The Legacy of Tron Legacy

Here's a twist:

NOT GEEK

OMG this looks GREAT! So freakin' awesome... the trailers look great, and did you hear DAFT PUNK is doing the soundtrack? The first movie was early electronica as far as the soundtrack, so the producers this time around got THE PREMIER electronica artists of 2010 for this! Is liking Daft Punk not geeky? Let's save that question for someone else's blog, "Hipster/Not Hipster."

GEEK

Dude.

People have been nutting themselves over this movie for months, and the first trailer(s) looked great. I was going to link them (for science) but could not easily find an embedded one, so I just gave up. ... Because I am a Geek, and therefore I weigh 300+ pounds, never shave, and sweat easily. Etc. Etc.

TRAILER ONE: Leaked on the net, it was just two random dudes on their light-cycles. I was cynical, but I let it slide: It's the light cycles. That's like making an X-Men movie and only showing Wolverine in the trailer. Or making a Monopoly movie, and only showing the racecar. It's what we want, but it's not indicative of the final product.

TRAILER TWO: This is the one that gave everyone wood. Slow mood-building, Bruce Boxleitner cameo (that guy looks familiar...), then BAM, score switches to electronic and we're seeing a towering, extremely familiar image of a Space Paranoid. Then the crazy guy with the air guitar. Then the hot chick on the sofa. Then Young Bridges. ZOMG WTF LOL AHHHH.

I watched this trailer about 197 times, and the first 196... okay, let me excise hyperbole (I don't really talk like that in real life): I watched the trailer literally about ten times the first week or so it was out, and after about a dozen, it started to crack for me.

I thought, "Why show these specific elements? They look cool, but what are they telling me about the story?"

Answer: Nothing.

These are things in every single story Hollywood creates. I read this in a review of a movie you and I have already forgotten about, the CGI-animated "Nine" starring celebrity voices and with Tim Burton's name in the credits because it sells tickets. But it applies to most movies: Stock characters. (1) Hero. (2) The friend of the hero/wacky comic relief who has some inherent flaw, but is there as a sounding board/deus ex machine so our hero completes the task. (3) Wise sage (4) A girl. (5) The bad guy.

Go down your mental rolodex. Yes, I just listed the cast for every Shrek and Toy Story film. And I'm not being pretentious, I really really loved Toy Story 1-2 and the first Shrek movie. I haven't seen Toy Story 3 because I am old and you need to get the hell off my lawn.

Anyway: Tron Legacy. These are just the standard movie stock characters. The hero (Flynn Jr), the friend of the hero (Bruce Boxleitner), the wise sage (quite probably Old Bridges), a girl (Olivia Wilde, who at least in the trailer serves no other purpose than to look hot and help the hero out. Really? She can't be the hero? She seems to know her way around weaponry. But this being Disney, it is her job to be pretty and tell the hero "You can do it!"), and the bad guy (presumably Young Flynn).

Well now as stylistic as the trailer is, I'm sorta cranky. But no, I tell myself. Even though everyone is super-excited for this movie, even those people who were born AFTER the original came out (1982), I will STILL withhold judgment. It's just a trailer. They make it to have as broad of an appeal as possible. TOP MEN are working on this film. TOP.... MEN.

I even ignored my own rule about, "It can't be 5-Star movie if it's the director's first film." Cuz it is. The new director has done commercials, but that's it. Then again, the director of the original Tron only ever directed the original Tron. There's wiggle-room.

THEN CAME THE MOST RECENT TRAILER. Clearly buzz is deafening for the flick, because people watched this piece of shit and ARE STILL BUZZED ABOUT THE MOVIE. You remember in Zoolander where Zoolander kept giving the same look, and Will Ferrell was all like, "AM I TAKING F&%# CRAZY PILLS?!!"

It's like that.

I am by no means a video game afficionado, and have played far fewer games than I have seen movies or even owned CD's. But while young-Bridges in the first trailer (seen only briefly) looks like simply an old-Bridges with major air-brushing (see also: Benjamin Button), in the new trailer, young-Bridges face moves, and IT LOOKS WORSE THAN VIDEO GAMES FROM 2005. Like it's not even remotely fooling anyone. Or, apparently it's fooling EVERYONE, because nobody seems to notice. It looks like ASS. It looks less-realistic than the skeletons in Pirates of the Caribbean, and that movie is five years old TOO. Do they just figure, screw it, we spent enough money, people won't notice because nobody cried foul about Gollum?

... Okay, Gollum was shot dark, but he didn't have to look human. But when he shared the screen with a real person, it looked bad, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone here.

CGI-Bridges looks like shit. We still know nothing about the story. It's a first-time director.

While I am not without a childlike sense of joy, and am currently twitching in a POSITIVE way about other movies opening between now and Christmas, every single thing I've seen about Tron: Legacy points to a Phantom Menace-esque experience, or best-case scenario, Revenge of the Sith.

And while Revenge of the Sith was clearly the best of the New Three, it couldn't hold a candle to the Original Trilogy, and we all know this.

Seriously, when was the last time Disney put out quality anything? Even Pixar wasn't their doing; Pixar owned them so many times that eventually Disney shut down its own hand-drawn animation department. Because they got BEAT. By an upstart company with ACTUAL TALENT.

I am too young to be old and cynical. But the movie looks like a C+, and while de-rezzing gladiators looks pretty cool, the actual human fight choreography looks like shit, or at least the 1.5 seconds they've bothered to put in the trailer. And trust me, if it looked good, there'd be more of it.

On the upside, the entire soundtrack is on YouTube, and it is awesome.

Bring on Harry Potter. Bring on 127 Hours. Bring on True Grit.

Let's do this thing.