Mabuse

I knew the bandwagon jumpers wouldn't like this film.

My reaction to Tron Legacy is that I was very pleasantly surprised. It is a VERY faithful sequel that recaptures many of the qualities, and most of the flaws, of the original film.

Overall I am very happy with the film. When rumors of a sequel floated around 10 year ago I never would have imagined that we would get a sequel that is this good. I never thought Bridges would be interested in participating and I didn't think anyone involved would give enough of a shit to get Boxlietner.

I figured whatever sequel that was made would have all new characters played by fresh young actors and there would be some borrowing of design from the original film and that would be it. Instead we got a very faithful extrapolation of the game grid and how it would have grown over the last 30 years. And the fact that several actors returned and there was reverence for the original (and that reverence didn't turn into fan service) is all just fantastic.

The problem with the sequel is that it bares all the weaknesses of the original. It's a film that only a devoted fan of the original could love. And the original had very few devoted fans. Just as I predicted, the legions of band wagon jumpers were quickly disappointed with Legacy. I know it's not a perfect film, but neither was the original.

Both films stand or fall on their visuals and music (In this regard Tron gets 4 stars and Legacy 3.5)
Both films have very thin characters
Both films have overly complicated stories when a lean story would have sufficed
Both films have stilted dialogue
Both films take place in dark environments that are daunting to spend time in. This is not the wondrously tactile world of Avatar that audience returned to again and again to re-experience the sights and sounds. Two hours on the grid is oppressive. This alone I feel is responsible for a great deal of bad world of mouth for both films; consciously or unconsciously.

In the end I am pleasantly flabbergasted that someone was willing to spend $300 million on a sequel to a film that wasn't much loved to begin with, and I'm even more flabbergasted that they made something so analogous with the original. I always assumed any sequel would tamper with the formula or get mired in fan service and never recapture the magic of the original. I think Legacy does have the magic, but not all audiences will be receptive to that magic, just as not many were receptive to the original's charms. But again, the fact that someone made a $300 million dollar film that doesn’t strive to be EVERYONE'S cup of tea is in-and-of-itself astounding.

Incidentals:
--I like how Kevin Flynn, being trapped in the computer world all these years, has decided to live a more "analogue" life: Bound books, clocks, sculpture, furniture. Clu and his minions marvel at it when they search his room. And did anyone notice the "bits" on Flynn's mantle.

--How come they didn't shoot the whole film with IMAX cameras? It was jarring when the film went from 35 mm to IMAX 70 mm, not just because of the changing ratio but also because of the changing resolution. I was always told that IMAX cameras were better suited to action and that their large size and loud noise made them no good for intimate dialogue scenes. But Legacy's filmmakers used IMAX cameras for some of the intimate scenes, like the dialogue onboard the solar sailor. Why didn't they just go "all in" and use IMAX cameras for the whole film?

--Did anyone else notice the name of the street in front of the arcade? Mead St. That wasn’t the name of the street in the original. A tip of the hat to Syd Mead? I think so.

Edited to fix spelling of Syd Mead.

Blu Man

Nothing was shot with IMAX cameras, nor 35mm or any kind of film for that matter. Everything was filmed with the Sony F35 (1080p) digtial camera which has a native aspect ratio of 16:9, the filmmakers simply didn't crop some action scenes to 2.40:1 so that the image would fill the majority of the screen.

fumanstan

Band wagon? Yeah ok

slop101

So your argument boils down to the fact that the first one sucked, so it's okay that this one sucks also? Pretty weaksauce dude.

Also, "Bandwagon jumper"?

I really liked the original... when I was 10. Am I supposed still like a piece of shit decades after I know better? Is that what you're suggesting? Nostalgia can carry things only so far, and this sequel doesn't even have that advantage.

Mabuse

I saw the film in IMAX 3D. A true IMAX 1.44:1 aspect ratio theater. Projected from real 70 mm celluloid.

