I just don’t get it.
I do not understand where all the ‘Tron’ love has come from over the years. I mean, it really wasn’t that great of a movie. Look, before you get yer panties in a bundle, I AM looking forward to Tron: Legacy. But I’m not building my life around it like some seem to be. It does look a fun and enjoyable popcorn flick. I’m not a movie purist… You already know I like stupid movies, and I’m openly out and proud about my love for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. But I don’t get the cultish love for Tron. I mean, it was very cool looking at the time. (And still kind of is.) It totally got gypped at the Special Effect Oscars that year, because they thought using computers was “cheating”. (Little did they realize what was to come.) Of course this isn’t the first time a movie that deserved to win an Oscars got passed over for something else unworthy… Just ask any Transformers fan about “The Golden Compass” and watch them sneer. (Frickin’ polar bears.) Tron’s special effects were stunning for the time, a visual spectacle… But unfortunately, it’s like a Victor Hugo book with gold pressed leaf pages… It’s very pretty to look at, but damn is it boring.
That’s my problem with it. Tron was boring. It’s only 90 minutes long, but goddamn does it feel longer. But I’m aware that maybe I’m in the minority here on my feelings for it. Or maybe not. *shrugs*
Now the thing that’s always confused me was the enduring popularity of Tron, and no one has ever explained this to me. Here’s where I get lost… For almost twenty years, no one really gave two craps about the movie or it’s universe. I understand that a lot of the 80’s franchises got brought back in that wave of nostalgia from some years ago… While the Transformers and G.I.Joe never really went away, (some people just think it did.) Thundercats, Voltron, He-Man and even Strawberry Shortcake returned. But in each one of those, there was a hint of the upcoming storms… They never went fully away like M.A.S.K. or Popples. But Tron did. It went far away and had pretty much been forgotten and relegated to being a throwaway joke on the Freakazoid!, much like we would mock the American Godzilla movie now. And one day, it just popped back up on the radar with all this frellin’ Tron love out of nowhere! You’re going along playing Final Fantasy IX and drinking your bottle of Surge… And BAM! Tron 2.0 video game, Tron comic books, Tron message boards, Tron popping up in Kingdom Hearts II, Tron theme park at Epcot Center, Tron toys, and now the sequel and the upcoming announced Tron: Uprising show. I mean, what was the catalyst that caused this? Was there a nerd meeting that I missed?
If it’s a conceptual reason for liking then, then I totally understand. I mean H.P. Lovecraft’s books were actually dull and over-written in my opinion, but the concepts he came up with was very interesting. (At least interesting enough to make a comic book series about them!) Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell, and it’s sequel was the same way in that it was visually and conceptually intriguing, but the story was rather lifeless and dull. So was the first two movies. However, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex I hold up as the greatest anime series ever made, because it took the concepts and told an exciting story with them. Tron, despite it’s empty story, had plenty to like about it, and that’s not even getting into the Light Cycles. So I can understand if it’s a love on a conceptual level. But the Tron’s resurgent populatiry just happened like overnight.
How did it go from being a quick punch line the Simpsons to being a movie that Disney’s willing to spend $170 million dollars on?
Was it just the Tron Guy?
