After years of development, Tron: Ares finally hit theaters, but its disappointing box office debut may have just ended the digital saga for good. Serving as a standalone follow-up to 2010’s Tron: Legacy , Ares follows a powerful Program, played by Jared Leto , who crosses from the Gr
The original Tron was very experimental. It had an out there concept (which I can really respect for sci-fi), it had a pioneering synth soundtrack, and pioneering visuals. It was kind of novel but a lot of people found it boring and convoluted. It found a cult fandom of nerds like this guy and to the rest of the world it became a punchline for a weird flop of a film. Even the Simpsons took a shot at it.
Decades later they made a sequel that nobody seems to hate. Tron Legacy was actually well made, it’s got decent cinematography to it, they built sets, the CGI looks great with the possible exception of a de-aged face that does not hold up, and Daft Punk’s soundtrack is universally acclaimed. Most moviegoers agree that the plot of Tron Legacy exists. It was a success; it made more than its budget, it sold some tie-in merch. The weebs I knew around that time had pictures of either Olivia Wilde or a light cycle as their desktop wallpaper for a few months, and then the world moved on. It wasn’t bad, but it’s still a niche fanbase compared to The Matrix or Pirates of the Caribbean or Star Wars.
And now they’ve made another for some reason. It’s got very little to do with any of the original characters, Tron isn’t even in it. It’s about virtual characters emerging into the real world, released at a time when people are worried about AI and the effects it’s going to have, and it stars an actor basically nobody likes. I’ve heard mixed reviews about the NIN soundtrack.
Perfect summary. “Nobody knows why they did”. Spot on. Literally there was no point for this nothing of a story. No one wanted this premise, no one wanted Jared Leto, no one wanted Tron without the sickass graphics.
Not only that but apparently they were worried about if it’s too sci fi it’ll scare away people. Well congrats, by making it a bland action movie now not only did you make it not worth seeing for the general populace, now the few of us who actually liked Tron are so annoyed with it we aren’t seeing it either.
There’s not going to be any actual sci-fi movies ever again. There’s going to be movies with computers and space ships and lasers in them, but there’s never going to be a movie that asks questions, because movie executives are too stupid. They’ve been stupid for longer than I’ve been alive. Remember the movie Enemy Mine? Which does have actual sci-fi in it? There’s the whole rescue from a mine sequence because the executives thought audiences would be too confused if there wasn’t a literal mine in the movie.
Hell, Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The Earth, the movie you suddenly become very interested in when your testicles turn 30. The enemy ship in that movie is…a Yankee-built…French heavy frigate? Yeah no, that was supposed to be USS Norfolk, a sister ship of the USS Constitution. Why are they French? The studio thought that American moviegoers wouldn’t be okay with Americans being the enemy. In a movie set in 1804.
Studio executives are rock chewing stupid and they think everyone else is too.
The original Tron was very experimental. It had an out there concept (which I can really respect for sci-fi), it had a pioneering synth soundtrack, and pioneering visuals. It was kind of novel but a lot of people found it boring and convoluted. It found a cult fandom of nerds like this guy and to the rest of the world it became a punchline for a weird flop of a film. Even the Simpsons took a shot at it.
Decades later they made a sequel that nobody seems to hate. Tron Legacy was actually well made, it’s got decent cinematography to it, they built sets, the CGI looks great with the possible exception of a de-aged face that does not hold up, and Daft Punk’s soundtrack is universally acclaimed. Most moviegoers agree that the plot of Tron Legacy exists. It was a success; it made more than its budget, it sold some tie-in merch. The weebs I knew around that time had pictures of either Olivia Wilde or a light cycle as their desktop wallpaper for a few months, and then the world moved on. It wasn’t bad, but it’s still a niche fanbase compared to The Matrix or Pirates of the Caribbean or Star Wars.
And now they’ve made another for some reason. It’s got very little to do with any of the original characters, Tron isn’t even in it. It’s about virtual characters emerging into the real world, released at a time when people are worried about AI and the effects it’s going to have, and it stars an actor basically nobody likes. I’ve heard mixed reviews about the NIN soundtrack.
Perfect summary. “Nobody knows why they did”. Spot on. Literally there was no point for this nothing of a story. No one wanted this premise, no one wanted Jared Leto, no one wanted Tron without the sickass graphics.
Not only that but apparently they were worried about if it’s too sci fi it’ll scare away people. Well congrats, by making it a bland action movie now not only did you make it not worth seeing for the general populace, now the few of us who actually liked Tron are so annoyed with it we aren’t seeing it either.
There’s not going to be any actual sci-fi movies ever again. There’s going to be movies with computers and space ships and lasers in them, but there’s never going to be a movie that asks questions, because movie executives are too stupid. They’ve been stupid for longer than I’ve been alive. Remember the movie Enemy Mine? Which does have actual sci-fi in it? There’s the whole rescue from a mine sequence because the executives thought audiences would be too confused if there wasn’t a literal mine in the movie.
Hell, Master and Commander: The Far Side Of The Earth, the movie you suddenly become very interested in when your testicles turn 30. The enemy ship in that movie is…a Yankee-built…French heavy frigate? Yeah no, that was supposed to be USS Norfolk, a sister ship of the USS Constitution. Why are they French? The studio thought that American moviegoers wouldn’t be okay with Americans being the enemy. In a movie set in 1804.
Studio executives are rock chewing stupid and they think everyone else is too.