Lucy's Note: This was supposed to have been posted yesterday. Unfortunately, real life intervened. My apologies for the delay.
Merry Christmas, everyone! What better way to celebrate Christmas than with sci-fi? A digital wonderland, if you will.**WARNING: SPOILERS BY ANALOGY**
This is a loose sequel to TRON, so they tell me. I wouldn't know. The original movie came out in what? 82? Seeing as that's the year I was born, I wasn't really interested in the theater experience. Thanks to the magic of Netflix, I have it saved in my queue so whenever it's released (I'm thinking Disney box set somewhere around Memorial Day) it'll pop right in.
So I walked in cold and I gotta tell you, it did feel like a sequel... but the good kind. Ok, I'll just go ahead and say it: This was the Star Wars sequel I'd been waiting for. Given that just making that analogy tells you everything you need to know about the film, I'm not going to really go into detail. But seriously. Star Wars.
** END ANALOGOUS SPOILER**
The movie is pretty good on its own merits. It hits the uncanny valley at full speed, though, and that's creepy. The uncanny valley, for all you non-nerd types that found your way here accidentally while searching for pictures of Halle Berry, is the theory that people like robots until they look almost human. Then a kind of species repulsion kicks in and we reject the simulation. Also, if they move around it's much worse.
De-aged Jeff Bridges is possibly the creepiest CGI I have seen in a while. I know that part of it was done on purpose (at least, I hope it was) but the piece at the beginning that's set around 1988 is just unsettling. Like I said in the spoiler part, I didn't see the original movie, so I don't know the backstory but here's the run-down of the new one:
Sam Flynn is the son of TRON designer Kevin Flynn, who disappears when he is about 5 years old. He grows up a bit like Bruce Wayne: rich, bored, and with a chip on his shoulder toward authority figures. Then one day, his dad's old partner shows up and says he got a page (kids, you'll have to Google 'pager') from a number that's been disconnected for 20 years down at Kevin Flynn's arcade (Ditto here). So Sam goes to the arcade, finds the secret underground
Once there, he gets picked up for being a rogue program and dumped into a gladiatorial fight with light discs. After he acquits himself well, mostly through dumb luck, he gets to meet the head honcho Clu...a de-aged digital copy of his father. Ew. Bonus: his faithful crony/henchman is Franklin Mott from TrueBlood! So Clu orders him to death by lightcycle race and he gets rescued by Qora, a hottie in black latex and taken to see his dad, Old Jeff Bridges, who has been trapped there since the 80's. Adventures happen.
Visually, the movie is outstanding. The CGI (with the exception of Clu) is absolutely amazing. I'm really quite excited by that since I remember the days when you could see every single effect that was added by computer. To have progressed to the point where it is completely seamless is truly extraordinary.
Extra Secret Bonus Round: Keep your eyes peeled for an uncredited Cillian Murphy too!
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