Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz
Characters by Steven Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird
Production Design by Darren Gilford
Costume Design by Michael Wilkinson
Original Music by Daft Punk
Released December 17, 2010
***SPOILER ALERT***
In 2010, 37 novels, comics, children’s stories and video games were adapted into films. 19 films that were released were sequels. And at least 17 franchises dating back to before the turn of the millennium were rebooted. It should come as no surprise that we live in an age of adaptation and revamped stories. Few domestic films that are widely released are original works. Of these 70+ films, do we – the viewers – get anything new from the adaptation? Do we see things from a different perspective? Has the story grown as we have aged? Are these stories able to transcend into something more than mere sequels?
The 1980s saw the rise of computers and the internet. Cyberspace became the new digital frontier; a place of which scientists could only dream exploring. Apple and Microsoft were less than a decade old. Disney’s Tron (1982) is a story about exploring “The Grid”, a luminescent, pixilated world where programs perform their functions, electricity flows like ambrosia and corrupted files pose a serious threat to both man and machine. The Master Control Program or “MCP” has enslaved programs (generally personified and depicted its programmer), forcing them to enlist into his army or fight to the death in his gladiatorial arena of games. Accidentally downloaded into The Grid by laser, programmer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) teams up with a program called Tron (Bruce Boxleitner) to overthrow the MCP. The Grid is reformatted, so to speak, and the legend begins.
Advance 28 years. Kevin Flynn has been missing for over 2 decades. His son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund), has refused the life as Encom CEO his father has left for him. With a little coercion from Kevin’s old friend Alan Bradley, writer of the Tron program, Sam unearths his father’s dirty little secret: an office with a super computer and laser hidden beneath Flynn’s Arcade. And with one wrong keystroke, Sam meets the same fate of his father. Now trapped on The Grid, he must survive treacherous games defending himself from glowing boomerang sawblades thrown by gladiator ninjas, or motorcycle gangs streaming an impenetrable tail of light.
So what has changed in the past 3 decades? “War in the Middle East and the Lakers/Celtics rivalry” aren’t exactly new developments. But “cell phones, online dating, Wi-Fi”… advances in technology have certainly changed the way we move, the way we meet, how we do business, how we entertain ourselves. The program gladiators of 1982 wore suits and helmets of white. The LightCycle Game was confined to right angles. The gladiator programs who battled against each other were innocent pawns in the MCP’s game. The soundtrack, composed by Wendy Carlos (also scored A Clockwork Orange and The Shining), evoked a curious, inquisitive feeling of mystery and wonder.
However, a Grid that formed in the era of smartphones, social networks, and cloud storage must reflect the attitudes and consequences of these advancements. We’ve become more cynical, hungrier for more media, demanding faster speeds and new mediums, suspicious of internet predators and scammers. Skilled gladiators of the 2010 Grid, adorned in the darkest of black armor, ruthlessly fight to survive in the disc battles, sometimes wielding two weapons at once. LightCycles ride more smoothly along the game grid, trailing that familiar stream of light through which no cycle can drive… But you can definitely shoot a hole through it large enough for your new awesome custom 4-Wheel Drive LightRider to fit! Or you got your pilot’s license, just take the LightPlane or LightJet for a spin, a flip and a tumble! Not only can the Cycles move fluidly through 360 degrees, but watching Tron: Legacy in IMAX 3D brings the perfect complement to the new dimension of Light-vehicles. In the same way that Disney once showed us a whole new world on a magic carpet ride, the Light-flight dog fight is an absolute 3D roller coaster. Additionally, Daft Punk provides an amazing score of electronic beats that resonate from the IMAX sound system.
Much like the name suggests, this film is not simply a sequel, nor is it merely a reboot. It’s a legendary tale of cyber gladiators fighting for survival, riding on ribbons of light, defeating corruption, passing the torch from father to son. The Tron franchise bridges generations and technologies. In Tron, we stood at the edge of a new digital frontier and wondered, “What if?” In Legacy, we looked back and asked, “What have we done?”
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
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Personal Writer's Notes:
How I define the difference between an adaptation, a sequel and a reboot is a matter of medium and time. Stories can fulfill two or all three of these categories at once. But probably one more than any other. A sequel should follow some characters through a timeline after a previous stories like the episodes of Star Wars. An adaptation moves from one medium to another, from graphic novel or TV show or novel or play or even video game to film. Reboots, however, revive a story for a new set of viewers. The 2010 rendition of The Karate Kid is a reboot. Mr. Miyagi and Daniel Larusso are no where to be found. It's not even karate... it's kung fu. Another example of a reboot is Let Me In, the American rendition ofLet The Right One In, a Swedish adaptation of a novel by the same name.
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