Tron 3 Is Cancelled 205
Dave Knott writes: Tron 3 won't be coming to a theater near you. Disney had been developing a sequel to Tron:Legacy since the movie, made for $170 million, grossed $400 million worldwide. But now they have chosen not to move forward with a third installment in the sci-fi series, sources say. "Disney has had strong success with its live-action properties recently, including Maleficent and this year's Cinderella, which earned $527.4 million worldwide. But it recently had a stumble with the $180 million live-action film Tomorrowland, which underperformed at the box office this past weekend with a $33 million U.S. debut."
Of course it bombed (Score:5, Insightful)
Too much money wasted on big name actors and advertising. Ludicrous story. It goes on and on.
I do think it is too early for another Tron sequel though. If they had made one one year after the last one it would have been ok but not now.
Re:Of course it bombed (Score:5, Insightful)
With regard to Tron 3, it's not so important that Tron 2 bombed-- what really matters is Escape from Tomorrowland bombed, and Disney has decided if it's going to make fantasy films, it'd rather plow money into it's wholly-owned subsidiaries, Lucasfilm and Marvel.
America, you will be getting all your science fiction and fantasy in Avengers form in Galactic Basic. This is a win if you like big scifi movies that make billions of dollars, it's a loss if you liked a little bit of diversity in your movies. Disney will now double down on sequels and reboots.
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The first line I wrote was about Tomorrowland. The second about Tron. I guess I wasn't explicit enough.
Re:Of course it bombed (Score:5, Informative)
I saw Tomorrowland. It sucked. The plot made no sense, and most of the special effects were pointless (other than helping to keep the audience awake). The moralizing "everyone should feel guilty" ending was anti-climactic. I am happy to hear that it is bombing, and I regret seeing it.
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I felt tomorrowland was kind of a crap sandwich.
It had a confusing sucky start- a decent not terrible not awesome movie with some cool visuals in the middle- and the a stupid pointless tacked on kid's movie ending.
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Tomorrowland was directed and partially written by Brad Brad, whose previous movies (the Incredibles and Ratatouille) were known for philosophy that sometimes branched into Ayn Randian Objectivism
I don't think so. Both the Incredibles and Ratatouille had elements of humour, which is something entirely alien to Randroids.
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> Escape from Tomorrowland
Escape from Tomorrowland != Tomorrowland w/ George Clooney
The former was filmed on Disney property guerrilla-style.
Re:Of course it bombed (Score:5, Informative)
it's not so important that Tron 2 bombed
From the summary Tron:Legacy grossed $400 million from $170 million - that's a success even by Hollywood "hide the profits to avoid royalty payments" maths. Walking away from a franchise where the last installment gave a greater than 100% return isn't sound fiscal sense, it's a straight-up chickenshit cop-out. This is why the Music and Movie industries need to die -- no risk takers too many assholes looking for a "sure thing" and will rehash the "sure things" right into the fucking ground till they have nothing left.
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From the summary Tron:Legacy grossed $400 million from $170 million - that's a success even by Hollywood "hide the profits to avoid royalty payments" maths.
Eh, it's closer than that. Studios see 50-55% of the domestic box office and anywhere between 15-50% of the foreign box office (depending on how much of a cut the distributor in a particular country takes.)
Tron 2 did $172 mil domestically (so figure the studio got $86-$95 mil) and $228 mil internationally (so that take isn't going to be any higher than
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I suppose the alternative is better, where Netflix and Google front-run your concept and actor preferences within a millimeter of their mathematical certainty, and then regurgitate that back at you, until they run it into the ground etc. etc.
I don't know, most feature films are original or original ad
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Because remaking the same IP year after year is taking risks.
That's the sad part. Compared to what Hollywood typically does, making Tron 3 is a risk even though it's basically printing money. They could split the soundtrack between two artists (give one of them the bad guys and the other one the good guys and make it a vs.) and a big portion of the fans of both would show up...
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This is a win if you like big scifi movies that make billions of dollars, it's a loss if you liked a little bit of diversity in your movies.
Disney took a chance on Marvel properties as original, eccentric and obscure as Guardians of the Galaxy and Big Hero 6.
It did rather well by Wreck-It Ralph.
Which was rooted in character and story, not special effects.
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Live action and animation are two separate departments. Animation knows WTF it's doing, live action not so much.
