[PIGMI] TRON the Movie (was RE: Tron the Game)

[George]

You've hit the nail on the head, Nick.

Plus I think Brendan's analysis was quite accurate.


On 20/01/2011 3:36 PM, Nick Lowe wrote:
> I hadn't planned to chime into this epic thread, but since Brendan has
> brought it back from the dead...
>
> I also got the distinct feeling that it was a rush job (they either ran
> out of time or money.) There was so many little problems that should
> have been fixed. (eg. Jeff Bridges old-man voice was a poor match for
> his young face - why no digital audio editing?).
>
> The most overt sign of a rush job is probably this sequence:
>
> - Hero bursts into "boss" room. Two enemies prepare to face him.
> Close-up on hero's face as a confident smirk appears. Cuts away...
>
> - Following scene: Hero tromps into next room saying something like
> "Man, that off-camera fight was so cool. You should have animated it...
> er, I mean seen it".
>
> Gah!
>
> So, I was pretty disappointed by the film. It felt like it was trying to
> emulate the Matrix and fell flat. Like it was trying to be science
> fiction, when it should've stayed as pure science fantasy.
>
> The characterisations were even more one-dimensional and immature than I
> expected (and I had low expectations). The protagonist's reactions to
> events were jarringly inhuman. He was pure caricature - void of any
> believable emotion, just giddy and excited to be shooting bad guys.
>
> All that being said, I found the music and general aesthetics very
> appealing. Although not nearly enough to make up for the awful script,
> casting, and acting.
>
> The original teaser trailer was much better. :P
>
> - Nick
>
> On Thu, 2011-01-20 at 13:17 +0800, Brendan Ragan wrote:
>> Wow.
>>
>>
>> Okay a few random thoughts:
>> 1) On the whole "Tron is a long Daft Punk Video Clip" - yes, it could
>> be taken that way (I'm very much in the "Daft Punk did a great job on
>> the soundtrack" camp) - though that's already been done much better by
>> "Interstella
>> 5555" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstella_5555:_The_5tory_of_the_5ecret_5tar_5ystem) which arguably has a more sensical plot than TRON: Legacy :)
>>
>>
>> 2) TRON: Legacy's script is what you get when you design a movie by
>> committee - there are things that are Chekov'ed early on that never
>> eventuate (Sam Flynn's pickup of the spare lightcycle/lightflyer
>> controls which is never used for example), the Quorra Character's
>> change in personality from kick-ass fighter to helpless princess, the
>> extraordinarily poor exposition at the start of the film. The Speech
>> given by CLU 2.0 to his converted soldiers (!?). CLU 2.0 tracing Sam's
>> stolen lightcycle back to the cave, but Flynn never mentions that this
>> could happen and yet yells at Sam later on in the film for it.
>> Normally Disney doesn't do this poor a job - I suspect this film was a
>> rush job.
>>
>>
>> 3) Effects-wise, I think they did a pretty good job *other* than Clu
>> 2.0 - which falls into the uncanny valley so badly at points it
>> detracts whenever he's on screen. It's interesting too - the same
>> capture stuff that was used on Avatar was used here - again, I suspect
>> there wasn't enough time given to this film to complete the effects to
>> the required standard.
>>
>>
>> I liked the film, but it's not a good movie. For me it traded a LOT on
>> the nostalgia I have for the earlier film (which I enjoy, I have the
>> 20th Anniversary edition etc.).
>>
>>
>> Now I'm going to say something that people are probably not going to
>> like :P
>>
>>
>> For Disney, TRON: Legacy is *all about* trading on that nostalgia and
>> using it to create another new IP to (in Activision parlance) exploit.
>> The video game(s) (yes there are more coming) are an example of this.
>> There are two TV shows in pre-production
>> (http://www.movieweb.com/news/disney-confirms-tron-legacy-tv-series-in-the-works) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1812523/) etc. Which begins to explain the mess that is the movie's script and some of the effects.
>>
>>
>> I had a lot of time for Tron, time will tell if the nostalgia is
>> enough for me to look past the flaws and buy into this new Content
>> Kingdom Theme Park the mouse is about to open.
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-- 
   George