Tron Legacy (2010) (part 1 of 7)

by · August 2, 2011

The Cast of Characters:
Garrett Hedlund as Sam FlynnSam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund). A twenty-something (emphasis on “something”) lay-about billionaire with dead parents. Hobbies include hacking, breaking and entering, and BASE jumping. Despite this backstory, he’s somehow avoided becoming a Batman-esque superhero.
Olivia Wilde as QuorraQuorra (Olivia Wilde). A sentient computer program with a fondness for Jules Verne and the game of Go. Childlike and innocent, with an A-Level in Badass. Being the perfect computer woman, she is of course the love interest for Sam.
Jeff Bridges as CluClu (Jeff Bridges). Did you know that in the original film, Clu’s name was actually an acronym for Codified Likeness Utility? Yeah, me neither. I bet the producers of that film also didn’t know that. In this movie, he’s trying to take over the real world… or something. For some reason.
Bruce Boxleitner as Alan BradleyAlan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner). Here’s where I’m expected to make a whole series of jokes based around Babylon 5. Well, I never really got into that series. Shocking, I know. So instead, you’ll have to put up with whatever other lame jokes I can think of. Sorry.
Michael Sheen as CastorCastor (Michael Sheen). Having become increasingly unpopular since his party led the war against a rival OS, Castor stepped down as Prime Minister, left politics, and took on a new job as the host of the Grid’s most popular talk show, Castor Over the Grid. When ratings declined, he opened a nightclub and began impersonating David Bowie for reasons unclear.
Cillian Murphy as Edward Dillinger, Jr.Edward Dillinger, Jr. (Cillian Murphy). Here to remind you who the bad guy was in the first film, and set up a role to be the bad guy in the next film. Serves no other purpose.
Jeff Bridges as Kevin FlynnKevin Flynn ( Jeff Bridges). Here’s where I’m expected to make a whole series of jokes based around The Big Lebowski. Well, I haven’t seen that film. Shocking, I know. So instead, you’ll have to put up with whatever other lame jokes I can think of. Sorry.
Anis Cheurfa as RinzlerRinzler (Anis Cheurfa). Some people say that he’s the one who started the war between pig and bird, and that he’s the reason Pac-Man became a Ms. All we know is he’s called the Stig!

Back in 1982, Disney released a risky, groundbreaking film called Tron. Now, this isn’t the Disney we all know today, who’ve released such movies as: every Pixar film ever made, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and the ever-thrilling The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This isn’t even the Disney that released such films as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White. No, this is Disney coming off the ‘70s, which were a dark, dark time for the studio.

See, sometime during the 1970s, they had lost their way. They’d stopped making interesting animated films, and instead began releasing crappy live-action movies like The Cat From Outer Space, The North Avenue Irregulars, and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo. In fact, the only notable animated film during the 1970s was the all-furry version of Robin Hood, and even that wasn’t all that great.

But Disney did have one really memorable release during this time period, and that was The Black Hole. It wasn’t all that great, really, and was a bit confusing for the audiences, but it was bold and it was different from what they usually did (even if they did still manage to somehow have a Disney character in the form of a robot voiced by Slim Pickens). The fact that it was clearly done as a reaction to Star Wars was incidental. It didn’t make a huge amount of money for Disney, but it did do respectable box office, and it proved that they could handle adult material.

So in 1982, Disney released another science fiction epic called Tron that would go on to have a far greater legacy (snicker!) than The Black Hole. It featured groundbreaking special effects and… well, it had a story… and some acting… but, yeah, mostly just groundbreaking special effects with a story that was good enough to not insult your intelligence. That alone places it on a plane higher than certain other films I could mention (I’m looking at you, Michael Bay’s entire filmography!).

Tron proved a box office success, and spinoff merchandise (including a memorable video game) helped keep Disney afloat long enough to let them get back to making cartoons, which they did in 1989 with The Little Mermaid.

Since 1982, fans had been asking for a sequel. Well, the studio dithered, and did nothing about that for the longest time (except for a decent, but not great, video game a few years ago). Then they decided that since so many other movie franchises had done so well picking up the pieces a decade or two later, well, why couldn’t they? After all, how hard could it be?

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Our film opens with some lights and circuits, accompanied by the voice of Jeff Bridges talking about the Grid, to a decent opening theme by Daft Punk. It then morphs into the streets of some unidentified American city that I’m going to call Seacouver. We go along through the streets and toward a lovely house, where we hear and then see Bridges talking to his young son, Sam. He’s telling him the story of Tron, while in the background, we see a room filled with things like a movie poster for The Black Hole, and confusingly, one for Tron, as well as several toys based around the first film. So… Flynn came back to the real world and made a movie about his experiences? No reason not to, I suppose, but it seems a bit odd to me.

