ElecTRONic Nostalgia

As this week is coming to an end, I’m thinking that it’s been quite nostalgic. At the start of the week I had the Blu Ray box set of the Back To The Future Trilogy finally arrive. I saw the second part, having seen the first one again which has been re-released back in cinemas.

I still think the second part is probably the best one out of the three. Another bunch of films which I’m going to revisit soon with my Blu Ray player is the Alien Anthology set. Just yesterday it was “Tron Night” where cinemas across the world showed select scenes from the highly awaited sci- fi follow up.

For me, Tron was a seminal film back in the day. Hey this was before the Matrix! Here’s the skinny about the original. It’s about Kevin Flynn a computer hacker played by Jeff Bridges who’s transported into a computer mainframe and has to stop a powerful sentient intelligence from taking over the company he used to work for. The film’s visuals were truly amazing. It was one of the first films to use computer generated imagery.

It’s a weird twist of fate for two of the actors that were in it. Bruce Boxleitner was a actor tipped for big things after Tron, he ended up as Captain Sheridan of 90s Sci Fi show Babylon 5. Since then he’s been stuck doing TV films whilst Jeff Bridges went onto be “the Dude” in the Big Lebowski and bagged an Oscar earlier this year for playing a country singer in Mighty Heart.

A sequel to Tron couldn’t be quite apt. A lot of people are using site’s like Second Life and other similar ones to create virtual avatars of themselves and interact with other users. I recently tried using a Playstation version but I didn’t see the fuss about it.

Tron Legacy is quite brave actually, usually when a film franchise show signs of flagging they usually do a reboot or as it’s called these days a “re-imagining”. But Tron Legacy is a direct sequel to the 1982 film. I went to see it on a big IMAX screen in Birmingham and few of my mates were there. One of them was carrying a Tron hold all which I really wanted to get my hands on, but I settled for a promotional poster that was given to me.

Judging from the clips I saw in 3D, it looks like it’s a father and son story about Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) who looks into the disappearance of his father Kevin (Bridges) only to end up sucked into the digitized world his father went into. Teaming up with Quarra (Olivia Wilde) Sam and his father attempt to escape the virtual universe that Kevin has created. That’s all I know about the plot, but for the scenes I was in complete awe, such as where Sam is forced to take part in gladiatorial combat, using the discs that were used in the first film.

With today’s cutting edge special effects the director, Joseph Kosinski, has kept true to the design of the original whilst adding a modern look to it. I had a great time seeing of what was to come. But for now it’s going to be the waiting game. Roll on December!

Posted: 29/10/2010
Categories: Movies / Life

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