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- First reviewMay 10, 2009
- Last reviewDecember 18, 2010
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commorancy's Reviews
Overall rating
4
/
5
Tron Legacy: Great visuals, thin story
PostedDecember 18, 2010
commorancy
from Cupertino
To start off, I was a reasonably big fan of the original Tron film. Yes, the first Tron story was a bit of a letdown, but it worked for what it was. After all, it was the first film to use computer graphics to that level within a film. Definitely a ground breaker.
Achievements
Tron Legacy is also a ground breaker once again, but much less so. Its technological advancements in film are much more subtle. A lot of people may not have thought about this, but Tron Legacy is the first film to use an actual actor’s likeness in a film to play the actor at a younger age using a CG head and real body. I had predicted that this would happen eventually, and here we are. Tron Legacy now opens doors up to creation of new films by Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. Granted, the animation on the face was a bit stilted and unnatural, but it works for the CLU character. It doesn't work so much for Kevin Flynn’s younger self. Nevertheless, the CG worked in most instances. If they had spent just a bit more time on the face, they could have made it look even better.
Story
While I really wanted this story to work well, it doesn’t come together as well as I had hoped. Basically, the CG is so strong that the story has to be twice as strong to overcome the incredible visuals. The trouble is, it doesn’t. But then, the same could be said of the first Tron film.
However, the two main problems with this film are 1) lack of formidable villain and, by association, lack of a real payoff at the end and 2) Tron is not the main character and is visibly absent most of the film. After all, this film is named ‘Tron’. Tron is the character we expected to see. We do see him in flashbacks and, without spoiling the film, in other places as well. However, for 95% of the film, Tron is absent. In the small parts he is in, Tron really contributes little to the overall story.
I realize that this film is about the ‘Legacy’ of Flynn (i.e., Sam Flynn). So, Sam takes the front stage in this production. That’s ok were Sam Flynn a super likable character. Unfortunately, he’s not. He’s likable enough, but not nearly as much as I liked Kevin Flynn in Tron. In the first Tron film, we the viewers felt just like Kevin who was plopped into this computer world unexpectedly. So, we’re experiencing it all for the first time just like he is. With Tron Legacy, the audience already understands much about the world having seen the first film. So, wasting time on the introductions of the world isn’t really necessary. To their credit, the producers/writers did try to skip much of it. But, the whole clothes cutting and redressing scene was a bit overkill and kind of showed us just how cheesy the costumes were. Like the first film, it would worked better and saved lots of time if Sam had woken up in the computer world already dressed. That whole costuming scene could have been skipped (which was awkward anyway). I understand the setup between him and one of the female dressers, but that meet-and-greet could have happened in a different way.
Villainy
Unfortunately, CLU wasn’t the appropriate ‘Program’ to be a villain. First, CLU was supposed to be Kevin Flynn’s helper program. So, it seems odd that he would have gone rogue anyway. Secondarily, he wasn’t really designed to be a villain. So, turning him into one just seemed wrong. Worse, he really wasn’t a worthy adversary in the games. If he is as good as he is supposed to be (along with his black guard henchman), they both would have been able to best Sam Flynn easily. So, this whole part of the film just didn’t really work. But then, Quorra interrupted the games early. Kind of convenient, but at the same time the grid games gave us no payoff from Sam.
Adversary
Unlike Tron, who had the MCP, we had no such villain in Tron Legacy. CLU is it in Legacy, but he just doesn't come off as a proper villain. He seems more like a henchman for something bigger. Yet, that something bigger just wasn’t there. I actually expected to see Kevin Flynn emerge as the villain in this film. That would have been something. It would have really justified the end of this film, showed us a completely different side to Kevin and, at the same time, give us a huge satisfying payoff at the end. Alas, it didn’t happen.
Encom
Other than the bored room meetings (pun intended), we really got very little of what Encom does in the present. With technologies like the digitizing system that was displayed in Tron, I would have expected Encom to be a lot farther along than selling ‘the latest greatest operating system’ (ala Microsoft). Clearly, this part of the film is an afterthought. It wastes screen time without really telling us much about Encom. It is really used as a vehicle to set up Sam Flynn’s character. However, even that falls flat. Honestly, the film would have been served better by not knowing or seeing that Sam Flynn escapade.
