TRON: LEGACY

[[Syl]]

Johnny Mnemonic gets a bad rap. Sure, it's no Bladerunner, but it's no New Rose Hotel (also a Gibson story), either, and neither Walken nor Dafoe could save that one. I'm a huge Gibson fan, and I was too bored to finish the movie. JM was about as good as Repo Men which had a similar budget and 15 more years of effects technology at its disposal. Sure, Reeves was underwhelming, but Dolph Lundgren and Henry Rollins' roles made up for the expected shortcoming.

[dANdeLION]

Dolph was ok, but the dolphin stole the show.

[Rigel]

Just bought tickets yesterday to a 3D showing on Friday. It's been at least two years since I've bought tickets ahead of time for a movie, so that should be an indication of my excitement

[Cagliostro]

I don't know when I'll have time to see it, but I am really looking forward to doing so. Maybe after Xmas.

[dANdeLION]

I saw it Saturday, and loved it. The plot was predictable, and somewhat reminiscent of a few other sci-fi flicks, but visually it was impressive. It had the same feel as the original, but OMG the look of it was perfect. My favorite thing was the costumes; they were like something out of an old Jack Kirby comic! Very cool. And Olivia Wilde.....yum. Her character was a lot like Leeloo from 5th Element, but I don't see that as a bad thing at all.

[Fist and Faith]

I coulda sworn I posted. Yeah, I saw it this weekend with my son. I loved it, too. Exactly what I expected from the film. Excellent visuals. Good nostalgia. Even a decent story. Not an Academy Award story, but very good for its genre. It met all my expectations.

[Rigel]

Gorgeous visuals, light on heart, a decent adventure of the Jerry Bruckheimer variety that Disney has been putting out for the last decade (think Pirates of the Caribbean or National Treasure and you'll know what I mean).

When I got home from the movie I immediately threw on the original, which was a mistake because it's so much more heavily laden with political, religious & philosophical themes. It just pointed out how soulless the sequel is.

That isn't to say it's a horrible movie... it's so much better than certain other effects laden spectacles of late such as 2012 or Avatar. Where I couldn't even enjoy watching those because the rest of the movie was so bad, at least with Tron the rest of the movie is still enjoyable.

And it had some great moments. While some people have complained that Jeff Bridges played too much as The Dude, watching the original again highlighted to me how much that really WAS the character of Kevin Flynn.

Spoiler

And the parts concerning Flynn and Clu... "That dude seriously does not dig imperfection"

My favorite part, of course, was the final dialogue between Flynn and his creation. Clu's raging, "I did everything you asked me to!" was perfect. In the end, Clu failed precisely BECAUSE he did everything exactly as he had been instructed to. My only real gripe with the movie, in fact, is that it contains little nuggets like this, but fails to take full advantage of them; that is, it was good, but could have been great had it more fully developed those themes.

[Zarathustra]

When I got home from the movie I immediately threw on the original, which was a mistake because it's so much more heavily laden with political, religious & philosophical themes. It just pointed out how soulless the sequel is.

I agree. I thought the original was much better. The story and the themes seemed to transcend the goofiness. But this was fun and pretty. Not nearly as annoying as Avatar.

My only real gripe with the movie, in fact, is that it contains little nuggets like this, but fails to take full advantage of them; that is, it was good, but could have been great had it more fully developed those themes.

Again, I agree completely. Especially about that little nugget in your spoiler tags. I had the same exact thought at this same exact point in the movie: wow, this really had some potential. This could have been awesome.

For me, it was funny that a sequel of an 80s cyber flick could remind me of how derivative The Matrix was. Tron was really ahead of its time, conceptually speaking. It's a real shame that after 25 years the only thing they could update was the graphics.

[Cagliostro]

My understanding is that there is another movie on its way, so maybe they'll hit better notes in that one. I've not seen the new one yet, but I can't wait to.

[Cail]

It's amazing.

Oh sure, it's full of flaws, hokey dialog, and missed opportunities, but for a little over 2 hours it turned me back into the geeked-out 14 year old that sat entranced in a theater in 1982.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Every movie has flaws and missed opportunities and we can all say how things could have been a little better once we leave the theater, but I suspect that most people will agree that Legacy at least met all expectations.

I am really glad that there weren't comparisons being made between Tron and Matrix. That would have ruined the ride.

Now, some questions and observations I have:

Spoiler

How do we know that Flynn is dead? What if he programmed a copy of himself and kept it hidden in case he met his death?

Although I have seen a couple of people (not here; elsewhere) trying to compare Clu with Frankenstein's Creature, he actually has more in common with the Golem--he was simply following his orders literally and taking them to their logical conclusion.

I will suspend disbelief and not ask how Flynn obtains food on the Grid.

As noted, I am glad to know that Matrix comparisons have been minimal in comments I have read elsewhere; however, I suspect that program leaving the Grid for Earth wasn't possible until ex-Agent Smith did it in Reloaded.

The programs of the Grid have known two dictators in the last 25 years, which is almost as long as the Grid has been existence (presuming that it couldn't exist until computers attained a certain level of complexity). How will they structure their society now?

