Jeremy’s Tophunder №25: Tron: Legacy

8 min readJun 10, 2020

Tron: Legacy hooked me from, quite literally, the opening images.

I saw the original Tron at one point or another, and thought it was mostly fine. It was certainly innovative, but the blending of computer animation (which was mediocre at best in 1982) and live action made it feel a bit awkward at times. The story, meanwhile, was rather incoherent. But it was a movie I saw a couple of times as a kid and thought it was kinda cool, so when a sequel was released 28 years after the original (at the time, it was the longest gap between sequential films in a series, but it’s since been surpassed by movies like Mad Max: Fury Road and Blade Runner 2049), I figured it would be worth going to see it.

And, oh my god.

I knew something was up as soon as I saw the Disney logo:

This intro runs right into the movie’s opening scene, which features a simple voiceover from Jeff Bridges while music starts to pulse and beams of light start to snake across the screen. Just watch the first minute or so of this clip. As the beams of light turn into city streets and the score climbs to a crescendo, you’ll know whether or not the movie is for you.

I saw Tron: Legacy in 3D on a 75-foot screen. Watching the opening minute and a half alone was worth the price of admission, and the movie only got cooler from there. I still think my first viewing of Avatar is the best visual experience I’ve ever had watching a movie, but seeing Tron: Legacy in theaters is an incredibly close second.

Before we get too far, I will acknowledge some of the movie’s flaws. There isn’t a lot of substance to the characters other than Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges). Sam Flynn, his son (played by Garret Hedlund) doesn’t really bring a lot to the table. I’m not exactly surprised that his career didn’t take off despite being the lead actor in a $170 million summer blockbuster. He’s just not that impressive. Not to say that he’s a bad actor — he’s just a solid B/B+ and that’s it.

The storytelling is also a bit spotty at times. Great screenwriters and directors will make a concerted point to show you the story, rather than tell you the story. This story is mostly told to you through rather obvious exposition. It’s not always necessarily a bad thing — some concepts are a little more complex and require clear explanations. But when there’s a lot of it, and when characters are explaining all of their motivations very transparently, that’s a sign of a mediocre movie.

Beyond that, some of the CGI used to de-age Jeff Bridges (in the movie’s opening scene) and depict his computer program counterpart (CLU) just doesn’t hold up 10 years later (and it wasn’t even -that- great at the time). It’s most notable in the mouth when there character speaks. It just looks too digital and can be distracting at times.

All that being said, I don’t care.

The remainder of the visual effects, the production design, and the overall aesthetic of the movie are dazzling and magnificent. The use of light and color is super cool, and the costumes are perfectly futuristic while remaining relatively simple.

There are even elements in the “real world” that I think are really well shot and visually interesting, like Sam riding his Ducati through the city on his way to performing his yearly prank on his dad’s old company. The coolest parts, though, certainly come on The Grid.

My favorite scene in the movie is the bar scene, and it’s truly disappointing that there isn’t a sufficiently full clip of it anywhere that I can find on the internet. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to post a bunch of clips.

You might notice a decent amount of attention being payed to the DJs — that’s because those two DJs are Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, probably better known as Daft Punk. Daft Punk composed the movie’s score, both the orchestral pieces and the electronic pieces, and their work in this bar scene is absolutely incredible.

The scene also introduces Castor, played by Michael Sheen. And I gotta tell you, Michael Sheen goes for it. It might just be because he’s surrounded by so many bland characters, but Castor is so delightfully light-years over the top that it almost seems like he’s daring someone to tell him to tone it down. Castor is the guy that can put people in contact with Zuse, who is the guy that can get Sam (and anyone else) to the Portal back to the real world, so he’s obviously an important character, but it doesn’t quite explain why they got someone like Sheen to give a performance like this. Just when this thought occurs to you, Castor explains why.

If you think Sheen was over the top in the first clip, just check that one out.

I realize that for those of you who are bravely trying to follow along without having seen the movie, watching these clips out of context might be rather confusing. But the things I’m trying to show off in these clips actually don’t have a ton to do with the story, because the story is actually pretty far down the list of the reasons why I like this movie so much.

The bar scene highlights my three favorite elements perfectly. First, as mentioned multiple times now, is the visuals. It’s almost worth watching the movie on mute because the visuals are so spectacular. And it’s not just the digital effects — watching Sam and Gem just walk into the bar is incredible, and if you have a way to check out any of the behind-the-scenes/making-of footage, you can see that a surprising amount of that set is just as it appears on screen. There’s shockingly little digital effects in the set itself, it’s mostly just the backgrounds to make it look like they’re on the top floor of the tower.

The second is the music. Tron: Legacy might be my favorite film score of all time. I listen to it constantly, especially over the last few months during this project. When I write, I usually listen to instrumental music because lyrics can distract me from what I’m writing. This being a project about movies, I’ve been listening to a ton of movie scores. For years, Tron: Legacy has been among my favorite scores, but listening to it over and over again over the course of these few months has convinced me it’s the one. I mean, it’s a Daft Punk album — why wouldn’t I love it?

The third is, again, Michael Sheen. He’s so obviously the most entertaining character in the movie, and he does it despite only being on screen for maybe 5 minutes. He’s in one scene, and he absolutely destroys it. When he’s standing at the top of the stairs and just dancing and cackling at the mayhem going on below him (and also when he bellows “BEHOLD THE SON OF OUR MAKER”), I can’t help but be caught somewhere in the middle of being absolutely blown away by a great actor in a tiny role that borders on cameo, and just the pure amusement of watching one of the genuinely great over-acted performances of the 21st century.

It’s rather unusual for me to love a movie so much despite actively not really caring about the story or the characters. Even with crappy action blockbusters, there are moments when I feel some level of connection to the main characters, even if it’s just laughing at them, like Nic Cage in The Rock or any character from any Fast & Furious movie. Like, the characters in Tron: Legacy aren’t compelling, and they aren’t so unrealistic that they’re amusing. For most movies, that would be a death sentence. That’s how I feel about plenty of movies that I just plain can’t stand, to the point that I can’t even really think of any examples. That’s how forgettable those movies end up being for me. But somehow, everything else surrounding the narrative more than makes up for it.

When I looked up the Rotten Tomatoes scores of all of my Tophunder movies, I was shocked to see Tron: Legacy scored only 51 percent. Now that I think about it, it makes sense. If you’re the type of person that thinks story is the most important component of a movie, then sure, you’ll probably be disappointed in Tron: Legacy. But that’s not really how I feel about movies. If all I wanted was a well-told story, I’d read a great book. And if all I wanted was a well-told story acted out with people, I’d go to a play. The reason that movies exist is to provide visuals that just can’t be captured anywhere else. They move. They’re motion pictures. That’s the whole point. The art comes from the action and the look just as much as it does from the storytelling.

There have been plenty of times that dazzling visuals haven’t been able to offset a boring story for me. But here, the visuals are so stunning, so different, so well-done, that I genuinely feel like it stands apart. Along with Avatar, it’s one of the only two movies where I feel like the visual experience the movie was able to create offsets any criticisms I might have of the poor storytelling. It’s a rare honor, but it’s one that I feel like the movie truly deserves. When you add in the music, it goes from a movie that I really like for one reason in spite of a serious flaw, to a movie that I’ll watch over and over again forever, because I love it.

(For a refresher on the project, I introduced it in a Facebook Post on Day 1)

Here’s our progress on the list so far:

2. A Few Good Men

3. The Social Network

4. Dazed and Confused

6. The Fugitive

7. The Dark Knight

8. The Departed

9. Saving Private Ryan

10. Inglourious Basterds

11. The Big Short

12. The Prestige