The distinction between live action and animation has been blurred for decades.
Tron is the primal example. Rocket Raccoon is a fully realized character in Guardians of the Galaxy and not the comic relief or the blink-and-you'll miss it Easter Egg cameo of Howard The Duck.
Re:Of course it bombed (Score:5, Interesting)
That's everyone, actually. Sci-Fi is hard, and original sci-fi even harder.
It's so bad that the reason Hollywood avoids original stuff is because it usually does badly. Either it doesn't click, or other thing. Either way, original stuff is risky, and despite everyone's call for "More originals less sequels!", that is not translating into asses in seats. Which is the only factor that matters.
Now, sometimes it's just bad (like Tomorrowland), but it's original. And it's probably Disney's attempt at trying something new to see if it works. Since it bombed, that just means more Avengers 3, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, and other stuff. Stuff original - that doesn't make money and is far more risky. Or in general, the people who request "original" films generally don't belong to the set of people who buy tickets.
Even a rather decent movie like Edge of Tomorrow (rebranded as Live Die Repeat) failed to do "well" - which basically means the death of anything original.
It's useless to call for more original films - Hollywood believes that the two groups (people who call for original films instead of sequels and rehashed plots. and movie goers) are two distinct sets.
Re:Of course it bombed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Of course it bombed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well "Edge of Tomorrow" is the Hollywoodized version of the JAPANESE light novel "All You Need Is Kill".
Not that this makes it a bad movie though.
It probably bombed because it had Cruise in it. Or they just couldn't get the message out. I dunno.
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Tron, Star Trek, Star Wars...
These were from different times, rebooting and adding sequels wile makes money, hurts the brand over time.
The charactors and plots become less relatable to newer generations.
Let's take Star Wars, today we relate more with the empire then with the rebels. With terrorist following extremist versions religions, the idea of a small band of Rebels fighting a winning against an army is more scary from our current point of view. We are no longer worried about the Communists with big n
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Um... what?? Star Wars is pretty plainly about good vs evil. The empire is evil. They blow up entire (peaceful!) planets to control the population through fear. That's not exactly a bunch of subtle shades of grey, is it? In fact it's the very definition of terrorism (an act of violence, against non-combatants, explicitly intended to create fear for political purposes).
I identify more with the fight against "the evil empire" n
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I don't see how Tron 2 bombed:
"...made for $170 million, grossed $400 million..."
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I am fine with sequels and reboots. I have been waiting a long time to see what happens to Jasper et. all after the Gnome Mobile.
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I am waiting for the Goonies reboot with today's helicopter parents...
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Of course the poor box-office of Tomorrowland is one data point, which the superstitious oracles at Disney have taken as an omen that any film which has certain factors in common with it will also fail.... rather than an indication that maybe this movie was specifically not very good, or not properly marketed.
Re:Of course it bombed (Score:4, Informative)
Big name actors like... George Clooney. And that's it. Hugh Laurie is the only other recognizable name and, while wildly talented, the last big live-action US movie he was in was Flight of the Phoenix.
I don't think they blew the budget on actors.
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It also has a kid as the main actor. Puke.
Re:Of course it bombed (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand why Hollywood won't cast teenagers to play teenagers.
There are numerous reasons. The look of adults will remain more consistent throughout the filming of a movie and between sequels (not to mention a TV series), while no amount of contractual obligation can stop a child actor from growing. I heard on a director's commentary of a film (can't remember which one) that said that they had problems reshooting parts of an earlier scene because the child had changed between the start and end of the movie; probably no so noticeably as you watch the film sequentially, but when it they intercut shots into the same scene then it could be obvious.
Child actors also have limits on how long they can film and require schooling during the shoot. It's possible that trained actors are easier to direct and put in better performances, but that is just speculation and there are definitely examples of children doing some stunning work. Finally, teenagers can be right pricks sometimes (although so can some prima donna actors too).
Re:Of course it bombed (Score:5, Insightful)
Too much money wasted on big name actors and advertising. Ludicrous story. It goes on and on.
The same could be said of Pirates of the Caribbean, right?
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>I do think it is too early for another Tron sequel though. If they had made one one year after the last one it would have been ok but not now.
You think it's too early for another Tron sequel to occur, and suggest it should have happened at an earlier time instead?
