Pretty Lights and High Tech Gadgets

Alisha, Emma, and I went to see Tron: Legacy earlier this evening. It had been my idea, and Alisha had gone along with it only because I had suggested it. Emma is into "shiny" things and such, so she went to be visually entertained. I'm a movie trailer kind of person, so I was interested in it because the trailer was good. Plus, the admission charge was only $1, and we figured it would be worth the dollar if it was good, and if it was bad...well, it did only cost a dollar.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting much. I figured it was likely to be one of those films that are only made because they distract your eyes so you can think about other things. There probably wouldn't be much of a plot, but I was okay with that. It looked pretty, so that would hopefully make up for the possible lack of intellectual value.

But what we discovered as soon as Sam Flynn reaches the Grid was that it had a little more meat to it than just a recycled storyline and things exploding. There was an interesting--albeit subtle--play between this perfect-universe gone rotten and the utopian idea that existed long before it in the mind of the original Flynn. Granted, it wasn't the most original idea, but it carried it out fairly well in comparison to our expectations.

Flynn and Clu's relationship reminded me strongly of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", save for the fact that Flynn didn't realize the implications of creating a half of himself when he did so--that this other side of him would misconstrue the truth of the mission. My favorite part of the movie is the last chunk before the credits, starting with Sam and Flynn's discussion of how much the world has changed since Flynn's disappearance. So much about the human condition was stated in the dialogue without the characters outlining it word for word. The question of whether this perfection is easily attainable in the way we intend it to be or not is one of the strongest aspects of this movie, and I have high praise for Disney for this very reason.

Michael Sheen and the 80s vibes were also pretty awesome. (And that's never a bad thing.)

It's not the best movie I've ever seen, but it certainly gets points for being what it was.