Tron: Legacy

I saw Tron: Legacy today in IMAX 3-D.

I can't help but to point out the dichotomy in a film from the MPAA that starts out promoting the virtues of free open source software and how evil Encom (read Microsoft) is for slapping a new label on the same old product and then trying to capitalize on said product. So the MPAA is cool with pirating Windows 7, but you torrent their Tron movie (which in case you were wondering has lots of shiny new labels on the same old product) and there will be hell to pay.

For the most part I found this movie to be okay fun if you don't ask too many questions. I think I was most impressed by the recreation of Flynn's arcade with the same style couch from the original movie. This film is a lot like the Star Trek reboot in that it honors the old stuff and can be seen as a sequel to appease the old guard, but is also a reboot and retreads the same material for a new generation. You get the Recognizer's, Deadly Discs, Lightcycles and Solar Sails that you would be expecting as a previous viewer, with a few new things like LightJets thrown in and the Lightcycle game grid coming off like 3-dimensional chess.

Of course I was kind of wondering why the hell they needed Cillian Murphy (folks who read this blog might know him better as the Scarecrow from Batman Begins) as the son of Dillinger, if they weren't going to bother doing anything with him.

Having played the Tron 2.0 video game and read the comics based on the game, I guess it was more commercial to go with Sam Flynn rather than Jet Bradley.

Although I do appreciate that they got both Bridges and Boxleitner back for this film, I thought Bruce Boxleitner's de-aging via CGI came off better than Jeff Bridges. Maybe that's because Boxleitner didn't really get any close ups. My Dad kept saying that young Flynn/Clu's eyes looked lifeless. Me I think they just left too much of performance double John Reardon in the mix.

There was a slightly annoying kid 2 seats over from me, who was inquisitive about every little thing he didn't understand. When he wanted to know what an isomorphic algorithm was, I thought well, if I was 9 years old, I'd want to know what the hell that was too. But by the time Tron is introduced/revealed in the film, it got kind of annoying. The kid kept asking, "Who's Tron?" over and over like Bart and Lisa Simpson saying "Are we there yet?" I thought they explained what happened to Tron fairly well, but I guess the kid is just like that old lady that came out of the English Patient still wondering who the burn victim was supposed to be.

Oh well I guess it's like Flynn tells Clu in so many words, nothing's perfect and if it was then you probably missed it.