[Horrim Carabal]

My understanding is that there is another movie on its way, so maybe they'll hit better notes in that one. I've not seen the new one yet, but I can't wait to.

As I've said elsewehre, to me Tron: Legacy is Batman Begins. The next one should be The Dark Knight.

[Usivius]

Well, I, for one Tron-fan who saw the original in the theatre, was very disappointed in this one. Yah, the 3D effect were pretty neat, the imagry was pretty cool, the actors were good, but all else that matters to make a movie stand out and stand the test of time, was missing.
This was such empty seen-it-all-before crap that I left feeling as empty as the movie.
First, the biggest flaw in the movie: no originality in story. Lets take a look at the flow of story in the original and sequel and we find they are (almost) exactly the same:
- man sees corruption in company
- man does little 'pranks' to try and hack the company
- man breaks in to company again with a 'mission' (even hacking through a "really big door").
- man is zapped in to 'The Grid'
- man is put in to the Games
- man's first game is deadly disk game
- man shows aptitude and moves on to deadly moto-bike game and succeeds in breaking out with help by making hole in wall of arena.
- man on run and learns, from an old man, what he must do to defeat villain.
- man takes a ride on flying sail ship thingee to big beam of light.
- man invovled in final battle with bad guy with companion and defeat bad guy and go in to big beam of light.

Another thing that pissed me off was the fate of Tron. What a disappointment. Imagine if Clu had done the takeover violently and Tron escaped to become a resistance leader ...
that would have been much better than what occured.
Disappointing.

And the exposition! GOD! Too much! There has to be a way of showing instead of talking about something to death...

And there were tons of little geeky things that bothered me about the movie. One such thing is how the stuff in the Grid is protrayed, like smoke and dust coming from the big Recognizers ... what the ---! Everything should be uber-clean techy ... clothing-crease-lines should be digitally erased ... lot of little stuff like that bothered me ...

ah ... well ... what can I say ... my expectations were too high ,,, but they DID have the money and time to make it right ... they just failed.
my

[Horrim Carabal]

this was fun and pretty. Not nearly as annoying as Avatar.

You just said a mouthful. Agreed 100%.

I saw Avatar once, said "that looked pretty, but sucked", and never even considered buying it on Blu-Ray or DVD.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

My advice to those who feel "let down" by Legacy need to go rewatch the original Tron and view it skeptically, from the point of view of story creativity and plot depth.

Honestly, even though I still enjoy the first movie the plot sucks. The plot inside the Grid is standard, by-the-book fantasy fiction and is no different than the external plot in Star Wars: the freedom fighters are waging a war against the evil empire. It also has lots in common with Krull in that all the movies have magic weapons (light sabers, discs, or the Glaive), an evil overlord (The Emporer, MCP, and the Beast), and his main henchman (Darth Vader, Sark, and...I can't recall the henchman from Krull).

Also, Flynn's only motivation is to prove that Decker stole his program. That is the thinking a teenager would use--"I'll get back at him!". What Flynn should have done is write a better game than Space Paranoids, go into business for himself, and drive Encom out of business. He was pretty immature at the time...but that is how the character was written.

Anyway...I thought about this last night, as well: how do we know that the MCP is dead? How do we know he didn't copy himself somewhere and has just been keeping a really low profile all this time? He was already hacking the Pentagon and the Kremlin, as well as Wall Street computers, so he could have survived long enough to reside in the Internet itself.

Did they determine who actually paged Alan? It wasn't Sam--he wouldn't know the number. It couldn't have been Flynn--no access to the outside world. It might have been Quorra on Flynn's behalf, but I doubt it. The only one left would be Clu--he would have known the number and did ask Sam "did you come alone?". Was he expecting Alan? The only reason for Alan to keep a pager for 20 years is so that someone has a way of contacting him from the Grid.

As far as I know, now only three people know about the transition device for accessing the Grid: Alan, Sam, and Quorra. Lori would know but we don't know what happened to her.

[dANdeLION]

Did they determine who actually paged Alan?

I thought it was revealed in the movie to be Clu, but I can't remember exactly where it was said.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Did they determine who actually paged Alan?

I thought it was revealed in the movie to be Clu, but I can't remember exactly where it was said.

This is precisely why I am uncertain. I seem to recall that this was stated but now I cannot recall exactly when or by whom.

It must have been Clu, but why? Clu knows that there are users--lots of them--but perhaps the only one he *could* reach was Alan.

Is the Grid connected to the Internet? If so, then Clu should be able to find out anything he wants to know very easily.

[dANdeLION]

I remember Flynn saying (in effect) he and Clu were at a stalemate, so Clu had to change the game.

[Horrim Carabal]

Yes, Clu made the page, I think he admitted it in the movie.

No, the grid isn't on the net or connected to the net (the plot in the Tron: Evolution video game states this).

Since young Dillinger was in Tron: Legacy, a new/improved/evolved MCP has to be lurking somewhere for the next movie.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

I don't have the video game. That seems to be common these days--plot from the official video game released before the movie applies to the movie. *shrug*

I wonder why the Grid isn't connected? I mean, other than the fact that a connection would already have given Clu a way out.