Tron Legacy (2010) (part 1 of 7)

Not nearly so odd, however, as the boy he’s talking to. So, get this, it’s 1989, right, and the boy is supposed to be his son. It’s implied the boy’s mother is Lori from the first film (it’s later mentioned that she died in 1985). There’s no mention of them having a child together in the first movie, so presumably this happened after that. So, okay, no problem. They had a kid sometime after the first film, which probably took place in 1982, so that means the kid should be six or seven years old.

Logically, this means that the producers should cast a thirteen-year-old boy to play the role.

Tron Legacy (2010) (part 1 of 7)

So… young Sam suffers from precocious puberty? I mean, I don’t know too many seven-year-olds who keep a special sock under the bed, but this one sure looks like he does.

For the record, the actor who plays what the credits themselves call “7 Year Old Sam Flynn” is named Owen Best, and he was born in 1997. And if this movie was shot in late 2009, that means he was twelve, almost thirteen. So nearly double the age of his character. Jeff Bridges is 61, and this would be like casting him to play someone who’s only about 30. Something you’d need serious CGI work to accomplish.

Caption contributed by Wily Badger

Okay, point made.

Now, I know this seems like a minor point, and I suppose it is, but it speaks to really shitty continuity. And while it’s possible that the character is actually 12 or so, and we simply never heard mention of him in the first movie, Sam himself, later in the film, gives his age as 27. This movie takes place 21 years after 1989, so that means the character as a young boy would be six, not seven. This is really clumsy writing on someone’s part, accompanied by clumsy casting on someone else’s part, and it does not bode well for the film as a whole.

Once we’re done establishing this happy father/son scene, we see Flynn drive off on his motorcycle and then go to some TV-based exposition telling us Flynn has disappeared and left his company, Encom, behind, and Alan Bradley is running it now. It’s actually not the worst way of telling the story, and it includes Flynn channeling Steve Jobs and telling us about the virtual world, and how “in there” is our future and our destiny. The scene ends with Sam looking out of a rain-spattered window. How tragic. We’re told the future of what happens to the company depends on what happens to “this orphaned little boy”. I vote the kid moves into Wayne Manor and hires Alfred.

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Multi-Part Article: Tron Legacy (2010)

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  • johnhay

    Never watched B5 or Lebowski? Well, no reason to read further, then. I dunno. These recaps (see, I didn’t say “reviews,” relax) are really losing steam as far as I can see. Just a lot of profane comments, slurs of people’s religious beliefs and snarkiness.

    Go make your own movie and show us how you do it better.

    I miss your old recaps. Those were fun, and not so bitter.

    • Fantasy Mission Force

      I submit that you go write your own recaps and show us how YOU do better, goodsir.

      • johnhay

        Unfortunately, Agony Booth no longer accepts submissions so I cannot take you up on your offer, thus denying the internet my Lebowski and Babylon 5 quips related to the film.

        • Chris Swanson

          Well, you can, sort of. You can do what I did, which is to go to the “do it yourself” recaps area in the forums and try your luck there! 🙂

      • Guest

        Ooh, good one. How about for a knockout punch you tell him “If you don’t like it, don’t read it”.

        • It certainly can’t compare with your witty and erudite contribution.

        • Fantasy Mission Force

          Well, incase you failed to noticed, I was only playing off of his original comment of “Go make your own movie and show us how you do it better.”, which is just about the laziest ‘criticism’ one can levy at a ‘critic’.

          • Chris Swanson

            Agreed. As a critic, it’s not my job to make a better movie/book/TV show/steak, than whomever made what I am reviewing them. It’s their job to make those things. It’s my job to evaluate them.

    • Guest.

      John Jay is Tom Davidson – a fucking fag.

      • MinxInSpace

        Ah, I do love it when your kind post on the internet. Such originality and wit.

        • Chris Swanson

          The sad part is that one person “liked” that comment.

      • *laugh* I dropped by today to re-read a section of this review and noticed the comment. I’m actually a little ashamed to be so thrilled to discover that some random, anonymous guest has a strong opinion of me based on what I believe are four posts to my name on this site (and all under my actual name, mind you), two of which have simply asked that the ratio of text reviews to videos be improved. 🙂

    • Gotta agree with johnhay. The first sign was the “taxes” picture comment. Seems somebody doesn’t understand how economics works. After page three, the “funny” seemed to be lost. Also, while I know any movie is fair game, Tron Legacy isn’t a “bad” movie at all, in comparison to, say, Hulk, Batman & Robin, Die Another Day, etc.

