TRONtastic!

Tron Legacy was absolutely nerdgasmic.



This is the HISHE rap from the makers of "How it Should Have Ended." This is about the original Tron movie and is also awesome.

Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some quarters in it...

Where to start? First of all, let me say that I owned Tron on the Beta machine. Yep, I was born in 1982 when the original Tron was made. So, the thought of a new Tron movie was nostalgic for me as I'm sure it was for a lot of people. Still, I never expected what we got...

The film was absolutely awesome. The storyline was interesting. The characters were good. (Though, some of my friends felt that the characters needed to be more developed. Still, I felt like they did a good enough job. The focus of the movie was action, and the characters were still very likable.) The effects were very cool, and above all, it had the feel of the original movie, only somehow even more awesome.

First off, let me say that I think critics judged this movie a bit too harshly. People who wanted to see this movie got exactly what they wanted. It was a continuation of the original Tron movie. It's assumed that people going to see this movie know about the original characters involved and know the general plot of the first movie. For those who don't, I suggest you get the movie "Tron" from Netflix and check it out before watching this film. Tron is also basically an action film for nerds, and critics tend to dislike action films and judge them harshly, the same way that they do horror films. Now, that being said, there are some very interesting things they did with this movie that separate it from the original.

I guess I should start with the new storyline. The basic storyline is that Flynn disappears unexpectedly one day while his child, Sam, is seven. Sam, is left behind, wondering what happened to his Father. He grows up as a bit of a rebel. While he owns most of the company that Flynn left behind, the board of directors really run the company and want to sell their software to make more of a profit. The movie starts with Sam sabotaging the company so that their new software is free to download, something his Father would have wanted. He never has gotten over the loss of his Father, and it shows in the fact he doesn't have many friends and is very reclusive, spending most of his efforts counteracting the board from his Father's company, yet not caring enough to take it over. When Alan gives him the message that his Father paged him, he goes to Flynn's old arcade, only to find a computer running. He accidentally activates the laser behind him, and is transported into the digital universe. He's rounded up as a rogue program and forced to participate in the games. When he's wounded by the program "Rinzler" he bleeds in the game world, proving him to be a "user." He's then taken to Clu, Flynn's program, and sentenced to death via the game grid. However, he is rescued by a program named "Quorra" and taken to his Father. He finds out he only has eight hours to escape from the game universe or he'll be stuck there forever like his Father.

The game grid is much more interesting than in the original movie. They added ramps to the light cycle game, and the ability to mess with gravity to the disk game. The sequences in the game grid seemed a lot more exciting. My only criticism is that I wish one of the other players had survived the light cycle game, but that was just because of nostalgia reasons regarding the first movie.

The concepts in this movie were a lot more abstract. There's mention of new life springing up from within the digital world, a sort of artificial intelligence that contained more wisdom than mankind could comprehend. There are also many allegories for religion which surprised me. Flynn was more like a God figure, and his program Clu was more of a Satan figure. Clu was trying to create a world of perfection, which became a world of tyranny as he started realizing that he and the real Flynn differed on ideas of the perfect utopia. Clu actually is a digital representation of Jeff Bridges (the actor playing Flynn), making him look young (it was a very impressive effect), while Flynn looks the age he's supposed to be in the movie, but he somehow seems more spiritual, sitting back and watching things unfold.

My one complaint with this movie was that I wanted more. I was disappointed with the ending because it is kind of open ended and there are a lot of unanswered questions. For one thing, though this is a small detail, I wanted to find out how Quorra met Zuse. I also am not sure what happened to Zuse. Though I think we're supposed to assume he is dead, but he seemed a bit too smart to have fallen for that trap. Also, what happens to Tron? What happened to the rest of the game world? And, though this is a bit of a philosoraptor question (if you don't know what philosoraptor is, google it), if a digital program goes into the real world, when it bleeds does it bleed pixels? What are the repercussions of something like that being in the real world? And, finally, what happened to Lora and her program Yori? They just kind of cut them out of the movie and she was an important character in the first film. I have to assume that Lora died in the real world and Yori was derezzed in the game world since neither of them are ever mentioned, but it would've been nice if they mentioned what happened to her so you don't have to just guess.

Still, those are my only complaints. This is an excellent movie and I highly recommend it to anyone who liked "Tron." This is just as good if not better.

Blarg...busy month.

Hello again,

This month has been so busy! I've been decorating the house, throwing Christmas parties, and working on a role-playing game that involves me making more than one character (and I overdid it as always). I am also getting ready to attend two birthday parties, and hopefully see Tron this weekend. (I'll probably do another movie review for a change of pace if all goes well.)

Anyway, sorry I haven't been blogging much. This month has flown by, so I'm going to sum up briefly what I've been up to.

So far, the writer's block is still plaguing me, so I've been writing some very detailed and long character histories and tormenting my GM's with them. To be fair, I have told them they don't have to read the long epic tome I present them with, that I can paraphrase it, but thus far they've still read it anyway. I might post a section of one of those if I deem it to be good enough, but otherwise it won't see the light of day.

I'm using the opportunity to experiment on writing in the first person perspective, since I usually write in third for just about all of my stories. The character history I'm working on now is actually pretty dark. It's also set in a general fantasy medieval time period, so I might be able to publish it if I do a good enough job. Still, with writer's block, usually these sort of stories are just written to keep me from getting too rusty.

I threw my annual Christmas party last week. It was a big success. I think everyone had a good time. There was more than enough food, as always. We make the Christmas Party a sort of pot-luck dinner. We all had a good meal, watched Christmas movies, and played Rock Band. Mission accomplished!

This week, was probably one of the worst weeks ever for me. A stray pit bull showed up in our yard. He was slightly aggressive and very nervous about people, and he was practically starving. He wasn't so thin that he was a skeleton, but he wasn't a healthy weight. He warmed up to me and hated my husband, and since we have cats (and I couldn't be sure he was healthy since he wouldn't let me close enough to put a leash on him) I couldn't let him inside. Also, our yard isn't fenced in so I couldn't keep him if I wanted to.

Long story short, I had to call the pound on him because he seemed a little too dangerous, and honestly, it was far crueler to do nothing and let him starve or freeze to death. I'm so softhearted when it comes to animals, it tore me up to do it. I tried to find a no-kill shelter, but no one seems to be taking new animals, especially pit bulls. It was one the hardest things I've had to do and I still don't feel good about it. Still, there are children in this neighborhood and the dog was obviously abused and slightly aggressive--being responsible sucks ALOT. FML.

Still, that incident has made me think about getting a dog at some point. I'm thinking of rescuing a racing greyhound when the time comes. Still, we'll need the yard fenced in entirely, and possibly an addition on the house before that happens. It'll have to be after the baby, but it is something to think about.

Well, that's about it. I've been busy busy busy. I'm thinking at this point that my new years resolutions will be to have a baby and beat the writer's block, both goals that I think are attainable for next year.