TRON: Legacy - Review and Grading

[Greylock Crescent]

So to some extent, it's like Quorra kind of literally uses his matter to become herself.

Horowitz: Well, what we don't want to be saying is that she's Kevin Flynn. And she's not. But that there was a one-for-one trade that essentially happened.

Fascinating. I hadn't interpreted the scene that way, but hearing the explanation makes sense -- and provides a fitting and poetic end for Kevin Flynn (Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, all at the same instant). Of course, those ideas don't exactly come through all that clearly in the film itself, but the fact that Flynn's act of self-realization (accepting and literally "owning" his CLU persona) also allows for a true birth is particularly compelling to me.

 

[Admiral_Young]

Remember too that Flynn called Quarra "A Miracle" so I'm assuming that her special status already enabled her to reconstitute in the human world in a human form. Flynn's plan was to introduce the isotopes to the outside world and create a revolution. I assumed that he thought they would just be able to manifest outside as normal humans.

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

Maybe Quarra is the equivalent to Leeloo from Fifth Element? As she's the chosen one to bring our world to the next level.

 

[Skywalker]

What I find odd is we're questioning how a digital lifeform could be brought into the physical world, but not how a physical lifeform could be sent into a digital world.

I really enjoyed the movie. The plot was a bit weak, but not annoyingly so, and the acting was decent enough. This was my first 3D film, which was pretty neat. I liked the whole "Wizard of Oz" idea of keeping the real world 2D and then making the Grid 3D.

 

[Admiral_Young]

^ Yeah when the movie ended actually I thought to myself how the hell is it even possible for us to be digitized in the first place? This franchise does kind of suspend one's beliefs.

 

[Obiwanshinobi]

I swear I saw a 3D effect at the very beginning with that long shot pushing into the the house where Flynn was talking to his son. Which 2 scenes was the disclaimer referring to? I thought they meant the old footage from the first movie.

That laser kind of reminded me of Honey I shrunk the kids.

 

[stj]

What I find odd is we're questioning how a digital lifeform could be brought into the physical world, but not how a physical lifeform could be sent into a digital world.

I expect rationalizing this nonsense was the prime difficulty in making the stakes clear, either the magnitude of CLU's threat, or the promise of Quorra's survival.

It occurred to me that both movies are basically like that cartoon Osmosis Jones. Keeping the Tron movies simple escape adventures was probably wise.

 

[Corran Horn]

What I find odd is we're questioning how a digital lifeform could be brought into the physical world, but not how a physical lifeform could be sent into a digital world.

Ding ding ding ding ding

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

So to some extent, it's like Quorra kind of literally uses his matter to become herself.

Horowitz: Well, what we don't want to be saying is that she's Kevin Flynn. And she's not. But that there was a one-for-one trade that essentially happened.

Fascinating. I hadn't interpreted the scene that way, but hearing the explanation makes sense -- and provides a fitting and poetic end for Kevin Flynn (Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, all at the same instant).

That's interesting. So after Flynn's death, his atoms & such were used to form Quorra's physical body in the real world? I can buy that.

We already know that a User sent into the digital world still shows unique physical characteristics (witness how Rinzler notices Sam is bleeding actual blood when they are on the game grid), so after Flynn died, something had to happen to his body mass...

 

[Locutus of Bored]

What I find odd is we're questioning how a digital lifeform could be brought into the physical world, but not how a physical lifeform could be sent into a digital world.

Well, I dealt with that by saying The Grid and the Real World are both digital and all that's happening is simply an exchange of information between two different artificial systems. One of which (our world) thinks that it's real in the tangible sense, but was actually created by Users (our gods) as well. They just can't physically interact with us, they can only manipulate the code from the outside looking in.

 

[Unicron]

I suppose one could also assume that Olivia Wilde happened to be visiting Flynn's for some reason and Quorra just jumped into her body. But I do like the filmmaker's suggestion on that.

 

[RAMA]

^ Yeah when the movie ended actually I thought to myself how the hell is it even possible for us to be digitized in the first place? This franchise does kind of suspend one's beliefs.

If you can suspend belief for teleportation you can do it for the digitizing beam used in the original Tron...it filled a whole room with technology!! Basically it would do the same thing a transporter would do..quantify every bit of you then convert you to electrical impulses stored in a computer system.

RAMA

 

[Admiral_Young]

I was supposed to see this again tonight but am sick so will probably be going later in the week.

 

[flipjack]

It still doesn't explain how Clu was going to send an army out into our world.

So Sam Flynn will be having sex with his dad's atoms? Kinky!

 

[DWF]

Since she used Kevin Flinns disk to get out she probably used his stored matter as well. here's a relevant part of an interview with the screenwriters.

Well, did you guys have to spend any time figuring out how a computer program could physically materialize?

Horowitz: We did. We did talk about the idea of what is being reconstituted. There is stuff that you can see in the frame, carbon molecules that are attached to the laser, that are what you are being transferred into and then how that's being turned into energy and then it's a data. And then the question becomes, how is that reverse process working? And in our mind, there was a logic to how on the one hand you can take a corporeal being and turn them into this kind of data, and then we can have a reversal process by taking the data then and say, okay, can't we then reconstitute that into some form of man?

Kitsis: And what we decided was, well yes, but it has to merge with the user, in the sense that the only way to get out is with a user disc - and therefore not even Sam's, but the Creator's disc.

So to some extent, it's like Quorra kind of literally uses his matter to become herself.

Horowitz: Well, what we don't want to be saying is that she's Kevin Flynn. And she's not. But that there was a one-for-one trade that essentially happened.

Do you have a link ot that interview by any chance?

 

[Mr Light]

^^
That makes it sound like Clu's army would never have made it out into the real world, then, that one only dude would have made it. Wouldn't Flynn have known that?

 

[Saul]

I would have liked to have seen Tron's face in the final scenes instead of just his voice. Maybe it was just more expense?

 

[Unicron]

I was kind of thinking that myself at that point in the film. I was wondering if they were going to show Tron's face, or have it seem that he would be the new guardian of the Grid after he was knocked into the water by Clu.

 

[chardman]

I loved the soundtrack of the original, and am heartbroken that Wendy Carlos is no longer with us, and therefore not in a position to revisit her old score in Tron: Legacy.

That said, the Daft Punk score is truly awesome, and they touch on some of the elements of Wendy's original score in a way that is loving and truly respectful. Which is only understandable, as she was, in a very real way, the mother (and father) of synthesized electronic music, and thus of Daft Punk itself.

As for the rest of the film? Pretty stunning. Wasn't a huge fan of the original (outside of its score) but really enjoyed Legacy a whole lot. I liked the elder Flynn's zen-like demeanor, as well as his jokingly drawing attention to it at one point. (A couple of times I could almost picture Flynn saying "Abide" or some other reference to "The Dude".)

And I really enjoyed Michael Sheen's performance as Castor. Too bad we didn't get to see a lot more of that character, as he was very intriguing. And that's pretty much my problem with the film as a whole: There's far too little of it. Time and again we barely got a chance to scratch the surface of a world, of characters, of situations, that seemed worthy of much deeper attention and exploration.

 

[Saga]

I would have liked to have seen Tron's face in the final scenes instead of just his voice. Maybe it was just more expense?

agreed.