Some scenes filled the entire width and most of the height of the screen (I would guess that is the 1.78:1 or 16x9 portion of the presentation). These scenes appeared to be considerably higher resolution. Other parts of the film filled the entire width but only a fraction of the height of the screen (definitely 2.4:1). Why the varying aspect ratio? Why did I observe different levels of resolution/fidelity?

Mabuse

No, bandwagon jumpers are the people who never gave the original the time of day until 2007 and then proceeded to wind themselves up into a frenzy that this film would be the greatest thing since Empire Strikes Back.

I don't think the first one sucked; I think it has weaknesses, but it also has magic.

I figured the sequel would run far afield of the original and lack magic, instead it stuck very close to the original (at the risk of alienating the audience who were also alienated by the first film) and retained the magic. Legacy has shortcomings, but I also think it has the magic.

slop101

It sure does have magic, unfortunately, it's of this variety:

fumanstan

Given that definition, I don't think there were that many people on the Tron Legacy band wagon at all then. I never got the impression that everyone thought Legacy was going to be the greatest thing ever; just interested thanks to Disney's marketing.

Are you just upset that a formerly niche movie was marketed for the masses? Regardless, it sure seems like there were fans new and old who were disappointed.

Supermallet

Are you really comparing the storytelling in Star Wars to the storytelling in Tron?

Shazam

Fucking Tron, they haven't made the playoffs in 10 years. Screw 'em.

Sessa17

What on earth does this mean? This has to be one of the dumbest things I've ever seen posted about a movie. Bandwagaon jumper? Its a film, not a sports team. And you do realize that some of us weren't even born when the original came out right? I

Supermallet

gmanca

I'm not saying he did matrix shit, but the fight scene at End Of Line was a lot more than a simple fist-fight.

As to the page thing, It wasn't that "we" paged Clu, it's that we let him get out to page Alan; the 42E ARG's have explained the intros to the past two movies they've done, this and the Dark Knight. Whether it's canon or not, I'm not ruling on, just that they have explained things.

Matthew Chmiel

Because the scenes in 1.7:1 were mastered in a higher resolution than that of the scenes in 2.40:1.

Example: The Dark Knight. Whereas most films master their visual effects sequences in 4K (the "digital" equivalent to 35mm), The Dark Knight had to master their visual effects for the footage shot with the IMAX cameras at a higher resolution: 8K to be exact.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same practice was established and used for Tron: Legacy.

Mabuse

That makes sense...but why? Why did the makers of Legacy vary the footage instead of being consistant throughout. Cost cutting? The very idea sounds absurd when talking about a $300 million film.

Blu Man

Because 2.40:1 is the aspect ratio the director prefers and intends the film to be viewed in. But he (and Disney) figured that since you are paying for the extra screen size, they might as well give you action scenes that take up the entire screen. When the film is released on Blu-ray/DVD the aspect ratio will be the same through-out, don't worry. And man, the film's budget was $170 million; still a large number, but a far cry from $300 million.

Mabuse

Sorry. It's just my reaction to what I've observed: The consistent undervaluation of the asset by film goers and film makers.

The original is a good film with certain elements that are unsurpassed in quality. The film was maligned and ignored for a long time. I would even count the Disney execs that green lit the sequel as band wagon jumpers. Disney could never see the forest for the trees regarding Tron; it was a relic of the Ron Miller era. For 25 years they didn't have the perception to see that they had a stunning film in their vault and they consistently underplayed its value as an artistic achievement and as an asset (ie. franchise potential). At the time Disney failed to grasp the importance of the impact of Tron's effects, they let a lot of tallant slip away to other studios, and it set them back as a company. Only when they incorporated computer animation into the hand drawn process did they reinvigorate the art form (and it took them 10 years!) and by then Pixar was waiting to beat them at their own game. Here they are 30 years later trying to get blood from a stone they threw out the window long ago.

