I’m not sure many people understood what the original “Tron” offered. On the surface, people think it’s about a guy who gets sucked into the computer and has to play videogames to get out. Ok, I suppose that works on a very basic level, but there was more to the original movie than that. The second film extrapolates on what people seem to have missed in the first film.

Imagine, if you will, a digital world that you can get placed into and your body stays in perfect suspended animation until a cure is found for a terminal disease you have, or surgery can be done without the issue of time ticking away. This is the world that Kevin Flynn was trying to create, and he did, until his creation turned on him and kept him trapped in the digital world he created. Over time, his creation CLU (named after CLU from the first film) learned that he can step outside the digital realm and wreak havoc in our world with an army of programs. It’s a little far fetched, I completely agree. However, this is science fiction, and so long as the idea is plausible in the context of the world you’re watching the movie take place in, you can believe it for them. The plot works perfectly as an extension of the original story and the genius of Kevin Flynn’s character.

There’s another aspect to the plot which I won’t divulge since I’m trying to keep this as spoiler-free as possible, but all I can say is that “Tron Legacy” pulls from other science fiction stories about what’s perfect. It’s the driving force of the story and how it links the digital world to ours. In fact, I see this as the possible genesis of The Borg from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and how that race could have come into being.

There aren’t Oscar-winning performances in this movie, but they’re not wooden, either. Kevin Flynn still has the same charm in him, but he’s tired. Being trapped in a computer system you created will do that to a person. I think more could have come out of Sam Flynn’s character a bit. It’s almost as if the writers weren’t sure what to do with him. Is he used truly as Flynn’s son, or is he just a plot device to have someone young at the wheel? I loved Olivia Wilde as Quorra. She’s cute and quirky, and a damn good fighter. The most interesting character has to be CLU because he doesn’t really exist. We’ve seen computers generate characters before, including Marlon Brando for “Superman Returns”, but this time the artists created a fully realized head of Jeff Bridges at 35 years old for CLU. There were some spots in the film where lip movements and facial expressions didn’t quite feel real, but for the most part, they did exactly what they set out to do and it worked very well.

Now that I’ve seen the movie, I can finally comment on how the music fit into it. Daft Punk did a great job at making a mood for this film. Everything from the opening of the film to the End of Line club to the ride on the Solar Sailer and the dogfight at the end were scored very well. I have to give those guys and their team serious props for doing such a great job.

The movie works well because the creators of the film don’t take the audience for granted. They didn’t just make a special effects ride, they added enough of a good story that you’re not watching 2 hours and 7 minutes of eye candy. The computer world is beautiful, but the effects don’t overshadow what’s happening inside it.

End of line

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Post tags: clu, flynn, mcp, quorra, tron, tron legacy

Words cannot describe how stoked I am to see this movie.

Possible spoilers after the trailer.

Speculation:

Somehow, Kevin Flynn got trapped in his own system. CLU is still there, even though we saw him derez in the first film (maybe there was a backup, or it’s a different incarnation?).

I’m guessing that Flynn’s been trying to get out for 20 years. His only way to communicate with the real world was to send a page out of the system. It looks like the system’s not hooked up to any kind of network. There were internet connections 20 years ago, but I’d bet Flynn would want to keep his world self-contained and offline.

His son Sam finds the old equipment, and gets pulled into the system his father’s in. He has to fight his way to his father, and more than likely battle CLU at the end.

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Post tags: bruce boxleitner, clu, garret hedlund, jeff bridges, olivia wilde, quorra, tron, tron legacy