      Maybe it’s a different look I have, after working in the industry in minor assignments.

      • johnhay

        Thanks. Also fair to say I could write my own, but the attitude on this just seemed rushed and disjointed, especially when you’re up front with your lack of knowledge on the landmark roles of the two main actors.

        • Chris Swanson

          For the record, I have seen some “Babylon 5”, I just really didn’t like it. I haven’t yet seen “The Big Lebowski”, but I have seen a great many other Jeff Bridges films.

        • Fantasy Mission Force

          Because, ya know, in order to review a movie that features an actor, you must first watch all of the movies that the actor has been in first, or else you don’t have any context.

    • fearfanforever

      Give him the millions of dollars this movie had for a budget, and he WILL make a better movie.

      • Fantasy Mission Force

        Mmmhmm, and now that the ‘Booth has ‘gone Hollywood’, it’s really only a matter of time…

  • Reflects some of my complaints exactly, not exactly what makes ISOs special, the fact that CLU’s plan doesn’t make a lot of sense, and to throw one in just a lot of talking yet not a lot of substance. The visuals are at least good and Daft Punk’s soundtrack is the best thing about the film.

  • Sandman

    Good work but didn’t I see this on his original site in the first place. Has the site fallen so low that when they do do actual reviews they have to borrow from other sites now?

    • johnhay

      Yeah, it kind of went Hollywood or however you put it. Too bad, ’cause I really enjoyed some of the early stuff. Where else can you read a dissection of Spock’s Brain?

      Brain and Brain, what is brain?!

      I like to come to sites like this for an escape, but maybe that’s just my opinion. I’m not criticizing. I just figure if I want cartoon political opinions, profanity, and proudly uniformed griping, I have Facebook for that.

      • Fantasy Mission Force

        If you want an ‘escape’, go listen to Rupert Holmes.
        Oddly enough, your ‘griping’ tends to fall into the ‘proudly uniformed’ category, itself.
        Isn’t it ironic…?

    • Chris Swanson

      Actually, I wrote this recap with the Agony Booth in mind. All the recaps that I write I do both here and on my own site.

      • Fantasy Mission Force

        How DARE you. You, sir, now owe me one monocle repair.

        • Chris Swanson

          I hear you can get a good deal through monoclesforall.com.

  • Fantasy Mission Force

    This movie felt completely formulaic and lazy, to me.
    I completly understand your gripe about the mismatched ages of Sam Flynn, and it’s one of those issues that I tend get criticized for taking ‘too seriously’, but to me it’s a sign of the general sloppiness they put into the writing of the movie.
    I can’t speak of the recapper’s motivations, but for me, it’s especially irksome when a movie that costs $170,000,000 to make can’t be bothered to correct minor mistakes, or make any damn sense.
    Many of the other movies recapped on this site didn’t even have one percent of that budget, but when somebody clearly had the resources, and clearly had enough experience to know (and do) better, it’s particulary insulting that they ignore glaring inconsistencies.
    Most of the old recaps were about low-budget B-movies people have never heard of, while many of the newer ones take on big-budget, ‘blockbuster’ intended flicks (and ‘flicks’ they are, indeed). Perhaps that’s causing the perceived disparity between the older sense of ‘laughing with’ and the newer sense of ‘bitching at’, but perhaps those perceiving are just whining babies (‘AGONY BOOTH IS RUINED FOREVER!!!’).
    Also, most of the ‘older’ recaps were written by Albert, and maybe, just maybe, two different people have two different writing styles? The world may never know…

    I don’t ‘get’ all the bitching about this (and other recent recaps) not being ‘old-school’ enough, but I guess I’m just not ‘hep’ enough to be ‘down’ with that ‘scene’, ya dig?

    • Chris Swanson

      Well, everyone is entitled to their opinions on the “old” versus “new” recaps. I find plenty to like with both, and have yet to read any recap I thought was actually bad (and that does raise an interesting point: should a bad recap be recapped?).

      Like I said at the end of this one, “Tron Legacy” wasn’t an awful movie. I’d certainly rather watch this again than pretty much anything made by Michael Bay (hmmm… I should do “Pearl Harbor” next). But you’re totally right about the budget. The people who were behind this movie should be held to a higher standard than those behind something like “Manos,” and when they put out something as deeply flawed as this film was, they should be taken to task for it.

