Tron

[jethrien]

...is every bit as bad as you think.

Well, it's pretty, and I had fun. But I'm not quite sure the 3D is worth the money. And good god, does the script suck. Seriously, the movie ended and there was a smattering of people clapping confusedly one or two claps, and then everyone started turning to their neighbors and saying "What? What just happened?"

All I can really say is, if your entire memory and personality and possibly the code making up your body is on a disk on your back, maybe you shouldn't throw it at people as a weapon, hmm?

Also, as Chuckro pointed out, if you're going to end an awesome 80s rehash by driving a motorcycle into a sunrise, you really should have "Tears For Fears" playing in the background.

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Bit of trivia: Daft Punk, who composed the soundtrack, have a cameo as the DJs at Castor's club. And they've always performed in headgear like that.

I enjoyed it, I have to say. It was pretty and the music was good. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been sitting on my coat to see over the balcony railing.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Also, don't you just love how they completely ignored the whole evil corporation plotline? I mean, at the end Sam says he's taking over the company, but if there's one thing I've learned from studying Roman history...he's going to lose that fight.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Depends how smart the evil corporate types have been in the meantime. Given that the surrogate-father-still-uses-a-pager dude seems to be on top of things, they may have (stupidly) let him keep majority ownership and neither diluted his position nor invented a share class that killed his voting rights. Which would mean that, technically, he could call a special shareholder meeting, move to elected a new board, vote his majority for all new people, and call it a day. (There are actually some corporations like this today--your vote as a shareholder means effectively nothing, because somebody owns 51% of the voting shares, so the company moves as they wish.) I think the sensible thing would be to do a leveraged buy-out, where he takes on debt to buy all of the outstanding shares and take the company private, where he can do whatever he wants with it.

I wouldn't be surprised, actually, if he did manage to take back the company. He's a scrappy, persistent nutjob. He'll just keep fighting until the current shareholders sell out and the execs leave for greener pastures. Whether his father's "miracle discovery" is enough to save the company after that is another matter entirely.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I really wonder if there's a scene or two on the cutting room floor. They spent a little too much time developing the characters of the CEO and the asshole programmer to never show them again. I was certain that asshole programmer was going to be a major roadblock at some point.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

if your entire memory and personality and possibly the code making up your body is on a disk on your back, maybe you shouldn't throw it at people as a weapon, hmm?

But as I said, it makes perfect sense that Flynn senior would design it that way--he's a groovy, trippy 70s dude. "Hey, memory disks! Awesome idea!" And doesn't seem one to consider alternate applications or long-term consequences.

[wavilyem.livejournal.com]

Given that they cast the same actor who played The Dude from The Big Lebowski as Flynn Sr., I'm actually surprised that they made Flynn so zen-like and a bit bothered I had a hard time telling the characters apart. That being said though, how cool would it have been if he told Crom that "this aggression will not stand, man"? =)

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

He's who played Kevin Flynn in the original, fwiw.

The Dude wasn't created for ten to fifteen years after Kevin Flynn.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Well, yes. But it seems that the Dude strongly informed their decision on where to take Flynn as a character 20 years later.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

That I'll certainly agree with!

I think it may be where a lot of characters he gets cast to play are informed by the Dude. (see also: The Men Who Stare at Goats.)

[wavilyem.livejournal.com]

fyrna and I went to see it last night and we both liked it. Yes, the plot was cheesy and the ending fairly predictable but I guess I didn't have a hard time suspending disbelief to enjoy the movie.

[firynze.livejournal.com]

See, I'm trying to tell Das Boy that we shouldn't bother seeing it in 3D, but he's insisting. I'm routinely underwhelmed by 3D movies, to the point where I just don't give a shit. IMAX, I dig. 3D? Nah.

Heee. "Tears for Fears" Tron. That'd be awesome.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

It's not worth it. They even have a disclaimer at the beginning saying that some of the scenes are in 2D and we totally meant to do that, really, don't take your glasses off. There's a couple scenes that are cool, but they really didn't take advantage of it the way they could have.

[firynze.livejournal.com]

Turns out, the ONLY option for seeing it around here was in 3D and, you're right, it really wasn't worth it.

I think it made the colours muddy, too.

[fyrna.livejournal.com]

I can't really focus on the 3D so well, so for me the colors were plenty bright, and I couldn't tell the difference between the 3D and 2D scenes.

[fyrna.livejournal.com]

My take was that it was unimaginative but pretty. Unlike Avatar which was pretty but painfully bad.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I didn't bother seeing Avatar--the pretty didn't sound worth it.