ever-present fanbase for this miraculous computer animated property, Rainmaker Entertainment, Inc. and Zeroes 2 Heroes Online will also pursue the opportunity to use the winning pitch--nurtured and selected by fans--to produce a whole new chapter of ReBoot.
Later this year, a web version of the comic based on the winning idea will be published. It is at said time that production of a planned trilogy of feature length ReBoot films will commence. Animation Insider Published: July 30, 2007 (Part II) 'ReBoot': Back to the Drawing Board
'ReBoot' News: Five of a Kind
The online brainstorming environment fostered on Zeroes 2 Heroes Online, called ThinkUp, hosts an exclusive ReBoot ThinkUp, where web browsers and fans of the computer animated property can catch all of the latest news and updates and interactions regarding this awesome project. At the ThinkUp for the ReBoot project, you can review the five pitches, meet their creative teams, vote for your favorites and continue to interact with other fans of the property, honing ideas and submitting creative materials, aiding in the creative process.
Zeroes 2 Heroes Online allows its browsers to see every aspect of development, the character designs, the production artwork, even the script in its early stages. Don't like what you see? Is the artwork too abstract? Is there a plot hole you think that only you can spot? Don't think one idea flies but another does? Contribute. Tell the producers what you think and submit your own idea or upload your own artwork. Rate every stage of each pitch individually, each character, each design, each idea. The ThinkUp works only if the fans pitch in with every creative fiber of their being.
Rainmaker wanted to start with a clean slate and approach the story with no preconceptions. They reached out to five undiscovered writers who were looking for their break. These writers were teamed up with Rainmaker's in-house artists and producers and told to come up with five completely new takes on the ReBoot world. Which pitch will be the winner? That's not up to some high-priced suit at Rainmaker… it's up to you. So get in there: mix it up with the producers, talk it up with other fans and get behind the team whose idea is the future of ReBoot. The five pitches:
ReBoot: The Last Guardian
17 years later, Megaframe is a city of slaves. Where's a guardian when you need one?
Will Megabyte's daughter Bit help him destroy Mainframe and the Web? Or overcome her programming to side with her "other" father... The disgraced guardian, Bob?
For 17 years Megabyte has ruled, his wife Dot and teenage daughter Bit by his side. Then Dot falls ill. Secretly, she asks Bit to find the only man who can save her: the disgraced guardian, Bob.
Through the city, into the Obsolete Zone, Bit searches for Bob. When she finds him, Bob (programmed to protect the greater good) flatly refuses to help. It's safer if he's never found. Bob abandons her. But a game falls, trapping Bit; just when she's in mortal danger, Bob saves her, overcoming his programming.
He's exposed; no use hiding now.
Bit brings Bob home. His bittersweet reunion with Dot is interrupted by Megabyte, who orchestrated everything. As he'd hoped, Bit led the guardian right to him. Now Megabyte can create a tear and bring destruction to the Web. Will Bit side with the only father she's known, or fight alongside the fallen guardian?
ReBoot: Arrival A space-faring supercomputer named Gnosis has enslaved Mainframe and Earth, and only Bob, the Codemasters, and the Net's greatest heroes can stop it.
When a strange portal opens in the sky above Mainframe and begins stealing entire systems, Bob, his company of heroes, and two Codemaster rebels travel through the portal and into an alien system on a mission to save the Net.
They discover that an insane supercomputer named Gnosis (NOH-sis) has enslaved millions of helpless systems and is forcing them to research a powerful program called "life." Using his new Codemaster-designed ship - the NullFire - Bob and his team battle the supercomputer, its Avatar slavers, and a swarm of ASPs (Anti-Sprite Programs) in order to free Mainframe, the Net, and themselves.
The heroes soon learn that Gnosis has abducted the User and taken control of the User's realm, a mysterious system called Earth. Now Bob must make an alliance with the User - and discover the User's true nature - or both will suffer permanent deletion.
ReBoot: 2.0
You can fight the system.
Tired of the instability that's plagued Mainframe for so long "The User'" has decided to take drastic measures. He's installed a new operating system to lock down Mainframe once and for all using the highly vaunted Serenity O.S., the most secure operating system ever devised.
Finally, peace and order have come to Mainframe… no more viruses… no more system glitches… no more program crashes…
No more freedom!
The citizens of Mainframe have order, but at what cost?
ReBoot: The Last User
Extinction is not a game
In the year 2104, the human race has grown docile with the introduction to an alien technology that has helped grow a utopian world free from disease, poverty, and war. But this long-term alien plan has weakened the human race and a new global war has almost wiped out all of humanity.
The globally connected computer universe is unaware of the state of human extinction. A dying human "User" introduces a new virus in a final attempt to save humanity from total annihilation. Look, our protagonist, is an unstable solution to a horrific problem.
Look is taken on a grim adventure with characters new and old to unveil the computer world's utopian veil and unmask the dark truth that lies beneath.
SPY, a mysterious rogue guardian from an ancient Mainframe, guides Look on this dangerous quest, forcing Look to use his confused premonitions and abstract viral powers to aid the destroyed worlds of humanity and computer universe.
Can Look help destroy the alien intelligence inside the computer world and give humanity a chance to rebuild itself? Can Look defrag his premonitions and lead the assembled Guardians to destroy the organic alien intelligence and give humanity its last chance at survival?
ReBoot: Regenerated
On the net you're always one click away from deletion.
A team of open-source vigilante sprites detects a doomsday contagion called Pathogen. The New Viral Dawn approaches, Guardian Corporation won't help- the fate of the Universe of Systems is in their code.
Mainframe is no more. Upon obliterating it, Megabyte vanished, leaving his prophecy of a "New Viral Dawn" unfulfilled. Guardian Corporation has since consolidated and monopolized antivirus security, employing many of the old Guardians, retiring the rest. Its squads of operatives patrol the Net, deleting with impunity.
But a team of open-source vigilante sprites begins to identify contagions routinely evading all the usual defenses. While tracking a suspicious email through a wireless network they identify a malicious omnimorph called Pathogen. Going through official channels they report their findings to Guardian Corp. who categorically denies its existence.
When a deep-throat operative suggests that Guardian Corp and Pathogen are connected, the team realizes that if they don't stop it no one will. But do they have the code it takes?
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