      • rainflyx

        Haha, I’d actually like to read a recap recap. As long as that was the last meta layer, I mean, I think a recap recap recap is just too many layers to be unironically sustainable.

  • Monterey Jack

    Tron is one of those late 70’s/early 80’s genre flicks, like Krull or The Black Hole, that I never saw back in the day, and have only caught up to within the last year or so, thus there was no comforting cushion of childhood nostalgia to soften the blow of just how horribly dated/cheesy they are now. Tron Legacy has all of the problems of the original film (more of a special-effects reel than a compelling narrative, boatloads of clumsy exposition), only with 2010 PS3 graphics instead of 1982 Atari ones. Terrific Daft Punk score, however.

  • fearfanforever

    Personally, I felt that while this movie failed to live up to the legacy of Tron (nyuck nyuck), it is arguably the coolest Daft Punk music video ever, right up there with Interstellar.

  • Guest

    I didn’t like this. The Stig gag was funny until you ran it into the ground, and then I lost all hope of this recap redeeming itself when you name-dropped Spoony. Really, Badger? Really? The guy who spent about 10 minutes in his disjointed, long-winded rant bitching and being totally wrong (as usual) about why Clu’s goons couldn’t follow Qorra and Sam out to Flynn’s place?

    Oh, and no one should EVER make a Monty Python and the Holy Grail joke in 2011. The internet ruined that film.

    It’s bad enough that what was once a site that contained great, smart and funny text recaps has now degenerated into the same kind of breeding ground of mediocre internet movie reviewers as That Guy With The Glasses.

    Then there’s my problem with the choice of film. Tron: Legacy isn’t what I’d call a particularly good movie and one could make a case but, but IMO it’s hardly bad enough to justify its place in the Booth. In fact, I’d probably call it one of the better films that have been recapped on this site.

    • Noah Goucher

      That Guy With The Glasses is amazing. Just putting that out there.

  • Jackietreehorn

    Jesus, give over on the age, will you? If he’s born in October, then the first scene could be Nov ’89. He’s 7. ’21 years later’ could be September 2010. He’s 27. This and the ‘Stig’ joke were run into the ground, and annoyed me far more than anything in the film. Apart from that, I enjoyed it, so thanks. I will have your bloody heart on a plate for that snide comment about Robin Hood though…

  • guest

    Michael Sheen was also in The Twilight Saga: New Moon, so he should have been made a Repeat Offender.

  • Olaf_the_Lofty

    I enjoyed this, which apparently puts me in a minority 😉 Thank you, and I, for one, would enjoy more like this, even if nobody else does.

    I work in computing, and spotted a couple of in-jokes that passed the august Badger by. Go is a game which is extremely difficult to make computers play well, so the Go board says “Hey, we’ve got a REALLY clever computer here!” Zuse is named after Konrad Zuse, one of the pioneers of computing. If this was the forum I would link to the Wikipedia, but I can’t. It’s a bit less obvious than calling a character “Turing” or “Babbage”.

  • Adrian Powers

    So much of this recap itself is lazy, which is annoying, since I’m such a Booth fan. So many of the criticisms sound like an Agony Booth writer clawing to find humorous nitpicks to point out, but really, so many of them don’t hold up:

    The age of Sam Flynn is a legitimate gripe. I’ll give you that. But other things?

    – RE. the “movie poster for TRON is weird” if you actually read the poster, it says “now releasing in arcades everywhere and for all home gaming platforms.” It’s completely viable that Flynn made an arcade game about his adventure.

    – A comment is made that Sam’s upload of the Encom OS 12 would “cost company about 1% in sales.” and yet a few paragraphs later “it could potentially cost them billions in profits.”

    -“releasing the software could cost the company billions, and that would likely mean downsizing, which means a lot of people losing their jobs.” Firstly, as you commented, the pirate release would likely not do much damage to the company — Sam is releasing it for free as a principle (honoring his father’s memory and ideals) rather than to cause damage or perform some rebellious stunt. Operating Systems in the real world get hacked and released online all the time — those companies survive just fine. Also, it’s expressly stated that OS12 was only OS11 with “a 12 on the box” meaning ENCOM spent close to nothing on R&D, beta-testing etc. It has cost them nothing, so even if Sam’s stunt causing minor damage to its sales, ENCOM still make 100% profit.

