TRON
Director –
Steven Lisberger
1982 –
USA
Screenplay
– Steven Lisberger & Charles S. Haas & Bonnie MacBird (story)
Stars – Jeff
Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner
TRON:
LEGACY
Director –
Joseph Kosinski
2020, USA
Screenplay - Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowit
[This is a rewrite and expansion of my original post on ‘Tron’ from 2010, now deleted.]
Although I never actually saw ‘Tron’ when it first came out, I was still mesmerised by its look. I was in possession of one of those tie-in movie novelisations, inevitably adapted by Alan Dean Foster, which was bisected by a few glossy pages of stills from the movie. It was from those stills that I discovered ‘Tron’s distinct look, the luminous blue and red lines mostly. Of course, when I finally saw ‘Tron’ for the first time as an adult, I was instantaneously disappointed in the somewhat lukewarm script and a story that had seemed so much more threatening in the captions beneath those book stills which implied dark corporate intrigue and gaming adventure. The actual film is a far frothier affair, which is not a bad thing in itself, but.
Gather around, kids, and I’ll tell you of how games looked very much like this. Lines and blocks and empty space. For example, this is the ‘Star Wars’ game I spent many hours playing in the arcade at a holiday camp when I was a kid.
Or this was what I was playing on my home Atari, along with ‘Asteroids’, ‘Combat’, (I got quite good a 'Tank Battle') and ‘Pacman’ etc.
So when ‘Tron’ appeared, it very much seemed of the moment, of the zeitgeist, so it didn’t have to concern itself with futurism and predictions, and it hasn’t dated in that sense. When I recently bought this on blu-ray, the shop guy said, “This is my childhood right here,” (I was also buying ‘Dr Who: Shada’ on a whim), and we talked about it a little. I had often wondered if its look will still be as awe-inspiring to a younger generation used to the most amazing graphics and CGI. This guy was perhaps in his late twenties and said that, although being younger, it “Blew my mind!” In fact, what I love about the look and why I think it still impresses now, is that it looks like an old silent movie that has been neon-ised. A kid colouring in a black-and-white comic with felt tips. A retro-futuristic look. It’s almost cyberpunk. It’s this that keeps me coming back.
Atari had barely made the promise of things to come when Disney’s ‘Tron’ created a world where the players become their virtual doppelgangers. With games becoming more and more realistic (perhaps to a fault with examples like ‘Red Dead Redemption II’), avatars and virtual identities in modern gameplay and social media now allow us all that. Perhaps without the cool glow-in-the-dark costumes and Frisbee hats, but also without the risk of being wiped out by a megalomaniac, demon-faced computer system.
Critic John Brosnan probably misses the point in his taking ‘Tron’ to task for being illogical and unscientific:
“True, video games are controlled by computer chips, but that is no reason to suggest that the internal workings of a computer would be visually analogous to those of a video game.” [John Brosnan, 'Primal Screen: A History of Science Fiction Film', Orbit, pg's 350-351]
Brosnan goes on to berate the conceit that transforms players into their cyber-counterparts: a laser that allows the computer to store molecules and reassemble them into their original form. I doubt that any sci-fi kid worth his salt would truly buy this as likely in a second. The fantasy tropes are instantaneously recognised by any budding genre fan: lone warrior drawn into an alternative reality/dreamworld to defeat a seemingly omnipotent overlord; the quest; “magical” weapons and steeds; an odyssey across an incredible otherworld - all these are the fantasy tropes that pulp science-fiction long ago adopted. The promotional at looks like a Frank Frazetta warrior-ad-is-woman pose, but with more neon. Any kid knows, deep down, this is magic-science, that it is a just techno-babbling means of allowing the real kick that ‘Tron’ promises: the promise that, tomorrow!, we will be able to BE those characters in those fantastically virtual beautiful worlds of heroism, action, violence and adventure. Were the creators of ‘Tron’ really ignorant of the science or simply patronising the young audience, Brosnan asks? Well, that audience knew exactly how ‘Tron’ logic worked: it is the same Olympian magic that allows the Gods to animate giant steel statues, to transfer Chosen Ones from one world to the next, and, say, for ‘E.T.’ to breathe Earth oxygen without trouble. For the thrill of hard, plausible science, you would have to look elsewhere.
But: bad dialogue, heavily tilted to exposition; rudimentary narrative. Every time I watch it, come the finale, it’s used up all my allowances and only disappointment remains. ‘Tron’ suffers from that weakness that typically undermines many a special effects extravaganzas: fascinating and original big sci-fi contexts and designs undermined by the flimsiest of storylines that draw from tired tropes and stock characters. Yet the look remains sumptuous, timeless, and fascinating. And not forgetting that, apart from the visual aesthetic, ‘Tron’’s greatest achievement is the possession of an all-time great action and sci-fi sequence with the legendary light-cycle race. I'm definitely seeing a through line to 'Speed Racer'. If ever a film subsisted on one scene, this qualifies.
This was an age where Disney made a few odd choices: ‘The Black Hole’ (1979) is another film that I can’t help being drawn back to for the look, and then finding myself let down by the experience (and another film I discovered by the book tie-in and the glossy pictures therein; and I liked the cutesy robots). But it’s no mystery that ‘Tron’ was developed when the gaming age was hotting up: after all, what about all those tie-in ‘Tron’ games? The look and reality-jumping promises offered in ‘Tron’ has far exceeded its malnourished screenplay. It certainly has its place as a pioneering effects work and its aesthetic still has currency (a TRON Lightcycle Power Run at Shanghai Disneyland Resort, for example) even though, as a story, it carries no suspense or tension, but it is Gee-whiz!
