REBOOT (CONTINUITY)

'Reboot', in serial 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 also known as 'the big reset button in the sky'.

Contents

Etymology and meaning

Comparison to remakes and prequels

Rationale

Examples

Film

Television

Comic books

Video games

See also

References

Etymology and meaning

The term originates from its use in computer science, whereby rebooting a computer, nothing (except non-volatile storage, such as on a disk drive) of the computer's previous operating session has any bearing on its current session.

Comparison to remakes and prequels

A reboot differs from a remake or a prequel, in that the latter two are generally consistent with the previously established continuity of the series; with a reboot, the older continuity is largely discarded while the new continuity is declared the official canon.
Additionally, prequels are often developed by the same creator as the original series it leads up to, while a remake is often produced by a different author than the original series, and can be seen as retelling of the same story and essentially sticking to the same canon. The term ''remake'' often applies to films or film adaption of TV shows, like The Fugitive, whereas the term ''reboot'' is ascribed to franchises such as Batman or James Bond.

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) either 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.

Examples

Film

★ The Godzilla (ゴジラ - Gojira) film franchise has been rebooted 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:

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★ ''Godzilla 1984'': Toho first rebooted the franchise in 1984, 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 film. This new series was called the "Heisei" series and continued until the events in ''Godzilla vs. Destoroyah'', where Godzilla died.

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★ The "Millennium" Godzilla series; in which each film in this series (except for '', which is a direct sequel to ''Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla'') was a self-contained alternate universe directly connected only to the original 1954 ''Godzilla '' film, in some cases retconning the end of the original to suggest Godzilla was never killed, and occasionally allowing minor references to earlier Godzilla-related movies, such as a nod to the American Godzilla remake in '' and a reference to the events in ''War of the Gargantuas''.

★ Similarly to Godzilla, Deiei's Kaiju star Gamera has undergone two continuity reboots. The first was in 1995 with in '' and again in 2006 with ''. However, unlike the Godzilla series, both reboots ignored the original ''Gammera, the Invincible ''.

★ ''The Sum of All Fears'' (2002) was a reboot of the Jack Ryan series, with Ben Affleck as Ryan. The film is set in the present time with Ryan just beginning his career at the CIA. 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.

★ ''Batman Begins'' (2005) is a reboot of the Batman film series. It was done to not only start a new continuity that was more faithful to the tone of the comics, but also to distance itself from the latter installments of the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher series of films, and specifically the much maligned ''Batman & Robin''.

★ ''Casino Royale'' (2006) is a reboot of the James Bond film franchise (although chronologically faithful to the novels, of which the source novel is the first), in which Daniel Craig plays Bond at the start of his MI6 career.

★ ''The Pink Panther'' (2006) was a reboot of the Blake Edwards/Peter Sellers Pink Panther series, starring Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau and directed by Shawn Levy. This film made no references to the events in the previous series.

★ The ''Scary Movie'' franchise constantly does partial reboots in which dead characters from previous movies are brought back to life for the sequels like nothing ever happened and previous events are not talked about.

★ ''Superman Returns'' (2006) is a partial reboot of the Christopher Reeve series with its backstory a semi-sequel to ''Superman'' with only one idea from ''Superman II''. It is still separate from the previous film series, and considered mainly a relaunch.

★ ''Halloween'' (2007), directed by Rob Zombie, has been stated by the director himself to be both a remake and a prequel of the original movie.

★ '' will be the beginning of the tournament overwriting the two films that were created in 1995 and 1997 respectively.

Television

★ New Captain Scarlet which debuted in February 2005 is a reboot of the 1967 Supermarionation puppetry series, ''Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons'' by the same producer, Gerry Anderson.

★ In 2003, Battlestar Galactica was rebooted (''re-imagined'') by the SciFi channel's miniseries of the same name. See Comparison of Battlestar Galactica (1978) and Battlestar Galactica (2003) for a comprehensive list of changes.

★ In 2002 the He-Man story was rebooted.

★ The Tenchi Muyo anime series has gone under several reboots.

★ The Transformers franchise has undergone two separate reboots. The first occurred in 2001 with the self-contained series. The second rebooted continuity launched in 2002 and is ongoing, encompassing three TV and toy series so far: , and . Interestingly, in Japan, the Cybertron series itself is a reboot of the preceding Armada/Energon continuity. On July 4, 2007, the live action Transformers Movie was released, resulting in yet another reboot.

