WHY is Tron? (no. 20)
Introducing the future of tech in cinema: grooming allegations.
Here we go again, gang! Another day, another busy Fall. A new week where Jared Leto discourse has permeated through the atmosphere, another Rent’s Due to get in on it while the going’s just cold. Read on, sisters!
It’s a hilarious miracle that TRON exists. The live-action movie about getting digitally sucked off from a laser to enter the world inside your Mac, starring a young Jeff Bridges, released by renaissance Disney hoping to get big on their own Star Wars the year after Empire came out? It had everything going against it, and was still a failure depending on who you ask, but for the longest time it was the geek franchise that refused to die, mostly due to a few projects and references you’d see on South Park.
What I’ve said just now applied to Tron: Legacy when it came out (just swap South Park with Daft Punk or the Kingdom Hearts 3DS game), and a bit less so with the newest (and presumably final) installment: Ares.
Now to be fair, I like these movies to varying degrees (Legacy is genuinely good and is a better copy of the first film), cause for as weird as they are the franchise so far has served as a stealth precursor to certain trends in cinema history. The first film was a benchmark in visual effects and paved the way for CGI to dominate the blockbusters that followed it, while the second film was a legacy sequel in both name and structure that evolved on the original’s promise for better feats in visuals while setting the stage for new efforts in the medium like digital de-aging. It also had a great Daft Punk score, but that’s beside the point.
Legacy built a whole new world again for modern audiences, and in some ways is more important today in the canon of cinema than anyone would’ve expected from it in 2010.
So why I ask, as my stomach grumbles from a Publix Philly on whole wheat at 11 in the evening, does Tron: Ares feel like it has nothing new (or cool) to show us in 2025?
My biggest issue with this movie (besides feeling like I wasted my day off work despite grabbing some RealD glasses from the floor and sneaking into the auditorium across from me) was that it didn’t have *anything* to visually justify a reason for its existence.
I’ll admit it’s a weird thing to judge a movie on, but for one that retains the same look as Legacy albeit with messy action and starring a worse leading actor (who’s been under some really creepy and downright culty heat recently), I don’t think it’s a big ask from a franchise known for pushing boundaries to show me something I’ve never seen before. The story (which at least isn’t just the first film retold again) talks a lot about A.I. and machine-learning, yet doesn’t do anything interesting about it onscreen. I’m still strongly against generative A.I. in media, but for as much talk a corporation like Disney makes about it with having Grok sponsors and literal robots flooding their red carpets, I’m surprised they kept pussyfooting with a clear scapegoat property like this instead of diving head deep in the water with it. Instead I got a film that just looked like more Legacy but red and with a couple decent Nine Inch Nails tracks.
Tron: Ares has more to say about the previous couple of years in cinema than it does about the future of it. Oh wow, another film starring an anti-hero (presumably from a better version of whatever Joseph Kosinski’s Tron 3 was going to be) who’s bad until he finds something quirky about himself like attaching his personality to Depeche Mode, and has to literally go back to the world of the first film to “find himself” or whatever and beat up the real villain of the movie, all before promising better things to come in a sequel that assuredly will never happen in the foreseeable future. How novel! Please check out our light cycle ride that we definitely didn’t spend hundreds of millions on!!
All I wanted was something cool to see while Trent Reznor screams at me. Shit man I would’ve taken an actual grokbot driving around with Greta Lee than this. At least a clanker isn’t capable of alleged pedophilia (at this time of recording).
But I didn’t get that, and the only thing that’s pushing any boundaries in this is seeing Jared Leto in a fair legal standing with law enforcement.
I think it’s fair to say that nobody was expecting this to be a box office smash (this is a Tron movie we’re talking about), but it’s disappointing to see this black sheep sci-fi staple be reduced to nothing but another ad for a theme park attraction. And some producer/star’s vanity project. Nothing innovating, nothing exciting, just the same ol’ product that we’re supposed to consume and not question. I’m glad I didn’t waste my A-List slot on this.
Now, in an attempt to not end this shit on a down note, some cool things I’d like to briefly share and yap about:
I saw Good Fortune earlier today. As a fan of Aziz Ansari and particularly his show Master of None, I was pretty excited to see him back in the spotlight and make funny shit again (Saudi Arabian issues aside, obviously). It’s a good lil’ comedy about how shitty it is to work a decent living right now, with a good performance from Keanu Reeves to boot, but I’m amazed that I ended up liking the film despite how choppy it is. I read rumors that this was test-screened and re-edited to shit, and that comes across in the finished cut (there’s technically three endings to this that it abruptly cuts to Clue-style). It didn’t detract from my enjoyment overall, I just wonder what the fuck happened to this from when it was ready to be seen. Like Tron, it’s a miracle that this still works despite everything going against it.
I met Udo Kier at work last week! He was in town for a weekend retrospective about his career, with the centerpiece event being a special double-feature of Andy Warhol’s Dracula and Frankenstein (in 3D) with a Q&A in the middle. Sassy and sweet guy imo! We talked about how he’s never been on a cruise ship before and how busy south beach is compared to the last time he took a trip here. I pretty much stayed for the first film as I had plans after, and it’s a really wild sex comedy that guises itself as a horror film; particularly raunchy in a way that’s almost missed today (besides something like Red Rocket).
What stood out to me more than anything was the amount of patience Kier had that night, with the onslaught of fans swarming him for an autograph (before some of them dipped the theater as soon as the ink hit their blu-ray case). I can’t imagine the anxiety he must’ve felt during those bouts throughout the weekend, though I suppose he’s used to it at 81 years old. Still, it felt nice to have a moment where I didn’t think I was talking to a legendary genre actor, just an old dude who’s hysterically richer than me and happy to be here. I hope he gets that cruise trip someday.
Watch V/H/S/HALLOWEEN if you’re looking for some good spooky shit this month. I’ve been in love with these movies since I watched the Gareth Evans short from 2 with my best friend years and years ago, and this is probably the best one that’s come out since maybe 99 (Many people hate that one. I do not). Specifically, the short Kidprint from Alex Ross Perry is some of the most demented shit I’ve seen all year, and I just finished watching Xavier: Renegade Angel! I like that the majority of these shorts lean into a certain gimmick/genre with each installment, but it’s with shit like Kidprint that feels more surreal than anything that’s come out from the series in a long time; a short that felt as if it took actually took place in our reality. It’s fucked, and a really great example for how much story and character you can effectively convey within the confines of a short film.
That’s it for now! With festival season and Halloween on the horizon I’ll try to get a couple more posts out before I know I won’t have the time to do them. Take care and have a good week.