Alphagaia wrote:I think the difference was Disney banked on claiming it was the first feature movie while ReBoot is the first TV series. It's a fair marketing difference, imo.
I know but I feel Toy Story overshadowed any accomplishments ReBoot made. The latter was not allowed to gain any credit or critical praise. It still hasn't from the mainstream media.
Alphagaia wrote:Personally, I think the success of Toy Story helped ReBoot go global as well after it's first season. Both are great accomplishments, though!
I don't think it did. ReBoot was about as well known before as it was after. If anything the success of Toy Story got people interested in more Pixar films. Later Dreamworks came in with the even worse Shrek films but audiences loved that as well because it appealed to the lowest common denominator.
Kingpin wrote:Why on Earth would they? They didn't own ReBoot or Mainframe Entertainment. You wouldn't get Wendy's advertising the Whopper, or Burger King featuring adverts for Subway's foot-longs.
Not saying Disney should promote an unrelated Disney property but they didn't go out of their way to acknowledge something like this had been done before. Of course why would they, that would them being humble.
Kingpin wrote:and what claim is being made does seem to specifically refer to the first fully-CG animated film, rather than "fully-CG animated adventure", which could cover a television program.
Yeah and Disney aren't that much to blame. You could say most of the blame is the lack of publicity for ReBoot. It would have raised awareness among the mainstream critics or audiences and maybe we could have got more than three and something seasons of the show.
Kingpin wrote:In the context of being a "world first", Toy Story can claim that credit because it was the world's first fully-CG motion picture. (Unfortunately from my digging I've discovered that ReBoot can't actually claim to be the world's first fully-CG animated series, as it was beaten to that title by Insektors the year before, ReBoot is credited however as being the first half-hour computer animated series).
Yeah I think you might be right there although for a TV series ReBoot as you say is the first half hour show while Insektors is 12 minutes per episode meaning it's more like a series of shorts. We can't forget that Toy Story had the marketing of a massive studio while ReBoot came from an independent studio with only the 5% of the finances of Disney. Plus being a Canadian show ReBoot was never going to be given special attention at least in the US.
Kingpin wrote:Again, a shorter running time, and likely aimed at a younger target audience than ReBoot.
I think you've lead into a very interesting point I have to make here. First impressions count the most. If for many Toy Story is the first CGI thing people are seeing they're going to expect the same simplistic storytelling and mundane use of CGI. ReBoot presented possibilities for using CGI to create imaginative worlds. It basically sods law Toy Story got the public recognition because it means we got more of that and less of ReBoot. Feed an audience poor entertainment and after a while they become so used to it they expect nothing less. What this leads onto is an endless amount of CGI movies made by various companies about wise cracking sitcom type animals. Had ReBoot got the attention we would instead mostly got stories that pushed what CGI could do while the simple story of toys that come alive in a kids bedroom would be seen as pedestrian in comparison. As it is the complete opposite happened and we're left with a 'what if' or a 'what a shame' scenario.
Coover5 wrote:I guess the question is should Reboot have advertised that they were doing something similar to Pixar?
It's not irrelevant. As mentioned already Toy Story has the benefit of a massive studio behind it, ReBoot could never raise public awareness firstly because it was ahead of it's time and secondly it was seen as that 'Canadian CG show'. Why would Mainframe Entertainment advertise they were making something like Pixar? The latter was making a story about toys, ReBoot was another world inside a computer system with computer terminology.
Coover5 wrote:So do you call VeggieTales the first ongoing series (albeit in video release) or ReBoot?
You can't compare them. ReBoot made more of a dent and was more groundbreaking than VeggieTales was. Sure the latter laid the groundwork but ReBoot perfected everything.
Coover5 wrote:The people who created ReBoot were far from the first people who wanted to use computer generated characters and were not the first to produce a major project using CGI. ReBoot at it's release was considered a knock off of Tron and with an animation style stolen from Pixar (which was already established by then)
That's news to me, all of it. I've never heard anyone compare both of those to each other. I'd love to know whose sources you're getting that info from because it sounds made up.
Coover5 wrote:So when it premiered was it the first use of CGI characters?
As I full animated series yes it was.
Coover5 wrote:Was it the first use of CGI characters in a series?
Nope but it perfected the storytelling of how CGI could be used.
Coover5 wrote:Should it get praise for it's plot. Tron fans say no.
The Tron comparison makes absolutely no sense as Tron is set in the real world with bits of CG set inside the computer world. It's not a pure CGI film. I have heard no Tron film say ReBoot ripped it off or even mention the show. Sounds like nonsense to me.
Coover5 wrote:But it's far form groundbreaking.
It's groundbreaking in that globally nobody had seen anything like it before on TV, the same way Toy Story was seen as groundbreaking when people saw it in theaters.