Tron: Uprising

[Talosian]

This was surprisingly good for a cartoon. For an adult approaching middle age, this was one of the best animated premieres I've seen since Batman: The Animated Series. In fact, some scenes in the episode were reminiscent of Christopher Nolan's work. If the quality of subsequent episodes is even approaching the premiere, Tron: Uprising is a worthy successor to the best of cartoons from generations past.

[Guy Gardener]

Imagine how good it would have been if it hadn't been handicapped by that new mythology from that awful movie.

[Christopher]

Mark_Nguyen wrote:

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Downloaded it and loved it! They took the look of Legacy and expanded upon it with some great homages too - I liked the incorporation of the first film's "hockey goalie" armor on the stormtrooper guards, and the use of the old movie look for Tron (and now Beck?).

Yeah, the use of the original white costume was a nice touch. I don't much care for the visual style of Legacy, the way it's reduced the Grid to near-monochrome. In the original movie, only the characters/programs had monochrome lighting; the world they inhabited was richly colorful. And it wasn't just a CGI approximation of the physical world, but embraced the exotic and abstract. I was bugged by the scene in this pilot where the Beck character ended up in a snowbank. That's just too mundane an environment for the Grid.

I'm not crazy about the other visual aspects of this show. I don't care for the ultra-skinny character designs (I didn't like that style when Peter Chung used it in Aeon Flux and Phantom 2040 either), and I don't care for the low frame rate in the animation, the jerky movements. But maybe I can get used to the visual aspects, and the story seems okay so far, though it's a bit by-the-numbers. And the timeframe of the story has its problems, similarly to Star Wars: The Clone Wars, because we know going in that the heroes' cause is doomed to failure.

But Bruce Boxleitner's voice has really gotten rich and powerful with age, hasn't it? It's just great to listen to. He's pretty much the main reason I'm watching this.

[Mr. Adventure]

^^ Yeah, the animation is both flashy and Flash-y.

[Professor Zoom]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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Imagine how good it would have been if it hadn't been handicapped by that new mythology from that awful movie.

Awful movie? It doesn't look or sound like Avatar in any way....

[sojourner]

Mark_Nguyen wrote:

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I did note however that the runtime of this preview is slightly over 30 minutes... If this is a ten-part miniseries, is this some expanded version of the episode? Will it premiere on Jun 7 with a 22-minute version of this episode? The pacing of this preview was exceedingly well done IMO, it would be tough to see it lose one third of its runtime to commercial. OTOH, maybe this is a two-parter premiere..?

Mark

Pretty sure this is both parts of a 2 parter. There's a pretty obvious breaking point about half way through.

[Praetor_Shinzon]

Professor Zoom wrote:

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Awful movie? It doesn't look or sound like Avatar in any way....

[Mark_Nguyen]

sojourner wrote:

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Pretty sure this is both parts of a 2 parter. There's a pretty obvious breaking point about half way through.

That worries me a bit, if true.. The runtime was 32 minutes or so, and even with credits it would work out to 17-18 minutes of animation tops. That's a loooot of commercials!

I remember when my cartoons were 26 minutes long...

Mark

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ And when seasons were 26 episodes long.

I'll take 18 minutes of greatness over all of the crap that's on nowadays, it only leaves time for the good stuff without the b-story nonsense.

[Christopher]

Ar-Pharazon wrote:

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^ And when seasons were 26 episodes long.

That was the norm for live-action shows for a while, but it wasn't too common in animated shows at any time I'm aware of, at least not since the '60s. When I was growing up, seasons were typically around 13-16 episodes at best. Star Trek: TAS had a 16-episode first season and a 6-episode second. The first four seasons of Super Friends were 15-16 episodes each, the remaining five only 6-8 episodes each. By the '80s and '90s, the standard was for a season of an animated show to have 13 weeks' worth of material: if it was aired once a week on Saturday mornings, it was 13 episodes, and if it was stripped five days a week, it had 65 episodes.

In fact, the only time I know of that 26-episode seasons have been common for animated shows is now. Cartoon Network's original series like Batman: The Brave and the Bold and the various incarnations of Ben 10 often have 26-episode seasons.

[Agent Richard07]

Christopher wrote:

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But Bruce Boxleitner's voice has really gotten rich and powerful with age, hasn't it? It's just great to listen to. He's pretty much the main reason I'm watching this.

I've wondered if something is responsible for that deepening voice, like smoking.

[Christopher]

The voice naturally changes with age as the tissues of the larynx and vocal cords undergo changes. And I'd think that just being an actor and using one's voice a lot for decades would cause some wear and tear and make it rougher.

[sojourner]

It's that singing career in europe. You do know he's second only to the Hoff for albums sold?

[JoeD80]

Agent Richard07 wrote:

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I've wondered if something is responsible for that deepening voice, like smoking.

His awesomeness is responsible.

[davejames]

Holy crap, I just watched the premiere and that was some absolutely gorgeous animation. They captured the tone and visual style of the sequel really well, and the imagination in some of those shots and action scenes even surpassed the movie.

With all the crazy visuals it was a bit hard to follow the story at first, but eventually I was able to get into it. And hell, even if I couldn't, the show would still be worth watching just for the animation.