Escape to the Movies: Tron: Legacy
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
SPOILERS!
After watching the review and flipping through this thread, I'm glad to see that someone else actually saw the movie I did. I saw the original Tron in the theater when I was 4, and when we bought our first VCR, Tron was the first movie we bought for it, and to say I watched the hell out of it would be an understatement. Did I have high hopes for this film? I did. But that has nothing to do with having a movie that has absolutely awful writing and acting. So, yes, SPOILERS!
I agree with everything you noted, but what really shocked me was the way they tried to have their cake and eat it too with the whole issue of ENCOM's little side project of being able to digitally encode living matter on to the grid. That's a slightly bigger deal than writing an OS or developing arcade games, profitable as those might be. They developed that 20 years ago, and while the original movie made it look like Flynn's travel to the grid could've been a one time fluke or accident, Flynn in 1989 says that he went back to the grid every night with Alan! So what had been a wondrous one-time journey became something that was so commonplace he could recreate it in the basement of his arcade? Alan knew about it, yet he never knew or thought to suggest to his son that hey, maybe your dad got trapped on the grid? This wasn't even a project that Flynn himself had been involved with, yet all of a sudden he's some VR messiah coming and going on to the grid like he's one of Neo's crewmates on the Nebuchadnezzar.
The total glossing over of the digitizing laser technology would have been a little more forgivable if they hadn't at the end of the movie and completely out of the blue decided that, oh, by the way, CLU is trying to transport himself and his digital army into the real world. What? The only explanation we get for this is Obi Wan Lebowski (a great line from the review, though I felt it made Kevin Flynn impossible to take remotely seriously) saying that 'He figured out how to do it.' Were they all going to, I don't know, come storming out of the basement of Flynn's Arcade with Journey playing in the background? There wasn't the remotest attempt to set this up earlier in the movie, and it flies in the face of how everything was shown to work in the first Tron.
I think all this talk about 'setting up for a sequel' is an excessively generous handwaving for the poor writing, plotting and pacing of what is almost certainly doomed to be a one off. Why go to all the trouble to show Sam pranking the ENCOM board, introduce Dillinger's son and show the tension between the Flynn family and the ENCOM board and then completely ignore that entire plotline until the absolute end of the movie when Sam, who has just come back from the grid and copied something on to a glowing SD card (which is what, exactly? It sure looked like Flynn Sr. killed himself and blew the whole grid to bits in the process) he says to Alan that he wants him at work at 8 am and that he's taking the company back? How? Why?
Really, for those of you who claimed to have watched the show and appreciated it for anymore than just eye candy (because hey, I can't fault you if you just liked the pretty lights and sound), I have to wonder how you can defend the show as anything but an opportunistic mishmash of fragments and homages to sci-fi shows of the last two decades that bears little if any resemblance to the original Tron.
After watching the review and flipping through this thread, I'm glad to see that someone else actually saw the movie I did. I saw the original Tron in the theater when I was 4, and when we bought our first VCR, Tron was the first movie we bought for it, and to say I watched the hell out of it would be an understatement. Did I have high hopes for this film? I did. But that has nothing to do with having a movie that has absolutely awful writing and acting. So, yes, SPOILERS!
Being someone who also went to law school, we might be on to something here!hyperlasers said:
I agree with everything you noted, but what really shocked me was the way they tried to have their cake and eat it too with the whole issue of ENCOM's little side project of being able to digitally encode living matter on to the grid. That's a slightly bigger deal than writing an OS or developing arcade games, profitable as those might be. They developed that 20 years ago, and while the original movie made it look like Flynn's travel to the grid could've been a one time fluke or accident, Flynn in 1989 says that he went back to the grid every night with Alan! So what had been a wondrous one-time journey became something that was so commonplace he could recreate it in the basement of his arcade? Alan knew about it, yet he never knew or thought to suggest to his son that hey, maybe your dad got trapped on the grid? This wasn't even a project that Flynn himself had been involved with, yet all of a sudden he's some VR messiah coming and going on to the grid like he's one of Neo's crewmates on the Nebuchadnezzar.
