I’m a fan of the original Tron. Yes, I know the plot is silly, the acting is belabored, the effects are dated and the computer lingo sprinkle throughout the dialog was trying on my mother (who took me in 1982) and my father (a systems analyst). However, it remains an exciting demonstration of potential over it the computer-generated animation being a gimmick. Two years later came The Last Starfighter, a successful Dire Straits video and by the Nineties Babylon 5 going this route. Eventually, CG became the solution for the Star Trek shows and Star Wars prequels after decades of using models. Did Tron need a sequel? I figured why not, it’s better than the alternative…a re-imagining or do over.
The story entails the original characters Kevin Flynn and Alan Bradley 27 years later but first it’s interrupted with some exposition around 1989. When Tron ended, Flynn returned to Encom as a big wheel and during those years he became the CEO promoting new games, an OS and a movie about his experience in the Grid. His leadership made Encom enormous which would make the company a fictional version of Microsoft in the Nineties. While Encom grew, Flynn evangelized how technology could change the world. His delivery was more about revolution and evolution, like a self-help guru; profit didn’t matter to him, hence the OS was free.
Then Flynn disappeared, leaving his son Sam the largest shareholder (Mrs. Flynn suddenly died in 1985). With Sam being a kid, Alan had to step in as a corporate regent.
Fast forward to 2009. Encom remains the 800-pound gorilla in technology (note Alan using an iPad at the board meeting) with unsavory, greedy types running the show as they’ve sidelined Alan. Sam still has all the stock yet he likes to cause trouble when he’s not outracing the cops on his Ducati.
Then Alan visits Sam because Alan’s pager received a message from Kevin’s old arcade. Besides the pager being obsolete technology, the number that called was disconnected. Sam investigates and if you’ve seen the trailer, he gets pulled into the grid to find Kevin or what may appear to be a younger version. How it pans out requires seeing the movie in theaters or DVD, based upon your tastes since I doubt my review will have much pull.
To all those reviewers who disliked it, they’re entitled to their opinions but I feel they didn’t “get it,” nor do they understand people’s fondness for the 1982 story. When Tron debuted, personal computers weren’t anywhere as ubiquitous as they’ve become, hell most Western households have multiple systems today. Businesses also tended to own mainframes if they had any computers at all and even these were Fortune 1000 operations. The digital realm was minuscule. The Internet belonged to the military and an elite few universities so there little to no interconnectivity. Although I was not as enamored of computers like my friends in high school were, I understood how they worked, what they were capable of doing and was looking forward to the day when these expensive calculators would actually solve something. (This finally happened in 1989 when I first used Macs running QuarkXpress.) I think this is what Tron‘s fanbase saw and dreamed about. The critics then and now are the same bunch of Luddites who can’t spell TCP.
Worth Seeing? Tron: Legacy is what I call an event movie. There’s all this fuss and hype surrounding it but a big screen is required to get the right experience…even if the plot sucks (see all three Star Wars prequels). Many elements are lost when an event movie is shown on TV. I vote for seeing it to the fans and non-fans alike. The competition isn’t compelling and anything better already debuted or is a period piece (The King’s Speech is all that remains on my list for 2010). Personally, I loved the use of color, the refinements to the recognizable vehicles, the acrobatics and an appropriate soundtrack from Daft Punk.