Tron: Legacy Review

With one Jeff Bridges starring movie getting reviewed today I couldn't just skip over the one the he stars in twice... and admittedly the movie I've waited all about 3 years to actually see. But the question is, was it worth it? After countless times of rewatching the original 1982 Tron, constantly watching the trailers, trying to find any preview of the soundtrack that I could, participating in almost every viral marketing event, going to Tron Night, and skipping over a free screening last Monday so I could see a free screening of True Grit that happened to be at the same time AND across the street. Was it worth it?!

No. Not completely at least. Tron: Legacy is the feature length debut of Joseph Kosinski, who previous had only directed some special effects-heavy commercials. I think that's a big part of the blame for Tron: Legacy's end result. The other blame is hype and over-marketing. But I'll get into these later.

Tron: Legacy is the long in the making (though probably not the intended result) sequel to 1982's Tron, a film directed by Steven Lisberger, and famous for being the first film to use CGI to create a completely artificial world, and really the rest is history. So nearly 30 years later, what innovation does Tron: Legacy bring? The only thing I can think of would be 3D that's used to tell a story and costumes that can actually light up...

Story-wise, it isn't required that you need to see the original, as film takes place 25 years later, and much of what has changed is either explained via bedtime stories, news broadcasts and flashbacks; all of which seemed like really poor way to tel story in a theatrical film. Flashbacks are cool in Lost, but they just feel out of place here, and the news broadcasts were shown in a ghostly room full of phantom televisions... also weird. And then theirs the cliche story about how the digital world is building an army that wants to break free of their realm and take other the Earth. Yup...

Acting-wise... Garrett Hedlund knows how to do two things: smile, and stand. And that's really all I can say about his character of Sam Flynn. Olivia Wilde doesn't know whether she's playing a badass warrior, small minded child, or mannequin. And Jeff Bridges... while enjoyable, and I get that he's been in this world for over 20 years and things change, but he didn't feel like the same character that I saw in the original film, and that was kind of upsetting. However, his character of Clu felt completely different than "The Dude" and most of the time I thought it was a different actor, so, well done sir.

But, this is nothing new. If you've actually watched the original Tron, and not just assumed you've seen it thanks to pop-culture, you'd know that the film was never any sort of cinematic masterpiece, everyone just remembers it because it was the first film to use CGI and it looked cool for the time. Even to this day, Tron probably still has the most unique visual style of any film ever. Thirty years later however, things basically haven't changed. Tron: Legacy has two things going for it, an awesome visual style and art direction, and a killer score that's unlike anything before it. But, it's still not that great at telling a story, and guess we can call it the Tron Tradition... or Trondition if you will. I can hate on the acting and the story all I want for either film, but in the end I still love both because of the way they look and sound, and you can't say that about a lot of films.

Overall, I'd say this, I was certainly disappointed with the film because I got sucked into the hype. When a movie appears at Comic-Con three years in a row, and all you can do is read about how people loved what they saw, you can only assume good things. Getting wrapped up in the viral marketing aids to that as well, but I don't regret getting all the free swag that I did. But while I really loved the way this film looked and sounded (a separate review for the score will be up eventually), there are definitely a lot of things to question about some of the film making choices, and I think Disney really should have considered a director with more experience at telling stories than just making things look cool, especially when they want to make a franchise out of it.

Overall Sore: 8.2/10

To justify that score, I'll say this. I enjoyed it more than Avatar, which I gave an 8/10 last year. While I praised that film for the way it looked and story that just 'worked' I wasn't crazy about it. Tron: Legacy's story may not have 'worked' by most standards, but because of the visuals and soundtrack and familiarity of some of the characters (a.k.a. fanboying) I have to give it a bit of an edge. So that's how I justify that score despite a lot of negativity. Plus I intended to see Tron: Legacy numerous times in theaters, I can't bring myself to watch Avatar again.

Flickr Update: Tron Night

Just a few photos to supplement my Tron Night After Thoughts. There wasn't too much in terms of swag at the event, but I guess thats what happens when you blow your budget on renting out IMAX theaters across the world and offer a 23 minute free 3D sneak preview of your biggest film of the year. So what'd we get? At least at the theater I went to:

Nothing overly exciting; the first is a poster, the awesome one that I posted about last week, though it's slightly smaller than a standard movie poster, and has a few lines saying that it was printed exclusively for Tron Night (I managed to snag 3 of these, gave one to a friend). Next is my wristband that granted me entry, not really swag, but it's something. And the last two things were just little cardboard ads basically, but I took like five of each (they're something that could easily be signed and framed at a later date).

They also gave out a few swag bags for trivia winners, but there was no way I was gonna raise my hand and somehow get picked in a packed IMAX theater, so I can't tell you what was in those, but I think they had t-shirts. Oh well...

After Thoughts: Tron Night

Tonight (really last night now that it's passed midnight) was Tron Night, a world-wide event where Disney was screening 23 minutes of mostly unseen Tron: Legacy footage, for free, in IMAX 3D theaters. I managed to register for tickets on October 12th (one ticket for myself and a guest) at the AMC on Broadway and W68th, in case you were wondering.

Before I get to talking about the footage though, I'm just curious if others at other theaters had the same issue that I did. It seemed like no one at the theater I went to knew what was going on regarding Tron Night, and I had to change the line I was in about four times. So I hope Disney or whoever was supposed to set this thing up did a better job where you were. Now for the part you came for, the footage!

Tron: Legacy is the first 3D film I've seen that really seems to use 3D for a purpose, which may bother some people, I'll explain. What we were shown were five (I think?) scenes, from different moments of the film's first half (or so we were told), and not all of them take place in the TRON world itself, obviously.