    – “He sent the page as a way of luring Sam onto the Grid. This plan is stupid and makes no sense. First, he assumed that sending the page to Bradley would mean that Bradley would relay it to Sam. Then he assumed Sam would go to the arcade and somehow interact with the Tron cabinet in such a fashion as to find out it was a secret door. Then he assumed that upon finding out it was a secret door, Sam would go inside and position himself in front of the laser beam that would send him to the Grid.” This is completely incorrect. It’s expressly said later than CLU has been looking for a way to “change the game”. Sending the page to the real world was an attempt by CLU to lure someone, ANYONE into the Grid so that the portal to the real world would open, so that Kevin Flynn would try to escape, thus giving CLU an opportunity to collect Flynn’s disc. CLU was never trying to lure Sam to the grid; he was rolling the dice to see if he could bring an end to the stale-mate with Flynn. Flynn himself remarks that when Sam responded to the page and entered the grid, CLU got “more than he ever dreamed”.

    – “This bad guy is Clu, but we aren’t told that yet, and even though we’ve seen from the trailer that he’s a villain, it’s still handled as a “surprise” when we do find out.” Seriously? You have a gripe with a film because you already know one of the plot points because it was exposed to you before you saw the movie? The filmmakers don’t have control of the trailer. They have to handle the structure of their story as though you’re going in completely cold. This is the same as criticising the end of ‘The Usual Suspects’ as obvious because your co-worker spoiled the ending. Lazy.

    – “I just don’t “get” the whole ISO concept.” Really? I’ll never cease to be surprised and confused by this. Imagine if a digital life-form came into existence tomorrow. It’s not just A.I, A.I is artificial intelligence — a man-made entity. No, an ISO would be a totally natural species that has evolved in a digital construct. They are a new form of sentient life that has evolved completely independently of man. How would that revolutionise the world? Isn’t that obvious? Firstly it proves the theory of evolution. It proves that intelligent life doesn’t actually have to exist in God’s image (strictly speaking). It indicates that intelligent life CAN exist in other realms/dimensions/worlds. Since the ISO’s have their own form of digital DNA, it means that new avenues of medical research can open up, perhaps using digital DNA to help chart our own biology. The nature of time, consciousness, morality society etc. all now have cause for re-assessment. It would be exactly like if aliens landed tomorrow. Wouldn’t that be a big deal?

    – “why does Clu spend several minutes trying to kill Sam?” If your mortal enemy had your only child, one you hadn’t seen for (potentially thousands) of years, held prisoner, then killed him, what would you do? Would you rest on your laurels or would you try to seek revenge? Also, it’s pretty obvious that CLU’s attitude towards Flynn is wild rage. Flynn not only ‘betrayed’ CLU (at least in CLU’s eyes), giving him more than enough reason to hate Sam and want him dead, but Sam in fact represents the REASON Flynn betrayed CLU; because Flynn realised that building Utopia was less important than the perfection and wonder that comes from creating life. CLU has always felt abandoned by Flynn — CLU and Sam are like brothers, and CLU is the lesser child.

    – “she could change everything. Left unexplained is exactly how she’d change everything.” Again, really? A totally naturally-evolved digital lifeform transports itself into material reality and that wouldn’t potentially open the flood-gates for a tsunami of medical, philosophical, sociological and religious debate? Hmm… Oh wait, yes it WOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING. Use common sense.

    – “he’s not yet completed his task of creating a perfect system, so why is he abandoning that task and going to go take over our world?” Ummm… CLU himself states that he HAS perfected the Grid. As you say, it’s obviously NOT perfect, suggesting to anyone who thinks about it for two seconds that CLU is deluded and misguided? Figured that out quickly…

    – “Sam makes some enigmatic comments about Alan being right about everything,” Why is this enigmatic? The ONLY conversation Sam and Bradley ever had centred ENTIRELY around how Flynn loved his son and would never just decide to abandon him for no reason — a fact that Sam has just witnessed first hand. Having trouble remembering back to the start of the movie?

    Also, it seems unlikely that a film is really worth an Agony Booth recap when two thirds of the review is literally just you describing what’s happening. In fact, is a film you deem to be not horrible REALLY worth recapping?

    • Fantasy Mission Force

      ‘The Usual Suspects’ was obvious within minutes because it was a movie, and who else could have been Keyser Söze?

      • Adrian Powers

        …

    • rainflyx

      Thank you for a systematic and well-deserved beating on this recap. While there are parts of the movie that certainly do deserve ribbing, they get comparatively little of the grief in the recap, partly due to being comparatively little of the movie, and partly due to the mass of lazy griping that permeates the recap.

      Even if I love a movie, I can enjoy a recap if it’s funny and I can at least grudgingly agree with the complaints (even good movies have stuff worth complaining over). This recap was maddening to read from start to finish because neither was true. That said, I do like that there is a potential trend towards more textual recaps again, and I hope the backlash against the quality of this one doesn’t deter authors OR readers from the format.

