Tron Legacy: A Review and Reflection of a Digital Lifestyle
Original director/writer Steven Lisberger tapped into the same mythos that embraced a Star Wars generation. Instead of a lightsaber, there’s an identity disc.
There’s no doubt of some copycat moments, and this film is simply tapping into what audiences are already familiar with. In this film, the relationship between two individuals—Sam (Garrett Hedlund) and his father, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges)—is explored. The senior has disappeared off the face of the earth and when a page arrives on Alan Bradley’s (Bruce Boxleitner) cell phone, that’s when Sam’s world gets turned around.
In the digital domain both Flynns come through as arrogant, and what happens next is an attempt to look at the consequences of playing God. The senior believed he could create a perfect system, and in his arrogance he got more than he bargained for. He didn’t realize what he opened up is just a Pandora’s box.
There’s an exceptional tale to be found in this film as long as audiences look beyond what’s being said. To have director Joseph Kosinski and several writers try to instill Lisberger’s vision almost worked, but what they really needed to settle on was one central idea rather than mixing things around.
Someone in the production team must have echoed Dillenger’s anarchist sentimentality from the first film, since it was difficult for the team to deal with the spiritual message Lisberger wanted. He’s producing this time and while he may have insisted on preserving his vision, everyone else focused on wowing crowds with the visual effects. They’re catering to moviegoers who want eye candy over religious fanaticism.
Sadly, like the first movie, this film’s spiritual message is lost in the shuffle. Not everyone will understand the Buddhist nature of the senior Flynn. Jeff Bridges brilliantly succeeds in fooling many people to the older Flynn’s purpose. And the imperfect CGI in creating the younger looking Flynn actually works in favour of showing that he’s a simulacrum rather than a fully realized human, flaws and all.
The future of this franchise really has to be told in graphic novel format where the story matters more than the military games being played out in the Matrix.
TRON did come first and like the first film, the questions asked back then are still relevant now. Legacy attempts to answer what is creation, but if one doesn’t even get it after leaving the grid, perhaps a revisit to Oz is needed.
If you get it, click your heels three times and we can all go home.
Article by: Ed Sum
posted:02 Feb 2011
Related Link: http://disney.go.com/tron/
The one lasting influence the movie TRON placed upon the world of pop culture is its neon stamp. The CGI was cool and who didn’t want to play glow-in-the-dark Frisbee? Tron Legacy lives up to everything the first film defined and goes even further.
Original director/writer Steven Lisberger tapped into the same mythos that embraced a Star Wars generation. Instead of a lightsaber, there’s an identity disc.
There’s no doubt of some copycat moments, and this film is simply tapping into what audiences are already familiar with. In this film, the relationship between two individuals—Sam (Garrett Hedlund) and his father, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges)—is explored. The senior has disappeared off the face of the earth and when a page arrives on Alan Bradley’s (Bruce Boxleitner) cell phone, that’s when Sam’s world gets turned around.
In the digital domain both Flynns come through as arrogant, and what happens next is an attempt to look at the consequences of playing God. The senior believed he could create a perfect system, and in his arrogance he got more than he bargained for. He didn’t realize what he opened up is just a Pandora’s box.
There’s an exceptional tale to be found in this film as long as audiences look beyond what’s being said. To have director Joseph Kosinski and several writers try to instill Lisberger’s vision almost worked, but what they really needed to settle on was one central idea rather than mixing things around.
Someone in the production team must have echoed Dillenger’s anarchist sentimentality from the first film, since it was difficult for the team to deal with the spiritual message Lisberger wanted. He’s producing this time and while he may have insisted on preserving his vision, everyone else focused on wowing crowds with the visual effects. They’re catering to moviegoers who want eye candy over religious fanaticism.
Sadly, like the first movie, this film’s spiritual message is lost in the shuffle. Not everyone will understand the Buddhist nature of the senior Flynn. Jeff Bridges brilliantly succeeds in fooling many people to the older Flynn’s purpose. And the imperfect CGI in creating the younger looking Flynn actually works in favour of showing that he’s a simulacrum rather than a fully realized human, flaws and all.
The future of this franchise really has to be told in graphic novel format where the story matters more than the military games being played out in the Matrix.
TRON did come first and like the first film, the questions asked back then are still relevant now. Legacy attempts to answer what is creation, but if one doesn’t even get it after leaving the grid, perhaps a revisit to Oz is needed.
If you get it, click your heels three times and we can all go home.
Article by: Ed Sum
posted:02 Feb 2011
Related Link: http://disney.go.com/tron/
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