One look at the newly redesigned lightcycles in Tron, and you know this movie is going to be a wild ride. And it performs surprisingly well as a better-late-than-never sequel that takes advantage of new actors and technology (and pushes it a bit past where it can actually go). But for his first feature film, Kosinski made the most common kind of mistake: story.
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Enjoyed the review
By the way, that David Bowie look alike character is an immediate cult
@Gilad: Haha! Yeah, Sheen was awesome as Zuse/Castor. Gotta love how he used his light-cain in a Charlie Chaplin walk and Stewart Townsend airguitar!
~Matt
Great movie, great review, do not agree about the 3d face
though, I think if you dont know that he is 3d animated your not
really thinking about it, I was like 10 when I saw the first one,
so I really didnt think that much of Jeff Bridges aging or not
aging. the ending was a bit crap though, kinda getting the feeling
they are planning for a 3rd one maybe? (or at least hoping thats
why the ending sucked)
I didn’t mind the exposition at the beginning of the film.
Its been 28 years since the first Tron and there is a whole new
generation of people who have never seen it, I saw a lot of this in
the line on opening day from all the “youngins” who kept making
comments about it being “some kind of sequel or something”. While I
do agree the RoboBridges in the real world was a bit too close to
the wrong side of the Uncanny Valley, the scene was necessary and
actually quite good in quickly providing a brief synopsis of what
happened in the first movie. When you combine this with the secret
lair, the laser machine that transports you to the digital realm,
and the flashbacks of the genesis of Grid 2.0, the audience already
has an idea of what happened in the first movie, how Flynn goes
between worlds, and what happened to Flynn that trapped him there.
Had we jumped into the movie at the Encom Tower part and not done
the brief explanation of the first film in 1989 the flashback would
have lost its impact and people who hadn’t seen the original film,
not impossible since Disney didn’t elect to do the expected all new
Hi-Def transfer Blu-Ray release just in time for the Holidays, and
would have been questioning just what the heck was going on. I was
okay with the “Glowing Bomber Jackets” shown in the Grid 2.0
flashback sequence. The original Grid was created with 1982
hardware while Grid 2.0 was created with state of the art 1989
hardware, if you look at the history of computers we were starting
to see the beginning of the 486 era and dedicated graphics hardware
for gaming; we would have been past the blocky glowing suits of
Grid 1.0. Also servers and super computers were much more powerful
in 1989 and had a greater level of awesomeness than their 1982
counterparts. Remember, Grid 2.0 was housed in a computer that was
more than 20 years old and it already looked that awesome! Imagine
what it would look like in a current super computer or even a
desktop. I agree with your big gripe of Tron not really being in
the movie, the whole Rinzler thing just cheapened it in my opinion.
Though I guess if you really wanted to look at it in a certain way
the film could be looked at Tron’s redemption and fight for
freedom, but considering that you don’t quite figure out Tron is
Rinzler until the flashback sequence, or if you’re not really
paying attention you have to wait until Flynn goes “Tron? What did
they do to you?” near the end (I just surprised that Sam, who is
supposed to be smart, wasn’t able to put two and two together and
go “Hey Dad I fought a guy with two discs in the game grid, you
don’t think Clu reprogrammed Tron do you?”?). I can only hope that
when they do the eventual sequel, better do it fast because
Boxleitner isn’t getting any younger, they go into a bit more
exposition on Tron. My personal gripe though is that Kevin Flynn,
computer genius extraordinaire, doesn’t have rolling backups on his
own equipment? I know if I were going to be digitizing myself over
and over again I’d have backups like crazy! So I’m surprised that
the second Sam got out he wasn’t rolling back to the latest backup,
deleting Clu’s ass, recompiling Tron and then running a few dozen
instances of him to help clean up the corrupted troops, and then go
back in with Quorra to get the old man out! Hell, for good measure
he should have taken Alan in there with him, the guy totally needs
to end up in the digital world to meet his creation anyway. As for
the whole Flynn / Clu thing and why Flynn was going to die if he
deleted him in the grid, I think Flynn said it best when he stated
the Clu is really him. He essentially created a programmed copy of
himself while *inside* the Grid so that Clu would be able to think,
reason, and learn just like the MCP from the original film. While
he could have deleted him from the outside, see my rant above, to
do it in the digital realm would have required him to merge with
his copy and absorb all that data back; its shown in the movie that
Flynn needs to touch and interact with the world elements he’s
changing. Since a thousand years or more had passed in the digital
world digital meat Flynn couldn’t absorb all the data of his copy
without overwriting large portions of himself and creating a buffer
overflow that would kill both of them in the process. Now for the
“Questions you’re not supposed to think about” moment: * If the
phone line at the arcade was disconnected for 20 years how did Clu
get the page to Alan? * If the phone line was disconnected because
the arcade was shut down why didn’t they disconnect the power at
the same time? Those big mainframe super computer boxes take up a
lot of power, the monthly bill would be enormous, surely someone
would have investigated to see why an abandoned business was using
that much power? * Are we really expected to believe that a machine
requiring constant cooling and a narrow operating temperature could
maintain a 20 year uptime while covered with several inches of
dust? Conversely that we are also expected to believe there wasn’t
a single hardware failure during that entire time? * Laser
digitization was the life’s work of a lot of people at Encom yet it
wasn’t mentioned by any one at anytime throughout the sequel? *
Alan, who is supposed to be Kevin’s best friend and business
partner, doesn’t want to go with Sam to investigate the message
from the Arcade? I personally enjoyed the movie, insta-buy when it
hits its inevitable Blu-Ray release next year, and I’m glad that
the story was a bit more fleshed out than the first one, but there
were some plot deficiencies that I certainly hope they address in
the inevitable sequel (hopefully within the next decade).
Pete…
I want to apologize for the large block of text, when I typed it there were multiple paragraphs and a bulleted list. It was fine last night when I posted it but for some reason this morning the system decided to get rid of the paragraphs and compress all the text into one large, unreadable, block of yuck.
cool review as always.
and i TOTALLY agree with you about the CG face. it reminded me of the Polar Express.
dies this mean you’re not doing a Narnia review??? and are you going to do Green Hornet review???
what happened to YGN? where are you?
Hope everything is ok matt and nat! we miss you!
Hey, I know that this is a down time for movies (considering that most movies that would qualify for a geek review aren’t that good) but the fact that you guys have disappeared for months, without even a post on any of your sites is rather worrisome. I hope everything is okay…
I watched Tron, and I have to say I was kind of disappointed, the story was not good enough, I will give it 2 out of 10.
I was curious about your thoughts on “Paul” and was a little surprised you haven’t updated in a while. After all, Battle: LA is out, there’s awesome new trailers for Thor and Green Lantern. I want my Geek News!
What happened to you guys? I miss your reviews. Was really looking forward to seeing what you both thought about Battle Los Angeles.
Missing My Geek News
you have to do a scream 4 review
Another podcast gone before its time…
Matt is still active on his facebook site – but no word on YGN ..? What is going on? We miss you guys!