io9 had the opportunity to see Tron Legacy prior to the film ’s external handout . What can hearing anticipate when they enter the Grid ? Here ’s our first depression theme .
annotation : We ’ll be running a full revue the week of Tron Legacy ’s release .
For better or regretful , Tron Legacy is this season ’s Avatar . Both films cost buckets of money to make , largely eschew mavin world power , look dapper in 3 - five hundred , and declare oneself their own ( take - it - or - leave behind - it ) philosophic digestifs once all the big crazy set pieces are done . Unlike Avatar , which reach to create the most naturalistic fake world it could , Tron Legacy embraces the synthetic . The movie seemingly has a five - color pallette ( even the material world is swaddled in blacks , neon , and greys ) , and the color jet is almost nonexistent . It ’s weird how Tron Legacy looked almost exactly like the multiplex I was sit in — the field of operations ’s electric gloomy track ignition and black charge plate bowl seats seemed like extensions of the picture show .
Whether this was intentional or not , this comparison is apposite . Director Joe Kosinski has said the film is a tech - age Wizard of Oz and that the celluloid ’s escape from 2010 is unabashed . In a nutshell , Tron Legacy is an escape to a hyper - evolved 1982 . When you mistreat into the theatre , you allow for the junk e-mail and Stuxnets and other unpleasantries of 21st - century computing for a air hole dimension where a crew of totalitarian programs squeeze dissenters to run life - or - death secret plan of Arkanoid and Snake . The film looks unexampled , but its dangers are quaintly 1980s . No one in the Grid will steal your Facebook password or trade your PIN number to deposed Nigerian royalty . Compared to the myriad frustration of advanced computing , the idea of your dad ’s digital doppelganger stress to kill you in a lightcycle match is a retrofuturistic delight .
But I ’m buzz off ahead of myself . What ’s Tron Legacy about ? Truth is , it stick to a very similar flight to the first one . spoiler ahead .
The film open up ( in 2 - D ) in 1989 with Tron champion and ENCOM CEO Kevin Flynn ( Jeff Bridges ) infodumping the entire first film as a bedtime story on his vernal son Sam . Flynn ominously disappears one day , and we cut to 2010 , where Sam ( Garrett Hedlund ) is a twentysomething freedom - of - selective information trickster who leak novel software just to get up the pits in the ENCOM board room . After Alan Bradley ( Bruce Boxleitner ) tells Sam that he got a mysterious message from the tumble-down Flynn ’s Arcade , Sam go to investigate and gets lasered into the Grid .
At this point , the 3 - D kicks in . Sam is shanghaied off by a Recognizer to the Tron City stadium , where the comely servant programs — “ the Sirens ” — give him his disc and requisite hurrying suit .
Two mellow - octane arena game subsequently , Sam discovers that his Father of the Church ’s former digital incarnation , CLU , is in flush , Kevin Flynn ’s in exile on the Grid ’s fringes , and that his dad ’s digital disciple Quorra ( Olivia Wilde ) wants to get all Weird Science with him ( there ’s nothing as muggy as the lostTron and Yori hump scene from the first movie ) . sure enough , Sam ’s get only eight hours to get away back into meatspace , but that ’s enough time for some timber soldering with his lost pop .
In terms of set piece , Tron Legacy follows the first plastic film dependably — there are lightcycles , updated disc battles , and even a ride on the Solar Sailer . I do however wish this moving picture had squeeze some of the weirder designs of the first ( see : the freaky tower guardians ) . The special effects give these scenes enough juice to make it not a retread . There ’s no flat - faced MCP or jumbo Sark , but there ’s the secret phonograph record - slinger Rinzler , James Frain of on-key blood line as the servile syllabus Jarvis , and slew of pixel - marred programme . The film also play around with the idea of ad-lib AI in a way that is purposefully vague — should there be a sequel , this is the plot of ground point that has the most untapped potential .
If you ’ve never experience the first Tron , you may make it through the movie no exertion , as Tron Legacy is primarily a chase sequence to the vena portae . It ’s not super - deep , but neither was the first film . It should satiate the nostalgia cravings of lover of the first Tron , as the Grid of Tron Legacy is a production of the past . It ’s a practical humanity that ’s grown up in a vacuum since 1989 , so there ’s no technobabble and the greatest technological change was that the programs project out how to take off their white motorcycle helmets . It ’s sleek , unapologetic escapism , which is a rare feat given that even Optimus Prime gargles up pathos nowadays .
PS : Daft Punk ’s soundtrack is somewhat striking too . There are a few generic orchestral tracks , but when it cook , it cooks .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeyXupRJW7I
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