Director Joseph Kosinski Talks ‘Tron Legacy’

Since naming it one of our most anticipated movies of 2010 back in December, we haven’t talked much about Tron Legacy here at Screen Rant. To be honest, though, there hasn’t been much to talk about. Since the long-awaited sequel finished principal shooting, director Joseph Kosinski has been working hard on post-production tasks such as finetuning the film’s 3D visual effects and working on sound design. In a recent interview with MTV, Kosinski talked at length about his post-production work, detailing some of the film’s plot and touching on the film’s unique use of 3D as well as his plans to release the film in IMAX.

I have cherry-picked some of the most interesting quotes from the very comprehensive interview, but I highly recommend checking out MTV for the full thing.

On Tron‘s Use of 3D:

Our approach is not like “Avatar,” which I think is 3-D from the first shot to the last. Ours is sort of a “Wizard of Oz” approach. Ninety-eight percent of the 3-D is in the world of “Tron.” The 3-D really starts once we get into the Tron world.

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It’s a combination of technologies that Zemeckis has been using in terms of the completely digital motion-capture of a character and for the live-action camera system. We used a camera developed by James Cameron’s company. We used a newer generation of camera than the one used on “Avatar.” They built it specifically for us.

On the final look of the film:

I would say [the teaser trailer] is not far removed…We were able to refine the design of the light cycles, the characters, the world and kind of flesh it out to a much higher level of detail than we were able to do for the test. What we’re going to see in the film will feel a lot more photorealistic…We have thousands of people working on the film. It’s a whole different scale.

On Jeff Bridges’ dual role in the film:

Jeff is playing two characters. He’s playing Kevin Flynn, the character from the original film, and he’s playing Clu, the avatar that Kevin Flynn created in the 1980s. I’d say he’s Clu 2…Clu 2 is a second incarnation of Kevin’s avatar. He doesn’t only look like Jeff, but he can think like him too. So it’s a whole new level of artificial intelligence.

On incorporating elements of the original film:

The focus was always to serve the story we are telling. To include Bruce Boxleitner is not at all a cameo or stunt casting. He is integral to the story we’re trying to tell, which is why he’s in it. We’ve taken the events of the first movie as historical facts…Sam Flynn [Garrett Hedlund], in searching for his father, has to retrace his steps and comes upon clues and places that we visited in the first film, like Flynn’s Arcade. Even in the world of Tron itself, a lot of vehicles and sequences have evolved. We’ll get to see how the disc game has changed, how the light cycle battle has changed. We get to see the new version of these iconic sequences.

On choosing electronic music group Daft Punk to score the film:

I felt it was important, just as the first film was so forward-thinking visually and Wendy Carlos’ music was so innovative, I felt we had to do the same thing here…These guys [Daft Punk] take “Tron” very seriously. Obviously, “Tron” was a huge influence on them. It was almost like they were interviewing me to make sure that I was going to hold up to the “Tron” legacy. But the more we talked, we realized that creatively, we were totally synced up.

Judging from this interview, Kosinski seems genuinely committed to making a sequel that not only lives up to the original film’s technical innovation, but surpasses it, which is definitely a tall order. Even if he fails to step out of the original Tron‘s significant shadow, Kosinski’s obvious passion for the material should be enough to make Tron fans very excited about this film. Plus, it has a score from Daft Punk, which is almost enough reason by itself to go see the movie.

What do you think? Do you like what Kosinski is saying about the movie? Where does Tron Legacy rank on your must-see films of 2010?

Tron Legacy opens in theaters on December 17th, 2010.

Source: MTV