A few days ago news of a new Tron movie started popping up on the net and today we have more detail on what’s happening with the movie.
The original Tron came out 25 years ago (if you can believe it!), released by Disney and went on to become a cult hit. The story was about a videogame developer (Jeff Bridges) who was sucked into the virtual reality world of computers, where he discovered that the programs there were actually sentient and living under the dictatorship of the Master Control Program. At the time the effects and concept were both cutting edge. Keep in mind that at the time the movie was released, the big games in arcades were Pac-Man and the first version of Donkey Kong!
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It was directed by Steven Lisberger, who hasn’t done very much in the movie industry since making that groundbreaking film.
The video game which the movie spawned actually earned much more money than the film itself… that was back in the days when movies inspired video games instead of vice versa, anyone remember that? Anyway, for years fans asked for an updated version of a Tron videogame and finally around 2002 the game Tron 2.0 was released to fairly good reviews.
Now there is renewed interest in revisiting the Tron universe on the big screen and the director that has been tapped to helm it is Joseph Kosinski, who is also supposed to be directing the Logan’s Run remake. I didn’t particularly think he was a great choice for Logan’s Run, but his background in highly stylized and futuristic commercials may actually be a great fit for Tron.
Supposedly this will be a continuation of the story, so I can only assume that they will be contacting Jeff Bridges to resume his role from the original film (if they don’t, I’ll consider that their first misstep in this project). I don’t see how they could get Bruce Boxleitner to resume his role since he portrayed a virtual character in the first film and therefore should not age.
It will be written by a couple of writers from the TV series Lost: Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, and Lisberger will be involved as a producer on the film. Much like how Lisberger created test footage of the neon-glowing frisbees of death to help pitch the original, Kosinksi has been tasked with coming up with test footage of updated lightcycles to establish a vision/look for the new film.
Like I said in the title, I don’t envy these guys. In today’s environment of hyper-realistic games like Halo and realistic motion capture movies like the upcoming Beowulf, how do you make a Tron sequel stand out from the pack and be as cutting edge today as the original was for it’s time?
Source: Hollywood Reporter
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9 Comments
Tron’s a lot cooler in my mind than it is on the screen. I would rather bust out the old arcade game than see a tron 2.
I’m not sure this can be done again. People know a lot more about computers than they did back then and it seems to me that the audience will have to give themselves over to a complete suspension of disbelief in regard to everything mentioned. It’s possible they could play up the internet aspect of computing, but I’m not confident they will. I’ll wait to see the preview before I make up my mind about the film, but it creates doubt in my mind just thinking of it.
They had a chance to make a good sequel! When Lisberger and Boxleitner were trying to get TRON 2.0 off the ground. Alas, there was only enough interest (and money) to produce the game.
I’m afraid they’ll rather do a remake then a real sequel. That way they can ignore the aged actors and mess around with it as they see fit.
A retro-sequel (or even a prequel) playing back in 1982 would be the best. Another story with other people etc. But rather unlikely.
ZAR.
Zar,
I don’t know about the retro-sequel idea… audiences would probably roll there eyes at older-style graphics in a movie like this.
Vic
They tried doing this in 2000 or so, and ended up doing the video game instead. I understand Lisberger is trying to do another film, non-Tron, of course, though when Tron 2.0 was supposed to be a movie (pre-video game), he was attached to direct.
heath
I’m not sure I agree. Just because it’s based on a video game, I don’t think it’s necessary for them to stick too closely to the original. I think the environment provides more than enough canvas to set up a new story that can be just as eye popping as anything we see now.
Just my 2 cents.
I agree with Marina, rethink the story, but reuse the plot.
I have a solution for the aging problem- Alan, still a programmer, has made Tron obsolete before the movie begins with a new program, Tron 2.0, who looks like Alan does now thanks to the programmer/program thing.
I think its an awsome idea. I’ve thought they should make a new tron for a long time. But I dont think it should be a sequel or a prequel. For that matter it shouldnt even be a remake Just come up with a whole new story, I mean use the same idea of course but dont use the same charactors. Make something completely new.
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