Tron 3 is coming (and Garrett Hedlund is confirmed to come back)

[Christopher]

No doubt the original was much more visually groundbreaking and original at the time, but I still thought Legacy did a great job reimagining the world for today's audiences and coming up with a really cool and dynamic look that worked really well and felt unique enough from any other CG worlds we've seen recently....

Not unique in the same way, though. As I said, when CGI was new, the goal of CG animators was to embrace that novelty, that unreality -- the ways in which it was unlike anything in the physical world and thus unlike anything human beings had ever seen or created before. The original TRON was about trying to make reality look unreal. The live actors were shot on blank sets and rotoscoped into cel-animated environments that were drawn to mimic the look of CGI (because the technology to integrate live performers with actual CG animation didn't exist yet, so they had to fake it). They printed the film of the live actors onto blown-up animation cels, backlit them to create their glowing costumes, and essentially created an animated cartoon that integrated live-action people into it.

But in the years that followed, the unreality of CGI came to be seen less as a source of artistic novelty and more as an inconvenience in the effort to create computer-animated effects that could pass for reality. Legacy fits that aesthetic -- not trying to make humans look like CG animation, but trying to make CG animation look like physical reality. The actors looked real and solid and were shot on physical sets, and the aesthetic of the digital environment was designed to mesh with the physical sets, to look as real as they did, rather than trying to make the physical look unreal. It's a total reversal of the design goal. The makers of the original film even comment on this on the DVD features -- not about Legacy specifically, since it hadn't been made yet, but about how that early experimentation and embrace of the unreal has been abandoned, the art form becoming constrained to mimic the appearance of the physical rather than being expanded further beyond it into the abstract. (Even 3D-animated movies with highly distorted character designs, like Pixar films, still go to great lengths to mimic the physical textures of hair, skin, fabric, the natural environment, etc.)

So sure, it created a distinctive look for its environment, just as many other films do, but the basic principle was still the same, not as fundamental a departure as the original tried to be. It was still about building real sets and making CGI look like it had solid substance and texture, and that's not the aesthetic the original aspired to. TRON was basically an animated film that tried to make human actors look like computer animation, because the technology didn't exist yet to create actual CGI human characters. TRON: Legacy was a live-action film using CGI to supplement the live action, just like every other modern live-action movie.

Really, TRON: Uprising came closer to matching the aesthetic aspirations of the original movie, because it actually was a cartoon. Its characters looked human, but unreal, which was what the original filmmakers aspired to. Also, the performance-capture Clu in Legacy was something the original filmmakers would've loved. Performance capture is the culmination of their baby-step experiment with turning live performance into computer animation. Really, Legacy would've been truer to the original intent if everything inside the Grid had been straight-up 3D animation, with the actors performance-captured.

Having never seen the original. I can definitely say the movie stood out on its own as its own separate story. Though I did like the fact that Captain Sheridan from B5 showed up in a supporting role.

Ohh, man, you really haven't seen the original, have you? Bruce Boxleitner was Tron! He was the guy the whole franchise is named after! Okay, Tron and Alan Bradley were technically supporting characters in the original, since the movie was told from Kevin Flynn's perspective, but Tron was the actual hero of the film.

 

[davejames]

Well to be honest I think the original Tron effects are kinda overrated to begin with. They were definitely very innovative and different, but I wouldn't say they were entirely successful in the end or that it was especially good design (even for the 80s). So the fact the sequel decided to interpret the world in a different kind of way doesn't bother me at all.

The original Tron definitely had some cool elements to it, but I still wouldn't call it a "great" movie by any stretch. And ultimately it has problems with it's story just as much as Legacy does.

 

[Nightowl1701]

So this is because Tomorrowland tanked?

Fuck. You. George Clooney.

Failure, in this case, had many fathers. A weak, preachy script (by Brad Bird, in a rare misstep for him, and the infamous Damon Lindelof) that was in turn further watered down in postproduction by company executives wielding editor's scissors looking for a faster, more action-centered (And, bizarrely, not-so-'Disney') popcorn flick, and a Disney studio marketing department that (as opposed to Lucasfilm's, Marvel's and Pixar's) seems chronically incapable of doing the job of actually getting people to want to see their non-animated movies.

Oh yeah, and George Clooney.

 

[Gaith]

He likely wasn't aware of the internet.

Then how was he able to send that page again, from a number that's been "disconnected for 20 years"?

And while I can suspend my disbelief to accommodate the premise of one or two people being sucked into a computer via a small desktop laser, I can't picture that very same laser (I assume?) bringing a whole digital army to physical life, as Christopher alluded to. It was just a weird, half-assed plot.