The total glossing over of the digitizing laser technology would have been a little more forgivable if they hadn't at the end of the movie and completely out of the blue decided that, oh, by the way, CLU is trying to transport himself and his digital army into the real world. What? The only explanation we get for this is Obi Wan Lebowski (a great line from the review, though I felt it made Kevin Flynn impossible to take remotely seriously) saying that 'He figured out how to do it.' Were they all going to, I don't know, come storming out of the basement of Flynn's Arcade with Journey playing in the background? There wasn't the remotest attempt to set this up earlier in the movie, and it flies in the face of how everything was shown to work in the first Tron.
I think all this talk about 'setting up for a sequel' is an excessively generous handwaving for the poor writing, plotting and pacing of what is almost certainly doomed to be a one off. Why go to all the trouble to show Sam pranking the ENCOM board, introduce Dillinger's son and show the tension between the Flynn family and the ENCOM board and then completely ignore that entire plotline until the absolute end of the movie when Sam, who has just come back from the grid and copied something on to a glowing SD card (which is what, exactly? It sure looked like Flynn Sr. killed himself and blew the whole grid to bits in the process) he says to Alan that he wants him at work at 8 am and that he's taking the company back? How? Why?
Really, for those of you who claimed to have watched the show and appreciated it for anymore than just eye candy (because hey, I can't fault you if you just liked the pretty lights and sound), I have to wonder how you can defend the show as anything but an opportunistic mishmash of fragments and homages to sci-fi shows of the last two decades that bears little if any resemblance to the original Tron.
SPOILERS!
After watching the review and flipping through this thread, I'm glad to see that someone else actually saw the movie I did. I saw the original Tron in the theater when I was 4, and when we bought our first VCR, Tron was the first movie we bought for it, and to say I watched the hell out of it would be an understatement. Did I have high hopes for this film? I did. But that has nothing to do with having a movie that has absolutely awful writing and acting. So, yes, SPOILERS!
I agree with everything you noted, but what really shocked me was the way they tried to have their cake and eat it too with the whole issue of ENCOM's little side project of being able to digitally encode living matter on to the grid. That's a slightly bigger deal than writing an OS or developing arcade games, profitable as those might be. They developed that 20 years ago, and while the original movie made it look like Flynn's travel to the grid could've been a one time fluke or accident, Flynn in 1989 says that he went back to the grid every night with Alan! So what had been a wondrous one-time journey became something that was so commonplace he could recreate it in the basement of his arcade? Alan knew about it, yet he never knew or thought to suggest to his son that hey, maybe your dad got trapped on the grid? This wasn't even a project that Flynn himself had been involved with, yet all of a sudden he's some VR messiah coming and going on to the grid like he's one of Neo's crewmates on the Nebuchadnezzar.
The total glossing over of the digitizing laser technology would have been a little more forgivable if they hadn't at the end of the movie and completely out of the blue decided that, oh, by the way, CLU is trying to transport himself and his digital army into the real world. What? The only explanation we get for this is Obi Wan Lebowski (a great line from the review, though I felt it made Kevin Flynn impossible to take remotely seriously) saying that 'He figured out how to do it.' Were they all going to, I don't know, come storming out of the basement of Flynn's Arcade with Journey playing in the background? There wasn't the remotest attempt to set this up earlier in the movie, and it flies in the face of how everything was shown to work in the first Tron.
I think all this talk about 'setting up for a sequel' is an excessively generous handwaving for the poor writing, plotting and pacing of what is almost certainly doomed to be a one off. Why go to all the trouble to show Sam pranking the ENCOM board, introduce Dillinger's son and show the tension between the Flynn family and the ENCOM board and then completely ignore that entire plotline until the absolute end of the movie when Sam, who has just come back from the grid and copied something on to a glowing SD card (which is what, exactly? It sure looked like Flynn Sr. killed himself and blew the whole grid to bits in the process) he says to Alan that he wants him at work at 8 am and that he's taking the company back? How? Why?
Really, for those of you who claimed to have watched the show and appreciated it for anymore than just eye candy (because hey, I can't fault you if you just liked the pretty lights and sound), I have to wonder how you can defend the show as anything but an opportunistic mishmash of fragments and homages to sci-fi shows of the last two decades that bears little if any resemblance to the original Tron.
After watching the review and flipping through this thread, I'm glad to see that someone else actually saw the movie I did. I saw the original Tron in the theater when I was 4, and when we bought our first VCR, Tron was the first movie we bought for it, and to say I watched the hell out of it would be an understatement. Did I have high hopes for this film? I did. But that has nothing to do with having a movie that has absolutely awful writing and acting. So, yes, SPOILERS!
