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

[Nick Lowe]

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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