Three weeks ago, we reported on the official announcement that The Weinstein Company TV will put forth a live-action/CG reboot (no pun intended) of the revolutionary ReBoot TV series (titled ReBoot: The Guardian Code). Now, we bring more details about the plot of the show and its connection to the original series (hint: it isn’t so much of a ‘reboot’ as it is a loose follow-up).
Courtesy of Cartoon Brew, we learned that Mainframe Entertainment (a subsidiary of Rainmaker Entertainment) officially commenced production on The Guardian Code. This announcement was made by Rainmaker president Michael Hefferon and media broadcaster Corus Entertainment at this year’s Banff World Media Festival in Canada.
The series will be distributed outside Canada by The Weinstein Company and Dimension Television.
“The new ReBoot will feature the same action and comedy that viewers loved in the original series, but with an updated technological universe,” explained Corus Kids content director Jamie Piekarz.
The Guardian Code will not only update the ReBoot mythology for the modern audience. It will also take advantage of the technological advances made in the years after the end of the original series (smartphones, social media, etc.).
“Technology is ever-changing and ReBoot: The Guardian Code will utilize the very technology inherent in the concept of the show—and prevalent in kids’ everyday lives…empowering kids with the tools and confidence to chart their own course in a world that is increasingly dependent on and powered by technological knowledge,” added Hefferon.
As such, there are also plans for the show’s story to play out on multiple platforms, but details on that end have yet to be announced.
Originally airing from 1994 to 2001, the original series was set inside the computer world of Mainframe, where digitized guardians (Bob, Dot, Enzo, etc.) battled viruses in the form of villains like Megabyte and Hexadecimal. Known for being the first all CG-animated TV series of its kind, it was spawned as a result of 90’s computer geek culture and justified its technological constraints (choppy animation and blocky models) from the onset by being set inside the world of a computer.
In the years following the end of the series, the franchise was mostly kept alive with a fan-fueled webcomic. Rainmaker and Mainframe previously attempted to bring the franchise back to prominence with a planned film trilogy that failed to materialize.
This brings us to ReBoot: The Guardian Code. The plot of this new iteration concerns four teenagers (Austin, Parker, Grey, and Tamra) who are chosen to be the new Guardians charged with saving the world. Interestingly enough, they will do this “with the help of VERA, the last surviving cyberbeing from the original Guardian Program.”
This time around, the new ‘big bad’ is a nefarious hacker known as ‘The Sourcerer.’ He won’t be alone though, as the heroes will also face a familiar face from the original series: an upgraded Megabyte, whose viruses are now capable of creating chaos in the real world (opening dams to flood cities and destroying nuclear power plants).
Along with the above announcement, a teaser image from The Guardian Code was also released. Check out down below (notice that the helmet’s reflection gives us a look at Megabyte):
This news comes as animation companies across the TV landscape are not only beefing up production, but are beginning to dig up/utilize familiar properties to do so. Disney TVA is prepping a DuckTales reboot for Disney XD, a 2D-animated Tangled series for Disney Channel, and The Lion King spinoff The Lion Guard for Disney Junior. Cartoon Network Studios will dust off two hit properties from its shelf and prep them for new shows (The Powerpuff Girls and Ben 10). Netflix will join in on the fun as well (to say nothing of its current programming deal with DreamWorks Animation), with a remake of The Magic School Bus and book adaptations Edger Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan and Jane, Kulipari: An Army of Frogs, and Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham. Just yesterday, we learned that DreamWorks Animation TV optioned the rights to the graphic novel series Cow Boy, which it will add to its larger slate of shows that will premiere in the next few years. The Weinstein Company TV even has reboots of Spy Kids and Gnomes on the way.
CG-animation has come a long way since 1994. It has gone form being a gimmicky style of animation to its current standing as the industry standard. It will be interesting to see how ReBoot: The Guardian Code will hold up in this current age in which something that used to be a rarity as now a common occurrence.
Do you have any thoughts on this news? Are you interested in ReBoot: The Guardian Code?
Edited by: Hannah Wilkes
