Reset Button Ending
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Lisa: Don't worry, Bart. It seems like every week something odd happens to the Simpsons. My advice is to ride it out, make the occasional smart-alec quip, and by next week we'll be back to where we started from, ready for another wacky adventure. |
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Everything is all wrapped up, the Love Triangle has been resolved, the Battle Royale With Cheese in the Grand Finale has been won, and it's time for the happy ending. But if everything is all wrapped up, then there's no dramatic tension for the OVAs, The Movie, or the next season. And perhaps there's a bit of Executive Meddling going on, just a friendly note from someone upstairs that you just can't let the big payoff actually continue to happen after all this time.
Solution: press the Reset Button at the last minute, subvert the hell out of the dramatic resolution that you've just reached, and leave the characters in the situation that has held for most of the series.
Often, but not always, the Reset Button Ending is too Anvilicious, Jumping the Shark and ruining the series for many fans.
Some instances of this trope are versions of the All Just a Dream ending, if you find out that the guy wakes up and is back at the start of the work.
Compare Sequel Reset.
As an Ending Trope, Spoilers ahead may be unmarked. Beware.
Examples of Reset Button Ending include:
Anime and Manga
- Naruto commits this trope in the Pain Invasion arc, and to nearly the highest degree possible: with Konoha obliterated, Kakashi and Hinata are knocking on death's door, and the several Konoha civilians blasted away into oblivion, Pain pulls the Deus Ex Machina no jutsu that conveniently revives every. Last. Person...Except for Jiraiya, who's infinitely more developed and interesting than over 80% of the characters that would have been better off dead than deprived of any plot value.
- To be fair, Pain was going to revive him, but right before he could, he became dead as a doornail. Ouch.
- Played incredibly straight with the fourth Shippuden Movie under Status Quo Is God effect. Naruto has gone back in time to meet the younger version of Minato, his own father, but never confirms his suspicions (until later in the series). The Big Bad was the one who initially went to the past for the sake of world domination. When he's down for the count, Naruto goes back to the present, but Minato has to mind wipe everyone so there won't be any ripple effects in the future from this event... save for one involving a little girl.
- Ranma ½ — both manga and TV series, but at different points in the story. Especially later in the manga the last page of an arc was often a non sequitur version.
- Considering the manga explicitly resolved the major conflict in the series, and handily did away with at least four points of contention, it falls to the anime to pull a reset.
- Tenshi na Konamaiki.
- The Big O, although with only a few seconds' glimpse of the post-reset world it's hard to say whether anything has changed or not.
- A huge use of this trope, one that made an anvil gentle, was the end of The Familiar of Zero's second season.
- Those Who Hunt Elves
- Clannad After Story Episode 22 Inverted this by havingthe death of Ushio/The Girl from the Illusionary World causing the release of the light orbs. Tomoya obtains one, and he forces a Time Skip a la Reset Button to occur where Nagisa gives birth to Ushio and this time, survives.
- While a Deus Ex Machina, this is actually the true end of the visual novel, and by extension, the anime. See this detailed analysis for more details.
- Game-wise, it's more of an Earn Your Happy Ending thing.
- While a Deus Ex Machina, this is actually the true end of the visual novel, and by extension, the anime. See this detailed analysis for more details.
- Serial Experiments Lain, though in this case, it's a rare variation in which it gives the series a sense of closure. Of course, the fact that it wasn't a complete reset definitely helps...
- Sailor Moon would have originally ended this way had it not been extended to five seasons (four were English-dubbed and broadcast) from the original one. The first arc ended with shots of the Sailor Senshi living happy civilian lives without memories of the Dark Kingdom, having met each other or anything that happened during the arc due to Usagi asking the Silver Crystal to let them live normal lives during the final battle. Luna and Artemis are shown to have kept their memories and comment on this. This ending is undone in two episodes via Luna restoring the Sailor Senshi's memories once the Makaijiu, Ail and En arrive and attack humans.
- Wolf's Rain pretty much ended this way,much to the utter dismay of the fans of the show,due mainly to the fact that several chracters integral to the story (Quent, Blue, Hubb and Cher) were not included in the ending.
- The Magikano anime reveals that the entire cast (and possibly, the world,) are reliving the same year forever, resetting a split second after the big love confession. YMMV, but it might actually be pretty bleak and pointless, seeing as to how they have no real means of ever breaking this cycle, and their memories are reset with everything else.
- The OVA Ai City ends with everything suddenly re-starting back at the car chase in the beginning. There is no explanation for this and no reason.
- The spinoff manga of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, including Kazumi Magica and Oriko Magica, have Homura hitting the Reset Button after losing Madoka yet again. The series proper ends with Goddess Madoka rewriting the universe so that witches cannot exist, which has the effect of bringing back everyone who was ever killed by or because of a witch (such as Mami and Kyouko) as well as Mercy Killing those who would have become witches (such as Sayaka). Madoka herself cannot come back because her wish would have turned her into a witch herself, and because of the sacrifice she made, only one person (Homura) remembers who she was. And magical girls have a new enemy to fight in the form of demons, because Kyubey still needs energy to counter the entropy of the universe.
- Pokémon the First Movie ends with Mewtwo erasing everyone's memories so no one will ever remember what happened in the film.
Film
- Richard Donner's version of Superman II ends with Superman undoing the entire movie by spinning the world back (as he did in the theatrical release of the first Superman), to keep Lois from knowing his identity. This is after the villains have been defeated.
