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

[Andy Hawkins]

Well as arguably the original TRON's biggest fan eva!  except for Tron 
Guy (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tron-guy) I was fairly Meh about TRON 
: Legacy.  I'm not even sure why they called it legacy, until I read 
Brendan's link about the animated series, and realised it was bringing 
the franchise up to date for a new generation.  However the original 
TRON wasn't meant to be a franchise.  It was interesting seeing the 
memorabilia in the beginning of the second film, as if there was a 
movie/reality ???  I can't figure out which - that generated posters, 
toys, hats and pie.

"Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for...oh...", the beginning of the 
film.  Cool bits about the Flynn (ahem) ENCOM OS 12 wanting to be free 
etc which kinda kept in touch with the sentiment of Flynn's ideology of 
the original film.  It's also reiterated when Flynn explains to Sam how 
the system was upgraded AD MCP, birth of CLU 2.0 etc.  I feel that was 
in keeping with the original film.

If you are as old as me, you would have seen the original film started 
with a slate explaining the term 'user'.  This was so indicative of the 
time and the impact that TRON had on the audience - look at Flynn's home 
terminal - hardly a graphics workhorse.  People were barely gripping on 
to home computing and TRON came along to create a massive fantasy about 
the whole thing.  You could never recreate this kind of cultural 
impact.  Perhaps Disney knew this and didn't even try in the new film.  
Which brings me to the plot...

The whole gladiator thing was great and a nice nod to the original games 
- I originally thought that TRON couldn't be re-done because back then 
we hadn't seen graphics like in the original film, but now we see them 
all the time. The only saving grace was 3D - but they should have made 
it the first 3D movie to come out for that plan to work.   The thing 
about TRON back then was showing us imagery of what it might look like 
inside the computer.   In the arena this was Disneys chance to say, 
'this is how TRON should have looked'.  But they must have realised, 
'shit this sequence was like 200 shots, costing us 20 bajillion dollars 
- we gotta pan this out a bit'.  So they write in the Sam escapes into 
the cyber wastelands (surely cheaper to render and animate) and the pace 
slows down.

So the film's plot is at the point where Disney has done it's best to 
pay hommage to the original and wow the fans - I was certainly 
impressed, and then they had nothing.  So they just made it - hero must 
save the world, save the princess and get home, oh and explain what 
Flynn's been doing all this time.  The rest of the film played out 
without any surprises, it just relied on the original film plot without 
making embarressing moments such as the grid bugs and "do you think we 
can merge with this memory, BIT?"

At the time of writing this, and having read Brendan's link, I am now of 
the firm belief the producers did something like this.
1.  Teaser trailer to make the fans go - "I don't care what it costs I'm 
gonna see it 15 times"
2.  Teaser trailer to pique non-fans' curiosity .
3.  Gladiator scene at beginning of film to pay hommage to original (and 
fans) and make audience feel like they got the TRON they waited to see.
4.  Budget adjustment when main effects sequences were costed, to slow 
down expenditure, and script rewritten to reduce remaining number of 
exciting fx shots.
5.  Plan for animated series and use future syndication deals (future 
profits) to finish the film.
6.  Forget about plot, and hope to get it back in series.

Something I didn't get was why they had the arena anyway?  Oh I get how 
it was for CLU 2.0's enjoyment or something.  If this was meant to be a 
free system, why did the populace relish in the deresolution of others?  
Were all the people in the arena stands now warriors of the CLU 2.0 
elite?  What was TRON and Flynn really fighting for if everyone was 
quite happy to see programs have the bits blasted out them?

Why did they call either film TRON???  I know TRON is like TRace ON, an 
old computer command to give the film a unique title.  The original film 
had the amazing (at the time) disc battle with TRON, "who's that guy",   
"That's TRON. He fights for the users", and the light cycle bit, but the 
film was never about him.  It was always about Flynn.  I know, I know, 
Flynn represents us, like Sam represents us in the new film.  But the 
second film was even less about TRON.  In the scene where they "set the 
wayback machine" and we see TRON working with CLU 2.0 and Flynn inside 
the system working to make a better world, you can almost see the 
disappointment on Bruce Boxlietner's face - like 'why they fuck are they 
always focusing on this Flynn dude??? - I'm the star right?'

Hopefully the series will focus on TRON and make him the hero.  In my 
mind, they still haven't made a true TRON film yet.  I was going to say 
'they still haven't made a true TRON sequel' but the original TRON film 
was like, 'look at the awesome graphics audience ... oh shit... do you 
think we better write a script?'

Andy H.






> 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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