January 9, 2011

TRON: Legacy (Possible Spoilers)

This might take a couple of posts, but I wanted to outline a few of the things that I liked and disliked about TRON: Legacy. It bugs me that I really liked the first one and thought the second one was not worth the toilet paper it was written on.

Frisbee
The first movie seemed to be all about Frisbee battles.  I had never seen that before. The light cycles were cool and all, but I fantasized about the Frisbees.  In fact, I came to love Frisbee because of that movie.  I always imagined myself with blue lines aglow, pitching the Frisbee so hard, so fast, so powerfully that I ripped old Sark's disk right down the middle.  True, they flew with a mind of their own, but that was part of the fun of it.  In the second movie, the Frisbee action was lame and failed to be integral to the movie.  It was all about the light cycle.

Religion
I love it when movies incorporate religious overtones in them.  The first movie had a really strong Jesus Christ savior sentiment.  Even the phrase "Oh My User", trite as it was, spoke to the idea that the users were gods.  As a young budding developer, that really stroked my ego.  However, 25 years later, we see the film painted with Zen Buddhism, the rampant influence of which has infected Hollywood so deeply.  Flynn in robes and beads? Come on.  (Of course, it has been some 1200 years local time for him.)  We see an anti-god mentality in that the programs have developed themselves and are now going to come out and show the gods a thing or two in the form of the Isos.  Bah, what absolute rubbish.

User Power
In the first movie, Flynn discovered his user power.  There always seemed a chance that he wouldn't be able to pull it off.  Would he make it before the evil MCP took him down?  The answer was a definite maybe.  With this movie, there was never a question about what was going to happen.  The heavy-handed "foreshadowing" (more like "forehand pitching of the final scene") by the Iso told us exactly what was going to happen, and there was never a doubt in my mind that Flynn could handle it.

Trivial Things
  • Where was Bit? I missed Bit.
  • I always liked CLU.  It was hard to be his opponent.  Remember this line, "Forget it, mister high-and-mighty Master Control! You aren't making me talk!"  Ah, that stuck with me.
  • I really do like the new graphics. The new Recognizers are cool!
  • The "Light Jets" are a fabulous new concept for video games.  I want to see that in some real-time PVP action. A three dimensional light cycle grid is a cool concept too.  (And sure, why not have a four wheeler?  Dumb for the movie, but great "upgrade" for VG play.)
Yeah, definitely going to be multiple posts.

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1 comment:

Whisper in the Giant's ear.