ReBoot (TV Series) The Tearing (1994) User Reviews

"Here in Mainframe we stick together!" It's a good start, it will more-than do!

[Foreverisacastironmess123 · 8/10 · 22 May 2015]

The first completely CGI animated show ever, so forever cool! This starting episode of Reboot is naturally very 'pilot' in its tone and the story is pretty thin, but what the heck about that, it was quite a lot that they were trying to sell with this one and I think they do it well enough. I like how it doesn't start with Bob's first day as Mainframe's new Guardian, but where he hasn't been there long and is still gaining everyone's trust. All the personalities of the characters are basically there but for now the character models are frightfully stiff and awkward. For pretty much the entire first season and to a lesser extent the second the style looks kinda rough by today's standards.. That said though, in my opinion if you're a true fan of this show the animation style was always integral to its appeal and enjoyment. And plus you've gotta remember that regardless of how it may or may not look now, it was major groundbreaking work in its day! Anyhow most imperfect as this episode is, I think it does a good job of introducing you to the weirdly wonderful world of the show and establishing a lot of the main characters and the key elements, like what the games are and why it's so important for the Sprites to beat 'em, and what ReBooting actually is, and also how awesome the primary antagonist Megabyte is, although as far as he's concerned you ain't seen nothing yet! Unlike most of the other characters he was consistently dead-on and great from the first time that you ever see him - and it does all this at a very fast pace and in less than half an hour! It's impressive how much it gets off on the right foot with its audience. I remember how when I first saw it as a kid you had no idea what was going on, but even at this point you could just tell right away that there's something special in it, even if as yet by this one it's a work in progress! They waste no time in hitting you with the pop culture reference gags, the ones I recognise being the Pong one in the scene where Bob and Phong play the weird tennis-like game, and uh..Phong looks all stupid for a second as he leaps to hit the disc! The triple nods to Star Wars, Asteroids, and Space Invaders during the first ever game sequence that we see is really cool. Most other shows got it wrong when they'd talk about computers or games, but with this you could tell that the writers were very computer and movie literate. So it's a good start, it gets way more right than it does wrong.. Gee I hope that I can do more of these, but they're kinda hard! Daunting, but I'm game!!