So it is the Eighties real world scenes that are going to be the most dated. Flynn’s introduction is a dated and unintentionally funny moment when he rolls into the arcade, fastest player in town, and then proceeds to kick ass on a game that runs at the speed of a tractor. If the internal world of ‘Tron’ graphics still manages to seem somewhat ageless then this opening arcade sequence reminds us of how far the gaming and virtual world actual have come. But, again, it doesn’t matter because this is not meant to be futuristic.
‘Tron’s targets and commentary are also elementary. An illusion that mainstream entertainment regularly puts up is that the Company Head – David Warner as Dillinger – is villainous, as if a huge corporation like Disney is throwing a little red meat to public discontent whilst being that very thing they’re calling villainous. A condescending, “Yeah, they’re all corrupt at the top, just like you think!” whilst any self-awareness is just a selling point, allowing the audience to think its targets are just. And further playing into this, we have the hotshot game developer, Flynn (Jeff Bridges), as the genius rebel whose artistry has been stolen by the corporation. It’s some corporate villainy in the real world and a demonic ruler in the virtual and a fan fighting against The System. But it all feels superficial.
The world inside the games is your regular dystopia with the Master Control Programme as a megalomaniac with designs on real world control. MCP’s ambitions to take over the world and run it better than the humans align the ranks of megalomaniac computers such as those from ‘The Forbin Project’ and ‘Demon Seed’ and many others. The idea that computers (and robots, etc.) will achieve independent sentience is another science-fiction fetish that in truth speaks more of human narcissism and tendency to anthropomorphising the truly inhuman. In this virtual world, David Warner is the henchman, looking quite uncomfortable in his costume (but he doesn’t suffer the same virtual costume humiliation as Barnard Hughes). Back in the real world, even Dillinger balks at the MCP’s plans to go nuclear: Dillinger just wants to exploit. It philosophically vacuous. For all its hints, there’s no substantial political or pseudo-religious existential queries here, not like ‘The Matrix’ series for example, for everything but the design feels half-baked. There’s just goodies and baddies and a hostile takeover bid where the creation wants to dominate the creator.
Yet the similarities of appearance between the real and virtual world do give ‘Tron’ faint allegorical pretensions: everything from inside the computer to the genuine cityscapes, and even the gliding point-of-view searching camera in the arcade, all share the same computer-game aesthetic. The world, ‘Tron’ says with its overall look, is one big computer chip or grid, and we are but players and programmes, etc. It does at least give the sense that we are dwarfed not only by technology but also be the products of our imaginations, and entertainments.
If ‘Tron’s odd Eighties tone has dated more than its look, there at least is Jeff Bridges to give it some gruff personality and David Warner to give it some class. And perhaps the biggest question is why Tron himself is such a secondary character who barely registers. It’s Flynn’s story.
It’s an odd choice and one only amplified in ‘Tron: Legacy’. In this sequel, Tron himself is almost an afterthought that appears in the last act, in a helmet, never seen, just a faceless antagonist. So incidental is the eponymous character that it’s like they filmed the scene and suddenly realised what the film was called and quickly did some dubbing and pick-ups to shoehorn him in. “Tron… what have they done to you?” And as he looks like any faceless antagonist, it’s unclear how Flynn recognises him. You certainly don’t remember the films for Tron the character.
One feature that stands out if that there’s a de-aged Jeff Bridges, a virtual Jeff Bridges in the real world of ‘Tron: Legacy’, that makes it look like a game cut-scene. Somehow this seems apt, but it only confuses the logic more (so he looks like an avatar, but we’re not supposed to notice…). As his aggrieved son, Garrett Hedlund is bland, but it's only Michel Sheen that seems be having scenery-chewing fun, his performance entertainingly all over the place.
‘Tron: legacy’ improves not on the original’s flaws and, again, it’s the light-cycle set-piece the proves the most memorable and underserved by a mostly rudimentary and generic execution. A lot of the action and posing seems designed for the trailer. With Daft Punk DJing a club fight scene, it’s music video influences couldn’t be clearer. The trajectory stops for a lot of backstory and world-building, which, like the original, becomes a little baffling but in this sequel tries for an earnest core with its daddy-issues that only provide performative emotional substance. Lassiter, who produced this sequel, sees it this way:
'Clu, Flynn’s cyber-son, is basically saying, “I did everything I could for you, and yet you loved that real world kid more than me. You don’t even really know him.”'
He certainly finds depth in there that, mostly, is just a distraction and takes up valuable action time. It just isn’t as interesting as the possibilities and existential queries raised by existence in a cyberworld might promise.
‘Tron: Legacy’ does look pretty, but it doesn’t do more than tick boxes otherwise. And as every big-budget fantasy film can look this amazing, it doesn’t even have ground-breaking novelty in its favour. It tries for too much story to be Big and Brainless fun, and its potential big idea of AI coming through to the real world ends up just the passenger on a “cool!” bike ride.
So perhaps I am saying the virtual bike ride is ‘Tron’s true legacy.
And, too, that big door is just nonsensical, impractical and stupid.
No comments:
Post a Comment