Tron Legacy

Yeah, yeah I know. It took me 3 years to talk about Tron Legacy. But come on, it took them almost 30 years to make a sequel!

How did I get into Tron? I have no idea. I remember so much from around 2010 and yet shockingly nothing to do with the movie. I think it all started with the video game Tron Evolution, then I was kinda hooked man. I bought the soundtrack to this movie, bought the Identity Discs, the Light Cycles, I was a Tron fan before I even saw 10 seconds of film footage from either of the movies! I am one of the biggest fans of Tron you will ever know, so it should come as no shock that I love this movie. Tron Legacy is a very, very, very good movie. Where do I start with this movie? Well story is a great place to begin always, so we set the wayback machine to 1989, Kevin Flynn has been working in The Grid for 7 years, he has a son named Sam and life is going pretty good. Then he disappears for about 20 years. Good catch and intrigue already! We catch up with Sam, and he gets contacted by Alan and he tells Sam that he got a message from his dad's arcade so Sam investigates and gets sent to The Grid! After that, tons happens. We learn Flynn made a program Clu that went rogue and took over the system, a new lifeform is discovered in The Grid, and it's a mad rush for our heroes to get back to reality before Clu does. There's almost too much good in this movie. The effects are outstanding, we see such evolution in The Grid and all it's aspects, and there is such little details in every scene that is incredible to see! Characters have deep emotional connections to one another, relationships are explored, and it's interesting to delve into the character of Flynn. I could write an essay on it, but let's just say he's a damn fine character. But character is nothing without actors, and the cast is done really well! Jeff Bridges is full in The Dude mode and ugh I love it! Olivia Wilde really kinda steals the show for me, she is such an interesting character and her acting is amazing (plus I love the fact that her eyes are so ridiculously beautiful they didn't need to add contacts). Garrett Hedlund is a fine lead and and despite me not seeing him in much afterward, he should have more roles. The only "bad"? role is Michael Sheen as the owner of this bar. Oh my dear sweet brother Numsie! He is doing the exact same damn role as he did in the Twilight movies. Mugging, ridiculous, faye as hell. I just, I can't. You know who they should have got instead? David Bowie. It would have been perfect. But Bruce Boxleitner makes up for that and then some. Like, lightyears some mmkay? Ohh, and the music! Damn it Daft Punk! I am so geeking over this movie! When a movie can get goosebumps out of me in literally the first minute of film, and continually do so throughout is something special. This is one of the most, if not the most gorgeous film I have ever seen. Almost every frame is art, the designs and color are incredible, it just looks so impressive. And you know what the odd thing was? Well, not just the fact they had real sets and costumes along with the computer graphics but the real world segments kinda looked like it was a very high quality fan film. And I love that! It reminds me of this fan made trailer some person made, I believe it was called Tron The Next Day. Kinda this pseudo-prequel to the third film, and it was done so damn well! Just, oh God....I've never seen such a gorgeous film in my life. Yeah I'm biased, the guy who is a big enough nerd to have not one but two Tron stickers on his laptop may be a tiny little bit partial to the Tron movies. I just have such fond memories of all the stuff surrounding the movie. The Flynn Lives website, that badass video game identifier they had, getting all this rad stuff, playing Space Paranoids! I went to a Wal-Mart the day Tron Legacy hit video, midnight launch, it was a school day afterward but I did not care. I needed that movie. And I got it. The only ever so slightly bad thing I can say about this movie is the last shot is not as impressive and beautiful as the last movie. That is nitpicking, at best people. I'm probably the only critic who legitimately loves this movie, but I do not care. Tron Legacy is a sure fire 4 stars! Check it out! And please Disney make Tron 3 before I hit 40!!

Tron

Okay so apparently two of my favorite movies of all time star Jeff Bridges. Go figure.



Yeah, kinda weird. More weirder that he pretty much acts like the Dude in this movie too. But, anyways Tron! Tron is one of the most creative and fascinating movies ever made. The story of Tron, pretty much centers around a human being being transported into the computer world. I know it sounds awfully familiar, but I believe this movie started it all. The movie was made and is set in 1982, so this is before the Internet, when computers didn't have a mouse and it was all text, unless you had a floppy disk to play games...and even then they were just text too. But the film really deals with the technology at that time pretty brilliantly. Hell, there's even technology in this movie that we didn't get until about 30 years later and technology we still have yet to see. No seriously, there is this CEO of this huge electronic company that has a touch screen computer as his desk. Are you kidding me?! It took us roughly 30 years to have that technology brought to the masses? Unbelievable. And they have this machine that can digitize real life things and insert it into the computer world, you know maybe there's a reason we don't have that piece of tech yet...but that's how our hero gets zapped into the computer world. And the special effects, oh my God!! These are some of the most ambitious and fantastic early examples of CGI ever put to film! I have NO idea how they accomplished such feats of cinematic magic so early in the 80's, and it still holds up pretty well. It looks very impressive given the technology that was used back then and how nearly flawless it looks. But this film has an answer for everything in the special effects, so since it's in a computer world, if something looks bad or if the special effect doesn't come out just right it's considered a bug or a glitch in the computer and I think that's a genius way of telling how sometimes an effect shot looks a little off. I just love this movie. Now let's talk about the actors. Jeff Bridges plays a computer programmer who created several video games for the arcade but find's out that they were stolen and he has to retrieve them, and Jeff Bridges does do a very good job in this film and he does kinda act like the Dude which you know I love. Bruce Boxleitner plays the title role character known as Tron and plays the best friend of Jeff Bridge's character, and Bruce Boxleitner is the man! You do not get much better awesome and charming and all around amazing acting than from this guy! Then we have David Warner as the main villain, and David Warner is one of the greatest and most esteemed actors from both the stage and screen and he is marvelous in this movie, he does a great job in every movie he is in, whether it is bad or good he still gives a great performance and this is no exception. One of my favorite parts of the movie that really delves into the making of the computer world, the programs look exactly like their users, exactly like the people that programmed them which really touches on the religious aspect of the film, where the users are considered gods and the programs are made in their own image. There are many layers underneath the simple and yet fascinating story. It's a cult film but it really needs to be seen by more people because it is such a great movie, true it may not be for everyone but it's still worth a shot to see if you like it. And to me in my very humble opinion, this has one of the greatest ending shots in a movie ever. It's beautiful, it gives you one last parallel between the real world and the computer world, and I am just a sucker for time lapse shots of cities.



You know what, hang on a sec. I have a video for you! This is seriously one of the most beautiful and amazing things I have ever seen in my entire life. I am star struck every time I see it, and I cannot believe mankind has evolved to this point. You have not lived or have truly witnessed beauty until you watch this: https://youtu.be/uf9sItcBsjw

Enjoy!