A scene from "Tron: Legacy"
The 1982 Tron was one of those memorable cinematic experiences for me. I had grown up watching and loving all of the Disney movies, but Tron was a film unlike anything I'd ever seen Disney do before. The whole video game visuals completely hooked me – the grid gladiator games, the light cycles, the geometric landscape – even then I knew I was watching something ahead of its time. It has stayed with me ever since.
When I first heard Disney was doing a Tron sequel – in 3D, of course – I nodded, thinking enough time had passed that they could do something original, yet similar, with a whole new world of computer graphics and film technology at their disposal. Then I got the assignment – fly to Vancouver to visit the Tron: Legacy set. Needless to say, the fangirl in me was all atwitter, and I eagerly anticipated being wowed by all the exciting new technologies as well as reliving some of those fond memories of the original. I wasn't at all disappointed.
The "War Room"
As I and my fellow journalists arrived in beautiful Vancouver last June, after flight delays and airport follies, we were driven to the tucked away studios outside the city and ushered into a room filled with Tron: Legacy concept art. We walked around, looking at the sketches for the new and improved light cycles and miniature models of the sets. It all looked entirely awesome, and I was a little sad to think I had to wait over a year before I could see it all put into action.
The War Room was also the place we got to speak with newly anointed Best Actor winner Jeff Bridges, aka Kevin Flynn from the original Tron. Although the plot was being kept tightly under wraps then, we now know the story centers on Flynn's son Sam (Garrett Hedlund), who, in looking for his missing father, gets zapped into the computer mainframe, just like his dad before him, and must face the dangerous new perils in this updated cyberspace.
Bridges was clearly excited to be part of this sequel – and didn't want to give too much of the plot or his character away – marveling how things had changed since he first made Tron.
"Well, this is kind of a challenge for me because I don't want to deprive anybody of the enjoyment of seeing the film with any kind of twists and turns," Bridges said. "But it's certainly a different deal. We made Tron, there was no Internet, man. No cell phones. No laptops or any of that stuff. So it's [a] completely different world that we're showing up in here and the look of the film certainly, you know, benefits from that."
Asked how he felt about entering the Tron world again after all this time, it didn't feel like as long as 28 years ago for Bridges. "It seems like we had a long weekend basically because [Steven] Lisberger, who directed the first one, is involved, very involved in this one, which is great. He's such a wild cat but it's also kind of grounded in that first movie that was so unique."
Reminiscing about the original Tron shoot, Bridges said, "I remember I couldn't believe it. We showed up the first day at work and around the walls of the studio [were the first] Tron-like video games that you [had] to put quarters in. I said 'God, Steve you don't think this is gonna raise a little hell with the work?' He said, 'I don't know, I figured you might want to prepare before you go on the grid.'"
"So actually both things did happen," Bridges laughed. "I did hold up the work every once in a while, but it was great fun. I remember I got locked into this game, Battle Zone. You familiar with that game? The tanks. God, hours and they would come and try to yank me away. I'd say I'm preparing, I'm preparing."
The End of the Line Club
After the War Room experience, we headed to watch a scene being shot in the Tron:Legacy cyber universe -- a hotspot called the End of the Line Club. Talk about elaborate. This ultra-futuristic dance club/fight club/bar was complete with a dance floor, split levels, lounge area, cool blue drinks – and Garrett Hedlund, the young actor playing Sam Flynn. In the scene, Sam is having to fight off some of the bad guys, along with the help of his dad and newfound ally, Quorra, played by the lovely Olivia Wilde.
Hedlund took a small breather in between takes to talk to us about shooting in the foam rubber light cyber suits he had to not only wear but operate at the same time.
"There's a lot of obstacles I particularly had to overcome in terms of the suit," Hedlund said. "To be able to grab a disc off the back, being able to flick the light switch, to turn it on at a certain point, to be able to get here and still be focusing on what your goal is."
Hedlund also had to remember everything was being shot in 3D. "It's like…you gotta view it for 3D and see that, take that in, and then continue on. There's so much stuff that we're not getting to observe within the take on the day. That's all gonna be put in there, and we just hope that we did everything that [Tron: Legacy director] Joe [Kosinski] needed for that particular shot because he's got a really wonderful vision of what exactly he wants, and you can be worried about something three seconds into the take from the third second to the sixth second."
As I watched them film the scene at 1:00 in the morning, I was, again, mesmerized, transported back to when I saw the original and feeling that sense of wonderment. I am still amazed how Tron's actual legacy, so to speak, has lasted this long. The guy who started it all, Tron director Steven Lisberger, had a few choice words to say about it. He wisely handed over the reins to director Joe Kosinski because, as he said, "if I brought my network in, it would be a little bit like one of those Clint Eastwood movies where all the old guys go to space."
"When my generation was thinking about cyberspace we were, you know, the pioneers," Lisberger said. "But we were idealistic. We didn't have to worry about the reality. If we could just kill the big, bad MCP [the Tron villain Master Control Program] IBM machine, then the Woodstock vibe would take over everything and all will be right. And that was actually sort of true, because, Bill Gates, a la Tron, got his disk into the heart of IBM, which was the main frame MCP, and that liberated the PC. So the story of Tron sort of came true."
"It imprinted," Lisberger continued. "And we now have sort of a nostalgia for a time when cyberspace was so full of potential, and not so full of spam and porn. That doesn't go away."
Perhaps not, but I'm pretty damn excited about Tron: Legacy, which opens in theaters in December, and its potential to thrill me as much as the original. Stay tuned for more of my Tron: Legacy set visit.
Send feedback on this column to
editorial@fandango.com.