TRON: Legacy - Review and Grading

[God Magnus]

Dillinger Jr. was there to set up his role in the third movie if there will be a third movie.

Agreed. There was zero publicity of Cillian's appearance in the flick, so it came off as a pleasant surprise. I think he fits the role of potential "evil programmer guy" very well as an actor. With Clu gone, it would be really neat if Dillinger Jr. was the next "Big Bad" in and out of the Grid. Unlike Clu, he's not just a powerful copy of a User, he IS a User and one that writes code for a living to boot. I can imagine him doing a lot of damage in the Grid.

 

[JRoss]

I liked Michael Sheen and Olivia Wilde. I will forget Garret Hedlund's face by the time I post this message. The effects for young Flynn were terrible, but they worked while inside the grid, since everything is supposed to look CG there.

I like the idea of sending programs out into the world, as I'd wondered about that. Didn't mind making Clu a villain, but Tron? Oh man that was a downer. As the film's name is TRON Legacy, he should have played a more prominent part.

Fairly disappointed, but I'm sure that the next one will have Cillian Murphy and a new MCP. So yea!

 

[T'Baio]

My one biggest complaint about the film, is that I am positively convinced they had the film finished, and someone whispered to them; "Where's Tron? He was a character, you know?" And they all panicked, and worked out the whole Rinzler/Tron thing in post and reshoots.

He just seems like such an afterthought.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

there still is the question of how CLU didn't know of Kevin's whereabouts for so many years...until Sam went into the grid.

Sam left the Grid with Quorra, then they went to see Kevin. After that, Sam took Kevin's old light cycle back into the Grid, and thus Clu was able to track Kevin down (his apartment, anyway) by tracing the light cycle's path to its source.

Hmmm...

there still is the question of how CLU didn't know of Kevin's whereabouts for so many years...until Sam went into the grid.

Sam left the Grid with Quorra, then they went to see Kevin. After that, Sam took Kevin's old light cycle back into the Grid, and thus Clu was able to track Kevin down (his apartment, anyway) by tracing the light cycle's path to its source.

Right... I think of this as Flynn truely living "off the grid," so to speak. The normal light vehicles can't leave the gaming grid and Flynn stated several times that he was just staying out of the way, playing the hermit. If he needed something in town, Quorra went. Since no one knew she was an Iso, there was no reason to track her. She was just another program (albeit a very HOT one) doing whatever it is that programs do there.

Yeah....

And I'm not entirely sure that Flynn truly died in the Grid at the end. he is, after all, The Super User/Grid God, and there's no reason why he can't be revived.

Too...he's Jeff Bridges...!

If he wanted to return as flesh and blood Kevin Flynn, I'm sure the writers would work him in.

But, no, I don't think he's dead either...

So much was left open anyhow...

 

[JacksonArcher]

My one biggest complaint about the film, is that I am positively convinced they had the film finished, and someone whispered to them; "Where's Tron? He was a character, you know?" And they all panicked, and worked out the whole Rinzler/Tron thing in post and reshoots.

He just seems like such an afterthought.

I agree. I also think Devin Faraci's review of the movie pointed this out as well.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

Actually, the only item that really bugged my logically were some of the environments (clouds, water?).

I guess I have no problem with either of these because the first movie established that the original Grid already had both. When the graphics show us going through the original Grid's sky there are clearly shapes meant to emulate clouds, the new Grid's clouds are just higher resolution (analgous to video game clouds from an Atari game versus a PS1 game).

Regarding water, there was a whole sequence in the original TRON that revolved around our heroes drinking "water" right out of their Identity Discs to recharge. Indeed, homage was paid to this when Quorra drinks at the dinner table and the drink lights up against her face.

Hmmm... Thanks! Honestly, I'd forgotten about that last scene with drinking water out of their Identity Discs. I think the last time I saw the original Tron movie was... 1982?

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[arch101]

[QUOTE
I think I read somewhere that David Warner didn't like Tron so you won't be seeing him again in the Tron universe.[/QUOTE]

Tell me about it. His performance in Tron is unusually sub-standard He literally phones it in and shows up for the check. Compare to almost ANYTHING else he's done.

 

[Kaijima]

Thoughts about the "atmosphere" in the Grid:

In the Betrayal graphic novel, "energy aqueducts" are mentioned as being constructed around the city to collect energy. The Sea of Simulation seems comprised of a combination of unrefined raw "matter" and liquid energy - perhaps in some crude form.

Finally, in the movie we see constant rolling ball lighting in the skies among those clouds.

My thought is that the liquid "energy" from the Sea of Simulation is subject to its own form of evaporation that collects in the "storms" and then mists back down, as we see rain in parts of the city; this is then collected by the aqueducts as part of an efficient energy conservation system. The steam we see rising up from vast swaths of the city in many places may be runoff from the processors that are converting the raw stuff of the grid into usable energy that's distributed throughout the system.