Being someone who also went to law school, we might be on to something here!hyperlasers said:
I agree with everything you noted, but what really shocked me was the way they tried to have their cake and eat it too with the whole issue of ENCOM's little side project of being able to digitally encode living matter on to the grid. That's a slightly bigger deal than writing an OS or developing arcade games, profitable as those might be. They developed that 20 years ago, and while the original movie made it look like Flynn's travel to the grid could've been a one time fluke or accident, Flynn in 1989 says that he went back to the grid every night with Alan! So what had been a wondrous one-time journey became something that was so commonplace he could recreate it in the basement of his arcade? Alan knew about it, yet he never knew or thought to suggest to his son that hey, maybe your dad got trapped on the grid? This wasn't even a project that Flynn himself had been involved with, yet all of a sudden he's some VR messiah coming and going on to the grid like he's one of Neo's crewmates on the Nebuchadnezzar.
The total glossing over of the digitizing laser technology would have been a little more forgivable if they hadn't at the end of the movie and completely out of the blue decided that, oh, by the way, CLU is trying to transport himself and his digital army into the real world. What? The only explanation we get for this is Obi Wan Lebowski (a great line from the review, though I felt it made Kevin Flynn impossible to take remotely seriously) saying that 'He figured out how to do it.' Were they all going to, I don't know, come storming out of the basement of Flynn's Arcade with Journey playing in the background? There wasn't the remotest attempt to set this up earlier in the movie, and it flies in the face of how everything was shown to work in the first Tron.
I think all this talk about 'setting up for a sequel' is an excessively generous handwaving for the poor writing, plotting and pacing of what is almost certainly doomed to be a one off. Why go to all the trouble to show Sam pranking the ENCOM board, introduce Dillinger's son and show the tension between the Flynn family and the ENCOM board and then completely ignore that entire plotline until the absolute end of the movie when Sam, who has just come back from the grid and copied something on to a glowing SD card (which is what, exactly? It sure looked like Flynn Sr. killed himself and blew the whole grid to bits in the process) he says to Alan that he wants him at work at 8 am and that he's taking the company back? How? Why?
Really, for those of you who claimed to have watched the show and appreciated it for anymore than just eye candy (because hey, I can't fault you if you just liked the pretty lights and sound), I have to wonder how you can defend the show as anything but an opportunistic mishmash of fragments and homages to sci-fi shows of the last two decades that bears little if any resemblance to the original Tron.
I kinda don't get the whole thing about ISOs. But other than that, I really enjoyed this film. Love all the action
But he didn't say that, Alan didn't ever go to the grid with him, he brought Tron into the second system he designed, but not Alan.hyperlasers said:
OT: Just saw it today, really enjoyed it. Not a great movie by any means, but enjoyable.
i've gone and seen the Movie. and its as Bob said! to the T. If you like the Original TRON you will like this TRON.
Daft Punk's cameo made it all worth it to me!
TRON still a minor character lolz
Daft Punk's cameo made it all worth it to me!
TRON still a minor character lolz
The original TRON succeeds because it appeals to the natural geek curiosity as to what abstract computer concepts would look like if you could go into the machine and see them working.
The new TRON fails because it is entirely divorced from the computer roots, it might as well be Narnia. Well it fails for a lot of other reasons but that is the biggest one for me.
Also the 3D effects sucked, I wish I saw it without the glasses.
As an only OK movie it wasn't worth the $13 ticket price and the trip to the theater. But I wouldn't feel bad if I watched it at home.
The new TRON fails because it is entirely divorced from the computer roots, it might as well be Narnia. Well it fails for a lot of other reasons but that is the biggest one for me.
Also the 3D effects sucked, I wish I saw it without the glasses.
As an only OK movie it wasn't worth the $13 ticket price and the trip to the theater. But I wouldn't feel bad if I watched it at home.
I have to disagree Bob. It was not good, nor entertaining. I also don't see what the big deal is about the soundtrack that everyone is raving about. I was a Daft Punk fan since Homework but to me it just sounded like they were trying their hardest to rip off the Inception soundtrack and tossed a few Daft Punk tracks in the middle of it. What exactly is so good about it, please explain?
