Reset Button: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Excel Saga (anime)|Excel Saga]]'', the Reset Button is actually a ''character:'' the Great Will of the Macrocosm, a floating vortex with arms. Her major purpose is to continually resurrect cast members as needed, which is quite often. Things get complicated when she not only fails to bring back Pedro, but starts sleeping with him. {{spoiler|It turns out she and his wife are one and the same... somehow.}} The Reset Button gets pressed at ''least'' four times [[First-Episode Resurrection|in the first episode alone...]]

* In the ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' series, the Dragon Balls are frequently used as a reset button for resurrecting dead characters, recreating destroyed planets, etc. Entire series are based on the concept of collecting all the Dragon Balls to undo the damage done in the ''previous'' arc. Unlike most Reset Buttons, this one actually has limits, especially early on when a specific wish can only be made once. The more powerful Namekian Dragon Balls didn't have this limit, though, and it was removed from the Earth Dragon Balls after {{spoiler|Dende replaced Kami}}. There's also a strict time limit, at least when it comes to resurrecting the dead: the wish has to be made within a year of the person's death. Which could have added complications given that the Dragon Balls spread across the world and become inert for a year after a wish is granted, and are completely untraceable until they reactivate.

** Subverted ''BRUTALLY'' in the case of [[And I Must Scream|Hidan]].

* Lampshaded in [[Sket Dance]]. In chapter 159, their wacky antics burns their club room down, and in the following chapter, when trying to explain themselves, Bossun and Himeko insists that it's a [[Gag Series|"gag manga"]] and that the room will surely return to normal in a week's time.

 

== Comic Books ==

'''Batman:''' No, that's only if [[All Just a Dream|it turns out to just be a dream]] or something.

'''Spiderman:''' But you can't have drama without... }}

 

== Films ==

* In 1972, in response to the politics of the [[Fritz the Cat (animation)|animated film adaptation]] of his comic ''[[Fritz the Cat (comics)|Fritz the Cat]]'', [[Robert Crumb]] kills off Fritz. Two years later, Steve Krantz produces an animated sequel, ''[[The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat]]''.

* Not used, but directly mentioned in ''[[Megamind]]''. Apparently the main character stopped trying to make one after learning the science behind it was impossible.

 

== Literature ==

* The SF novel ''Space Chantey'' by R. A. Lafferty has a ''literal'' reset button, called a Dong Button; if you've made a major blunder, you can press the Dong Button to go back and correct your mistake. One scene makes use of the fact that, since losing all your money on an ill-advised gamble is a major mistake, it would be useful to have a Dong Button in a casino, and always make the largest bet you can make.

* [[H. G. Wells]]' "The Man Who Could Work Miracles" is a vintage example, in which the title character chooses to undo all the damage he's caused by willing that history re-set itself to just before he discovered his powers, at which point he'll lose them forever.

 

* ''[[My Name Is Earl]]'' sees Earl spending the last of his $100,000 lottery winnings in season 3. At the end of the season, his ex-wife leaves him $75,000 in savings after joining an Amish community, effectively putting Earl back where he started in the beginning of the series.

* Given its dependence on [[Time Travel]], ''[[Star Trek]]'' can often be found pressing this button. ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'', specifically, may have caused irreparable damage to the entire Trope Console due to its constant, eager pounding of the Reset Button. Character development still continues despite the usage of the reset button on ''Voyager''. In fact, fewer episodes hit the reset button than don't. Most of the episodes that do are time travel episodes.

* In the ''[[Frasier]]'' episode "Bla-Z-Boy", Frasier accidentally (or not) destroys Martin's ancient chair by setting it on fire and dropping it off a 19th floor balcony. At the end of the episode, he hires a weaver and a carpenter to construct an exact replica based on old photos. The fact that the recliner seen in the rest of the series is a replacement is never mentioned again.

 

* "Asylum" by [[Disturbed]] has a literal case of this. The insane patient of the Asylum is having a [[Cuckoo Nest]] situation in which they're constantly trying to escape only to die or be killed as a result. The camera then closes into an image of a button with "Reset" written across it and suddenly he's back in his padded cell. {{spoiler|At the end of the video he gets [[Genre Savvy]] to this and attempts to kill himself with a furnace to escape the doctors, except it wasn't a hallucination this time}}.

 

* At one point, WCW decided to strip all titleholders of their belts and start fresh, as the WWF had finally caught/passed them towards the end of the nWo storyline. Too little, too late.

 

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Xenosaga]]'' made this a central plot point in the third game Thus Spoke Zarathustra and ultimate goal of the [[Big Bad]]. {{spoiler|Wilhelm intended to use an artifact to reset time so the Universe wouldn't be destroyed by spatial expansion.}}

* ''[[Prince of Persia]]: the Sands of Time'' has the both the Sands themselves and the Dagger of Time, a (very) short-time reset button that allowed a player to undo huge mistakes like falling into a death trap, or taking a major beating in a fight. As well, the events of the entire game end up being reset by the end, and in the end movie the Prince uses the Dagger one last time to undo kissing the woman he fell in love with during the erased timeline, who rejects him for doing so while having "just" met her. In a unique variation, the Reset Button mechanism itself sets off the events of the second game, as the [[Powers That Be]] are out to punish the Prince for using it.

* In ''[[Bastion]]'', {{spoiler|this is [[Invoked Trope|invoked]] but deconstructed in the Restoration ending. The Bastion ''completely'' resets the world, so the characters are replaced with their past selves, and there is nothing to stop events from [[Groundhog Day Loop|repeating themselves]].}}

* In ''[[BlazBlue]]'', {{spoiler|the whole setting is a [[Groundhog Day Loop]], with various possibilities playing out in a [[Time Loop]], and then resetting itself. Several characters often die in [[Multiple Endings]] and other instances, but never canonically. In the [[Canon]] ending of ''[[BlazBlue: Continuum Shift]]'', however, the Reset Button and the [[Groundhog Day Loop]] are removed by [[Big Bad|Terumi]], so if anyone dies now, [[Killed Off for Real|they die for good]].}}

 

== Web Comics ==

* Done literally [http://pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF111-Reset.jpg in this] ''[[Perry Bible Fellowship]]'' comic..

** Also, when {{spoiler|the snarl destroyed the world}} [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0274.html the gods simply made a new one.]

* ''Spells and Whistles'' has reset itself several times while finding its own unique artistic style (the first such occurrence caused by a cease-and-desist from ''[[PvP (webcomic)|Pv P]]'') and eventually went on to intentionally keep on hitting the reset button as part of the story narrative. An alternate main character breaks out of her doomed comic universe to hunt down those she feels are responsible for her life coming undone.