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It's a matter of timing. The sequel came at a good time when there wasn't anything quite like it out. Now there's just too many sci-fi movies around.
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I was actually quite enthusiastic about the movie. Remember all the early promos we saw of the movie, people even made their own light bikes and the like? The original Tron had a lot of fandom despite not doing so good on its original screening. The guys who worked on the movie exploited this brilliantly. Especially their promo on Comic-Con. They also made a movie that fans liked. You could also tell it was done by people who actually liked Tron.
Re:Of course it bombed (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually I loved Tomarrowland. The extreme left hate it and says it is full of Ayn Rand references and the extreme right says it supports the global climate change hoax that alone makes it worth watching for me. Anything that drives those two groups into a tizzy must be good.
Actually it is a fun movie that is beautiful to look at and the story is pure fantasy. Of course it is hated by a lot of people because it actually attacks the current love of dark depressing "gritty" movies and frankly culture. It was also an ode to Walt Disney's dream of what EPCOT was supposed to be, his gift to mankind and not what it because a place to eat.
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huhhh?
Star Wars is pure fantasy.
Sorry but the majority of people think sci-fi = shiny space ships and fantasy = elves and knights.
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Star Wars is pure fantasy.
I would argue that Star Wars is scifi, commonly pronounced "skiffy" amongst the nerdiest of nerds, because it attempts to have scientific explanations for things — but they are crap.
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but the uber nerds are a small % of the people that go to movies. For instance I objected to Gravity being called SciFi because it was no more SciFi the the Poseidon Adventure was. Space stations and orbital space stations are real.
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Re: Tomorrowland is excellent (Score:2)
No, it bombed because there was very little Tomorrowland in Tomorrowland. The entire screentime TL gets is what, maybe 15 minutes? Simply put, the trailers were completely at odds with what the film actually does.
Re: Tomorrowland is excellent (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yeah sure (Score:3, Funny)
Tron was a great sequel and I've heard good things about Tomorrowland, but they'd rather make things like princess movies. They're Disney, after all.
When can we expect yet another cute puppy-centered live movie?
Re:Yeah sure (Score:5, Informative)
You do realize that Disney is one of the largest multimedia conglomerates in the world, right? While the word Disney gives rise to images of cartoon princesses they also own ABC, Marvel, and the Lucasfilm properties, among many other things.
To say they only make princess movies is like saying Kraft only makes crappy cheese products or Pepsi only makes cola.
Re:Yeah sure (Score:4, Insightful)
You do realize that Disney is one of the largest multimedia conglomerates in the world, right? While the word Disney gives rise to images of cartoon princesses they also own ABC, Marvel, and the Lucasfilm properties, among many other things.
To say they only make princess movies is like saying Kraft only makes crappy cheese products or Pepsi only makes cola.
Disney makes only one thing : homogenised culture to be consumed around the world.
It's the McDonalds of films. Insipid to the very core.
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to be fair, there's a 50/50 chance that star wars VII could be pretty good...
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a 50/50 chance that star wars VII could be pretty good...
For some extremely generous value of "pretty good" that can coexist in a context that contains JJ Abrams, maybe.
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if it's a mix of star trek, mission impossible III and alias then we're in good shape.
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I think I just had a stroke...
I'm pretty sure that about the only thing he won't fuck-up about SW is turning it into the same "teenagers in space kaboom" that he made ST into, because he can't - that's what it was from the word "go".
Re:Yeah sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Disney makes only one thing : homogenised culture to be consumed around the world. It's the McDonalds of films. Insipid to the very core.
Remarkably, not everyone on this planet wants to spend all of their movie-viewing time on art-house pieces with complicated themes; sometimes you just want to be exposed to a universe that hadn't existed previously in your imagination, whether it's a reworking of an old story or not. Same as a good chunk of the population doesn't mind some McDonalds every now and then; sometimes you just want a cheap burger.
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Disney makes only one thing : homogenised culture to be consumed around the world.
It's the McDonalds of films. Insipid to the very core.
And no one is sticking a pistol to your head forcing you to eat at McDonalds or watch Disney films. Like Devo says:
"Freedom of choice
Is what you got
Freedom from choice
Is what you want"
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PRINCESS Leia, PRINCESS Amidala...
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That's like calling Casper a Ghostbusters movie because Akroyd had cameo.
