Tron: Legacy reactions

Cafe Society
81

I absolutely loved this movie. It did go a bit more into metaphysical “what is reality really” type stuff but it was still good. I think the point they were trying to get across with the ISOs has to do with the theory of complex computer systems and sentience. There’s a theory that says once computing power gets sufficiently complex and powerful, sentient AIs will spontaneously develop in it. The ISOs are something like that, wild, unpredictable, and alive. Way more complex than Clu ever could be, and he saw them as imperfections to be erased. Clu was also partly corrupted, which is why he started going on his rampage to being with.

Something that disappointed me was when Flynn said to the guard program “I’m taking this vessel” and after the guard said no, I almost expected him to say “sudo I’m taking this vessel” then the guard lets him pass :smiley: but nooooo I had to have that geek joke all in my head.

82

It was as if Stanley Kubrick made the second Matrix movie. (no, I don’t think that would be a good thing)
I was expecting Dave Bowman to walk around the corner in his red suit in the safe house.

The club where he met Zeus is equally the Milk Bar and something out of the Matrix.

Zeus’ club owner character wasn’t quite ‘enough’. Not wild enough to really make that work.

I loved the War Games quote and if she was Gem does that make the other three the Holograms?

83

Yeah, the War Games reference was great. I was kind of hoping that when whathisface was shooting down enemy planes in the gun pod, Jeff Bridges would warn him not to get cocky.

84

I loved it despite its flaws, although the 3D in this instance wasn’t worth it as hardly any of the movie was even shot in 3D. I kept taking my glasses off to check and noticed that every time I did, none of the images were blurry at all like they should have been in a total 3D movie. There was even a message at the beginning of the movie that stated as much.

Essentially I payed extra for 3D previews. Ah well. Cool movie!

85

Very disappointing.
The impression I got was this story was floating around the studio and someone said, “That would make an awesome TRON sequel.” What really brought me out of the film was the time factor. In the original, Flynn is in the computer for what seems like days but it is almost instantaneous in the real world. That makes sense since computers run so quickly so after 7 years of real world time, Flynn should have been less of the Zen master and more like the kid at the end of “The Jaunt”. And I never got the whole purpose of having to get Quorra out except the hero always gets the girl (except in the original TRON). And the whole TRON “I fight for the users” was a Chekov’s gun never used. He gets defeated by CLU after a few sissy slaps and never shows up again.

86

What was that? Must’ve missed it.

87

OMG that sucked. The dialog made Luca seem like Shakespeare. The plot was convoluted beyond any hope of following it, the spiritual message was annoying and trite, and the computer speak thrown in was groan worthy “many cycles ago”. And why the fuck did they change it so that the light cycles didn’t need to go in straight lines. That was the cool part about the game and original movie. And what’s up with taking your “life disk” that is so important and then throwing it around?

Parts here and there were enjoyable, but what an utter waste of money and talent on such a shitty script.

88

Jeff Bridges says “It’s a stupid game. The only winning move is not to play.” which is a take on the famous War Games when the computer learns the lesson of futility by playing every possible permutation of tic tac toe and the Global Thermal Nuclear War game.

89

I liked the ‘man, that’s some door’ comment, even though he probably should have already been aware of it.

90

My pants were vibrating so much I started to wonder if they installed special fans under the seats!

Me too. Does anyone know for sure which parts were 3D? I kind of assumed that it must be a “Wizard of Oz” sort of thing, with 2D in the real world and 3D in the Tron world, but I have no way to be sure - that just makes the most sense. But I found myself eventually forgetting the 3Dness. Although, on the second viewing, I did finally notice the “schlock 3D” bits - where an object was thrown at or drawn from the camera for 3D effect (hint: pay attention to the grappling hook).

91

Ah, thanks! I remember now.

92

Everything in the Grid world is 3D, everything in the “real world” is 2D. I actually thought that was a really interesting touch - 3D technology is still relatively crude, and tends to give a slight air of unreality to everything. In “Tron: Legacy,” it’s used to enhance the sense of oddness we feel in the Grid, where everything seems approximately real but we’re constantly being subtly reminded that it’s all just a simulation of reality.

