Cory Doctorow's impresessions of Tron:Legacy

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/05/tron-reloaded-come-f.html

Tron: Reloaded, come for the action, stay for the
aesthetics<http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/05/tron-reloaded-come-f.html>

Cory Doctorow <http://www.boingboing.net/author/cory-doctorow-1/> at 12:00
AM Sunday, Dec 5, 2010

 Last week, I attended a press-preview for *Tron: Legacy* at the London
> IMAX, where the film was screened in 3D. It's an extremely fun bit of
> entertainment, with some surprises, loads of nostalgic pandering to the sort
> of person who saw the original Tron as a kid (such as me), and some
> interesting commercial notes.
>
> As you'd expect from an effects-heavy action-thriller, there's not much by
> way of plot. Through an incoherent process, the feckless, alienated son of
> the long-lost founder of the largest video-game and software company in the
> world is transported into a magical computerland in which his father has
> been stranded for 20 years. There, he finds an oppressive force oppressing
> madly and plotting something awful. He discovers that time is running out,
> and he has to get very quickly from A to B (with stops for brilliantly
> choreographed fight scenes in a variety of beautifully rendered
> environments) or all is lost. On the way, he reconciles his fecklessness
> with the wisdom of his father, much selfless sacrifice takes place,
> betrayers betray, redemption happens, etc etc (anyone so sensitive as to
> claim that the foregoing is a spoiler should probably abstain from reading
> anything written about movies, period).
>
> Of course, the primary artistic effect of T:R comes from its action and its
> aesthetics (which are closely entwined). It's a beautiful movie, even in 3D
> (I find 3D hard to converge, overly dark, and hard on my eyes). The visual
> design, from the rendered panoramas of the inside of computerland (which
> look like the Matrix, as resdesigned by Dubai's urban planners) to the
> meticulous set-dressing and costumes (more of a 2001-meets-Rollerball thing)
> works in improbable and even moving ways. Rubbing the glassy noir brutalism
> of the landscape up against the utopian, curvilinear, techno-chic clothes
> and sets produces something that's much more striking and more moving than
> the mere storyline.
>
> But no one wants to stare at nice clothes for 96 minutes. Luckily, there is
> a triple-helping of action sequences involving all the best combat stuff
> from the first movie and the games that followed it: acrobatic
> discus-tossing, light-cycle racing, bullet-time martial arts sequences, and
> some tasty aerial combat for good measure. What's most striking about these
> sequences is how much like a game they are: every time the actors unveil a
> new complex wrinkle on the rules -- shifts in gravity, new weapons,
> super-bad-ass bad-guys -- it feels *just like* watching someone
> confronting a level-boss or levelling up in a console or arcade game. I
> wouldn't be surprised in the least if the production team collaborated with
> the game designers who'll be producing the inevitable console tie-ins to
> create these scenes; they look like they'd be incredibly fun to play.
>
> More distracting and less effective was the film's obnoxious use of product
> placement, which is confined to the first act (not much room for product
> placement in computerland, thankfully -- it would have really shattered the
> look-and-feel to have these software agents racing Ducati lightcycles,
> carefully holding their soda-pop cans with the label out and sporting Nokia
> logos on the napes of their necks). I got the feeling that the film's
> creators were under pressure to cram a full movie's worth of placements into
> the first few minutes, since most of the movie didn't lend itself to this
> treatment. I kept hoping for the computerland people to go shopping for
> clothes at a techno-goth superstore like London's Cyberdog<http://shop.cyberdog.net/>-- though, of course, Cyberdog's clothes are essentially fetishwear versions
> of the original Tron costumes, so it's only fitting that they'd be taken to
> the next level by Tron's successor.
>
> This is clearly a movie whose intended audience is people in their late 30s
> and early 40s with their children in tow. The script is peppered with sly
> references to *War Games*, the original *Star Wars*, and has a
> davidbowieite androga-villain that is a charming homage to a dozen
> comparable characters from my boyhood.
> What follows *is* a very mild spoiler. If this bugs you, look away now. *(Clipped
> - if you want to read it, hit the link.)*
>

Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |

-- 
dadl-ot mailing list
http://mail.thehood.us/mailman/listinfo/dadl-ot_thehood.us
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.music.dadl.ot