Flynn Lives
As I've nerded about downblog, this December will see the release of a movie that I've been waiting to see for nearly thirty years; Tron Legacy, the sequel to the cult videogame sci-fi classic Tron is bearing down like a Light Cycle at full throttle, and I can't wait. It's weird how I sometimes think I've outgrown the sweet thrill of geekosity (illustrated by my "meh" reaction to the Avatar trailer, for example) and then suddenly from out of nowhere it strikes like a laser. Tron Legacy did this to me - or rather, this teaser did.
You have to be a certain kind of geek to get Tron. It's the fever-dream of every gamer, the Narnia of the Atari generation; the fantasy of crossing to the other side of the screen. The movie wasn't a big success when it came out in the early 1980's but it became a cult hit as the years rolled by, and I have a theory about that. In 1982, the ticket-buying audience were our parents and our older siblings. Videogames were something new to them, but not to us. We were the first to grow up with them, and we had an instinctual understanding of the idea of a gamescape as a "real" place. The generation that 'got' the idea of Tron were just outside the envelope needed to make that movie a hit, but as time passed, it grew its own cult as those viewers grew up, got older, and had disposable income of their own. That's why it has never really gone away, living on first in the arcades, later in videogames like Tron 2.0 (which in itself is an excellent sequel and well worth the time of any fan of the movie) and comicbooks. Tron was ahead of its time.
And so Tron Legacy looms. As part of the marketing machine working steadily to generate hype about the movie, a viral website/alternate reality game is gathering momentum over at Flynn Lives, and in recent weeks the site has been sending folks on live scavenger hunts in cities across the world, mailing weird stuff to people and spilling out clues over "real" webpages from the movie's fictional world. This is how you engage an audience's anticipation - create a sense of community, participation and discovery.
So, naturally, I signed up. What that netted me this weekend was a cool t-shirt and a ticket to an exclusive (albeit short) global premiere preview of the new 3D IMAX trailer. I'll say this; I was gripped.
But the movie is ten months away, though, and that's a lot of time to wait. There's going to be a videogame, but even that's a long time coming. Still, something tells me that the folks at the Flynn Lives Organization are not done with us yet. I'm looking forward to the trip.