As I look forward to Monday night’s next week’s press screening of Disney’s new multi-million dollar 3-D CGI-overload Tron sequel, there is at least one “special” effect I’m really dreading having to watch: the rubbery, digitally de-aged Jeff Bridges as “Clu,” the film’s antagonist.
At the “Tron Night” event, the footage I saw of Clu was not only unconvincing, but unsettling. (Clu has at least one timeshare in the Uncanny Valley.) It would be one thing if Disney and Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski were saving this effect for the villainous Clu alone—projecting rancor towards a plasticky, pixilated mug is easy and sort of liberating—but, as glimpsed in trailers, they’re also de-aging Bridges for a tender flashback sequence featuring Bridges’ other character Flynn (protagonist of the original Tron) and his son, Sam (protagonist of the sequel).
It’s only a little bit validating that Kosinski recently copped to the obvious, unconvincing artifice of the Clu effect. Via io9, via Vulture:
“I feel like … um, honestly I feel like Clu, I don’t think he’s at 100 percent in 100 percent of the shots. But I feel like there’s a couple glimpses in there, especially during Clu’s speech in the Rectifier, [that] I’m really happy with. For a moment, you buy this thing as a real character, which to me is exciting. I just don’t think that’s been done before.”
In marginally related news, there’s a solid editorial up on Badass Digest about the recent (unrelated) murder and suicide in Disney’s faux-township “Celebration,” itself sort of a half-baked facsimile of old Walt’s original, terrifying plan for EPCOT (the article’s author, Devin Faraci, pretty much nails his description of Disney’s freaky EPCOT plot: “cryptofascist city of the future”). I’m also baffled by descriptions of Celebration’s pervasive fakeness.
“During October fake fall leaves fall from trees at designated hours. At Christmas time fake snow comes from light posts. It’s a masterpiece of bizarre artifice, like the forced smile of the Disney theme parks.”
Read the full article here. Bitch about my bitching about Tron: Legacy in the comments.
Has Hollywood produced anything in the past 10 years (maybe 20) that just wasn’t pure unadulterated shit? If it’s got a high budget the shit factor just explodes out of control
It’s a movie about being inside a computer, and you’re complaining because the actors are computer generated?
Go Cougs!
All you need to know about Disney in general (specifically ORLANDO) has been written by the great Carl Hiasen.
http://www.carlhiaasen.com/books/books-t…
the original Tron had almost no GCI in it – it was mostly cel animation drawn to resemble CGI. At that time, it was still cheaper to hire people to pain cels than it was to get time on a computer capable of that kind of rendering.
So, that’s like double meta-fake.
Like a NASA probe, The first Tron pushed the use of CGI in films way past where had it been before. Sometimes it worked great, sometimes not so great. Now those scenes that required room sized supercomputers could be done on a laptop from BestBuy. I’m glad they’re pushing the CGI envelope in this Tron and not doing what’s easy and cheap; that IS true to the spirit of the original production.
Remember, for all of you who think this is a classic– it flopped and was not at all popular with the critics first time out.
Speaking of Tron, has starbucks replaced interstate highway rest stops as the new gay pickup spot? It’s impossible to sit and read there anymore without some dude looking at me.
“For a moment, you buy this thing as a real character, which to me is exciting. I just don’t think that’s been done before.”
Good thing no one saw those LOTR movies w/ their computer generated Gollum.
@7: Do I need to do the needful and suck your cock, Bailo? It’s quite obvious that your nuts are a raging tempest of pent up sexual tension and require at least 2-8 fingers up your butt and my general lack of a gag reflex to shake free.
And afterward perhaps we can discuss agrarian cultural developments in the mid-50s and the abolition of mid-block development in residential areas for the purposes of consistent private gardens?
One murder in Celebration in 20 years? They have more in a month in the Rainier Valley. But I guess this makes you feel better.
RE: “(Clu has at least one timeshare in the Uncanny Valley)”
I don’t know who this motherfucker is but I like his writing!
There’s a Starbuck’s in Celebration, you know. Hmm.