The first scene brings us to Sam Flynn's pad, a garage really, where he live's with his French Bulldog, and it's revealed that Alan Bradley has been Sam's surrogate father since Flynn's disappearance, and that the company (Encom presumably) would rather have Sam out of the picture. But Alan gives Sam word that he received a page the previous night (yes, PAGERS), and gives Sam the key to Flynn's Arcade, which has been seemingly shut down since the 80s. Sam enters, sets up the Tron arcade cabinet, and notices weird grooves on the floor, and somehow figures to move the cabinet, reveal a door, and then go down what seemed like endless flights of stares to find his father's secret workplace. Also, 80s pop music all around, it was pretty awesome.

Next we see Sam, in "The Grid," it seems like he's just entered the world, but the scene number was about 5 scene after, so, who knows. He's picked up by a Recognizer, and you see THIS IS 3D. Which is what I meant by Tron: Legacy uses 3D with a purpose, all the real world stuff is 2D, but when you get to the game world it's in spectacular 3D. It's here that we see other programs trapped on the grid, some more willing to fight than others, some with pixelated chunks taken out of their face. The next scene has Sam receiving his Tron-suit (is there an official name for the outfits? I don't remember...) and Data Disc from four emotionless women, and is then brought into the Game Grid, where he must face off in his first match of Disc Wars, which has changed a bit since his father played it in 1982.

The final, and longest scene we got to see was Sam and who is soon reveal to be Quorra, riding in a light-car being chased by 2 light-cycles, and they soon escape and go off-road through digital-blue mountains to a small place in the distance. It's here that we see Kevin Flynn, a much older Kevin Flynn who seems to be doing some sort of meditation and is nothing like the youthful Flynn we saw back in the old TRON, and I hope there's some explanation for that. Sam soon finally gets to speak with his father, and while their expressions and music were telling me the scene was sad, it was hard to get emotional when it was out of context. Finally, after all that, we were treated to a clip reel of both new and old clips and it was awesome.

Overall, I'm happy with what I saw. However, I don't know if I'm convinced on seeing the film in IMAX, because it might be too big, especially for a film like this where I really want to look at every little thing on screen. Also, and I'll blame this on my eyes, but some of the scenes looked out of focus, and when I saw the trailers in 3D at other non-IMAX theaters I didn't seem to have that issue. Some people in the crowd seemed upset when a disclaimer came up on screen before the footage saying the opening scenes would be 2D, but it makes a lot of sense in my mind, that's the effect that makes the game world seem so special and different. If the original Tron made using computer graphics to tell a story an accepted practice, then hopefully Tron: Legacy teaches people that 3D can work too when it's given a purpose. Of course, not everyone will be happy about paying the 3D premium for a film that only uses it 3/4 of the time, but I'd rather see a 3D film that uses it well 3/4 of the time than a film that uses really crappy 3D for all of the film.

Tron: Legacy releases in 3D, IMAX 3D, and 2D on December 17th.

New TRON: Legacy poster is ... RAD

There's a new TRON: Legacy poster out, and it's glorious! And not just glorious, bad it pays homage to the original film poster.

Also, next week on the 28th is TRON Night. I managed to get me a ticket to the 20+ minute 3D IMAX sneak preview here in New York City, and will try to post an After Thoughts that night. Stay tuned!

... and hopefully I can either get a high-res version of this poster, or a physical copy at some point; I already have the first, "light cycles in perspective," poster.

Late Night Flickr Update

Hey there, it's been quite a long time since we put the Flickr account to use, so I just put up to images. First off, my Encom Employee Badge:

You can still get one of these for yourself by visiting the TRON Legacy viral site, Flynn Lives, play the Arcade Aid game, and then register for the free badge. Once it arrives you can use it to access Encom's website. It's really simple, and the badge arrives quickly. Quite a neat piece of movie swag.

This one's pretty obvious, it's the sequel to the previous Club Nintendo exclusive Game & Watch Collection. I've yet to play it, but I'll review it once I do, just like the last one.

SDCC 09: TRON: Legacy

Some news from this year's San Diego Comic-Con, not that any of us are there, but none less I got some press stuff from Walt Disney Pictures tonight, and two pictures sparked some interest so I thought I'd share.

TRON: Legacy promotional image


Disney 3D panel with TRON: Legacy footage behind them.

Okay, so it's just two things, and they're both TRON related... But I'm eagerly excited to see some real footage of this project soon. Not to mention, I'm happier they went with a name like TRON: Legacy instead of TR2N or TRON 2.0 (which was already used on video games). It's only a matter of time before the Comic-Con footage comes online, and I just hope I get some HD files instead of relying on people's blurry camera videos.

TRON: Legacy is set for a 2010 release, in digital 3D, with a soundtrack scored by Daft Punk. So yes, this a serious project for Disney, despite the goofy "legacy" the original 1982 film has left on the pop-culture world. Needless to say, I'm excited!

TR2N announced

Good news from Comic-Con for all you fans of amazingly lame, yet stupendously awesome, Disney sci-fi films about video games! They announced a sequel to TRON! The new film, known as TR2N will again star Jeff Bridges, and will co-star ... Jeff Bridges. The catch is there's the good, young Jeff Bridges as Tron, and there's an older, bearded Jeff Bridges ... as some other dude. Point is, if this is true to the original, i'm giddy right now. There apperently was a trailer shown, if I can find it, I will post it.

I might actually have to go and play the TRON level of Kingdom Hearts II, just to fuel the excitement!

via io9