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PRINCESS Leia, PRINCESS Amidala...
You forgot Princess Jar-Jar.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Let Flynn and Quora ride off into the sunrise, and let it be OVER. Stories end. How about you come up with new ones?
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There are plenty of opportunities for original stories in the Tron setting. The short lived CG cartoon series was actually quite interesting, for example. It's a compelling world and I'd like to see more stories set there.
Thanks a lot Clooney! (Score:2)
this sucks (Score:3, Funny)
Re:this sucks (Score:5, Funny)
guess I'll just have to wait another 30 odd years for another one
That will be an exciting movie. Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner will be in their mid nineties. They can do battle with the MCP pushing around their "light-walkers" and tell the younger cast how their identity disks were the size of a Frisbee instead of these new dime sized ones.
The entire plot will end up being them trying to get their stolen identity disk back from the evil megabit or something. But then they discover that they accidentally used it in a soda machine by mistake. Everyone will get a good laugh out of it. Then when they return to the real world, it'll be completely destroyed because of a decompression error that will cause their oxygen tanks to explode upon materialization.
Re: this sucks (Score:2)
^^^spoiler alert
All four people who watched Tron 2 (Score:2)
Hey, it's the only Blu-Ray I own (Score:5, Funny)
I got it for two bucks at my local Grocery Outlet :p
I thought it was an excellent music video, with some slow parts.
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Seeing as Tron: Legacy grossed $400 million and was considered a success, as 11th highest grossing film in 2010, then I would say more than "four people" watched Tron 2.
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Professional critics = shit;
Paying public opinion = Is all that matters;
North-american public = only likes "amerikacentric" films with many bimbos and car explosions sequences (with few exceptions), so do not take their opinion too seriously;
And finnaly world wide public = paying public too, so they are as important (or more) as north-american public. And note that the global audience is much more numerous and diverse than the north-american public.
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North-american public = only likes "amerikacentric" films with many bimbos and car explosions sequences
yes please!
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No they aren't. Film studios care more about markets that make them money (or may in future make them more money), not about markets which have larger populations and which are more diverse.
If a studio can keep 90% of ticket sales of a new release in the US but only gets to keep 50% of the much sm
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Re:Will be highly upset? (Score:3)
Oh, I get it. Another user that thinks the subject and incomplete comment make up a complete post. I don't know who started that practice, but it should stop.
~~
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I don't know who started that practice, but it should stop.
YMBNH: It's been happening since time was time. It's really only a problem because the subject is not shown directly above the comment, so when you C&P you get a header you have to excise. You are right, it should stop, but since the practice of doing it here is probably about as old as the subject line... give-u up.
Nooooo! Not Tron 3! (Score:4, Informative)
Is it all about the Chinese box office these days? (Score:3)
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Well also consider they only get like 1/4 of that money from China; and unless they want their movie to count against the foreign import quota they need to hire a Chinese production team to add in Chinese actors.
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Yep, Disney is betting big on China becoming a huge emerging market for their entertainment. It's almost as if they were about to...
Oh yeah... next year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
Tron is now reality (Score:2)
Properties (Score:2)
I understand that there are reasons in the advertising world to use terms like 'inventory' to mean people, but can we keep that out of the real world, please?
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Yes, movies are now called properties, and people who watch them are inventory for the demand-side (advertisers). Welcome to dystopia.
I don't go to movies any more, Since they're almost all sequels or reboots - I've seen them all already.
Not surprising after Tron: Uprising was gutted (Score:5, Interesting)
There was another Tron mostly nobody saw, an animated series called Tron: Uprising which ran on various Disney cable networks.
It was.. excellent. Beautiful art, great music (improved versions of Daft Punk plus new stuff), really good casting and decent writing and plotting. All in all, one of the best animated anything that the American animation industry has yet produced. It was rather similar to an anime. Nobody would have been surprised if it had in fact come from Japan, but it didn't: it was Disney.
And of course a show like this made no sense to Disney so they killed it after one season. Boom.
Highly recommended viewing. Only 19 episodes so go for broke and watch them all at once. It will probably make you sad this was the last Tron, perhaps forever.
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Yea, I have been rewatching uprising in light of this news. If they had let it keep going it likely could have been a another hit animated show on par with Avatar.
