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Reboot (continuity)

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Reboot, in series fiction, means to discard all previous continuity in the series and start anew. Effectively, all previously-known history is declared by the writer to be null and void and the series starts over from the beginning. It is analogous to the process of rebooting a computer, clearing out all working memory and reloading the operating system from scratch; neglecting offline storage, none of the previous session's activities have any bearing on the product of the current session, except in the memory of the operator (writer).

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[edit] Distinctions

A reboot is different from a remake or a prequel: a prequel is a new start (often by the same creator) within the same continuity (universe) as the original series, while a remake is a different creator producing a separate interpretation of the original creator's work. In a reboot, the owner of the creation declares that the rebooted continuity is now the official version.

[edit] Rationale

This term is often applied to comic books, where the prevailing continuity can be very important to the progress of future installments, acting (depending on circumstances and one's point of view) as a rich foundation from which to develop characters and storylines, or as a box limiting the story options available to tell and an irreconcilable mess of contradictory history. Such large continuities also become a barrier to introducing newcomers to the fandom, as the complex histories are difficult to learn, and make understanding the story very difficult; a reboot gives the chance for new fans to experience the story by reintroducing it in smaller and easier to understand installments.

[edit] Examples

[edit] Movies

  • Godzilla (ゴジラ - Gojira) has pressed the reset button several times since its inception in the 1950s. The most notable deviation from the original production was the 1998 American remake entitled 'Godzilla'. Godzilla continuity reboots are as follows:
    • Godzilla 1984: Toho presses the continuity reboot button, eliminating the entire Showa series (the films from Godzilla Raids Again through Terror of Mechagodzilla), stipulating that Godzilla's only prior attack was in 1954, in the original Godzilla. This new series is called the "Heisei" series and continues until the events in Godzilla vs Destoroyah, where Godzilla dies.
    • The "Millennium" Godzilla series also makes heavy use of the continuity reboot; every film in this series (except for Godzilla: Tokyo SOS, which is a direct sequel to Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla) is a self contained alternate universe directly connected only to the original 1954 Godzilla (in some cases retconning the end of the original to suggest Godzilla was never killed, and occasionally allowing minor references to earlier Godzilla-related movie, such as a nod to the American Godzilla remake in "Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monster All-Out Attack" and a reference to the events in "War of the Gargantuans.")
  • In 2001 the original 1968 Planet of the Apes story was rebooted with the 2001 remake of the Planet of the Apes movie. This discarded the continuity from the previous five movies and their accompanying television series.
  • The Sum of All Fears (2002) was a reboot of the Jack Ryan series, with Ben Affleck as Ryan. As commented by producer Mace Neufeld in an interview on the DVD, the film is neither a sequel nor a prequel to the other three Ryan films, and should not be seen as such.
  • The Takeshi Kitano 2003 remake of Zatoichi could also be considered a reboot-of-sorts, although it is more properly a loose remake of one of the films from the original series, and there do not yet appear to be firm plans to continue remaking the series in this fashion.
  • The Pink Panther (2006) starring Steve Martin as Inspector Jaques Clouseau, and directed by Shawn Levy. After the death of Peter Sellers, Blake Edwards tried to continue the series with 3 more films, none of them had success in the box office. This film, rather than continuing the older series, it starts a completely different continuity as if the events in the Blake Edwards series never happened. This Pink Panther film was the first box office success in the series since Revenge of the Pink Panther in 1978.

[edit] Television

  • Some fans have suggested that the series Enterprise, which ran from 2001 to 2005, was intended as a reboot of the Star Trek franchise; however, despite many perceived continuity errors, Enterprise is officially a prequel to the original Star Trek and set in the same universe as the other four Star Trek series. However, there have been proposals for the next Trek Series to be a reboot of the Original Series, in essence starting over with the Star Trek "Original Series" characters.
  • In 2000, X-Men: The Animated Series was rebooted in the X-Men: Evolution series, a retelling of the saga from the beginning. It is similar to the original comic in the 1960s, in that many of the main characters are teens living at the Xavier Institute, but also deviates from that concept by making Beast, Storm and Wolverine adult staff members. Beast was in fact one of the teen students in the original, and was not blue and furry at that time, though he is in Evo. Thus Evo mixes and matches concepts from the original series and from later years.

