Tron

Tron: Ares

  • Title: Tron: Ares
  • IMDb: link

Tron: Ares is the movie Tron: Legacy should have been. Largely ignoring the events of Legacy, the new film give us corporate espionage while also playing on the real-life debate of greed and fear of the proper use of Artificial Intelligence. On one side we have Eve Kim (Greta Lee), stepping in as the head of ENCOM following Sam Flynn‘s departure. On the other side we have Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters). Both are pursuing the breakthrough to manifest physical objects and programs into the real world for longer than 29-minutes (at which they become unstable and dissolve into dust).

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Tron

  • Title: Tron
  • IMDb: link

Remember when Frisbees were Cool?

Tron is something of a novelty.  The film was the first to rely heavily on CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) during a time when no one used computers in movies. The technology was new and limited, but because the film was made at such a time the movie has a look and feel that no other film is likely to duplicate. 

The way Tron was colored and backlight by hand, frame by frame, is too labor intensive for our Star Wars / Jurassic Park era and beyond.  Rather than using CGI to create more believable images or other worlds, the creators of Tron realized the limitations of the technology and instead focused on using light against the black background to produce a one of a kind art form.  The difference is important.  Even after 40 years have passed the movie still holds up even though the technology used to create it has long been passed by.

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Tron: Legacy

  • Title: Tron: Legacy
  • IMDB: link

I should have have loved Tron: Legacy. The original remains one of my favorite films of my childhood. It’s unique look and style (which has never even been attempted to be recaptured over years) was the type of eye candy and simple yet heartfelt and far-reaching message of a near future digital frontier blew my seven year-old mind.

Although Legacy has a distinctly different visual style, it still creates a beautiful world you want to get lost in for a couple of hours. The new version also throws in lightcylces, a modern take on the effects, and plenty of action. It also lifts story elements from several movies than I enjoy (which come off much better than its original ideas) some of which feel like courteous nods and homages and some of which feel like not-so-subtle rip-offs. So what went wrong?

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