I saw this movie in IMAX-3D. I have only seen a handful of movies in 3D, including Avatar, and remain convinced that 3D is a gimmick. A neat gimmick, to be sure, but just a gimmick.
My hope was that I could just watch the movie and let it flow over me, without me thinking about it. I didn't want to think about story, effects, characters, none of that. I'd been waiting for this for over a year.
On first viewing, overall my verdict is approval. This movie is true to the spirit of the original Tron. There were only a couple of effects which I found jarring, and only one or two plot points that made me go "wait, what?"
I read a review which said, in part:
Successful or not, Tron was pushing the envelope, trying for something new, Tron: Legacy is paralysed by its reverence for the old.
And in a way this is true. Tron: Legacy is very much caught up by the weight of the original, and the time that has passed since the original. I don't think this is a bad thing. Those of us who love the original don't want a radical reboot of the universe; we want an updated Tron universe, but a continuation of the story and characters.
There is a lot of love for the history we grew up with here. Right from Sam's opening sequence, where he makes a well-worn observation regarding a building's fixture, we are given the signal that the creators of Legacy also remember and love the original. Flynn's office contains an old Sun i386 workstation, a beast that was old when I started with Sun equipment more than 15 years ago, but it captured the feel of the computing environment from the time. We are offered occasional updated recognizers, and a brief glimpse of the grid tanks that hark back to the original, and the MCP's carrier is present in an updated form. Jenn noted nods to both Wang and Cray.
Tron: Legacy continues the nifty sleight-of-hand that the original perpetrated. Tron was actually about Kevin Flynn, with the title character as a side kick. Similarly, Legacy is actually about Sam Flynn, and the returning character Tron is barely mentioned, even though he is present in more ways that are immediately obvious.
Legacy is also another movie about fathers and sons, a topic which rings with me a bit more now.
The jarring effect I mentioned above? When Sam returns to his garage/apartment, the garage door is obviously a CGI and the movement is just… wrong. Simple stuff, especially with the effects-heavy sequences later in the movie. But that one was the one which made me notice it.
Plot-wise, there are a few quibbles. There was one character who was so over-the-top that he was almost not over-the-top enough. There was one point where Kevin Flynn makes a completely unexpected change of mind in how he wants to carry on his quest that didn't fit. There was one point where a character tells us Gemm. My name is Gemm. and I thought well of course it is, honey.
Jenn thought the movie could have used more explanation of the plot points as things went on; I thought that the script contained enough explanation of both the back-plot from the original movie as well as providing the needed context for the more immediate action.
But these are but minor details. All that aside, I think this is a worthy successor. It is one of the few movies I've seen in the last few years that I want to see again in the theater (although probably just 2D this time, thank you). I bought the soundtrack by Daft Punk, and look forward to seeing the movie in my DVD collection.
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