Despite all this, or perhaps because of this, I am thrilled that they made a movie as faithful to the original as they did. And like I've said before, maybe that faithfulness to the original is even a detriment, Legacy has some of the same weaknesses as Tron; the whole concept is alienating to a large portion of the audience (the grid is just not fun. It's dark and violent and ultimately 2 hours of it is oppressive. It's not Oz and it's not Pandora. It's literally an inhuman place).

I'm out of ideas for now, but I'll end by discussing something in the film that I liked because everyone wants to discuss the business or fandom or online promotion, etc:

I loved the part with the four women give Sam his disc. It's like something out of a Matthew Barney art installation. It might be the most avante garde thing I've seen from Disney outside of their animation.

Mabuse

I'm following you but I'm still confused. The scenes shot (and effects rendered) in 1.78 AR were at greater than 4K resolution (8K I'm guessing) and the scenes shot in 2.40 were in 4K resolution. Right? Why not do the whole film in the higher resolution process? In IMAX I could see the drop in resolution along with the shift in AR. It just wasn't as detailed.

Blu Man

Not really. The films master format is 2K, which is fine considering that the film was shot at 1080p. The film then went through IMAX's process of upscaling, and sharpening the entire film. Whether the 16:9 footage went through any extra processing, I dunno, it's certainly possible. The final resolution for the IMAX print was most likely 4K, but you have to understand that it went through a lot of processing to get to that resolution. First it was upscaled to 2K, then resharpened, then we'll assume it was upscaled again at 4K. I seriously doubt any of the film was rendered at 8K, since that would be pointless coming from a 1080p source format. Matthew is talking about The Dark Knight's process, which since it was shot on 35mm and 70mm film, is entirely different then the process TRON: Legacy went through.

I'm only making an educated guess as to saying that the film was ever exported at 4K. It's possible that IMAX corp cleaned it up but left it at 2K, and only exported the 16:9 scenes at 4K (or the entire film at 2K). But since the film was realesed on 70mm IMAX, and Sony 4K (which is what I watched it on), I'd assume it was upscaled to 4K at some point in time.

Mabuse

It's starting to make sense, but I still don't understand why they weren't consistent throughout.

Supermallet

I've watched Tron since I could remember watching movies. I had it on VHS and then DVD, and haven't even sold it knowing that the Blu-ray will be coming out soon. I have no problem with the Grid being dark, oppressive, or inhuman. I have a problem with the movie feeling like it was written by people who hadn't even seen the original film. There's so much about the film I could nitpick, watching it over and over at work. It fails on several basic levels, and the more I see it, the more I feel like it's a thoroughly missed opportunity. Any one of us could have written a better movie than Legacy.

Mabuse

Just imagine for a minute how much worse it could have been. They didn't have to get Boxlietner or Bridges back. They didn't have to make it so connected to the original. They could have treated it like a "reboot" and cast James Van Der Beek and Meghan Fox and done a "do-over" of the original. Legacy is not perfect, but it could have been DREADFUL.

And it's hard to say after only one viewing, but I think it has a bit of the "magic" of the original.

gmanca

It does have the magic of the original but that doesn't mean it has the heart; I think there was a big disconnect between what the Grid and it's components meant to the real world. I understand that with it being isolated, the programs have no connection to the users but that should have been played up more in line with the original in regards to Users being mythological. And how they handled the ISO's was just as bad in that they were never fully developed, only to point to CLU as a mass-murderer in search of perfection.

Supermallet

You're right, it could have been worse, but then I would have been able to dismiss it from the beginning instead of hoping they were going to do something interesting and then ending up with Legacy.

Jackskeleton

Not so much the story. Cause, well... like I've already stated.. both the original and the sequel have a pretty basic story.

Flynn gets trapped in computer world and has to get from point A to point B. Hell, he just happened to find the file he was looking for some how along the way.

I think they left the ISO's vague enough, where if you applied the same sort of nitpicking that is being done with Tron to the original Star Wars, you would be left with a lot of the same.