★ ''WCW Monday Nitro'' (as well as the company itself) was rebooted on 10 April 2000, when head writer Vince Russo and creative consultant Eric Bischoff took over the reins for the company. It started by having all of WCW's Championship belts being vacated.

★ In 2000, was rebooted in the 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 one of the original X-Men in the comics and was not blue and furry at that time, though he is in Evolution. Evolution mixes concepts from various decades of X-Men comics.

★ Digimon Tamers in 2001 was a rebooted version of the pervious Digimon Adventure Seasons. Featuring new methods of Digivolving new creatures, and making the concept of Digimon as a popular game and toy franchise that Takato Matsuki and his friends enjoy, until they come to life.

★ The 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series is a reboot of the franchise, being in a separate continuity from the 1987 version, the comic books and the movies, By comparison, the TMNT 2007 movie is often thought to be a reboot of the film series, while it is actually a full-fledged sequel to the earlier trilogy which picks up after the end of the third movie.

★ The spy-fi series Alias underwent three separate reboots in its five years of being broadcast, often occurring at the beginning of a new season.

Comic books

★ Arguably, DC Comics rebooted in the late 1950s when it introduced several new versions of superheroes that had been staples of their comics in the 1940s, but had ceased appearing in publication. The Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and the Atom were all re-introduced with new identities, costumes and powers (mostly with more science fiction-influenced attributes), and seemingly outside the continuity of their predecessors. Later, it was revealed the 1940s-era heroes existed on “Earth-Two,” leading to DC’s complex “multi-verse” system.

★ DC Comics’ 1985 maxi-series ''Crisis on Infinite Earths'' portrayed a complex sequence of reality-altering events that revised DC continuity. Editors intended to make the DC Universe less complicated and more modern and accessible to readers. This allowed for new origin stories for many characters and drastic changes to Wonder Woman, Hawkman and Superman. It may not be considered a true reboot because ''Crisis'' utilized, not discarded, previously existing continuity.

★ 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 franchise was rebooted again in 2004.

★ The Ultimate Marvel Universe, which is the setting of the Marvel Comics labeled with "Ultimate" (such as Ultimate Spider-Man or Ultimate X-Men), is a reboot of the Marvel Universe. However, the previously established continuity was not discarded, and the two continuities co-exist as alternate universes. This is unique to this reboot.

★ Marvel Comics published '' by John Byrne from 1998-1999, which was meant to be a reboot of sorts, modernizing the classic Amazing Spider-Man series to appeal to modern fans. However, the series only lasted 13 issues, and any continuity to current Spider-Man titles was dropped after fan outcry and a restructuring of the Marvel Comics executive and creative teams in 2001.

★ 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 ''), 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.

★ 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, though the strips were returned to the archive sometime after the start of the strips hiatus.

★ The Transformers Generation One comic was rebooted in 2002 with the and again in 2006 with the IDW comic.

Video games

★ In 1997, ''Star Fox 64'' was a retelling of the original ''Star Fox'', rewriting some story elements, such as the fate of James McCloud. This game is regarded as the start of ''Star Fox'' canon, and the previous game's story is disregarded.

★ 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, '' ending quite positively in the rather ambiguous ''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". The series storyline has recently been rebooted a second time, ''Armored Core 4'' for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

★ ''Sonic Adventure'' is pretty much a reboot for the Sonic the Hedgehog (series) as the storyline differs from the previous Sonic games or cartoons, had slight redesigns for the characters with Dr. Robotnik and Amy Rose having new outfits, as well as Robotnik's name being changed to his Japanese name Dr. Eggman, and has new characters such as Big the Cat and E-102 Gamma.

★ '' was initially intended as a rough prequel to the original game, but the two later sequels it spawned ignored the earlier series entirely and began a completely new storyline.

★ '' discards many aspects of the platforming-based Spyro series in favor of a completely new 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.

★ '' apparently reboots the series, as it seems to disregard all the tragic events in '', ''Tomb Raider Chronicles'' and '' storylines.

★ ''Ninja Gaiden'' apparently reboots the series and retelling altering the story established in the original games.

See also

★ Canon (fiction)

★ Retcon

★ Reset button technique

References