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).

This differs from a creator producing a separate interpretation of another creator's work; rather, the owner of the creation declares that the rebooted continuity is now the official version.

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.

Examples

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 being 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 Destorotah, where Godzilla dies.
*The "Millennium" Godzilla series also makes heavy use of the continuity reboot; every film in this series (except for , which is a direct sequel to Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla) is a self contained alternate universe connected only to the original 1954 Godzilla.

Similarly to Godzilla, Deiei's Kaiju star Gamera has undergone two continuity reboots, first in 1995 (in ) and again in 2006 (in ). However, unlike the Godzilla series, both reboots ignore the original Giant Monster Gammera.

In 2001 the Planet of the Apes story was rebooted with the Planet of the Apes. This discarded the continuity from the previous four 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.

Batman Begins, released in 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 last installment of the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher series of films, the much maligned Batman and Robin.

In 2006 James Bond film franchise will go through a reboot. The 21st Bond film, Casino Royale, will be Bond's first adventure where he will be shown acquiring his 00-number from MI6.

TV Shows

Some fans have suggested that the series , 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 2002 the He-Man story was rebooted.

In 2003, Battlestar Galactica was rebooted by the SciFi channel's miniseries of the same name. See Battlestar Galactica 2003 for a comprehensive list of changes.

The Transformers franchise has undergone two separate reboots. The first occured 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.

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 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 occasionally borrow characters and situations introduced in lore that existed prior (most notably Robotech II: The Sentinels), Harmony Gold USA now considers only the original 85 episode animated series (and possibly the current Wildstorm comic) as canon.

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.

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 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".

Reboot (continuity)

Examples

See also