Apr 16, 2009 01:03 PM
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San Francisco, 11:19 PM
Tue Feb 9
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Now that Tron 2 is filming in Vancouver, all sorts of fun pictures and rumors are leaking out. We went straight to the expert to analyze what we've seen and wax on about disc fighting.
What did you think of the picture of the new suits that just leaked last week?
If you think about it, that picture tells you a pretty fair amount of what they are doing. They are carrying on the essential items, or ideals, from the original. And that's that the programs, which are the characters you see running around on set in spandex, will have the faces of their programmers, or human counterparts. Also maybe one has somehow escaped the computer and is running loose in the real world. (If that's what they are doing. We don't know that).
What did you think about the Comic Con footage, even thought it was test footage?
If you compare the Comic Con suits to the ones in the original, the Comic Con suits appear to be all computer generated. They're not limited to what we've seen before. There was a texture, and different lighting intensities on the character, so they've got a lot more freedom.
What do you think about the new light cycles?
I think that those are a logical extension of the original. Syd Mead's original light cycle was his impression of what the future would be, and it's really come to pass more than a little bit. Even in todays real world. I drive a Lexus RX 350, if you turn your head and squint a little bit, it's really not all that far from a light cycle, a little bit.
Part of what I loved about the original is that they couldn't get real fancy, with textures and generating things inside the computer world. My greatest fear with a new Tron movie was that they would try and update the look along the lines of something like Doom and make it very first-person shooter. I think that would really destroy the look of the world inside the computer. What we saw in the Comic Con footage made me feel like they are very consciously trying to stay away from that.
Let's talk about Jeff Bridges, old and young, both in the same movie?
I don't know if the footage really showed Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, the presumed CEO of ENCOM inside the computer, you could debate that. That being said I really liked that his character is not the "good guy" that we saw in the original. There's more depth there, there's much more room for him to be a lot of different things. From that clip, we really don't know what's different yet — other than he may not be as much of a good guy anymore. That story can go in many different types of directions, and I think that's fantastic.
What do you think about Flynn being ageless in the computer?
Well you know, everybody thinks of themselves as younger and better looking than they really are. So it's not at all unreasonable for a programmer to have a younger avatar.
Where do you see ENCOM today?
Let's project Encom 25 years in the future? Well Encom, at the time, was showing itself to be a diversified computer manufacturing and research facility. That sounds an awful lot like IBM doesn't it? In 25 years IBM changed from that to a manufacturer or [provider of] services. Encom may or may not have gone that way. It's entirely possible that they stuck to building computers and computer software. Assuming that they survived as a valid corporate entity, which seems to be the case based on what we've seen, they could be making the most powerful computers on the planet. If so that in turn means that the programs running on those computers are a lot more capable, bigger, and a lot more well rounded and fleshed out.
A lot of the actors besides Bridges are coming back, how do you feel about getting the old cast back together?
I think their return is great, I would really like to see Cindy Morgan return as well. To the best of my knowledge, she is not involved. I think that's a shame because [we've become friends over the years]. I can say authoritatively that 25 years after Tron, she is still babealicious in a unitard. I know she would love to be involved.
What do you want to see happen in the new movie?
I don't have a lot of a opinion story-wise, it's not my story to tell. What I loved most [about the original was], it was a way to look inside the computer. Some things were hokey, some things were dead on. Some things that we thought were out of this world turned out to be prophetic. I mean programs fighting each other? Today we have anti-virus programs and spyware killers. That kind of prophecy is something I would like to see in the new movie.
So now that Sark is gone we're going to need a new evil computer voice? Any one you'd like to see?
Really and truly I think David Warner as the bad guy in the original was very good. I would like to see him somehow involved in the new one, although I'm not quite as certain about that. It could be argued with Dilinger gone and Sark destroyed there isn't anything of him left of him in the Encom world. There are a lot of folks who could do a great computer voice form Miley Cyrus to James Earl Jones.
Has anyone reached to you for a cameo?
Not a word, I have not been asked, and I would dearly love to. Everytime that I see a discussion about it on the net, someone will always ask, "Is Tron Guy in it?" I would dearly love to be involved with it in just about any capacity. If they asked me, I'm there.
We think its a travesty that Tron Guy hasn't been asked for a quick walk on cameo on the new Tron film. He can be in the background having coffee or eating a hot dog not even digitized, he needs to be a part of this, it would be wrong to make it without TG. Do the right thing, Tron Guy for Tron 2. That being said, we thank him immensely for taking time away from disc fighting for us.
Send an email to Meredith, the author of this post, at meredith@io9.com.
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