Tron: Legacy

Release Date: December 17, 2010

Watch Date: November 11 – November 14, 2023

“Immerse yourself in the high-tech digital world of TRON: Legacy, as Jeff Bridges stars in a revolutionary visual effects adventure beyond imagination. When Flynn, the world’s greatest video game creator, sends out a secret signal from an amazing digital realm, his son discovers the clue and embarks on a personal journey to save his long-lost father. With the help of the fearless female warrior Quorra, father and son venture through an incredible cyber universe, take on a rogue hacking program and wage the ultimate battle of good versus evil.”

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    So…Tron: Legacy.

    I’d never watched it before, but Bob has and Bob has a soft spot for it and we watched Tron so here we are.

    Tron: Legacy.

    I’m really trying, I am. Cause he loves it. But I’m just not that into extreme sci-fi, and this is extreme. It’s digital, but it’s our world, but it’s not. Why discs? Is this the entire internet or just this one computer system? Did Clu have to look like that? Could you not make it brighter? Did Clu have to look like that?

    No one on the board was evil, which I was expecting and which was refreshing. I could tell what I was looking at for most of the film, except for the fight scenes in which I could barely make out what was happening but which Bob said were quite good. I think it’s a cool moment of the system growing up that the games are now for the programs and not for the users – though I guess some must be, since games still exist? Unless, again, this is a closed system?

    There’s plenty of nods to the original scattered throughout, which is good, I think, if you’re a fan. But they do make an attempt to spoon feed you the basics of the original, so if you’re not like me and forced to watch it, you still get the gist of what’s going on.

    I’m still not really clear on just what Flynn’s goal was for ‘the system’ he says he wanted to make it perfect, but again…was that just as an example for how other computers could be run? But then it’s referenced that the ISOs, computer programs that developed life spontaneously were also maybe the goal so that he could use their DNA to…cure disease I think? Again, not super clear on that…and I just want to know.

    It’s set up for a trilogy, and I think the third movie is now lost in development hell, but Bob is fairly confident it will rise from the ashes one day – I am less so. Disney dropped it to focus on Marvel and Star Wars and both of those universes don’t seem to be slowing down. I will say that this movie does at least feel complete, yes there’s an opening for a future film but no, I don’t think that if there was never a third one it would be missed. To be honest, I don’t think if there hadn’t been a second one it would have been missed all that much, since Tron is considered such a classic in its own right.

    In the end, I am not the person this movie was marketed towards. It’s trying to be very existential, at least in my opinion, while not actually asking any big questions. It’s trying to be a sci-fi classic which just isn’t my cup of tea. But the design is very well done, the computerized world and the programs within it stylized to perfection and if you can ignore Clu’s face, which is incredibly hard to do, it’s all still believable this many years out and that, in itself, is an achievement.

    Also Daft Punk is in it, and that was a big thing, and Bob is still giddy to point them out. I was more excited about Michael Sheen, but I think that just tells you the differences in our personality.