- In the comic Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: Nightmare Warriors, based off characters from the films, Freddy and Jason are both killed, and Wesley Carter is sent back in time by the Necronomicon. He signs Freddy's search warrant (whose not being signed was the technicality that allowed his release and subsequent death and transformation into a dream demon), thus altering history and preventing any of the Freddy movies or F v J v A from taking place, or any of the Jason movies after Jason Goes to Hell (since he went to hell at the end and Freddy resurrected him). As this would prevent Jason X from taking place, however, it is clear that the timeline splits after Freddy vs. Jason.
- Happens in one of The Amityville Horror sequels, Amityville 1992: It's About Time. A cursed clock from the infamous haunted house resets everything to the beginning of the movie to prevent getting destroyed in an explosion. What it didn't expect though, was that one of the survivors, Andrea, retained all her memories of what the clock had caused, and smashes it to pieces before it can do it again, thereby preventing many deaths and much unpleasantness.
Live-Action TV
- Quantum Leap.
- Gilligan's Island The Movie.
- Except Angel is seen actually smiling happily, and Roger no longer has the watch
- The Witchblade season finale rewound the entire season after some irrevocable events.
- The TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air made a very obvious reference to this—the writers clearly intended Will Smith's story arc to reach a natural dramatic end with his moving back to Philadelphia in Season 4 to be with his mother, in what was intended to be the series finale. However, the network picked up the show for another season, resulting in the writers breaking the Fourth Wall by having TV executives show up and literally dragging Will back to Bel-Air, citing the title of the show ("It's not called the Fresh Prince of Philadelphia!"). Nearly every story element affected by this arc was simply dropped in later seasons of the show (Will's mother seemed to cease to exist, etc.)
- Kamen Rider Ryuki teased then subverted this trope, turning a Bittersweet Ending into Everybody Lives.
- Star Trek: Voyager was infamous for this. If the ship took major damage it'd all be fixed by the next episode. If somebody mutated into an abomination because they went to infinite speed, they'd be fine at the end.
- More to the point, no matter how many times they almost made it back to the Alpha Quadrant, it somehow always fell through by the end of the episode.
Video Games
- Kingdom of Loathing.[context?]
- And, for that matter, any game with a New Game+ option at the end. However, that's less a case of "The ending undoes the story's events" and rather a "Tell the story over from the beginning".
- What makes this different from New Game+ is that the Reset Button is part of the fictional setting.
- And, for that matter, any game with a New Game+ option at the end. However, that's less a case of "The ending undoes the story's events" and rather a "Tell the story over from the beginning".
- Used to remove the confusing plot of |Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 from the canon. In the end, the entire plotline is undone through one last bout of time travel, and the final thing we see is the opening cutscene again, except in the new timeline. Much to the relief of the fanbase.
- Sonic CD uses this as well if you fail to collect the Time Stones or destroy the robot generators.
- Tales of Destiny 2. After defeating Fortuna, every action she (and by extent, Elraine) took is erased from history, thereby completely erasing the events of the game, causing everyone to lose their memories of the journey (and the erasure of Judas). However, for some reason or another, Reala comes back anyway in the new timeline.
- At the end of Shadow Hearts : Covenant, every member of the party is sent to some place in space/time where they can be truly happy. The good ending for the main character takes him back to the introductory scene of the previous game, where he will presumably avoid the bad end of that game this time.
- Super Mario Galaxy end with the universe imploding and being reborn.
Western Animation
- The Kim Possible movie A Sitch in Time ended with the Tempus Simia Idol being destroyed, thus reseting everything that happened from the second minute of the movie out of existence.
- But Ron still hates meat cakes, but he doesn't know why.
- The Fairly OddParents television movie "Wishology" was to have everyone know of Timmy's fairies. He was also to get together with his crush Trixie. However, when the network decided to order another season, it was re-written to show that everyone's memories will be erased.
- Which makes one wonder how/why Trixie's memory was erased, when it's been stated several times in every season that fairy magic can't interfere with true love...
- South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut had everything go to hell as the ending neared, and either God or Satan (at Kenny's request) reset the events of the movie.
- Almost every episode of The Simpsons ends with this, except for a few plot points such as Apu and Manjula getting married (and later having octuplets).
- The episode where Maude dies (I think) actually has Reverend Lovejoy list the various plotlines that never snapped back, which also included Kirk and Luann's divorce. (Ironically, they've since remarried.)
- Also averted with Lisa's decision to become a vegetarian. This was done at the insistence of Paul and Linda McCartney, who only agreed to lend their voices and likenesses to the episode if Lisa's decision stuck, so as not to make the lifestyle choice seem cheap or easy. And Lisa has been a vegetarian ever since.
- Also, Lisa's Buddhism seems to have been retained.
- Mighty Max ended with this, as Max and Skullmaster wrestle for control of The Cap at Stonehenge. The last scene repeats the first scene of the series until Max realizes his friends are alive, and they all remember what happened during the previous runthrough.
- Which was actually a bit of a Take That to the Executive Meddling that said there couldn't be a firm resolution, since that would supposedly screw up the plan to do reruns of the series.
- Happens twice in Phineas and Ferb:
- In "She's The Mayor," Candace finally busts her brothers and just as Linda begins scolding them, Dr. Doofenshmirtz's Fast Forward-inator backfires and resets to the beginning of the day.
- In "Phineas and Ferb Get Busted," Candace busts her brothers, which causes them to be sent to a reformatory school. Turns out it was All Just a Dream.