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Tron: Legacy
In preparation for this weekend's release of Legacy, I re-watched the original Tron. Yes, I own the DVD. I thought I would watch it ironically and sarcastically, but it turns out I just can't. I really like the original. As for the sequel, I'm not going to write a full review, but I'll say that the visuals were pretty amazing. The CG Jeff Bridges was pretty darn close, but just not quite there. And the light cycles were awesome. What are your thoughts?
My thoughts are: just because what you wrote exceeds Twitter's 140 char limit doesn't mean you should post it to Slashdot's front page intead.
Visually it was...perfect. It captured the feelings I got from books like Snow Crash and (especially) Neuromancer of a virtual world. The towers of darkness and light. The story was okay, not great but not awful. It more or less met my expectations story-wise but blew me away in the visual department. I actually got giddy the first time they showed the city from far away. Music was both good and not so good. Some of it was absolutely great and other bits a bit generic. And CGI Jeff Bridges was definitely skiing the Uncanny Valley. And while I was kind "eh" on Olivia Wilde beforehand I now have a huge crush on her. Sheesh.
There were several real, appropriate examples of UNIX in the movie. Things like "ps -ef | grep badprocess" and "kill -9 badprocessid". I caught that as it went by very quickly and was surprised at the accuracy.
/usr/bin/history to see what his last commands were. That whole sequence was pretty accurate.
Overall though, I left the movie feeling a bit uninspired. Not that it was bad movie... it was just felt rushed with no real sense of drama.
One of the displays showed a very Solairs looking version of top and login. I doubt this circa 1983 teminal had Solaris on it however.
I also thought it was cool that the son looked to see what the father was up to by starting a bash shell and running something like
FWIW, I hate modern cutting. I frequently can't tell what's happening or form an emotional response before it cuts again to something else. The epitome of this is a Michael Bay fight scene. Some body part hits someone. It doesn't look cool and exciting. It looks like 30 to 60 seconds of incomprehensible mess and then they show you the outcome.
I suppose they just don't want to pay money for decent fight choreography and think the cutting is good enough.
Then you get a movie like inception and the fight scene in the hotel corridor with longer cuts and it blows you away emotionally. I think they are getting away from the hyper cutting.
Agree on most of the rest. It was mostly "B" actors (who went on to be TV stars or secondary actors). And the plot/writing was average.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I went to see it on Saturday night. I opted for the 3D version, and purchased tickets in advance, via "Fandango". Despite all the warnings I heard about the Friday opening being "packed full" -- it turns out I shouldn't have wasted the extra few bucks on service fees getting my tickets online, in advance. The theater for the 10:05PM show only had about 15-20 people in it!
Here's the stuff I found most notable:
1. As everyone else is saying, the visuals were top-notch. I really liked the "updated look" to the light cycles, and especially the ribbon trails they left behind them. The effect of people getting de-rezzed was amazingly good too. Even the re-imagination of the traditional Walt Disney castle logo at the beginning of the movie was very cool. The 3D was subtle, which I actually liked. If you were expecting to see Flynn chucking a disc so it looked like it was headed right out of the movie screen and into the theater? Nope... sorry. No gimmicks like that. Just a little added depth to the digital world. I think you won't lose any enjoyment if you skip the 3D version, but as long as you're paying today's ticket prices to see it on a big screen anyway? It's worth going with the 3D version, if it doesn't cost extra, or the extra fee is less than the price of a small soda!
2. The Daft Punk soundtrack fits the theme of the movie, and yes, it's not bad. But in certain spots, I thought it was mixed too loudly and becomes "overbearing", as if it's competing for your attention with what you're actually trying to watch on the screen.
3. I still have kind of mixed feelings on how "60's hippie" they tried to make the Tron world. I mean, Jeff Bridge's character's whole "zen" thing wasn't something I expected at all out of this sequel. Does it work? Yeah, because it helps explain a few questions you might be tempted to ask, like "If he's the creator of this whole universe and has the power to revise code, at will? Why has he been so restrained at doing proactive things to better the situation for the inhabitants?" But you couple all of that with the "Zeus" character who has that crazy David Bowie vibe going on, and arch-enemies who all do things in the vein of "big corporation" or "trying to take over the world" -- and you're looking pretty squarely at the hippie vs. establishment stereotypes.
4. There really wasn't much Tron in this Tron. He practically made a cameo appearance! Since he's many people's favorite character of the original, I thought he deserved a little more screen time.
Overall? I enjoyed/liked this movie, and I think they did a good job of trying to respect the original, instead of stomping all over it, like SO often happens when they sequel a movie that was made so much earlier. In the end though? Given the original's whole premise, I'm not sure how this could have been re-made to have a fully believable story-line or deep plot/message? Much of the "magic" of the original Tron came from the fact that back in the 80's, computers were still a brand new and fascinating thing for a lot of us. As kids, we saw Tron and said "Wow.... that's a pretty cool way to imagine what the inside of a computer would be like if you could really become a part of one!" Now, almost 30 years later? We've all progressed far past the extent of computer games being things as "basic" as a light-cycle or person vs. person battle with throwing discs, and computer have become as much of a commodity item as our washers or dryers. We've all seen plenty of movies covering more expansive concepts like the entire Internet (The Matrix, etc.), too. So in a sense, the magic has evaporated with time -- and the best they could do is try to give back a little with the visuals and some nostolgia.