The Film We Didn't Even Know We Wanted A Sequel For
Wednesday, 22 December 2010 03:19![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dr_phil_physicsTuesday Double Feature
With my grades in and both of us on vacation, it was time to try to catch up on some of the films out there. First up, the sequel to Tron.
When it came out in 1982, of course I saw it. Pretty sure I saw it at least twice -- once in regular distribution and once over on the Northwestern campus as part of Tech Flicks in Tech Auditorium. May have even rented in once after we got up the U.P. and had a VCR in the late 80s. Memorable visuals, less than memorable story.
So when the idea of a sequel came up, I was curious. As soon as I started seeing trailers, though, I knew we'd be seeing it in 3D IMAX. For sure.
Tron: Legacy in IMAX 3D [PG]
Funny to go into a movie with low story expectations, but that's the game here. I was prepared to be visually entertained. Surprisingly, we were entertained on both the story and the visuals. Sure, it's not a great story. They kind of stretched things here and there to mesh with the original backstory. But by and large they didn't do any damage that way, and though there were some deeper social commentary story lines which could be hinted at, they were skipped over. So nothing too controversial remained.
Lots has been said about Jeff Bridges and his dual roles as Kevin Flynn and Clu. I had to glance at the Wikipedia entry for Tron to verify that Bruce Boxleitner actually was reprising a role from the original. The guy playing the grownup son Sam Flynn opens as sort of a cross between Bruce Wayne's bad boy act in Batman Begins and the reckless James T. Kirk in the Star Trek reboot from last year. But nicer. Definitely not the brooding sullenness of Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels.
But the real breakout star for me was Olivia Wilde as Quorra. Some of you may know her as Thirteen in the FOX medical show House. She has the most wonderful eyes and given the Tron-ish makeup and short black hair framing her face, the eyes get well treated on the huge IMAX screen. Plus her character smiles a lot, in addition to a lot of kick-ass Tron-ish maneuvers. Thankfully, though a relationship is clearly developing between Sam and Quorra, the film wastes no time stooping to even so much as an on screen kiss between them. Wilde has apparently expressed a desire to do a third film, exploring her character in the real world. I'd see it.
Meanwhile, the film is just plain fun. The lightcycle battles have been updated with more movement, offering so much more than was possible some thirty years ago when the graphics were chewed out on the world's fastest PDP-10 computer. But the odd rocket powered police frames and the lighted side lines on everything screams towards their late 70s origins. The four Sirens who gird Sam for battle in the games are so stylized, with the severely pulled back hair and heavy eye makeup that they look like refugees from 1970s flight attendant school. None of this is a complaint -- it's "perfect".
Everything is dark and everything is light. The dinner scene between Sam, his father and Quorra, in a highly lit white set, brings the scene from 2001 to mind where David Bowman is living out his life in the hotel room, eating all alone. The night club reminds me a lot of the Merovingian's club in The Matrix Reloaded, but then just like software and operating systems, how can any movies about virtual computer living not be like all the other movies about virtual computer living?
What I want to know is this: How the hell did a pair of big servers survive in a dusty basement office without any hardware faults for over twenty years? Not that it really matters. (grin) I was just happy to see the one young "genius" in the boardroom in meatspace, though never really developed as a character, pulling off a UNIX "kill -9" on a command line interface.
The 3D of the Grid world really works quite well. The diminished brightness of the 3D glasses only becomes noticeable in the very end when we are back in the real world. And even then, it's not too distracting.
You don't need to have seen the original in order to be entertained. But if you're an old fogy like some of us, it's pure electronic joy.
Recommended
TRAILERS: Given that Tron is a Disney property, lots of Disney trailers. The top one, though, was our first look at the fourth movie in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, in 3D IMAX. Oh, yeah. We'll be there for that one. (grin)
Dr. Phil
With my grades in and both of us on vacation, it was time to try to catch up on some of the films out there. First up, the sequel to Tron.
When it came out in 1982, of course I saw it. Pretty sure I saw it at least twice -- once in regular distribution and once over on the Northwestern campus as part of Tech Flicks in Tech Auditorium. May have even rented in once after we got up the U.P. and had a VCR in the late 80s. Memorable visuals, less than memorable story.
