Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Patton Oswalt hosted today’s big TRON panel. I love Patton’s panels. Having comedians hosting these things really up the entertainment factor here.
For example: “They’re showing 5 minutes (of Tron) every year for 20 years… The film will end up costing you $10,000!”
We saw 8 minutes of footage, which I’ll go into describing soon.
Before the panel was brought out, they showed a reel that was essentially the influence of Tron. Everything from The Simpsons to car commercials, movie clips, Family Guy and Robot Chicken.
Sean Bailey, Joe Kosinski, Steve Lisberger (“Smartest Hobbit in the shire” – Patton), Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde (“So many happy nerdboys out there right now”), Michael Sheen (“who flew in on a magic teacup”), Bruce Boxleitner, Jeff Bridges (“the man who really ties the film together”).
They showed 8 mintues of footage which was pretty much a full sequence of Flynn’s Son being picked up on the grid by a giant recognizer.
The first thing I noticed was the Tronified Disney logo with bright, white light behind the castle, which had data light surging through the bricks of the castle.
First footage was of a recognizer landing, a bright spotlight on a person below. It’s Flynn’s kid dressed in his street clothes. The ground breaks up beneath him and lifts him up to the bridge. A red light-suited program looks him up and down and says “This program has no disc. Another stray,” then locks him in place with white light restraints. The voices of the programs were electronically enhanced. There were a half-dozen other programs locked (in a standing position) next to him.
The recognizer takes off and we get a few really sweet shots through the see-through floor. A tank is seen patrolling the street under Sam Flynn’s feet. “He actually did it.” He turns to the program on his right. “Does the name Kevin Flynn mean anything to you?” “Not if I want to live,” he responds.
There’s a hooded figure standing to Sam’s left, half his face has deressed like a horrible burn scar. Lightning atmosphere fills the sky as the recognizer lands at a building.
A red guard scans each prisoner by looking them up and down. With each one he says either “rectify” or “games.” He tells a twitchy program he’s destined for “games” and the dude freaks out and jumps off the platform to his death, into a spinning fan blade stories below, dissolving into sparks when he hits.
Sam is chosen for Games and is put on a light elevator down to a dark room. Female programs dressed completely in white seductively approach Sam, two white, two African-American. They each raise a glowing finger, which cut his clothes. “Whoa, whoa, whoa… it’s got a zipper.”
His Tron outfit materializes on him as the programs retrieve pieces of armor and start armoring him up. After leg, chest and arm pieces are snapped into place (which integrates with his black suit immediately to make a complete suit) they begin lighting up… it’s almost like they light up in sectors, like a power grid turning on, and the light lines on the suit are in place.
A voice instructs him on what his disc is as one of the pretty programs receives it. “Attention program. You will receive an identity disc. All your personal information will be saved on to it…” he’s told that if he loses his disc or it’s destroyed he will be immediately de-rezed. When the pretty program snaps his disc into a groove in his back Sam’s eyes briefly light up. He’s part of the grid now, I guess.
“Disc activated. Proceed to games,” says the voice. The pretty programs back away and back into what can only be described as form-fitting wall-slots. Panicking, Sam asks one “What am I supposed to do?” She gives a dead-pan: “Survive.”
There’s a bright light in front of him and he walks into it, adjusting to his suit a little. The light leads to a lift. The lift raises in silence until suddenly he’s hit with a wave of cheers and suddenly he’s in an arena surrounded by thousands of screaming programs On a lift, taken to an arena surrounded by thousands of screaming programs.
From here we were treated to a montage which started with Daft Punk’s cameo, spinning at what will be The End of Line club. Michael Sheen is in the foreground telling them to “Change the scheme, alter the mood… electrify the boys and girls!”
Lots of cuts… a guy getting cut in half with a throw of a disc, falling de-resing in a way that looked like a bunch of tiles falling apart. You see this in the trailer just released.
There was also a shot of Flying bug guys… regular looking programs with red bug wings followed by a shot of Kevin Flynn standing over the world of Tron looking a little sad (see below and click for mega-big version):
Then there’s that other trailer shot of Clu’s helment sliding off, revealing 35 y/o Flynn. “I’m not your father, Sam. But I’m very, very happy to see you.”
