130 replies to this topic

[Peter T Chattaway]

Scholar's Parrot wrote:
: Now, using him in the prologue? Dumb.

Exactly.

And it's not just the face, BTW. Bridges's voice has changed an awful lot since the '80s, too.

M. Leary wrote:
: In other words, Tron 2 turned out to be a giant metaphor for internet pornography.

[opus]

Peter T Chattaway, on 24 December 2010 - 12:51 AM, said:

: Oh, and I know that for some folks, Michael Sheen was the highlight of the film. But every time he was onscreen, I kept thinking, "Hey, it's Wesley Snipes!"

Eh?

Sheen played a snooty British character named "Wesley Snipes" in a couple episodes of 30 Rock.

[Nathan Douglas]

I agree that McWeeny's take is spot-on, but I can't work up any real anger about the film. I guess the comments here prepared me to keep my expectations below zero. To single out one dud: that scene at Sam's pad -- the one with the ugly dog's reactions -- has made it certain, all on it's own, that I'll never anticipate anything else Kosinski does in the future.

But I did kind of enjoy the wall of score, the lights (though they could've been combined to a better sweeping effect), Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen (who would make a great Tilda Swinton, should Todd Haynes want to make a bio-pic about her), and the very last shot. That, and seeing Vancouver look so recognizable AND sexy at night.

EDIT: Saw this in IMAX 3D. The 3D added very little to the experience; any scene reliant on mediums and close-ups looked like a Viewmaster slide. I wish there was a non-3D IMAX presentation available.

Edited by N.W. Douglas, 04 January 2011 - 02:20 AM.

[Ryan H.]

Aintitcool is hardly the pinnacle of film journalism, but this might be interesting. One of its writers, Massawyrm, believes that TRON LEGACY is legitimately "about something"--and no, not just internet pornography --and has elaborated on his interpretation here. His suggestion:

At its heart, TRON: LEGACY is the classic argument about the impossibility of utopia. The concept of utopia can be boiled down to two defining characteristics: the first is that it is a safe, healthy environment that both meets the needs of its occupants and protects them from coming to any unnatural harm; the second is that the occupants are free to act exactly as they wish to, without limit or constraint. In other words, we need to be able to do whatever we feel like doing without having to worry about anybody getting hurt. This is of course impossible. Allowing humans to do whatever they please creates a dangerous environment. End of story. So you have to ask yourself: if you were a soulless computer program charged with building a perfect world with imperfect parameters, which side would you err on?
For CLU, this is relatively easy as he is only exposed at first to a single user (Flynn) and a series of programs, all of which can simply be reprogrammed or repurposed when they pose a threat to the harmony of the Grid. But when the ISOs (Isomorphic Algorithms) emerge unplanned from seemingly nowhere, he is confronted with a terrible dilemma. CLU realizes/believes that a perfect society should be unburdened by free will - after all, he himself has no real free will of his own; he is acting under the orders by which he was initially created and has faithfully served his duty for over 1200 years/cycles. ISOs are artificially intelligent creatures not at all unlike users; they are possessed of free will and a capacity to learn at a level which CLU lacks. So he orders the execution of what he sees as aberrations, resulting in a near total genocide. This, of course, is why CLU getting into our world is a bad thing – ISOs are digital humans, and CLU’s attempts to perfect our world would no doubt end in our extermination as well.

To CLU, this is but a simple math problem and well within his programming; he even goes so far as to ask Flynn of his dedication to the original premise that they, together, are to create a perfect world. Flynn doesn’t realize what CLU is asking because Flynn isn’t really paying attention. And when CLU realizes Flynn’s lack of dedication to their original purpose, he decides that he must be removed from the equation.

To make things even muddier, CLU has been given a second parameter to factor in. All information MUST be free. This is by far the more complicated issue TRON: LEGACY wrestles with - one many of us are wrestling with today. You see, there exists an argument that information not only wants to be free but that it should, in fact, be free to everyone. But what does that mean, exactly? Some argue this while downloading illegal copies of music and movies, ranting about the importance of Wikileaks, and copying and pasting news stories into their blogs. Of course, many of these same culture warriors are often the first to rise up and howl about Facebook taking their information (typed into the Facebook website) and selling it to others – because this is THEIR personal information and not someone else’s to trade in. It is a conundrum that vexes many, and is the driving force of the narrative in TRON: LEGACY.

Kevin Flynn originally believed that information should be free and his son – following in his footsteps – begins the movie as an out and out information anarchist. This point is driven home so hard that the corporation Flynn the elder once owned is now chaired by a diabolical, mustache twirling CEO who jokes that the new version of their Operating System is only different because they put a higher number on the box. But don’t be fooled by this oversimplified display of the issue – it only exists to make Flynn the Younger seem heroic in his extremist views. The film, while initially on the surface seeming to be pro-piracy/anti-copyright, actually takes a sharp philosophical turn in the second act.Here’s where things get a little kooky. Flynn the Elder was a pretty hardcore information-for-all guy; that is until CLU came for his disc. The disc is everything, and its importance to the story exceeds being a simple McGuffin for the heroes to defend; it is the philosophical center of the film. It is Flynn’s identity; everything that is Flynn is on that disc, 1200 years of meditation and invention. And with it, CLU can do untold amounts of damage. CLU believes he has every right to it, because it is information and information MUST be free. But Flynn the Elder has had a change of heart; he knows the damage his knowledge and identity can cause in the wrong hands, and now he’s changed his mind. So now Flynn lives on the outskirts of his own grid (off the grid, if you will pardon Disney’s well concealed pun), completely cut off from the world in order to keep the information his own.

