Recalling a Little Movie from 1982 1983

By Miscellaneous | Miscellaneous | December 9, 2009 |

By Miscellaneous | Miscellaneous | December 9, 2009 |

Have you seen the new Tron Legacy images (here and here, if not)? Did they make you immediately flash back to the early ’80s with glee? You’re not alone; many a film blogger got super excited recalling their love for the original Tron while looking forward to the sequel.

Not me.

Sure, I like Tron plenty, and I’d love to think Disney will make our geeky dreams come true with this new installment, but I’m the film cynic. I just can’t be hopeful about any modern follow-up to anything from my childhood. Blah blah, George Lucas is to blame, and what not.

Today, as everyone else was remembering that groundbreaking film from 1982, and apparently wetting their pants with excitement, I was instead thinking about a certain comedy released a year later: The Survivors. In the movie, Robin Williams is complaining about how society is going down the toilet and asks Walter Matthau if there’s anything that’s gotten better in the last ten years. “Video games,” answers Matthau’s daughter (Kristen Vigard).

Interestingly enough, the same answer can be given today regarding the past decade. Well, maybe some will argue that the president is better, too, but everyone can admit that, at least technically, video games are one of the few things still improving every ten years.

Movies, however, have pretty much gotten worse with time since around the years of Tron and The Survivors (neither are great, I might add). So how can I get excited about a new movie that celebrates old video games? Sounds like the worst of both worlds to me.

I’ll admit, though, I’ve never cared about video games, then or now. So feel free to argue against me on that subject. Just don’t attempt to tell me how Tron Legacy is going to be worth anyone’s time, geek or otherwise. Despite what the teaser poster implies, it won’t be any more of a game changer than Avatar will be.

Here are some of the mostly excited bloggers’ responses to the image and poster:

• Rob Bricken at Topless Robot:
  

  Oh. My. Goodness. Um, if you guys need me, I’ll be busy masturbating furiously to this new Tron: Legacy art. I know it’s not much, and I know it has little bearing on how good or bad the movie’s actually going to be, but I’m such a crazed, stupid Tron fan that these delight me to the core of my being. I swear, between these and the Kaneda toy from earlier, today has been a very rough day on my penis.

• Kevin Kelly at Cinematical:
  

  This is a new Tron movie, right? I still won’t forget the electric feeling in the audience at Comic-Con two years ago when Disney snuck in the teaser trailer. There was a ripple of “What the?!” across the crowd, and then the feeling of me peeing my own pants. Tron was one of those pivotal movies in my childhood, and it’s being revisited in some fashion. Now if I could just finish plans to build my own Recognizer and take over the world…

• Rodney at The Movie Blog:
  

  The imgagery [sic] is just amazing. The poster looks a little gamey, but then its supposed to take place inside a video game.

  Each step closer to the release of this film and the nostalgic little boy inside me gets closer to peeing his pants.

• Joseph Baxter at The Feed:
  

  While we have yet to see the “far more advanced” aspects of the digital world, based on what we do see, this movie will not be short on appeal. Tron was a cultural phenomenon that blew everyone’s minds back in ‘82. It will be interesting to see if this film, in a post-Avatar world (however that will turn out), will be able to break new ground in the 3D department and manage to blow peoples’ minds in ‘10.

• Dan Hopper at Best Week Ever:
  

  I sure as balls hope the game has changed since the original — special effects in movies aren’t all light blue and fake-looking anymore. Now they’re regular colors and fake-looking.

  Between the resurgent Tron and Avatar this year, we appear to be entering a new “Weird Light Blue Stuff” era of filmmaking. I might finally be able to sell the script I wrote in 1993 about my San Jose Sharks Starter Jacket!

• Jacob Hall at SciFi Squad:
  

  Okay, confession time: I haven’t seen Tron. It’s somewhere near the top of my science fiction list of shame and I’ll rectify that sometime soon. In the meantime, I’ll exist as proof that this is a great marketing campaign: I’m still interested in Tron: Legacy despite having no attachment to the original. At the very least, it’s going to be a visually stunning experience.

• Mark at I Watch Stuff:
  

  ‘Tron Legacy’ Poster: The Game Has Changed!

  Wait, no it hasn’t. Still the game of driving glowey motorcycles. Sorry for the confusion.

• Vince Mancini at FilmDrunk:
  

  I was sitting here trying to figure out why it is that I’m not excited about a new Tron movie like the other nerds, and the best I could come up with is that it looks like if a crotch rocket biker gang put glow sticks all over their bodies. Oh boy, it’s like house music for my eyes. […] Ooh, motorcycles that light up and race around the inside of a computer.  Blow me.