Fuck. I think that stuff looked amazing. A world of difference between this and the X3 de-younging of Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart.
The reel ended with a Red program (pretty sure it was Clu) jumping out of a nifty plane. He extends a rod, but instead of throwing out a lightcycle like you’d expect a jet starts materializing around him. This shot also closes the new trailer.
Really interesting stuff.
Then they did what is essentially a free foley exercise for them, inviting the Hall H audience to be the spectators at the games. Skywalker Sound technicians were at various points around the 8,000 seater with recording equipment and we got a follow the bouncing ball type screen behind the panel.
We shouted “Disc Wars” over and over again. Disc! Wars! Disc! Wars! Disc Wars! Discwars! Discwars!” faster and faster.
They also had us shout: Rinz! Ler! (Rinzler being the badass program wielding the two identity discs) and De! Rez! over and over again.
Then a picture of the Tron guy appeared on the scream and everybody laughed, then cheered. Joe Kosinski then lead us in a “raise my hand and you cheer real loud, lower my hand you go silent” yellfest, which went very well. I’m sure they got what they needed.
Patton Oswalt came in and said “Anyone outside this hall right now is terrified!”
Now here are some bullet-points from the Q&A.
- Cameron fusion camera system was used for the 3-D. No conversion, which got cheers.
- The camera was a Sony F35 and Kosinski shot with nothing but master prime lenses, so the image would stay as sharp as possible for the 3-D. This camera and it’s software is the next upgrade from the system Cameron used on Avatar.
- Fully illuminated suits, which interacts with environments and other people better… the light bounces naturally with no need to go in and tweak it in post.
- “The generation that grew up with Tron have accepted it as the founding myth of the internet.” - Steve Lisberger.
- Jeff Bridges loves the mythology of Tron and believes we need modern myths as a society, part of the big attraction of the Tron universe for him.
- Bridges said that exploring the dark side of technology is a big theme in the new movie. Then went on a tangent about how water bottles are evil and are polluting the Earth.
- Lisberger had video games set up around the set of the original. Battle Zone was a big one that ended up in a big competition between Jeff and Steve Lisberger. “They’d ask me to get off the game and I’d go, “I’m preparing, damn it!” – Bridges
- Lloyd Bridges was very gung ho about bringing his kids into show business because he enjoyed it so much.
- Re-releasing Tron in 3-D? They’re talking about it, but no matter what we’ll be seeing the original “in exciting new forms.” Blu-Ray, anyone?
- "It was kind of psychadelic.”- Bridges on playing against a 35 y/o version of himself.
- How did young Flynn/Clu act around the set: “He was a real “d.” He was coming on to Olivia the whole time. What’re you going to do? I understood.” – Bridges.
- Hedlund Had to stand as straight as he could to not tear the ¾ inch thick rubber suit, which had to be glued on no less.
- 8711 is the stunt team on the flick. Everybody had nothing but great things to say about them. Olivia Wilde trained, but then had to do it in the suit (and 4 inch heels).
- Parkour, motorcycle and intense physical training for Garrett.
- Michael Sheen: “Jinkies, there are a lot of you here.” “I’m used to living in a slightly false reality because I’m living in LA now.”
- Looking at the CC schedule on the way over and seeing the Tron logo on the top of it made Sheen giddy and in a high pitched voice squealed “OhmygodImintron!” He grew up a major fan of the first film.
- Bruce Boxleitner: “I threw my walker in the corner and I was Tron again!”
- “There was no internet, our phones we carried around in big suitcases… it was a completely different world.” – Bridges. But what attracted him to doing the sequel was the same as the first one: the ability to play with cutting edge technology.
- “This new movie makes the original look like a black and white TV show.” – Bridges.
- On the difference in technology from the first film to its sequel… Steve Lisberger: “No matter how good the technology is, the creative people, the artists, find a way to spend 105% of it.” Just like the original, they’re pushing the limits of what’s available to them.
- Why Daft Punk? “Just look at them, they seem to fit,” said producer Sean Bailey. Laughs. They’re big Tron fans, obviously and have been working on the music for nearly 3 years now. “Completely new and different than what you’ve heard. Mix of electronic and orchestral.”
Pretty neat stuff. Back with more soon!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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