Went and saw Tron: Ares yesterday.
Normally I don’t go to the theater as it’s too expensive and contains too many people, but I discovered that my local theater (AMC Arapahoe Crossing 16) opens at 0930 on Sunday morning for a 0950 show – in the “Dolby Experience” theater even – and it’s like $15 for the show (about $20 after taxes, fees, other taxes, other fees, etc…)
So – off I went.
I think there were about ten people total in theater 16, and no kids, so that was nice. And the “Dolby Experience” theater has a pretty amazing sound system, which was nice as well – especially considering the fact that TRON: Ares is basically a Nine Inch Nails album that comes with a movie to watch.
All in all I liked the movie.
For reference I saw the first Tron in theaters in 1982, and it blew my 13 year old computer nerd mind. Yes it had some sketchy lingo and the concept was straight SciFi, but the overall idea of the thing was essentially made for kids like me – and I loved it.
I bought the soundtrack (on vinyl, as we did back then), and a big ‘coffee table’ book that covered the making and the art of the movie… Hell, I even programmed my ZX-81 to display the TRON logo/font using what passed for computer graphics in the day.
I was kinda infatuated with it.
Fast forward to December 19th of 2010 – I’m taking my end-of-year vacation and saw TRON: Legacy in the theater. “Legacy” didn’t infatuate me the way the first movie did, but I enjoyed it for what it was; basically a banger soundtrack with two hours of amazing visuals.
Over the years (and several re-watchings) Legacy has grown on me and I genuinely appreciate it these days.
Enter TRON: Ares…
First off, I’m not sure if the reviewers saw the same movie I did. There’s a lot of sturm und drang over the movie not having anything to do with Legacy – but it does… It just links to it at the end. And one reviewer, one I generally agree with, had a complaint about “magical bullshit lasers” – my man, did you not watch the first movie? Magical bullshit lasers are the main conceit of the entire franchise…
I get the impression there is so much upset over the lead actor, Jared Leto, that most people got as far as his name in the lead credits and then tuned out completely.
Another common gripe is the now CEO of Encom is a girl-boss instead of Sam Flynn… If she’s a girl-boss she kinda sucks at her job because she’s constantly needing to be saved by someone. If anything, her superpower in this movie is simply persistence.
As for what I didn’t like: some of the dialog was clunky, and they needed to spend ten more seconds on showing the Recognizer being built in pieces and assembled because it’s too big for the Dillinger manufacturing building…
As for what I liked: the 80’s callbacks were great (I was there, man) and the sequence where Ares ends up in the 1982 TRON grid was pretty awesome to see. The concept behind the move was pretty good too – just needed a bit more time in the oven I think.
Anyway, I thought “Ares” was an entirely suitable entry into the TRON mythos. Was it some defining moment of Hollywood cinema? No. But was it engaging and entertaining? Yes.
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