  • I love to see new text recaps appear in my Agony Booth RSS feed! Yay!

  • Adrian Powers

    ALSO:

    – The criticisms of there being only one security guard are flat wrong. When Sam is on the roof of the ENCOM building there are clearly several more security guards observing the situation.

  • I liked this recap… but had NO IDEA we’d get so much rancor over the first text recap (which is what the Booth is about, DAMMIT!) in MONTHS.

    Seriously, Albert? If you’re that sick of text recapping, let Chris Swanson do it; he’s obviously more than qualified.

    • Chris Swanson

      Much as I enjoy doing these, I don’t know that I could ever do them to the level that Albert has, and I’m even more sure that I’m not as funny as he is. The man’s a master. 🙂

  • Chris Swanson

    Man, I can just feel the love flowing on this one. 😉 It makes me dread what might happen if I polish up my recap of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (oh, look. Cloud’s brooding. Again). Thanks to those who left decent feedback, even if was to simply clear up points you thought that I got wrong.

    • RobinGraves

      I’m probably one of the few people here who enjoyed Tron: Legacy and still liked this recap for bringing up valid points. Also, please by all means recap Advent Children – that really needs to get torn apart.

    • Scott

      I didn’t like this recap either. However, PLEASE recap Advent Children. That film isn’t so bad either but it has loads upon loads of problems (most of which contradict the original game). Oh, and someone needs to recap Drive. That film was bloody awful.

  • Brian O’Connell

    Of course, the most stupid part for me is Clu’s plan to invade the real world, well knowing that computerland physics is completely different from realworld physics. So imagine his carrier, army, planes, tanks, and the lot materializing above the city, hanging there for maybe a second or two, then like a Wile E Coyote stunt, slamming to the ground, the survivors easily mopped up by law enforcement and/or military.

    Of course it’s also immensely stupid that he would try it despite Flynn’s pointing out that the transporter didn’t have enough power to keep open for more than a day in the Grid, and that’s just due to sending one person through. Now imagine an army, that thing would shut off after the first few inches of the carrier, leaving the programs all standing dumbstruck while sadtrombone.mp3 plays in the background.

    • Adrian Powers

      I honestly don’t see how that’s a problem. You’re turning it INTO problem by hypothesising about the physics and science of how something in a science fiction universe works. Do you find Star Wars stupid because hyperspace travel is absurd?

      When CLU announces his plan to enter the real world, Sam reacts with surprise, but Kevin fearfully remarks: “He’s figured out how to do it…”. We the audience don’t NEED to understand the science behind it — rather just that CLU has spent hundreds of cycles understanding and planning it. Simply accept that despite the seemingly impossible nature of his plan, CLU has actually discovered a way to make it work.

      The threat is real and we can comprehend the stakes. We don’t need to understand the physics.

  • One thing about the Go game: black was starting to dominate white in it. As another internet reviewer would shout: “SYMBOLISM!!!”

    Speaking of the internet, that’s really my main problem with this movie: it’s really too little to do with computers. The first one was entirely symbolic, with all the visuals being analogues for programs, from ROMs for games to security programs. Also, that program was plugged into what passed for the internet back in the 80’s. (I find it hard to believe that MCP would be able to take control over the world with a transfer rate of a bite per second…but I guess it’s more about what you control instead of how much you control.)
    This new movie seems to have pretty much disposed with that, instead settling on the Grid being some sort of alien dimension instead of an collective analogue for programs. This is very disappointing, as, with the plethora of programs that exist today, the makers of this movie could have really gone to town and back with the analogues. (Sad that an episode of Futurama does what this movie should have done.) And given how widespread the internet is, what the bad guy could have been trying to accomplish was hook up the mainframe containing the analogous world to a modem so as to have much faster access to the entire world. Now there’s a plot idea with legs.

    No, make the Gridworld an alien dimension. Makes things simpler, so they could devote more effort into making everything toy-worthy. Sheesh…

    By the way, great recap. Kudos to the return of the text recap! Now if only that guy you mentioned would make a new text review, even if only for nostalgia’s sake….

    • rainflyx

      Also, Go is one of the few strategy games that humans are still better at then machines (professional vs professional, at any rate, a novice human will still lose badly to a decent AI). Because of the large potential move space, a well-tuned intuition is considerably more valuable than the ability to brute-force a few moves’ worth of possibilities before running into memory or CPU limitations. This is a nice, subtle shout out the the comp sci nerd audience.