Action
The movie definitely started off on the right foot and continued at a pretty solid pace until just after Sam Flynn exits the game grid. After that, the story comes to a crawl, as does the action. So, unfortunately, this leads to a lack of payoff. It also doesn’t give Sam Flynn any screen time to kick butt and take names which this film so desperately needs. The wins we saw with Sam on the grid were more out of luck and accidents than out of skill. Sam never did get enough screen time to show that he had any skills that could be translated from the real world. Even the lightcycle skills didn’t show through no matter how much Ducati footage was included in the opening. We needed to see Sam win at something where the stakes were substantial. Something that at the end of, we could cheer for him and his win.
Payoff
In the end, there really was no payoff. In the first film, Tron’s first goal is to get a message to his user. So, he has to fight and his way through to a communication tower. In Tron Legacy, Sam and Kevin’s Flynn’s only goal is to get to the exit portal (not unlike the communication tower in Tron). So, when they finally get to the portal, it almost seems trivially easy. There was really no opposition along the way. Just a quick trip with a Solar Sailor and they’re basically there. No grid bugs, no hidden Mickey Mouse heads, etc. Just a trip without any incidents. In Tron, getting to the communication tower was only half the way for Tron. He still had to battle the MCP. At the end of Tron Legacy, there was no battle. In fact, there was nothing to battle at all, other than Kevin’s own guilt.
Once at the portal, the ending was really explained by Quorra about 20 minutes earlier. So, I won’t give it away. But, there was no real payoff with CLU or Tron. In fact, there was no real positive payoff at all. The ending leaves more questions than answers. So, unless Disney plans on Tron 3, we may never know what happened.
Overall
The story could have been far better. However, the producers relied on the visuals and the music (which, granted, both were very impressive) to carry this film. The plot could have been far better, though. We needed at least one payoff that we didn’t get. Barring that, I was hoping for a small payoff with Sam on the game grid, but even that didn’t happen. Sam, like Kevin in Tron, also needed to befriend someone in the computer world besides Quorra. He needed another companion to travel around parts of the world and show him the ropes.
Also, there were lots of subtle things that just didn’t work or were missing. For example, as a user in Tron (first film), Kevin was able to absorb energy and use it in unusual ways. Clearly, he was still able to do that to create CLU in Tron Legacy. He also used this power to steal a non-working Recognizer in Tron. However, the writers didn’t explore this aspect with Sam at all. It could have helped out in several instances and would have made for a more cohesive film. There was also no humor element like the ‘bit’ in the Recognizer in Tron. Not that we needed ‘bit’ in this film, but I think that humor could have helped in places.
Even though the story is a bit weak in the film, the story for Tron Evolution (video game) is much stronger than the film. In fact, it has many of the elements and payoffs that the movie lacks, including a proper villain using Abraxas. If you’re really into Tron lore, you should check out Tron Evolution to fill in the story gaps that the movie doesn’t fully explain (i.e., the ISOs). I was disappointed that the film glossed over the ISO storyline and, instead, left it to the video game to fully explain this concept.
I like the film, but the story really needs to be far stronger than it is.
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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Overall rating
4
/
5
Abram's takes liberties with Trek
PostedMay 10, 2009
commorancy
from Cupertino
I could start this review by discussing how the acting was brilliant, how the characters worked well, how the character origins unfolded or how the story pacing was fantastic, but this all of this is false.
Instead, JJ Abrams has decided to rewrite the series and, indeed, the Trek universe. Using a temporal anomaly lets Abrams take complete creative control over the 'new' Star Trek series .Anomalies are cop-out writing techniques. To base all future films or series on this anomaly event is completely pretentious. It basically says, "I'm J.J. Abrams and I'm better than Roddenberry ever was".. Take the film for what it is as a standalone project, bet let's leave Abrams film alone as an anomaly in itself. Trek does not need this.
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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