So when the idea of a sequel came up, I was curious. As soon as I started seeing trailers, though, I knew we'd be seeing it in 3D IMAX. For sure.
Tron: Legacy in IMAX 3D [PG]
Celebration Cinema North IMAX, 11:00am, 2×$15
Funny to go into a movie with low story expectations, but that's the game here. I was prepared to be visually entertained. Surprisingly, we were entertained on both the story and the visuals. Sure, it's not a great story. They kind of stretched things here and there to mesh with the original backstory. But by and large they didn't do any damage that way, and though there were some deeper social commentary story lines which could be hinted at, they were skipped over. So nothing too controversial remained.
Lots has been said about Jeff Bridges and his dual roles as Kevin Flynn and Clu. I had to glance at the Wikipedia entry for Tron to verify that Bruce Boxleitner actually was reprising a role from the original. The guy playing the grownup son Sam Flynn opens as sort of a cross between Bruce Wayne's bad boy act in Batman Begins and the reckless James T. Kirk in the Star Trek reboot from last year. But nicer. Definitely not the brooding sullenness of Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels.
But the real breakout star for me was Olivia Wilde as Quorra. Some of you may know her as Thirteen in the FOX medical show House. She has the most wonderful eyes and given the Tron-ish makeup and short black hair framing her face, the eyes get well treated on the huge IMAX screen. Plus her character smiles a lot, in addition to a lot of kick-ass Tron-ish maneuvers. Thankfully, though a relationship is clearly developing between Sam and Quorra, the film wastes no time stooping to even so much as an on screen kiss between them. Wilde has apparently expressed a desire to do a third film, exploring her character in the real world. I'd see it.
Meanwhile, the film is just plain fun. The lightcycle battles have been updated with more movement, offering so much more than was possible some thirty years ago when the graphics were chewed out on the world's fastest PDP-10 computer. But the odd rocket powered police frames and the lighted side lines on everything screams towards their late 70s origins. The four Sirens who gird Sam for battle in the games are so stylized, with the severely pulled back hair and heavy eye makeup that they look like refugees from 1970s flight attendant school. None of this is a complaint -- it's "perfect".
Everything is dark and everything is light. The dinner scene between Sam, his father and Quorra, in a highly lit white set, brings the scene from 2001 to mind where David Bowman is living out his life in the hotel room, eating all alone. The night club reminds me a lot of the Merovingian's club in The Matrix Reloaded, but then just like software and operating systems, how can any movies about virtual computer living not be like all the other movies about virtual computer living?
What I want to know is this: How the hell did a pair of big servers survive in a dusty basement office without any hardware faults for over twenty years? Not that it really matters. (grin) I was just happy to see the one young "genius" in the boardroom in meatspace, though never really developed as a character, pulling off a UNIX "kill -9" on a command line interface.
The 3D of the Grid world really works quite well. The diminished brightness of the 3D glasses only becomes noticeable in the very end when we are back in the real world. And even then, it's not too distracting.
You don't need to have seen the original in order to be entertained. But if you're an old fogy like some of us, it's pure electronic joy.
Recommended
TRAILERS: Given that Tron is a Disney property, lots of Disney trailers. The top one, though, was our first look at the fourth movie in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, in 3D IMAX. Oh, yeah. We'll be there for that one. (grin)
Dr. Phil
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Hardware faults
Date: Wednesday, 22 December 2010 17:59 (UTC)I kid, I kid. Like you said, it was a fun film, and I had a really good time; was pleased, even. I'd say any logical incongruities were no worse than in the original, and they even did a nice job of glossing over some things from the original in a way that wasn't faithless, if you know what I mean (e.g, I liked the way the digitizing laser was just there, unexplained, and if you wanted it to work the silly way it did in the original, great, and if you wanted to take it as basically a wardrobe door into CyberNarnia, that works, too).
The Easter Eggs scattered throughout were a nice touch, too.
Re: Hardware faults
Date: Thursday, 23 December 2010 02:50 (UTC)Dr. Phil