 

[Christopher]

Well to be honest I think the original Tron effects are kinda overrated to begin with. They were definitely very innovative and different, but I wouldn't say they were entirely successful in the end or that it was especially good design (even for the 80s). So the fact the sequel decided to interpret the world in a different kind of way doesn't bother me at all.

Well, sure, they didn't quite succeed, because the filmmakers' ambition surpassed the state of the art at the time. But that's why I would've preferred to see a more advanced attempt to get it right, rather than just abandoning the principle and doing the same thing every other CG-laden live-action fantasy/sci-fi film does.

Of course, by now, CGI is so routine that no CGI film could ever really be as groundbreaking and experimental as TRON was. As I said, it was a product of its time. The pioneering phase of a technology only lasts so long. When something's new, you get varied and daring experiments, which aren't necessarily successful but are generally at least interesting. But once the technology or the art form becomes established, nothing can ever be quite that experimental again.

 

[Awesome Possum]

He likely wasn't aware of the internet.

Then how was he able to send that page again, from a number that's been "disconnected for 20 years"?

And while I can suspend my disbelief to accommodate the premise of one or two people being sucked into a computer via a small desktop laser, I can't picture that very same laser (I assume?) bringing a whole digital army to physical life, as Christopher alluded to. It was just a weird, half-assed plot.

Calling a pager is something he could have known how to do since Flynn would know how to. His programming is based off what Flynn knew in 1989. The internet existed, but he probably never guessed that it would be as widespread as it became.

As for using the laser, it probably wouldn't have worked for the whole army. I'm assuming that it's only able to rebuild based on what was pulled in. So it may not have been able to rebuild Flynn if he had gone back if they also brought Quorra.

 

[mos6507]

It's not true that Tron Legacy didn't innovate in its FX. It may not have stood out from its peers to the extent the original did, but it was one of the first 3D films to be shot after Avatar and it had the de-aged Jeff Bridges as Clu (and a bit of Bruce Boxleitner). I don't think the de-age effect worked 100% but it was almost there, and still quite impressive for what it was. I guess the brief shot of de-aged Arnold in Terminator Salvation was the first, but Legacy featured a lot more Clu than a cameo.

The main problem I have with Legacy is Tron himself gets the shaft. They just put Tron in a mask and call him something else (and it was obvious who he was) but never give him any actual character development. So he's just "bad" and then during the final shootout they have Tron just inexplicably "turn" again (with his mask on, hence no real "performance" since you can't see his face) and say "I fight for the users!". All this mask-time just made it feel like watching Power Rangers.

Tron was about as much of a cardboard cutout as you can get. I don't know if it had to do with the filmmakers thinking that Bruce was just a washed-up TV actor and couldn't hold the movie or what, but it was a mis-step.

Hedlund is kind of a "meh" presence and therefore Olivia Wilde and Bridges carry the film, and I liked what little live-action Boxleitner there was. I liked Olivia Wilde's performance a lot and the ramifications of her crossover to the real world kind of reminds me of Amy Adams in Enchanted.

 

[davejames]

I suspect we didn't see much of Tron because Jeff Bridges was the only actor they could really afford to de-age like that for the full length of the movie.

Although I actually did think it was a cool twist to have Tron turned into the villain. I'm sure the expectation was that we'd get to see a lot more of him in the third movie, but obviously that won't be happening now.

 

[Christopher]

It's not true that Tron Legacy didn't innovate in its FX.

Fortunately, that is not what I said. What I said was that it, like all modern FX movies, took a fundamentally different approach to the aesthetics of computer animation than the makers of the original did, mimicking the look of reality rather than embracing the potential for abstraction.

It may not have stood out from its peers to the extent the original did, but it was one of the first 3D films to be shot after Avatar and it had the de-aged Jeff Bridges as Clu (and a bit of Bruce Boxleitner).

Those are merely incremental advances on things that had been done before. 3D films have been around on and off for a hundred years now, and digital de-aging was used in several previous films such as X-Men: The Last Stand and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Also, they're technical things, rather than the kind of aesthetic and artistic experimentation I was talking about.

I guess the brief shot of de-aged Arnold in Terminator Salvation was the first

No, both the films I mentioned above came before it.

 

[Awesome Possum]

I suspect we didn't see much of Tron because Jeff Bridges was the only actor they could really afford to de-age like that for the full length of the movie.

Although I actually did think it was a cool twist to have Tron turned into the villain. I'm sure the expectation was that we'd get to see a lot more of him in the third movie, but obviously that won't be happening now.

It was a great twist and I liked how his return to being Tron is foreshadowed throughout the movie. Like when he stops trying to kill Sam when he notices blood, there's enough of a pause as he says "user" that you can almost tell he's starting to remember. Then there's that final great moment where he turns on CLU.