[edit] Comics

  • Arguably this is what DC Comics did in the late 1950s when it reintroduced several characters that had been staples of their superhero comics in the 1940s, but had since disappeared from the public eye. The Flash was relaunched with a different name and costume, and other characters, including Green Lantern, Hawkman, and The Atom, were re-introduced (mostly with more science fiction-influenced attributes rather than the often mystically-tinged earlier characters).
  • DC Comics' Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1985 had far-reaching effects on many DC titles. One of the goals of the event was to make DC continuity less complicated and more modern, and this involved complete reboots of Wonder Woman, Hawkman, Superman (arguably), and others. (The histories of some other characters were merely retconned.) This may be the earliest use of the term "reboot" in this way, though it is unlikely that the term was widely used at the time, when most readers were still unfamiliar with the operation of computers.
  • DC's Legion of Super-Heroes comic book had its continuity rebooted in the events surrounding Zero Hour in 1994. The characters' stories came to a decisive close, the previous 36 years of continuity were discarded, and a new Legion made up of similar characters based on the earlier versions began their careers without any mention of the previous continuity (except for tacit allusions). The series was rebooted again in 2004.
  • Marvel Comics, in the mid-1990s, turned several of their titles over to studios affiliated with Image Comics, and these titles (Fantastic Four, Captain America, The Avengers, and Iron Man — the Hulk would be included in this trend only as a character, but without his own title) were rebooted in their own separate universe, while the rest of Marvel's line maintained the original continuity in which the affected characters were presumed to have died in a cataclysmic battle. The rebooted titles lasted only a year, at which point the heroes involved returned to the original universe. See Heroes Reborn.
  • In addition, Marvel Comics also published Spider-Man: Chapter One by John Byrne, which was meant to be a complete reboot to the Spider-Man series and was treated as such until editorial changes caused the series to reboot itself, making all changes null and void.
  • In 2000, Marvel launched the Ultimate Marvel line of comic books that rebooted the Marvel Universe. The Ultimate series was intended to modernize the characters, to rewrite the individual characters into a more cohesive universe, and to make the series more appealing to non-Marvel fans; the huge back-story of the Marvel Universe, made it very difficult for newcomers to understand the characters and storylines. Unlike most reboots, however, the original Marvel Universe continued to publish as well. This makes the two lines appear to be parallel Universes rather than a true reboot.
  • In 2003, the Robotech universe was rebooted with the launch of Wildstorm's new comic book series. While it does frequently borrow characters and situations introduced in previously existing lore (most notably Robotech II: The Sentinels), Harmony Gold USA now considers only the original 85 episode animated series (and possibly the current Wildstorm comics) as canon and everything else as secondary continuity.
  • Between 2003-2005, Marvel ran Supreme Power, a modernization of Squadron Supreme; like the Ultimate Marvel line, Supreme Power ran concurrently with the main Marvel comic lines as an "Alternate Universe", instead of replacing them.
  • In 2005 the webcomic Melonpool featured a complex time travel storyline which resulted in a reboot. This coincided with a change from newspaper style strips to a comic book format and the removal of the previous strips from the site's archives.

[edit] Video games

  • The Armored Core series appears to have been rebooted after Armored Core 3. The first five games in the series appeared to be leading the ongoing storyline through humanity's recovery from a catastrophic war known as "The Great Destruction", with the last of the five games, Armored Core 2: Another Age ending quite positively in the rather ambigious Armored Core series. The next game, Armored Core 3 meanwhile begins with humanity back in self-imposed exile underground after a catastrophic war under the yoke of an omnipresent supercomputer known as "The Controller".
  • In 2006, The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning serves as a reboot for the Spyro series of videogames, discarding many aspects of the generally platforming-based series in favor of a darker storyline and more action-oriented gameplay.
  • DOOM 3 effectively reboots the series, retelling and altering the story established in the original DOOM and DOOM II games.
  • The Metal Gear Solid series was both an unconventional reboot and remake of the previous Metal Gear series in that the events from the previous games have since been effectively restructured as the preceding off-screen backstory to the more cinematically-oriented MGS series. In particular, many players who were familiar with the previous series were keen to point out the blatant similarity in how several of the themes and scenarios played out in the first Metal Gear Solid title. In that capacity, many of the more prominent themes from the previous series that were carried over onto the current series were essentially given actual cinematic representation for the very first time through the use of elaborate cutscenes and spoken dialogue.

[edit] Web sites

  • The May 1st Reboot is a Web Design Community event where people from all over the world come together to collectively Reboot their respective web sites on May 1st.

[edit] See also

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