ON TRON.
"Your're really messing with my zen thing, man."*
THere was a moment during TRON:LEGACY where I thought "Holy shit, TRON: Legacy is to 2010 what TRON is to 1982!" and - truthfully -it probably is, but shortly thereafter I started to wish (quite strongly) that I could turn back time ...and change many of the decisions which Disney and the filmmakers had made concerning the film's direction... and that feeling grew and continues to grow, even a day after I saw it... grrr. Crap. grrr...
THe problem is or was or IS that my expectations were reeeealllllllllyyyyy high. So (no matter what) I basically set this movie up to fail.
THe special effects, the Daft Punk soundtrack and the girls in tight techno costumes are more than enough to carry the film so that sitting in the theatre for two hours isn't painful... but I was nevertheless profoundly dissapointed in this film.

If you make a film like TRON: Legacy (or Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace or Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - all films which were revamps of franchises which had 25-30 years to marinate themselves into legends in/of the public mind) WHY not assemble a panel of nerds to openly and honestly critique your film before it is released... or before it is even shot, for that matter?... the SCRIPT, even... Why not harvest these expert opinions? WOuld it be that difficult?

No, it would be perfect.

NOTE: One thing that was interesting though was my off-the-mark expectations for the Jeff Bridges character... in my mind he was a serious, smart computer hacker/genius, but in the film he was kind of a stoner goofball - much like a young Dude Lebowski, which was pretty annoying... until I YouTube researched scenes from the original and discovered that - no, in fact, even in the original Bridge's character is more or less a stoner goofball... hurm.

I had intended to write a long, detailed post about this but the glögg is taking hold, gotta back off... maybe more later.

*Jeff Bridges quote from the film.

"the darkest thing Disney has done since shooting Bambi's mom."*
OR:
a 25-year history of why this boy is quite literally totally "stoked" for a thing like TRON LEGACY:
1985: staying home sick from school was pretty much the only time were allowed to rent videos, so at age 5 I went to the "Children's" section of the local videostore and grabbed Walt Disney"s TRON (which my monter approved because it WAS in the Children"s section). Result: watching the film as a feverish 5-year old was a wild ride thorugh boredom, terror and confusion. On the plus side: I was introduced to Jeff Bridges.

1993: I move to Germany. Electronis music is everywhere (MTV, radio, etc) and is SUCKS at this point in time (think DJ BOBO or Der Berg Ruft or Eins Zwei Polizei.

1995-1996: Soften up to electronic music, even though most of the stuff I still encounder is complete crap.

1997: On a school trip to London I buy the Daft Punk album "Homework" for 17,99 Pounds (like $40 at that time) on a whim - basically because I liked the name and the albm cover. (And big city like London just had a thousand times better record selection than our po-dunk German farming villages had to offer at the time.) I become obsessed with the album and a few months later I quite randomly see DAFT PUNK in a warehouse in Mannheim, Germany (thanks to a girlfriend who was way cooler than I was.) Result: a wild ride thorugh terror and confusion and pure amazement/infatuation with these wierdos and a newfound (now permanent) love for their music.

2001: I literally bump into Jeff Bridges in the restroom during intermission of. I put my arm around him adn he nods adn laughs nervously as I take him for a walk talking a mile a minute and making an ass out fo myself until I realize that I have dragged him to the top of a dead-end stairwell, what I am doing, politely excuse meself and feel bad about it to this day. Also, he is probably my favorite actor, -which is one of the only things my father and I can agree on.

2006: I see Daft Punk at Coachella, an amazing annual music festival way out in the California desert. In the past 9 years since I last saw them they have upped thier game and it is bascially, probably, maybe, literally: the best thing ever.

2010: So for the better part of my life I have been a huge fan of Daft Punk and Jeff Bridges, SOOO: With their powers combined I am officially totally stoked about Walt Fraking Disney's TRON: Legacy. Even if the film isn't amazing, the soundtrack will be.

from the *SPIN (print magazine version) of the new record review