yevlax

Tron Legacy


Let me tell you about the exact moment I knew Tron Legacy was going to be something special. It was the scene where Sam enters his fathers arcade and turns on the lights. When he does, a song plays. Now, I'm not a music geek, and my poor hearing means I never got the names of songs right. I won't know the name of the song I'm referring to until someone pipes in to inform me, or I can a hold of the soundtrack; but one thing was unmistakably clear.

That song was eighties.

It was at that moment in which I realized that the movie (which had been fair so far, if nothing special), was a wonderful love letter to the original. Before we had even reached the computer generated world everyone in the audience had came to see, the makers of the movie had captured the perfect emotion to set the tone for the rest of the movie; the kind of nostalgia that hits a nerve. It's what every high school reunion aspires to, but never captures. It's what Michael Bay could never do, because he never liked Transformers to begin with. It's what every horror movie remake falls short of, because they throw out the context and go straight for the gore. They all forgot what made the original so special in the first place. If any filmmaker reads my blog, and is charged with creating a re-make for a major studio, I beg of you; study Tron Legacy. Although its not technically a re-make, they hit all the right buttons. That one song caused everyone in the audience to be transported back to 1983, and remember what they loved about the first one. That was the best use of foreplay I've ever seen on film, Vivid Video productions included.

A lot of professional movie critics have criticized the story, saying that it was flat or lacking impact. I believe those critics are wrong in this regard, having become too used to judging over-hyped character pieces whereupon the littlest cancer patient valiantly struggles against their illness but dies right before the secondary actor learns a valuable life lesson. Tron Legacy is not a character piece. It was a movie based around a created world. In fact, I would go so far as to dub it a 'set-piece', because the setting itself was just as important as the characters. With that in mind, the storyline and acting far exceeded expectations.

If I were to make an art analogy, I would argue that the critics are trying to judge a comic book against a literary classic like The Grapes of Wrath. I would put the works of Alan Moore against any book required for high school English reports, but writing for a comic book is fundamentally different from writing a novel. An action movie and/or set piece requires and entirely different set of skills than writing a period drama. I've seen a lot of terrible action movies, and I can tell you why they were terrible in the entire context of action movies. Tron Legacy was a wonderful action movie. The story was fine; it was internally consistent, there weren't any gaping holes, the acting was perfectly suited to the story, and the story got the hell out of the way when it was time to race lightcycles. If Tron Legacy was a comic book, it would have clear, crisply inked lines with perfectly sized panels and the world balloons would not interfere with the art. It would not, however, be a gritty Vertigo book with discolored backgrounds and confusing but 'deep' dialogue.

I also loved the movie because it was a great study in world-building, something that interests me greatly as an rpg nut. The Grid was a world that separated itself from real world technology back in 1983 and evolved from there. I loved the line from Kevin Flynn, "What's wifi?", to really drive home the point that this is not the internet, or a cyberspace construction. It reminded me of the Fallout series, that explores what would happen if technology went towards a 1950s view of science fiction instead of the path it took in the real world. Its rare to see my favorite theme of divergent realities in a mainstream film, and even rarer still to see it done well with all the details that would occur in such a place. The world created was also beautiful and exciting on its own...the emotions it stirred up reminded me of the time I first watched the Matrix movies. Perhaps this even had more impact, because of the neon blue and yellows instead of the dull green in those flicks.

The last thing I loved about this movie, and this is another defense of the story, is how subtle little moments called back to earlier times in the same film. This is great basic storytelling, something I'm shocked that other action flicks can't even get right. Examples include the moment Clu gives a speech to the shock troops right before they are about to invade the real world; it eerily mirrors the speech Kevin Flynn gave in reality 28 years ago to his shareholders, signifying the fact that Clu cannot create anything new, he can only try to perfect what already exists. Another great example is at the very end, when Quorra looks up at the sun while riding on the back of Sams motorcycle. Earlier in the film she asked him what the sunrise was like, which brought up the feeling that even if this world is shiny and perfect, it is still dark and unreal. Right before the credits roll, Quorra closes her eyes and smiles, looking up. You can literally feel the warmth of the sun on her cheeks. Nothing overblown or over-explained, just a great, solid ending.

I loved it. Two thumbs way, way up.