      Next, let’s consider that, if we go by outfit colors for the decoding of symbolism, Quorra is winning. This means a few things with deep consequences. One, Flynn has managed to teach Quorra how to think beyond a mechanical/algorithmic level and to a more intuitive, human level. It’s quite likely that this is simply an inherent ISO characteristic being demonstrated, but I like to think not, because that would undercut my second point.

      Two, this is the second time in this movie that a transition from master to surpassed happens in Flynn’s life. There’s a parallel here between CLU and Quorra, and you definitely got the CLU half, which helped me formulate this post. But it’s the contrast that makes it interesting – while CLU took on a more Darth Vader role, putting a singular mission before its purpose and missing completely the irony that the mission is ultimately flawed in such a way to sabotage its own purpose, Quorra is much more stable, innocent, and still looks up to Flynn as a father figure. CLU loses perspective and scope, and without them, nothing holds him back from being a genocidal monster. Quorra is motivated instead by her love for Flynn (again, as a father), and her need to be loved back. I imagine they have a complex yet deep relationship, her being the “daughter” that got all of Flynn’s attention and training instead of Sam, but her knowing that he will never be devoted to her the same way that he is to his absent flesh-and-blood son.

  • Guest

    That was one of the worst (if not worst) caps on AB. Boring and pointless, since movie is not bad as you wrote, but just wasted opportunity. There’s nothing funny or smart here like in other caps (Batman & Robin must be my favourite).

    Next!

    • Ren

      I found this recap to be as good as any other on the site. One should remember that recaps are written as an expression of opinion, and that expressions of opinion are as important as the movies themselves. Any movie or TV show under hyperanalystics would show holes in plot line, failures in the makers of over/under estimating the audiences understanding of back plot and sense of history in a franchise.

      Movies and TV shows, primarily are created in the hopes that that something has been made in the hope that that have made something entertaining; there is only so much plot development that can be done in 43 minutes to two hours.

      While I might not agree with all the summaries on this this site, I will post my own expressions on the principal on their right to share them.

      • Nasro Subari

        You are mistaken, my friend. You have every right to HAVE an opinion, but you have NO right to bother anyone else with it unless it’s an INFORMED opinion.

  • Deckard

    Dull and unfunny, and the movie wasn’t half bad enough to deserve it. REALLY mediocre and annoyingly pretentious, I’ll give you that, but it was by no means awful.

    In contrast, I barely made it through the third page of the recap before giving up on it. No worthwhile jokes anywhere, plenty of inaccuracies, and some really annoying and out-of-place authorial soapboxing. How did this make it to the front page?

    • Marvin_Arnold

       Ha! It was third page as well for me!

  • Blurayisrubbish

    The worst fucking pile of shit on BLuray since the format was invented!

    IMAX is shit for picture and very distraction!

    2.35:1 SCOPE works far better than SHITMAX or a bunch of fucking CUNTS from Bluray.com can suck fucking cock you fucking CUNTS!

  • PlacentaPixie

    In short: Been a fan of AB from 2002. NEVER posted a comment until now.

    Notwithstanding the logic errors in the recap (everyone is entitled to a few mistakes from a movie viewing), this recap really had me cringing at every sentence. It’s really not enough to just bash a movie second-by-second and seemingly (at times) for no rhyme or reason.

    Mr Badger, your other recaps were awesome (My God your Transformers ROTF almost gave me an orgasm) and I attribute this review to a bad hair day! Keep up the good work!

  • Reading the criticisms about this recap was far more entertaining than reading the recap of this movie. It’s one thing disliking a movie, and I don’t mind the fact that the recapper didn’t know either Big Lebowski or Babylon 5 – Honestly, when I read the introduction to the cast my first thought was “Finally someone talking about the movie without constantly cracking Big Lebowski-jokes”. But the recap wasn’t particularly funny, and as others had mentioned, had logical flaws. It seemed like someone was rather desperately stretching to find flaws to harp upon (the age thing? And several Batman-jokes? Really?)

  • Scott

    Yeah, I really must agree with the lot here, this wasn’t a very good recap. It has nothing to do with me being a fan of the movie, as I was a fan of 500 Days Of Summer yet loved the recap.

    For me, my biggest complaint was that a lot of your complaints came from clearly not paying attention to the movie. The ISOs wasn’t pointless. Flynn had a plan to create the perfect system, combining human and program genetics together to create a race that would be considered the perfect race. CLU saw it as an imperfection, which is why he went all genocidal.

