Two years ago at Comic Con they announced that they were going to make a sequel to the 28 year old nerdy computer graphics filled Disney's Tron. A film that no one saw. I mean, no one. You ask around and you'll get confused looks from folks who never saw it and who probably never will see it.
To say that the effects and the movie itself is a bit dated is an understatement. It really wasn't heavy on the plot to begin with. The story was as follows. Jeff Bridges is a computer engineer who creates some of the most successful games which propels a company to the main spotlight. But the only problem is that someone stole the games from him and took the credit.
So he goes to find out proof of this, gets zapped into a computer server and has to fight the MCP, Master Control Program with the help of a program named Tron. Yes, that's right. Jeff Bridges is not Tron. He's Kevin Flynn. The fact is that the film was not named after the main character of the film. How do you like them apples?
Jeff Bridges, way before his days as playing The Dude, was still being a completely awesome character. In fact, it's what makes Jeff Bridges Jeff Bridges. He has a way of carrying out a character, even if it's some adult man-child who works above an arcade... You know.. speaking of which, how could I expect you to get into the spirit of an arcade film when I haven't linked this..
There we go. Now you're in the arcade mood! You know, if you haven't seen the original, don't worry. It's really very basic. There was recently a South Park episode that made fun of Facebook as well as Tron. Watching this gives you everything you probably need to enjoy Tron Legacy.
Besides that, Disney's not making it any easier by putting the original DVD out of print. Yup. It may sound crazy, but Disney made sure that you can't get Tron on Netflix or at the local stores as the 2002 collectors edition has been long out of print. Their defense to that was that they didn't really want people to look at the clearly dated CGI and make up their mind not to see this movie. Let's be honest, the original was really lacking in terms of plot. But what it lacked in plot and story, it made up for in revolutionary computer graphics that immersed the actor in the digital world for the first time.
What's amazing here is that Disney took their internal property of Tron, a film that barely broke the 20 million budget the first one had, was given a close to 200 million budget for a sequel. Something that even I'm doubting it's going to be a success in the box office. Which is really sad since I would love to see a sequel of Tron Legacy, as it has all the makings of a franchise with a lot of potential.
Tron, in 1982, was way ahead of its time. People didn't have home computers, let alone hand held computers that I'm sure will annoy the hell out of you while you watch this film and someone is updating their facebook status. So to have actors in this digital world was something amazing. Oh yeah, Tron also had a video game tie in. Something that is common practice now, but back then was only limited to pinball machines.
The original film really kicked off the CGI era. But when you break it down, the story of Tron is much like the Wizard of Oz. Someone finds themselves in a strange new world by accident and they can only get back home by going to point B on the map. Hell, the parallels to Wizard of Oz really go pretty deep on this franchise. Even Roger Ebert enjoyed it and saw the potential.
While I'm not a big fan of the latest wave of 3D films that is flooding our market, I do acknowledge that films shot in 3D are made for that format very well. This film used the same cameras that Avatar used. Especially useful when you have the villain be a 1982 Jeff Bridges. I mean, this character really looks like the dude back when he was just that great looking actor.
Then again, you can't talk about good looking actors and not mention Olivia Wilde. You may know her as 13 on House. Yes, Olivia Wilde is the female lead in this film and well, I don't think you could ask for better eye candy in a film that is all about eye candy.
I love these two Mondo posters that were made for the film. It's a two parter that combines the old and the new. Just look at how the old film is depicted...
And then you go to the modern new look in the next poster....
You put those two together and you have something that looks so fucking amazing. In this instance, let's just show you so you can put it on your desktop..
Now if that isn't considered a thing of beauty, then you'll have to define beauty as something completely different.
I guess now after going into the wish list of things, given that the 240 prints of those poster sold out in a whole 3 minutes, that I should bring my expectations on what I could get down some. You see, maybe I should shoot for something I could get by making it myself.
So for Christmas, can anyone recommend to me somewhere or someone who can make this design get transferred and look good on a t-shirt? Any good shirt shops? Cause this is a cross of a few of my favorite things.
And with that, I go to see this film and I'm very excited. It's been a couple of years since it was announced and a couple of decades to get a sequel from this. Let alone, I've been following the Flynn Lives online Alternate Reality Game for the last year and a half or so and have been so immersed in this film. So you can't really blame me for wearing my Tron hoodie jacket and hitting up the local arcade to get even more excited about this flick.
So yeah, go and see it.
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