(You might think that having these scenes in 3D should, logically, be more realistic than the shots in 2D, but that’s the strange irony of modern film. We’re all so used to 2D at this point that 2D actually feels more “real” than 3D, especially given the limitations of modern 3D technology.)

This effect is especially important for the character of Quorra - if you ignore her outfit and just look at her face, she always has this very vague unreality about her throughout the film, until the moment you see her in the real world. Suddenly, she stops looking like a simulacrum and becomes a real person. Part of this is makeup and costuming. But I think the switch from 3D to 2D plays a big role in the change as well.

93

I’m fairly certain that the only part which was 2D was at the end when they were riding on his bike through the countryside. Otherwise, the real world was 3D as well.

94

No, when he’s in the arcade initially it’s 2D as well. Basically, all present-day real-world scenes are in 2D. That’s my understanding, anyway.

95

He Chekhov Gunned on that?!

Here is what I am STILL confused about:

Kevin at one point kneels down at a panel, and as far as I know, created a new C.L.U.

What happened to that ?

As the camera was closing in on the 1989 hose that young Sam was in I already liked the movie. I think most of it was the music, and just getting to see the film, period.

I watched the original one and a half times. Not that I remember that much of it. I just think that Disney getting to get this out, and yes, selling eye candy is what did it for me.

On more than one occasion I called Legacy “Disney’s answer to The Matrix”. I really got that vibe at The End Of Line club.

Just me, or was the entire Zuse sub-plot totally not needed?
I called one part of the movie, if not one tempo pace faster.

I perfectly Understood why Kevin left immediately after Quorra told him Sam left. The entire Chaos / Fuzzy Logic thing that Humans have over Programs.

If he was smart enough to exploit that, wouldn’t he have

Taken a fake disc with him, and wear it, long before he entered the club?

But at least he did that

at the end

Which, totally grabbed me emotionally out of nowhere.

But yeah, let me re-watch the original, GIVE me the soundtrack, and I will be ready to watch this one again.

Get the strange feeling that when I do get around to watching this one again, I will understand it 1000 times better. For a while there, I didn’t understand why The Matrix had a spaceship. [[Squiddy’s and The Neb fight.]]

96

I thought that was a flashback to the moment he created CLU (using some rough analog of a clone command).

What I’m unclear about is the whole contrivance that the only way to destroy CLU was some kind of loopy matter/antimatter mutual cancellation thing.

97

Tron is one of those movies it’s best not to think too hard about. (things like: if you need an identity disk to beam out, why is she a hot chick in RL and not Jeff Bridges?) You DO know that, when he gets busy with her, he’s…uh…doing his father’s genetic material? Like I said, bet not to think about such things.

98

Thanks to the SDMB, I was intensely aware of the blue/orange color palette the entire time.

I enjoyed the movie, but that’s because I wasn’t expecting more than disneyesque scripting with nice CGI.

99

I am wondering if I misheard some dialog, because the only genuinely annoying thing about the movie was that one of the jokes didn’t seem to follow its own rules. When the son asks what the chunk of metal in his hand was for, one of his opponents responds “I’ll give you a hint – not that” Did I mishear that line? Because the way the son was holding it, it looked like the program was telling him that it was not a light saber. And then, later on in the movie, there were light sabers. That’s sort of like in the PotC movies, where one of the pirates jokes that the Pirate Code was more like guidelines, really. And then, in the third movie, they indeed break out a dusty tome containing the Pirate Code :smack:

100

Another flaw was the timing. The parts with the son as a teenager took place in 1989. In his room there were Rubik’s Cubes, most of the video games in the dad’s arcade were from the early 80s, and there were early 80s music playing on the juke box. One of the three I could see as either an affectation (especially of the father, since he did seem to indulge in the arcade as a personal pastime rather than a moneymaker,) but when you combine all three it tells me that the writers didn’t know that those things were out of place in 1989. No one would mistake early 60s culture for very late 60s culture so I don’t see why they should be given a pass on this.

Which isn’t to say that the movie was ruined for me, it was just a small mistake.