 

[Karzak]

^^ Indeed. When Tron says at the end of the film - "I fight... for the users!" the whole theater cheered.

 

[Hound of UIster]

Hedlund is kind of a "meh" presence and therefore Olivia Wilde and Bridges carry the film, and I liked what little live-action Boxleitner there was. I liked Olivia Wilde's performance a lot and the ramifications of her crossover to the real world kind of reminds me of Amy Adams in Enchanted.

Absolutely true.

 

[Reverend]

I suspect we didn't see much of Tron because Jeff Bridges was the only actor they could really afford to de-age like that for the full length of the movie.

Although I actually did think it was a cool twist to have Tron turned into the villain. I'm sure the expectation was that we'd get to see a lot more of him in the third movie, but obviously that won't be happening now.

It was a great twist and I liked how his return to being Tron is foreshadowed throughout the movie. Like when he stops trying to kill Sam when he notices blood, there's enough of a pause as he says "user" that you can almost tell he's starting to remember. Then there's that final great moment where he turns on CLU.

It's a good idea on paper, but as much as I really do enjoy Tron Legacy, they didn't execute the twist very well. It came across as almost an afterthought and I've known people who got utterly confused because they missed that one line Flynn says when he realises Rinzler is Tron.

It might have been better if they let the audience in on it sooner and drew a little more attention to the character. I know the first time I saw the movie, I didn't instantly make the connection between that faceless program hunting them in a few scenes and the two disc guy Sam fought in the disc war arena.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Olivia Wilde has tweeted out her thoughts on the cancellation.

 

[Karzak]

 

[mos6507]

it, like all modern FX movies, took a fundamentally different approach to the aesthetics of computer animation than the makers of the original did, mimicking the look of reality rather than embracing the potential for abstraction.

I felt that way at first. I was put off by the physical sets and props, like in Flynn's penthouse, but after a couple viewings, I started to accept that what we see in Legacy pushes Tron more in the range of The Matrix than the original which is closer in feel to Wreck it Ralph. And they tried to rationalize it by saying the grid-world is constantly evolving like in Sim City. You either buy into it or you don't.

Same deal with the score. The score is more techno than the classical flourishes of the original, but then I let go of the purism and appreciated it for what it is. Daft Punk have enough of a retro sensibility to fit into the theme of Tron being a continuation.

both the films I mentioned above came before it.

Where do you draw the line, though? Digital stand-ins go as far back as The Crow.

I think the film had issues, don't get me wrong, but I think there was more than enough promise there to justify a sequel which could then deepen/improve it.

 

[Morpheus 02]

A few things i liked about Legacy was that Young Flynn has very credible reasons why he's the "hero", and can beta the bad guys: he knows the story & situation (albeit from bedtime stories & video games), and being a rich kid with nothing to have to do, he risks his life on crazy stunts.

And i think since this was an enclosed world, having it be similar to original tron made sense...it also then brought back excitement for those who saw the original. Anything too different would have turned them off too.


If there ever was a sequel..they would have to tackle cloud computing, and how that makes it a very different world than the original Tron. Back then, there was only one of everything, so the programs could be individualized. But with Cloud computing, there could be duplicates that later merge.

also, viruses were kinda unheard of back then... it'd be interesting to see how a new Tron would handle it without looking like the Matrix.

 

[Captain Craig]

I would still like to hold out remote hope that Disney comes back around to wanting to do this AND that the stars of Legacy would again be up for doing it.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Me too. I just hope they don't wait another 20-30 years to do it.

 

[Christopher]

Where do you draw the line, though? Digital stand-ins go as far back as The Crow.

It's not about drawing lines, because it's simply a different topic from what I was discussing. I wasn't talking about incremental advances in technique, I was talking about the underlying artistic philosophy, the kind of movie they were trying to make. Again, the original TRON was essentially trying to make an animated film that incorporated live-action elements modified to look as unreal and "computer-animated" as possible. Legacy was approached instead as a live-action film using computer animation to enhance and expand on a live-action environment. Those are just different stylistic goals altogether. As I said, a more faithful continuation of the original filmmakers' intent would have been to do the entire Grid sequence in performance-captured CGI -- less The Matrix, more The Adventures of Tintin.


The main reason Legacy didn't quite work for me is that I made the mistake of watching the original and the sequel back to back, on consecutive days. That really underlined how different they are and all the ways in which Legacy is not a direct continuation of the original, in terms of filmmaking/aesthetic philosophy, design, story, character, and theme. It's a very distinct movie, and it probably works better if you either haven't seen the original at all or haven't seen it recently. It's more a reinterpretation or soft reboot than a smooth continuation.