An Accurate Look At: TRON: Legacy (2010)

For those you unfamiliar with my "Accurate Look" articles, they are, as the name should imply, opinion pieces of mine.  Take them as you will.  I should mention that unlike the other Accurate Looks, this one will be rather spoiler-heavy, so if you haven't seen TRON: Legacy yet, get to it.
 
I don't remember very much from when I was very little.  Some memories stayed with me, stuck in head, like film clips a few seconds long.  Some of these memories are about the many VHS tapes I used to watch.  The ending scene of The Wizard is among them, though for the longest time I didn't know what movie it was; I just remembered the kids in the desert with the dinosaur and the lunchbox.  Another memory that has stayed with me was the light cycle sequence from TRON.  That movie and ReBoot had a massive impact on me as a child, and are no doubt responsible for my interests in computers, computer games, computer animation, cyberpunk, digital worlds, etc.
 
I was surprised when I heard that there were plans for a new TRON film, but I have to admit that the pictures I saw looked badass.  Thankfully, they went with the title of TRON: Legacy instead of TR2N.  My surprise gave way to excitement as I I rewatched the first TRON film, listened to Daft Punk's fantastic score to Legacy, and played through TRON: Evolution, a surprisingly enjoyable but extremely short and repetitive movie tie-in game.  Playing Evolution allowed me to better understand some elements of Legacy, such as the importance of the ISOs, a new digital race found in the Grid.  Their story felt rather rushed in the film and had I not played through Evolution, I probably would have felt like they weren't really important at all and just tossed in there to make the villain seem more evil and/or as a potential reference to a rather dark period in human history.  Playing Evolution is not necessary to understanding, appreciating, or enjoying Legacy, however.
 
At its base, Legacy is a story of a boy growing up.  It opens with Sam Flynn, son of the legendary Kevin Flynn, programmer extraordinaire, head of the ENCOM Corporation, and digital visionary, being tucked into bed by his father who tells him stories of the his experiences in the Grid, the "digital frontier" we were introduced to in the first TRON film.  Over the course of the film, Sam will go from hopeful boy to a reckless young man who acts like a teenager before finally growing up and becoming a responsible man.  The disappearance of his father understandably messed him up to the point that, at 27 years old, he messes around with the police, pulls pranks on ENCOM, doesn't have much direction, and is on a first-name basis with the guy who works at the police impound lot.
 
After having lost of ever seeing his father again, Sam reluctantly decides to listen to surrogate father figure and one of the heroes of oldschool TRON, Alan Bradley, and investigate his father's old arcade (which is on a different street corner than it was in '82)., where he discovers a workstation and entry point into the Grid hidden in the basement.  Much like his father before him, Sam soon finds himself digitized, on the Grid, and battling for his life.  His goal: find and rescue his father, who he soon learns is trapped in the digital frontier by the main villain, a program Kevin Flynn wrote.
 
Oldschool TRON fans will be pleased by the amount of classic TRON references there are in Legacy, including but not limited to the merchandise in young Sam's room, the vintage (albeit slightly updated) light cycle Flynn has, the character who is the son of Ed Dillinger (villain from the last film), a sequence in which Sam uses a codebreaker to enter an ENCOM door and comments on how big it is (straight out of '82 TRON), Flynn having two BITs on his mantlepiece, Sam lifting the disc up in the classic TRON pose, and several classic lines, like "end of line" and "it's all in the wrists."  But Legacy does more than stick in the past.  While '82 TRON was light-hearted and mostly humorous, Legacy is much more serious and I really got a sense of maturity.  The game has changed.  It's no longer a matter of punching guards and trolling Sark.  This time, there is much more at stake and the film takes a darker tone than its predecessor.   Flynn is much older than he used to be and Sam has to grow up and learn to be responsible if he wants to save his father and get back home.
 
The acting wasn't as bad as I expected.  The guy who played Sam did a decent job, and Delicious Quorra's contradictory innocence and badassness was clear.  Jeff Bridges, as usual, is great, but I found that the CGI younger version of him used at the beginning and as CLU did not look convincing enough during slow scenes when you can get a good look at him.  Other than that, the special effects were well done.  The derezzing animations and explosions were particularly enjoyable.  The soundtrack was fantastic, perfectly capturing the mood and building tension.
 
It wasn't all good, though.  There weren't any 90-degree turns during the light cycle scene.  Sure, the jumps and multi-layered arena were exciting, but a little extra nostalgia would've gone a long way.  During another scene, it's supposed to be raining downtown.  Or at least a character has an umbrella.  The first film established that water (or at least the natural liquid in the Grid) restores power.  Remember how Tron, Flynn, and Ram drank up and recharged when in the cave while being chased by the light tanks?  Wouldn't rain be disastrous in the Grid as everything would get powered up?  And why would you want an umbrella, either - wouldn't you want to get recharged by just standing around?  And Rinzler's true identity, to me, seemed obvious.  He's described as the only character who fights with two discs.  And he doesn't talk.  And he's loyal to CLU.  The talking would reveal his identity, and the two discs just means that he's really skilled in disc combat.  Who was it that was really skilled in disc combat in oldschool TRON?  Plus, there's a certain logo on Rinzler's chest which shows up on another character's chest in the original TRON film.  A character who was conveniently and allegedly written out in Legacy and in Evolution.  Maybe that's why no one really seemed surprised when Flynn figured out Rinzler's identity - because it was so obvious that everyone had cracked the code already.  One more part that stood out to me was the solar sailer scene.  Flynn, Sam, and Quorra want to reach the portal and flee the Grid, right?  But it's supposed to be a difficult journey, no?  But a single solar sailer pretty much brought them there.  What's so hard about boarding a solar sailer?  If there wasn't that reprogramming facility, the solar sailer would have brought them all the way to the portal and the quest would have been over.  I was glad to see that a classic TRON vehicle was back in Legacy, but I think it could have been handled better.
 
I lot of people were left wanting more, and I think that wanting more is a crucial theme of the TRON universe.  Dillinger and the MCP wanted more power, the Basics and the ENCOM employees wanted more freedom, Flynn wanted more recognition, and later, he would want more perfection when making the Grid - a flaw he would pass down to CLU, the program he made in his image.  Sam wanted more time with his father.   But to say that Legacy feels like the second film in a trilogy does not make sense to me.  Quite the opposite.  I find that Legacy feels like a definite conclusion to the to TRON franchise.  Think about it.  At the end of Legacy, Sam learns that he has to be responsible.  He puts ENCOM back where it belongs, into the hands of a Flynn, he gives Alan the power he deserves, and he comes to terms with the disappearance of his father.  Quorra escapes the Grid and the oppression of CLU, and gets to see the sunrise.  The ending alludes to the idea that she and Sam will be happy together.  How about the digital world?  Flynn merges with CLU, and the entire Grid is obliterated.  So.  Sam is the man his father would have been proud of, Quorra is happy, Alan gets the recognition and power he deserves and the company needs, the character who lends his name to the franchise is dead, Flynn is dead, and the Grid is no more.  Third film?  I don't think so.  Furthermore, on a more meta level, the end credits of Legacy reminded me of the opening titles of '82 TRON, bracketing the entire TRON story between the two animated segments.
 
As a TRON fan, I knew that I was going to enjoy the Legacy.  I wasn't going to get my expectations up, but I even if I did, Legacy would have exceeded them.  I expected just another fun, senseless, special-effect filled flick, like the '82 original, but instead found a solid tale about a boy searching for his father and becoming a man in the process.  Even if you haven't seen the first TRON film, Legacy is worth checking out.  End of line.