The visual effects were nice I suppose, but honestly, when an entire movie is one big visual effect, then I don't really care or notice. The 3D was negligible. Once you get accustomed to the effects and 3D within the first 10 minutes, there needs to be a STORY and CHARACTERS to fall back on.
I found this to be the most obscenely boring, dull, and pointless movie I've seen in a long time. I went to see it expecting it to be just okay, and I was still disappointed.
Entirely too much Jeff Bridges uncanny valley. His villain of Clu was an utterly flat archetype (just like all the other characters) with no discernible motivation or point other than "I'm evil!" He didn't even feel like much of a threat, since the main character was such an overpowered superhuman, and for some reason a complete badass in real life as well. I found Sam Flynn to be completely unlikeable. Even the elder Flynn couldn't save the show, and his random Dude'isms just felt awkward.
The dialogue and plot were just nonstop cheesy action movie tropes, without even passion or flair to make them stand out. This is no surprise I guess, considering the Kistis & Horowitz writing team, aka the worst writing team from LOST who penned all the most reviled episodes. Had I known those two losers were involved I probably would not have gone to see it.
"Alan, you were right." "About what?" "About everything."
Really?? I mean REALLY? I think BFBC2 had better dialogue than that.
Don't even get me started on all the missed opportunities. Finding out that Tron had been converted to the darkside could have gone somewhere, but nope, that character was not explored whatsoever. He's just in an f'ing motorcycle helmet the entire time. Complete waste of Cillian Murphy's talent, and just that entire Encom thing in the beggining. What was the point of that? It seemed like they were briefly trying to delve in to the topic of software piracy and then completely ignored it from thereon out.
And the fat donut eating security guard chasing Sam on to a crane on the roof? Wtf? That was absurdly silly.
Then it just ends, abruptly. I know you said they are setting it up for a sequel but it didn't feel like that to me at all. I guess there are open plotlines, but they are so nonsensical and empty-feeling that I don't care to see them resolved. The only thing I was left wondering was where the crap food comes from inside a computer and how a human would survive there for 20 years.
The only thing keeping me awake throughout was the annoying black kids behind me kicking my seat and yelling "STUPID" every couple minutes. Sadly, I have to agree with them.
Perhaps I'm biased, because I'm generally disinclined to like dumb action flicks, but my girlfriend generally likes those kinds of movies (Fast & Furious) and even she said Tron was terrible.
The visual effects were nice I suppose, but honestly, when an entire movie is one big visual effect, then I don't really care or notice. The 3D was negligible. Once you get accustomed to the effects and 3D within the first 10 minutes, there needs to be a STORY and CHARACTERS to fall back on.
I found this to be the most obscenely boring, dull, and pointless movie I've seen in a long time. I went to see it expecting it to be just okay, and I was still disappointed.
Entirely too much Jeff Bridges uncanny valley. His villain of Clu was an utterly flat archetype (just like all the other characters) with no discernible motivation or point other than "I'm evil!" He didn't even feel like much of a threat, since the main character was such an overpowered superhuman, and for some reason a complete badass in real life as well. I found Sam Flynn to be completely unlikeable. Even the elder Flynn couldn't save the show, and his random Dude'isms just felt awkward.
The dialogue and plot were just nonstop cheesy action movie tropes, without even passion or flair to make them stand out. This is no surprise I guess, considering the Kistis & Horowitz writing team, aka the worst writing team from LOST who penned all the most reviled episodes. Had I known those two losers were involved I probably would not have gone to see it.
"Alan, you were right." "About what?" "About everything."
Really?? I mean REALLY? I think BFBC2 had better dialogue than that.
Don't even get me started on all the missed opportunities. Finding out that Tron had been converted to the darkside could have gone somewhere, but nope, that character was not explored whatsoever. He's just in an f'ing motorcycle helmet the entire time. Complete waste of Cillian Murphy's talent, and just that entire Encom thing in the beggining. What was the point of that? It seemed like they were briefly trying to delve in to the topic of software piracy and then completely ignored it from thereon out.
And the fat donut eating security guard chasing Sam on to a crane on the roof? Wtf? That was absurdly silly.
Then it just ends, abruptly. I know you said they are setting it up for a sequel but it didn't feel like that to me at all. I guess there are open plotlines, but they are so nonsensical and empty-feeling that I don't care to see them resolved. The only thing I was left wondering was where the crap food comes from inside a computer and how a human would survive there for 20 years.
