Holy shit this is a blast from the past. This show was my jam as a kid. The animation has aged horribly, but I’d be so down to watch the whole series again.
Yeah, even Toy Story 1 animation is dated, which is feature-quality, not TV, and it came out after Reboot.
I admire the historic technical feat. For example, they didn’t have inverse kinematics back then, meaning they couldn’t plant the character’s feet on the ground or hands on a surface and move the body without the limbs moving as well. They’d have to repose the hands and feet to line up. It’s why so many shots don’t show their feet unless they’re standing still and why the boy (enzo?) is always diving into the shot.
I kinda feel like the remaster makes the animation look worse, or just highlights how primitive it was. Maybe the lower resolution etc of the original subconsciously lowers my expectations.
This. It was meant to be viewed at 480p.
And on a CRT screen
I rewatched it like 10 years back I think? It was always this bad. I remember thinking “wow this animation is way worse than I remember” even back then when I was rewatching it. Nostalgia plays a huge part in my opinion. Like how you’d play games on the PS2 and think to yourself “wow games look so realistic these days” but when you go back they look awful compared to today’s standards.
Later seasons do look much better, though. You can watch them upgrade their hardware in real time. Shadows, more polygons, more actors on screen, etc.
It’s honestly pretty amazing to watch in hindsight instead of when they were being released. You can see the progress and it’s pretty cool.
I see it very differently, although it looks primitive, the added detail really emphasizes just how much effort this was considering it was made in the early '90s.
The ps1 game was horrible if I can recall from my kid brain correctly. I had forgotten what this series was called for YEARS, and it bugged me so much. I’m glad that’s finally off of my chest.
The PS1 game is awesome
Yoooo
I want more, MORE
Oh wow this is fantastic!! I really hope LMG gets all the masters copied in this quality. What a treat!
We’ve got movie sign!
Megabyte’s voice is just as soothing as I remember.
Holy shit never realized it was the same actor that voiced Virgil in Mighty Max
Also the Supreme Being in Time Bandits!
And the Big Bad Octopus from Legacy of Kain!!!
And Shere Khan in The Jungle Book!
I loved Mighty Max
That’s the late Tony Jay. He’s my all-time favorite voice.
I wonder how riffable an episode could be.
I feel like it’s very riffable, but it needs to be done by some folks who really love the series.
I love this show so much! There are a few channels that have been playing every episode on a loop for a while now. This is fantastic.
Can someone explain why a remaster is wanted on a technical level? This show had a very unique art and animation style. The only show I can think of that might come this close is Transformers: Beast Wars.
Does a Google search… right, because it was also a Mainframe show.
Remaster doesn’t change the original art or animation. Sometimes it is a rerender of original source files. Sometimes it is a treatment of the existing master files. It just adds fidelity to the picture and sometimes audio. Fixes things like low framerate, weird lighting effects, that kind of thing.
Isn’t the intent to enhance the original?
The intent is to make the distributed version more true to the real original. None of us got to see the original. The original is a bunch of data on various machines. What we saw was a low quality save file of the original, cut down and watered down to the specs of 4:3 CRT televisions and broadcast hardware of the time. That version develops artefacts not intended when distributed on modern media.
Now this probably isn’t using original source files but it is possible. Remaster as a term also is used when they take the final master copy and rerun it through more modern technologies to get a cleaner output which is what I expect happened here.
Increased framerate alone would make any CGI content more watchable.
BROOO
All the fong you can handle
They say that they’re around 3 episodes deep into the remastering effort. Out of 48 total episodes. Hopefully a tasty blu ray box set will drop one day!
Dang I just rewatched a fan made version not too long ago!
Ooh, please share
I remember being so hyped that they were making a new reboot series, then we got whatever the fuck that crap is that they called reboot.
I didn’t know they rebooted Reboot.
It was some awful weird show where live action teens go into the mainframe and become these robot guys. Nothing to do with the original show except one episode where they had Bob. But everyone hated it
The live action sequel of ReBoot made for Netflix, ReBoot: The Guardian Code, is a wild one. Imagine Video Game High School crossed over with Power Rangers but is actually the plot of Tron.
Seriously, super cheesy. I’m embarrassed knowing it exist let alone having watched at least two episodes.
I saw it more as a half-assed live-action Code Lyoko
Is this any good? No one knows for sure, but I intend to find out.
Only watched the first season, but it’s very fun, very corny, and full of tech puns. I’d say it’s aged decently well though.
It gets much better after season one. ABC turned on them, the treacherous dogs, and they switched to Cartoon Network, who were much more lenient in what they could get away with.
Dude this show is a classic. Stick with it, shit gets wild in season 3 if I recall.
I know, I saw every episode at least 10 times. I even had the official Reboot merch sweater back in the day. It was one of my favorite sweaters and I wore it till the print came off.
To this day whenever I talk to my brothers and we ask each other a question we don’t know we’ll say: “No one knows for sure, but I intend to find out. Reboot!”
I’m jealous that you get to experience this show for the first time. Season 3 is incredible.
I saw the show many times, it was a joke based on the intro.
I’m sorry this flew over so many heads here, it was well played.
These folks are doing fantastic work. If you’re a Canuck, find the Reboot Rewind folks on your social media of choice, they’re going around doing screenings of their doc (and some of the D1 footage I think) in Canadian cities.
