When I gave my snarky recap of last week’s “Tron Night” event, there were some grumblings in the comments section over my kiss-off:
“Had the film really appeared to be about man’s relationship with technology, and the way it estranges us from personal, intimate interaction with our fellow man—and not another cookie-cutter ‘family values’ Disney yarn about a father and son reuniting—I might have given pause when I got my phone back, but mostly I was just like, ‘Give me my fucking phone back.'”
Who are you kidding, dude? Why even joke about taking Tron seriously?
Here’s Tron: Legacy starlet Olivia Wilde in conversation with IGN, talking about the villain CLU, who I described as “hilariously shitty-looking digitally de-aged Jeff Bridges”:
“CLU is like the abused step-child. It’s like he’s been created out of this beautiful program that Flynn designed in order to be a partner to Flynn. But he’s not his real son. He’s an avatar and he’ll only ever be that. Because there’s a limit to what programs can be. And that’s what frustrates and enrages CLU. The philosophy of Tron for me is really just summed up by the old argument ‘Monkey vs. Robot.’ That’s what a lot of these movies are about. What most sci-fi films are about. Tron even more so. If the question of the first Tron movie is, ‘What would happen if technology took over our lives?’ ‘What if this new thing became more powerful than us?’ And now, 30 years later, the film isn’t asking the question anymore because technology has taken over. We are slaves to technology.
This film is asking ‘Now what?’ ‘Can we escape this or learn what it is to be human again?’“
I’m sorry, Olivia, but EYEROLL.
Eyes really don’t taste that good baked into a roll.
Well, unless they’re seasoned with CGI 3D goodness.
You’re criticizing her summation of the film of being slaves to technology after admitting you were gnashing your teeth waiting to get your phone back?
Because the footage I saw demonstrated none of the (as you pointed out, and I’m well aware) VERY RELEVANT subtext Wilde was claiming is in the film. Maybe Disney didn’t think they’d draw as many people in by showing off the film’s “intellectual side,” but I have a strong inkling that come December, all we’re going to get is a traditional father/son narrative set against an overload of CGI bombast.
@2 Hear, hear!
hence “I WOULD have given pause” as opposed to, “man, Tron: Legacy really made me ponder my over-attachment to my phone” because NOPE it did not, but the experience of waiting in line forever w/o my phone did.
I kind of like that Win 7 phone commercial and their “stop using your phone and have a life” theme.
Other than the fact it’s Windows so BSOD + GPF = EPIC FAIL.