I grew up with the movie Tron. Okay, I’ll admit that I grew up with a lot of movies, but there is a shorter list of movies that I watched at least once a year for my entire life up to the age of 18. Tron is most certainly on that list, along with Aliens, Predator, True Lies, and Big Trouble in Little China. Tron, however, is a unique movie in the sense that if someone tells me they like the movie I can that I could be friends with them instantly. With such a strong weight on the movie’s shoulders, being the apparent cornerstone of my entire social life, it’s a good thing that a small percentage of people have seen the film (or will openly admit to it).
As proof, I give you this excellent quote from The Simpsons:
Homer Simpson (in the 3rd Dimension): Did anyone see the movie Tron?
Hibbert: No.
Lisa: No.
Marge: No.
Wiggum: No.
Bart: No.
Patty: No.
Wiggum: No.
Ned: No.
Selma: No.
Frink: No.
Lovejoy: No.
Wiggum: Yes. I mean… um, I mean, no. No, heh.
A few years back the Tron franchise re-appeared seemingly out of the blue with the video game Tron 2.0, which finally allowed us to explore the ‘inside of a computer’ world of Tron in first person. Fast forward to 2010, this year, and Jeff Bridges is not only an academy award winning actor but also starring in the upcoming film Tron Legacy. The movie is set to release in December of this year, and it looks like it will be exactly what you expect from a modern day adaptation of an early-80’s movie franchise. Okay, maybe that’s not the best set up but think about the first Transformers movie and then imagine how awesome this movie could be.
The biggest hurdle I can imagine for this kind of movie is the fact that the original was so grounded in the technology of the time, and breaking the boundaries of current graphics technologies, that it would be hard to replicate it in the year 2010. However, breaking graphics boundaries may not be the best goal to have as the original movie bombed horribly. It sold so badly that the video game based on it grossed more than the movie did! The other issue still stands, when Tron came out computers were not nearly as common and many of the concepts such as RAM and laser arrays were bizarre to a large amount of the populace. I believe these issues would make it difficult to portray the franchise and still keep it relevant (and lucrative) in the present day.
That said, from watching the teaser trailer several times I can honestly say that it looks like they are doing a good job with the movie. Very similar to the Transformers movies, it appears they are reaching a delicate equilibrium between modern day aesthetics and homage to the original ideas and designs. Hell, just look at this modern re-conception of the recognizer and what it looked like in the original movie:
At this point I am positively excited to see Tron Legacy in theaters, maybe even in 3d or in IMAX (I’m not a big fan of movies in 3d). If you haven’t heard or seen anything about the new movie before this, I implore you to go to the Disney website or I definitely recommend checking out the hi-def trailer at the Apple Trailers website. If you haven’t even seen the original movie, and you’re wondering what the heck I’m even talking about, then you should ask a computer programmer friend to borrow the movie or rent it through your preferred means. If you’ve already watched the Tron Legacy trailer, let me know how you think the movie looks or if you’re excited to see it also!
I honestly thought the remake of the Transformers was horrid, but that doesn’t change the fact that Tron Legacy looks like it will be very interesting. It looks like it takes the spirit of the original much more seriously than Michael Bay would ever be capable of.
I’m cautiously excited… heh
While I think the new movie looks like it will be awesome (particularly the bike scenes), I’m saddened that they didn’t stick with the simplistic 3D vector art design of most vehicles. There’s just something so amazing about that aesthetic, even now. And with the resurgences of “classic” video games and such (like Mega Man and even Dot Hero, I think it could even be feasible. I wish it had looked for a way to make the vehicles and world put together from simple vector primitives to blend with more modern CG–I think you can do it with current light rendering, and it would have been a vision all its own. Ah well. I’m still looking forward to seeing it.
I’m wondering if the Tron world actually graphically upgraded as our technology got better, in which case the current look would make perfect sense. I’m also looking forward to hearing about the enhanced possibilities of existing in that world since the worldwide adoption of the internets.
Maybe they all have pet LOLcats now?
