Netflix’s Reboot: The Guardian Code Trailer is a ReBoot Reboot

The first trailer for Netflix’s reboot of the ReBoot animated series has been released. The new series, Reboot: The Guardian Code, reinvents the classic computer-animated cartoon as a blend of live-action sequences and modern computer animation.


Set in the computerized city of Mainframe, the original ReBoot focused on the adventures of Bob – a Guardian program who defended Mainframe from viruses like Megabyte and Hexadecimal. Running from 1994 to 2002, ReBoot made history as the world’s first fully computer-animated half-hour television series. The show still has a rabidly devout fandom, who have been eagerly awaiting this reboot of the original cartoon since it was first announced in 2015.


Netflix’s trailer for the new Reboot: The Guardian Code (which can be viewed above) shows that the new series is an entirely different kind of creature. The series is described by Netflix as being “a cool mix of live action and awesome animation about the adventures of four teenagers who become the Next-Generation Guardians of Cyberspace with the help of an artificially intelligent bio-constructed teenage girl.”


The trailer depicts four students – Austin, Tamara, Parker, and Trey – who attend a tech-progressive magnet high-school. After receiving a text instructing them to go to Room Zero, the teens discover an advanced computer system that converts them into digital information and brings them into the computer. It is here they meet VERA, who informs them that they now the first humans to defend cyberspace. The trailer also reveals a sinister hacker, who is using an avatar modeled on the classic-series villain Megabyte as an avatar to try and start World War III.


Sadly, this revamp seems unlikely to prove the wonder that long-time fans of the series had hoped for. Ignoring the changes to the core concept of the original series, much of the appeal of the classic ReBoot lay in its novelty. Computer animation is commonplace now and the animation here looks cheap without being charming.


Given that, it’s not hard to see why the fan reaction on-line so far has been largely negative. Many compared the reboot to the equally maligned 2017 Power Rangers movie, given the presence of color-coded costumes and “teenagers with attitude” or commented that the series’ set-up seemed like more of a reboot of Superhuman Samurai Cyber Squad than ReBoot. Even the kindest comments said that it was unfair to suggest Reboot: The Guardian Code was an attempt to capitalize on the surprise popularity of Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle (which also involved teenagers going into a video game world), given the timeline involved in the series’ production.