I’m at Comic-Con for one movie and one movie only, and that’s Tron: Legacy, dammit. It’s been 30 years coming already, but the mere 2 since they screened that infectiously bad-ass trailer have been the most tortuous of all and, in fact, the director is still working on post-production (they had everyone in the audience get involved in a very Spartacus way, read on). There are several factors of awesome contributing to this masterpiece-to-be. Among them: 1.) Daft Punk is providing the soundtrack, which just seems too effing perfect.
2.) Bruce Boxleitner is returning, lending geek-credential points to the sequel. 3.) Jeff Bridges is back as Flynn, boasts a badass, super-suave white mane, looks like he’s been up many late nights playing Space Paranoids, and coolest of all 4.) has an evil, super-CGI’d (or maybe super-botoxed) version of himself walking around the game grid and taunting his enemy programs. Not to mention the Recognizers, Tanks, Lightcycles, and other toys that have gotten huge upgrades nearly 3 decades later. 5.) Michael Sheen as an Aladdin Sane-era, Bowie-fied nightclub owner and Olivia Wilde as the token hot love interest with glowing butt and boob-hugging latex suit. It’s one of those movies that could be good or bad, but you’ll want to see just because those SFX (and boobs) look so nifty.
And not to overstate the obvious, but, yes, Jeff Bridges is the most laid-back person ever. He is Jeff Lebowski. And I don’t think they could’ve picked a better emcee than Patton Oswalt, whose self-deprecating sense of humor and inner-geek made him the other crowd favorite. Some of the new footage from the film was screened, including that of the aforementioned disc battles and some nifty new flying gadgets. The audience even got to play the part of a bloodthirsty crowd and lend ourselves to a post-production bit, shouting “DE-REZ!!” and stomping the floor over and over again — like bloodthirsty Romans at the Colosseum.
Sheen, Bridges and company were all on hand to answer any questions the crowd had, and it didn’t seem like an easy task. At the end, Guillermo Del Toro stepped in to promote his remake of the Disney ride-to-film flick, The Haunted Mansion. Never fear — “we are not returning Eddie Murphy’s calls,” joked Del Toro. The director of Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy elected not to bring up anything regarding his split with New Line over the Hobbit film, perhaps for the best, and focused on the new film. As a boy, Del Toro became fascinated with the ride at Disneyland, and has obsessively journeyed there every year since. But about that Tron 2 — the new trailer they gave us at Comic-Con is below. I still don’t see what the point of the Light Cycle helmet is, when you just get blown up when you crash…
Words by Jeff Nau, photos by Zoetica Ebb
