(no subject)
Oh, sure, in theory trying to write something about Tron: Legacy while it's fresh in my mind would make sense. But no, I actually went & failed a tower defense challenge a couple more times between watching it and now.
It's a really good movie, in some ways. The CGI is really well done, the use of 3D is subversive & clever, it manages to incorporate some 1980's design sensibility into a 2010 technical sensibility, & it uses the title character in an odd but poetic way.
But I regret what's not in it, & think there are enough untouched elements to make a very wild sequel from those.
There are only two female characters who actually do anything in the whole movie, & neither is continued from the first movie. Another Hollywood film where father-son relationships are TEH MOST IMPORTANT TIHNG EVER, and women are transient utilities. This is the trope that actually irks me about the film.
There is, as someone else noted, an self-restricting choice to leave the grid as a world in a single box. What the sentient programs would make of the internet is yet unexplored. I think this makes a kind of sense, in that it returns us to the terrifying world of Tron. But it means that there is so much untouched fodder for more.
I'd like to write--or feed ideas to someone who actually would write--a script where we see further developments of Tron, Quorra, Sam, & their worlds. I imagine the internet would offer threats undreamt of by the programs from the old grid. Also, some actual Bechdel passing would be gratifying.
Really, this is one reason I roll my eyes a bit when people talk smack about Joss Whedon or Chris Claremont, & complain about them "not really being feminist." You think those guys are sexist? So much of popular culture treats women as MacGuffins at best! There's a tv show I love, where the central cast is female, called Cougar Town. But it still has a majority-male regular cast, heavily male writers, & occasionally that Hollywood male bias still shows through. And it's actually one that avoids the male-centered worldview. Mainstream Hollywood is run by men to an astonishing degree. That's why someone like Joss (who packed Buffy with female characters) or Claremont (who just kept adding female characters to X-Men--and made them point-of-view characters when many writers would not have) have appealed to so many of us fans, male and female. They don't treat half the human race as props.
Anyway, yeah, major sexfail in Tron: Legacy, but it's a failure by absence, & one that perhaps could be filled in.* What is actually in the movie is pretty good. And Quorra (the Olivia Wilde character) could perhaps become something more than a one-movie cute thing if allowed.
_
* Nah, really, I just don't want people to hate this movie for its flaws when they are standard issue for Hollywood action movies &/or a lot of Disney's stuff.
It's a really good movie, in some ways. The CGI is really well done, the use of 3D is subversive & clever, it manages to incorporate some 1980's design sensibility into a 2010 technical sensibility, & it uses the title character in an odd but poetic way.
But I regret what's not in it, & think there are enough untouched elements to make a very wild sequel from those.
There are only two female characters who actually do anything in the whole movie, & neither is continued from the first movie. Another Hollywood film where father-son relationships are TEH MOST IMPORTANT TIHNG EVER, and women are transient utilities. This is the trope that actually irks me about the film.
There is, as someone else noted, an self-restricting choice to leave the grid as a world in a single box. What the sentient programs would make of the internet is yet unexplored. I think this makes a kind of sense, in that it returns us to the terrifying world of Tron. But it means that there is so much untouched fodder for more.
I'd like to write--or feed ideas to someone who actually would write--a script where we see further developments of Tron, Quorra, Sam, & their worlds. I imagine the internet would offer threats undreamt of by the programs from the old grid. Also, some actual Bechdel passing would be gratifying.
Really, this is one reason I roll my eyes a bit when people talk smack about Joss Whedon or Chris Claremont, & complain about them "not really being feminist." You think those guys are sexist? So much of popular culture treats women as MacGuffins at best! There's a tv show I love, where the central cast is female, called Cougar Town. But it still has a majority-male regular cast, heavily male writers, & occasionally that Hollywood male bias still shows through. And it's actually one that avoids the male-centered worldview. Mainstream Hollywood is run by men to an astonishing degree. That's why someone like Joss (who packed Buffy with female characters) or Claremont (who just kept adding female characters to X-Men--and made them point-of-view characters when many writers would not have) have appealed to so many of us fans, male and female. They don't treat half the human race as props.
Anyway, yeah, major sexfail in Tron: Legacy, but it's a failure by absence, & one that perhaps could be filled in.* What is actually in the movie is pretty good. And Quorra (the Olivia Wilde character) could perhaps become something more than a one-movie cute thing if allowed.
_
* Nah, really, I just don't want people to hate this movie for its flaws when they are standard issue for Hollywood action movies &/or a lot of Disney's stuff.