The narrative through line of TRON: LEGACY is that of a hero who learns that nothing is as black and white as it seems and that the idea of information being free is a failed principle that looks good on paper but is dangerous in practice. (Does that sound more like the Disney you know and love than the whole pro-piracy thing does?) It is also very heavily focused upon the glory of imperfection – the idea that it is the sum of both our merits and our flaws that make us individuals – seen in the Grid as degradations in the programming which allow infected programs to think and act for themselves. Even at the end of it all, Kevin Flynn still loves his friend CLU and forgives him, because his flaws were Flynn’s own. This of course brings everything back around to what we’d expect from a conservatively rooted company, arguing that our freedom to make mistakes is a far better thing than forsaking that freedom for safety. We end up with a film touting the importance of the individual, and the necessity to keep our identities and information ours.

Admittedly I wasn't paying that much attention to the film's story, but while some of this fits--although it's not handled or explored very well in the film--the stuff about "free information" and how that relates to Flynn's disc doesn't wash with me.

Edited by Ryan H., 06 January 2011 - 08:27 PM.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Massawyrm wrote:
: At its heart, TRON: LEGACY is the classic argument about the impossibility of utopia ...

... bla bla bla bla bla. Does anybody really think this is a pressing issue these days? More to the point, does anybody really think the original film was even REMOTELY concerned with this issue? If not, then why should the sequel be all about it?

: This, of course, is why CLU getting into our world is a bad thing – ISOs are digital humans, and CLU’s attempts to perfect our world would no doubt end in our extermination as well.

Assuming that Clu would even have a, er, clue what to do with a flesh-and-blood body, or that he could maintain any sort of control over a legion of similar flesh-and-blood bodies.

: The film, while initially on the surface seeming to be pro-piracy/anti-copyright, actually takes a sharp philosophical turn in the second act.

This, indeed, is an interesting point, or at least an interesting argument. Although, it remains to be seen how this "sharp philosophical turn" can be reconciled with the fact that Flynn's son puts Flynn's buddy (and Tron's creator) in charge of the company. Both Flynn's son and Flynn's buddy were strongly on the information-must-be-free side of the equation at the beginning of the movie, and I see no reason to believe that they have changed their minds by the end of the movie.

[Peter T Chattaway]

[Peter T Chattaway]

[Peter T Chattaway]

Steve Lisberger to ComingSoon.net: "it's funny to think that the world of 'TRON' is now a simplification of reality, rather than a complication of reality."

- - -

'Tron Legacy' Director Joe Kosinski On Blu-ray Tweaks . . .
MTV NEWS: I don't know the last time you watched it, but can you sit back and watch objectively and enjoy at this point, or do you have to nitpick about doing this differently, doing that differently?
KOSINSKI: Around the release, it was really hard to watch it. I couldn't even sit through the premiere. I just saw all the things I wanted to fix. Luckily for the Blu-ray, I was able to go back to Skywalker in January and fix all those things in the mix that were bothering me. We have a whole re-mastered soundtrack for the Blu-ray. In terms of being objective, I think it's too soon. I think it'll take a few years. Actually, [original "Tron" writer/director] Steve [Lisberger] is right here next to me. Are you objective about your first movie?
STEVEN LISBERGER: I just got to go back for this Blu-ray and make changes in the first film and that was like I died and went to movie heaven. I never thought I'd be able to make these tweaks.
KOSINSKI: So, maybe, what, 28 years I'll come back and do my special edition? . . .
MTV Movies Blog, April 5

'Tron: Legacy's Joseph Kosinski Passes JJ Abrams To Become King Of First-Timers
Before it got released on DVD today, Tron: Legacy managed to play in theaters long enough to establish Joseph Kosinski as the highest-grossing first-time director of a live-action film in Hollywood history. The film's $399 million global gross recently eclipsed the $397.5 million gross that JJ Abrams turned in on 2006's Mission: Impossible 3.
Now, such a distinction is relative. Tron: Legacy cost between $165 million and $170 million to make and a comparable amount to market. Sam Mendes made his debut on the $15 million American Beauty, which grossed $356 million worldwide in 1999. Jan De Bont's debut on the $30 million Speed turned in a $350 million worldwide gross in 1994. Ticket prices were lower when American Beauty and Speed were released, and Tron: Legacy had the extra benefit of higher 3D pricing. American Beauty and Speed were extravagantly profitable. Disney will make some money on Tron: Legacy, but they won't need to back up the Brink's truck. . . .
Deadline.com, April 5

[Ryan H.]

Man, whenever I see clips from LEGACY on the TV, I like the sleek visual style so much I'm almost--almost--tempted to see it again. But then I remember how dull and empty the experience of watching it actually was, even if an edited down version of LEGACY would probably make for the best Blu-Ray sizzle reel ever.

[Peter T Chattaway]

I tried posting these photos a few months ago, but had no luck. Since the site's been redesigned, I figured I'd try again... and voila!

Basically, to repeat what I wrote at Facebook a few months ago:

I don't know why it took me so long to do this, but a couple weeks ago I finally got around to figuring out which of the houses near my son's preschool was the house that appeared in Tron Legacy (as the home of Flynn). Here is the picture I took on December 14:

 tronlegacy-house-trailer.jpg   96.21K   14 downloads

And here is how the house appears in the movie (or at least in the trailer for the movie):

 tronlegacy-house.jpg   32.35K   14 downloads

[opus]

Ryan H., on 06 April 2011 - 07:29 AM, said:

Man, whenever I see clips from LEGACY on the TV, I like the sleek visual style so much I'm almost--almost--tempted to see it again. But then I remember how dull and empty the experience of watching it actually was, even if an edited down version of LEGACY would probably make for the best Blu-Ray sizzle reel ever.

Agreed.