 

[Trekker4747]

My one biggest complaint about the film, is that I am positively convinced they had the film finished, and someone whispered to them; "Where's Tron? He was a character, you know?" And they all panicked, and worked out the whole Rinzler/Tron thing in post and reshoots.

He just seems like such an afterthought.

Yeah, I agree. You'd think if they really wanted Tron as a character they would've had him in there played by a CGI de-aged Bruce Boxliker. Instead of Random Light-Plane Pilot #35 suddenly declaring himself "Tron" and saying he "works for the Users" and becoming a (semi-)hero at the end.

 

[Gaith]

My one biggest complaint about the film, is that I am positively convinced they had the film finished, and someone whispered to them; "Where's Tron? He was a character, you know?" And they all panicked, and worked out the whole Rinzler/Tron thing in post and reshoots.

He just seems like such an afterthought.

Yeah, I agree. You'd think if they really wanted Tron as a character they would've had him in there played by a CGI de-aged Bruce Boxliker. Instead of Random Light-Plane Pilot #35 suddenly declaring himself "Tron" and saying he "works for the Users" and becoming a (semi-)hero at the end.

Well, remember that much if not most of the target audience has never seen Tron, and therefore doesn't give a rat's ass about Tron/Rinzler, who was, by the way, totally unconnected to this story's emotional core. Having not seen the original myself, I thought the underwater shot of him following his reversion to "good" blue-suit-ism was one of those obligatory sequel set-up moments, and a distraction from the climax at hand.

Until recently, I assumed that "Tron" referred to the world of the Grid, not a specific program. "The Grid: Legacy" would have been a more accurate title, but "Tron" sounded cooler and was the original, so they went with that.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I believe there were significant rewrites to the film during production as well. So that might explain the lack of Tron in the film.

 

[Blue_Trek]

The Making of Tron: Legacy HD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sAZMCUOW24&feature=player_embeddded

SPOILERS, if you haven't seen the movie you might not want to watch.

 

[Kitty Worrier]

I saw Tron: Legacy last week in 3d with my family, and we all had a good time. My husband loved it and I'm sure my dad enjoyed it as well (he seemed very kean on the family venture). Hell, even my sister came along, and she does not like sci fi, but I think her boyfriend wanted to see it.

I thought it was good. There were moments I wanted the film to move on (can't recall which scenes now, though the gaming sequence went on a bit long for me). I would see it again though.

The 3D glasses gave me a headache - too tight.

 

[Snaploud]

The 3D glasses gave me a headache - too tight.

3D glasses headaches are typically caused by the manner in which the glasses/image try to trick your brain into thinking the image is actually 3D. I believe at least 5% of the population (perhaps much larger--I don't remember the figure) is susceptible to such headaches.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I believe there were significant rewrites to the film during production as well.

IIRC, there were some reshoots of certain scenes to make them more visually interesting, but the rewrites were no more than you'd see in any big movie as ideas come and go during filming...

So that might explain the lack of Tron in the film.

(cough) Trilogy planning (/cough)

 

[God Magnus]

My one biggest complaint about the film, is that I am positively convinced they had the film finished, and someone whispered to them; "Where's Tron? He was a character, you know?" And they all panicked, and worked out the whole Rinzler/Tron thing in post and reshoots.

He just seems like such an afterthought.

That is quite possible, however I am glad that he is in it at all. I liked the idea of Rinzler remembering who he really is and emotionally it added to the idea that when a User appears in a Grid, amazing things can happen. It also reinforced just how twisted Clu had become, taking not just some generic program, but one he had worked with to build the Grid and "convert" him into his lapdog.

That said, I do agree that having a final "reveal" of Tron's true face at the end would have added all sorts of awesomeness to the end.

 

[marillion]

Interesting look at the "philosophy" and story behind Tron:Legacy over on AICN... There are spoilers, for those of you who haven't seen the movie yet...

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/47947

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Did anybody notice that while the disks in the original were obviously dressed Frisbees, the ones in T:L look more like short 9-track tapes (think 1950s-1980s mainframe tape drives) than they do any kind of actual disks?

 

[RAMA]

Interesting look at the "philosophy" and story behind Tron:Legacy over on AICN... There are spoilers, for those of you who haven't seen the movie yet...

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/47947

Enjoyed this...i had the same ideas about the movie but he summed it up way better than I was thinking it!

 

[T'Baio]

There's definitely a lot more going on in the movie that people have been giving it credit for, I think. I believe there's a lot of brilliant thematic material that the writer's intended, but their lack of focus/knowledge/talent with form is the problem.