    Also, this recap felt really rushed, you skipped past a lot of moments and maybe even an entire important bit.

  • Lizuka

    God, it’s nice to see a conventional recap here and there. Not read this one yet, but the video ones are generally awful.

  • Voyagrvi

    Far be it for me to interrupt the pointless bickering, but could we discuss the movie? The really bad, plotless insult of a movie with crap 3D? No? Alright then. I haven’t seen The Big Lebowski either, and I have no plans to. The cult around that movie is so smug and elitist it makes me wonder how good it could possibly be, and what sort of tosser you must be to consider others uncultured for not seeing it. Trust me, you ARE cool if you have not seen the list of films other people decide YOU would like.
    It’s alright to like movies no-one else likes – consider the shit I went through when refusing to join in with the Two-Minute Hate-esque bashing of easy targets like Space: 1999 (“Oh, I can’t get into this, because there’s no violence and the plot requires you to think above goldfish level!”) or the first Star Trek movie. Thank Xenu the Lazenby Bond bashers have finally shut the fuck up, too. Go and watch Die Another Day and then tell me what the worst Bond movie is. And please, yes, Johnhay is right, enough with the religion crap. What’s amusing is that many SF fans are disillusioned Christians looking for a replacement for their faith….and they bring their intolerance and moral superiority along with them unmodified.

    The comment posting system AB now has sucks donkey arse, too. Slower than a Wim Wenders film.

  • Wow, the first non-video recap in a long time and you check-mated the movie’s logic after the first scene with the main character:

    “Obviously, from a storytelling point of view, it was designed to show what a badass he is, and how fearless, and how wonderful, and also what a total dick he is. I mean, if his little stunt wound up releasing a viable copy to the world, that could cost the company billions, and that would likely mean downsizing, which means a lot of people losing their jobs.”

    Now I no longer care about what happens in the movie, but I can’t bring myself to even read any more of a re-capping of it 🙁

  • Loveofthegame441

    Haha your confusion is amusing, it’s not that complicated. The grid is a computer program, and each “person” is a program. Sam and Flynn are users from the outside world. In computers in real life, programs are designed to do something, anything. These programs were designed to live their lives similar to real people designed by Flynn and potentially allen from the old system. Flynn said that the iso’s came into being like a flame, the conditions were right and they appeared. You have to remember they are programs and programs can be created out of nowhere, something like artificial intelligence, programs that can learn and grow on their own, like a computer. And as far as real people beating clu and his army, are you kidding? He has a ship larger than anything we have that flies in the air, like an aircraft carrier times 100 that flies with more fighter ships then we could imagine. And as far as curing the diseases being cured, it’s not that complicated. For instance, sharks are born immune to all cancers so what scientists are attempting is to find the parts in shark DNA that could immunize humans. Similar to that the isos have completely different DNA and are made up differently then humans he wanted to take the immunities that the isos have and use that knowlege and find ways to immunize humans. Again the isos were designed by a computer so they are perfect. You have to remember that creating an alternate world where programs are depicted as a city is probably impossible so other things within that context can be stretched too. It’s really not that complicated though.

    • TheGameHasChanged

      Er… respectfully setting aside the rest of your comment, some of which I agree with and some of which I don’t, I do have to object to your “…as far as real people beating [C]lu and his army…” argument. A) the physics of the Grid work completely differently to those of the User/real world – while Clu has a giant floating aircraft carrier on the Grid, in the User world, he basically has a giant rock. Same goes for the lightjets; it’s impossible for real jets to work that way, therefore the ones from the Grid aren’t gonna do so hot. And that’s even assuming the laser could convert enough energy to mass through its arc-reactor-like level of power and wouldn’t simply get 1/1000th of the way through and then crash and knock out the power for the whole block because the file was too big. And all of /that/ is ignoring the problem of space. The laser is in a tiny basement below an arcade. Where’s Clu going to get the requisite space to analogize even twenty programs, never mind an entire /aircraft carrier/!?

  • Steve Potter

    I haven’t seen The Big Lebowski or Babylon 5, and I LIKED this movie. Didn’t want to read this (the first time I tried, I just didn’t enjoy it), but I think I’ll give it another go. Geez, some people are idiots.

    • Marvin_Arnold

      I made it to page 3, then I gave up. Not worth it. A recap should be witty and entertaining. This one just spills bile and bitterness over everything. As much as I prefer written recaps, this one doesn’t work on any level.

  • Marvin_Arnold

    As for Encom OS 12, all Sam has to do is upload a version that DOESN’T require an activation code. Ever thought of that?

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