Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Comic-Con 2009 officially (and I stress officially) starts with Disney’s 3-D panel with the promise of TRON, ALICE IN WONDERLAND and A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

Upon entering the hall the first thing that happened to me was a trampling as Twilight Moms physically pushed me aside in their dash to the front of the hall. I guess the call of Edward and Jacob was strong. That was all forgiven when I was handed a pair of 3-D glasses a FLYNN’S ARCADE Token. Awesome. On the back is says “Home of Tron.” I love you Comic-Con!

There’s a new movie-theater sized screen above the panel now and all the square screens hanging from the ceiling for the cheap seats are new as well, silver-backed and 3-D.

The presentation started with a “Put on your 3-D glasses now” and gave us a Dolby 3D countdown which got massive cheers from the audience.

I'll flesh this out after the panel ends (still continuing) but I wanted to start with this, straight from Robert Zemeckis' mouth:

He couldn't confirm or deny ROGER RABBIT 2... BUT he said if it DID happen that all the 2D toons would REMAIN 2D. That doesn't mean there wouldn't be 3-D animation (Pixar characters maybe?), but he wanted us to know that he's not upgrading the characters.

Stay tuned for pics and further panel details... Burton's talking now... TRON up next!

TRON: LEGACY the official title of the sequel. From Jeff Bridges: "It's basically a story about a son's search for his father. The first TRON... when we made that in '81 there was no internet. Cell phones were these big things you carried around in a suitcase! So what you saw was so new and fresh... I can guarantee you'll get the same kind of pop with this one!"

Now here's pics of TRON art!

Hoo, that AVATAR footage knee-capped my Disney coverage, but let's talk for a second about the footage they showed from TRON.

It's all 2-D, live-action footage that began with an aerial shot of FLYNN'S ARCADE, with a voice-over from Bruce Boxleitner telling Flynn's son (Garrett Hedlund) that he promised to get in touch if he ever found out anything about the disappearance of his father. Well, he just got a phone call from Flynn's Arcade, a building that has been left standing, but has been empty for 20 years.

So Hedlund rides at motorcycle up to the abandoned building, walks in and sees bank after bank of old school cabinet arcade games covered in plastic. The place is dusty, full of cobwebs, but clearly FLYNN's ARCADE. Hedlund flips a switch and all the games turn on, electricity restored. The jukebox kicks up, too, and it's some very familiar background music from the original film's arcade scenes.

Hedlund walks down the isles of arcade games drawn to TRON, the stand-up game we all remember playing. There's a neon sign above it that has FLYNN's logo and underneath it: THE HOME OF TRON.

Hedlund smiles, obviously with positive remembrances of the game. He pulls out a quarter and plugs it in, but it slips through, rejected. I always hated that shit, but it works out for Hedlund. He picks up the quarter and sees there are grooves cut into the concrete... The arcade game marks a secret passage, against a hidden door. Hedlund opens it and enters the darkness, the game (attached to the door) closes shut behind him.

The footage looked sharp, the templates gold and black. They just wrapped photography last week, so no footage yet from inside TRON. They did mention that the TRON world is not connected to the internet, but on its own server, evolving in isolation for 20 years.

Okay, off to a screening. Pics from the panel when I get back!

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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