I think this is going to be the movie everyone will be talking about for a very long time, my hope is they don’t try and ride the cash cow into a series of lackluster sequels just because this one is popular.
Sucilaria’s point on graphic upgrades is good, and well taken. I’m hoping this movie will prove worthy of Jeff Bridges, unlike what Transformers 2 did for John Turturro. Looking forward to it, and another viewing of Big Trouble in Little China.
“We really shook the pillars of heaven, didn’t we Wang?”
I saw the trailer just the other day when I went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D – I was blown away and very happy to see that Jeff Bridges will once again be this next instalment.
Dude, I so feel the same way as you!! Tron was one of the first DVD’s I ever bought, and it was this movie I was showing to people all the time after they loved Jeff Bridges in “Big Lebowski”. I don’t exactly know what about Tron that I love dearly so much, but it is one of my favorite movies of all time. I can watch it again and again and never get bored of it. Nobody else I know my age had seen it before my introduction to them. Also, I kick ass at the arcade game…. that helps 🙂
End of Line.
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Every time you tie Tron to Transformers you make me lose hope that this movie will be any good. I fell asleep during the Transformers movie, which really says something because the design of the robots was so bad I would have thought I’d be to irritated to fall asleep.
That being said, the new Tron movie looks to be cool, and as long as they ignore just about everything from Transformers, they have a chance at not screwing everything up.
walsfeo: Hey too each their own, for me the comparison to Transformers is a good one because I thoroughly enjoyed the first one and honestly hope that Tron Legacy is AT LEAST as good as it. I certainly have high hopes that it’ll be far better than Transformers, but when I try to think of 80’s francehises / remakes that were actually anywhere close to good that’s the first one that comes to mind for me.
I’d love to hear what would have made the Transformers movie better, but I can tell you that the makers of Tron Legacy have clearly already taken many of the similar ideas – just look at how they’ve changed the look of nearly everything in the Tron world. That said, Michael Bay is not directing it so there’s a lot more possibility there already.
I share your high hopes for Tron!
The biggest problem is Micheal Bay, who said “I’m not doing a stupid toy movie” when first approached about Transformers.
What could have made Transformers better? Setting aside the poorly conceived and incredibly ugly Transformer interpretations we can plunge headlong into poor acting, horrible script, human characters so useless I couldn’t care less about them, horrible “shaky” fight cinematography. Oh, and ignoring anything really interesting about the franchise to begin with.
Yeah, it’s a movie based on a toy commercial a line of comics, and a Saturday Morning cartoon. But for the millions of dollars spent making the movie, why don’t they make something entertaining that used the fun stuff from the source material? They have giant alien shape-changing robots in a galactic civil war … that should be an exciting movie.
*Oh, I don’t mind a changed look! I like the way the new Tron stuff is shaping up. I just thought the re-envisioning of the way the Transformers looked was horrible.
Really excited about this one. Huge fan of the original Tron, with much the same experience of, “Oh, another who hasn’t seen it…” or, “What, you’ve seen it!? BFFS!” I think the reimagining looks amazing, as well as the fact that it looks like Flynn might have gone to the dark side… *cackles*
One of the things I think is great about the first film is that Flynn is the main character, but the film is named after a secondary player. I don’t know why I appreciate this as much as I do, but I do.
Ok, while I LOVE Tron, admittedly I haven’t seen it in a few years. But after reading this post, I’ll be Netflixing it post-hastily. Thank you!
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Tron was already re-made. It was called “The Matrix.”
I used to write code in the 80s in basic. Debugging was accomplished with a trace that one initiated with the command “Trace on” or “TRON” for short. Every time I typed it I could hear David Warner’s Sark imperiously command “Bring in the logic probe!”
Craw: Actually supposedly the guy who named the movie Tron did so after the word “elecTRONics”, despite the obvious connection to debugging in basic that many people took the name to be a reference to. While I could talk about many of the differences or similarities between The Matrix and Tron, I’ll simply say this: The Matrix didn’t have THE DUDE in it, therefore it was not even close to a remake of Tron. 🙂