The only thing keeping me awake throughout was the annoying black kids behind me kicking my seat and yelling "STUPID" every couple minutes. Sadly, I have to agree with them.
Perhaps I'm biased, because I'm generally disinclined to like dumb action flicks, but my girlfriend generally likes those kinds of movies (Fast & Furious) and even she said Tron was terrible.
***********SPOILER************ThisNewGuy said:
As best I could tell, the ISOs are sentient programs that were not coded by any user - according to Flynn's dialogue, the conditions in the system were simply correct for them to come into being, analogous to life on earth if you are a fan of the "evolution from primordial soup" theory.
If you look at the Tron mythology established in both movies, the users are the creators (Gods) to the programs, who are aware they were "built" by someone outside of their world. The ISOs, on the other hand are the miracle of life without creation - their digital DNA was formed without any input from an outside source; once whatever conditions that were necessary for them to come into being were met, they simply were.
How that works is left up to the audience to decide (for now at least, since I assume they'll delve a little deeper into this issue if a sequel is green-lighted). I like to think the primordial soup analogy is a pretty good example. On earth, Chemicals were present in specific proportions that allowed cells to develop and begin working with each other, and over the course of millennia evolved into life as we know it. In Legacy, I imagine algorithms and bits of code, perhaps from old/deleted AI software, sitting in a recycle bin on some long forgotten portion of the grid linking up and working together to generate the ISOs' digital DNA (just like early cells) in order to "birth" the ISOs, although on a infinitely faster timescale due to the difference in the nature of digital vs analogue (biological) systems.
Anyone get a similar vibe?
Thanks for doing the short version first!!
I appreciate the non-fanboyish look. I think I'm more interested in seeing it now than I was before simply because my expectations are lower.
I gotta complain, though: Why is the chick hot and not the guy?! I'm sure I can sue SOMEBODY over gender inequality...
I appreciate the non-fanboyish look. I think I'm more interested in seeing it now than I was before simply because my expectations are lower.
I gotta complain, though: Why is the chick hot and not the guy?! I'm sure I can sue SOMEBODY over gender inequality...
Saw it Saturday, agree with the review. One thing: did anyone IMDB the director of Tron: Legacy? Joseph Kosinski is attached to direct "The Black Hole" which is currently in pre-production for a 2012 release. Bob, you get your wish.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1561766/
Peace
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1561766/
Peace
I saw it on saturday. Enjoyed it immensely. I thought it was a fun ride for what it was and that the story was decent enough. Loved the soundtrack like crazy and I'm probably going to end up buying it. I can kinda see people not liking this but really I chalk that up to the attitude that the movie should only be what they think it should be. No it doesn't. Well, either that or some bizarre elitism that makes people believe you have to be stupid to like the movie. What a BS attitude.
It felt like the original to me, and I would love to see it again because it's been a while since I've had so much fun watching a movie. I wouldn't see it in 3D though. I don't even think anyone in my theater noticed the 3D.
It felt like the original to me, and I would love to see it again because it's been a while since I've had so much fun watching a movie. I wouldn't see it in 3D though. I don't even think anyone in my theater noticed the 3D.
Sounds interesting.MaccGyver said:
But, how were they supposed to save the world and change everything? Or am I just completely off?
I saw this movie in 3-d and thought that it's use of 3-d was horrid and not worth anyone's money. Hell the movie tells you flat out in the beginning, WE DIDN'T FILM THIS IN 3-D except for a few scenes. So i almost turned off the review when you mentioned how good that aspect was. However redemption points for Obi-wan Lebowski.
Personally I loved the 3-D in this film. I dont think the environment would have looked nearly as good as it did without it.
Being quite young I never saw the original, but had heard a lot about it before this film came out.
If the film had absolutely nothing but its looks and daft punks soundtrack. I would still feel as though I got my moneys worth.
The story just happened to add to it all for me. Great film, cant wait to see where they take TRON in the future.
Being quite young I never saw the original, but had heard a lot about it before this film came out.
If the film had absolutely nothing but its looks and daft punks soundtrack. I would still feel as though I got my moneys worth.
The story just happened to add to it all for me. Great film, cant wait to see where they take TRON in the future.