Seems it had everything going against it. From the cost, to the demographic, to corporate wanting things to remain "kid" friendly. FFS you had Tron being tortured and being left with life altering disfigurements, makes for great storytelling but five year olds and the advertisers are not going to be interested in "PTSD Mutilated Tron Action Figure
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Plus all the "blowing program to little bits" thing. Man this show was awesome.
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All they had to do was re-run Tron Uprising after Star Wars Rebels, and they would have had two hits on their hands. What a programming block that would be. Introduce the SW audience to how good Uprising is, and the Tron franchise would have a chance to become more valuable. Someone at Disney hates Tron. Uprising is the best animated show to come out of the USA in... I can't remember a stronger show with such stunning design, voice actors etc. To think the fate of Tron as a franchise is somehow tied to
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I wasn't impresed with its pilot episode. Did it get better? Did it have a good finale even though it got the axe?
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Yes, I'd say it got better. As for the finale, it was a soft cliffhanger, so not everything is resolved but it doesn't end on a bad place.
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Thanks. :)
Because of Tomorrow land? (Score:2)
... Sigh. Read the synopsis of Tomorrow land and you'll see that whomever greenlit it was tripping balls when they okayed that project.
Terrible. That was Batman Forever levels of stupid.
Tron 3 could be good. The tron movies are simple action fun.
Preach at me in the dumbest way possible though... and I'm changing the channel.
I don't know... I think a lot of the people that write these scripts should just write art house movies that no one watches. Just fill your movie with more kids with cancer-aids and cryi
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I was going to say, "the Tomorrowland that's still in general release?"
To base the overall profitability on the first two weekends and call it a stumble when it made 3/4 of what tron made at the same time (with a huge build up and cult following of the original), while there are several other major summer blockbusters going head to head with it. (note: I haven't seen tomorrowland)
Sounds like an excuse to me. And thank goodness, imho. We definitely don't need another Tron.
Against San Andreas? (Score:2)
As it happens, I went and saw a matinee with a friend, and watched San Andreas, and it actually wasn't bad. I suggested he call his wife (who was in L.A.) and tell her to go see it.
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Saw San Andreas and was pleasantly surprised they didn't moralize it or make it the Republican's Fault.
Yes, it is nice to know that Hollywood understands that occasionally natural disasters just happen and it is not always mankind's fault.
Re:There was a TRON 2? (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe there'll be a TRON III - The Search for TRON 2.
I might actually go see that.
Re:The Trailer Was Astoundingly Awful (Score:5, Insightful)
It looks amateurish because it was made by amateurs. It's a fan-made trailer. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt40... [imdb.com]
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Aw, crap, you half had me hoping San Andreas might have been a GTA movie like Crank.
Oh well, I guess I can appreciate the humor in an earthquake movie starring The Rock.
Re:Tron could be a very good series (Score:5, Insightful)
No. No. No.
Enough with the silly darker trend. Have you actuallyseen the original Tron? You know with the talking silly Bit in it? It's adventure certainly, but it's not dark. Tron 2 went more philosophical and arguably darker as well, and I happen to really like the film, but I would argue that's also part of what killed it.
Everyone time I hear of a reboot it's "we'll take the original and make it grittier", or "we'll take the original and make it darker", or sometimes we're treated to both gritter and darker at the same time. Bah. Enough of this - it's an adolescant's version of what makes a grown-up film. Give me varied films with a mix of emotions in them please. Relentless dark and misery is not what I want to be offered all of the time.
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Everyone time I hear of a reboot it's "we'll take the original and make it grittier"
Actually, Tron is the one place where that might actually make sense. All their technology is vector-based, right? What if they got infected by a bitmap virus? You could have some really bitchin' visuals.
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That game got Tron much better than the 2nd movie did. Having the "grid" be this walled garden didnt explore how the whole world is interconnected now. It was a terribly missed opportunity.
To add insult to injury, the game is a Disney property. Disney owns the plot of Tron 2.0 that they ignored in favor of flavorless eye candy.
*SPOILERS*
*
*
*
The game's plot includes features like the internet, making the Recognizers into network packets (train cars) for some nice nostalgia, bits*, trying to survive in a PDA with limited RAM, email scripts being corrupted into virus spewing zombies, and an evil mega-corp planning to use the digitization tech to digitize their own paramilitary operatives int