#meaty content

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Tron: Legacy an Instant Queue Movie Review

By: Dan Tommie

Tron: Legacy dazzled audiences with fancy 3D when it hit theaters in December 2010, and thanks to the miracle of streaming video I got around to watching it thirteen months later. Without the 3D, of course, which I kind of regret since I heard the 3D was really good. Tron: Legacy really doesn’t feel like a film that came out in December, it’s got summer written all over it. I felt it skimped on story in exchange for big visually exciting scenes. There are deep themes running throughout the movie but I never felt they explored them as much as they could have, and instead focused on creating this virtual world. Legacy follows Sam (Garrett Hedlund), the grown son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges, reprising his role), as he discovers the truth of his father’s disappearance 21 years earlier. So that you can follow along the events of Tron were in 1981, Legacy opens briefly in 1989 showing briefly before Flynn disappeared and then brings us into 2010 where the majority of Legacy resides. In 1981 Encom was a big evil computer company which Flynn gained control of in the end of Tron but has largely resumed it’s evil ways by 2010. Sam, though the largest shareholder, takes no real part in the running of the company except for an annual prank of sorts. 2010’s annual prank seems to have been the release of it’s newly completed OS for free on the internet. I’ve got to say I don’t see this as quite an altruistic act that I think I’m supposed to. Sam doesn’t strike me as Robin Hood as much as a spoiled brat who doesn’t understand the business he was meant to be running. He says that the OS was always supposed to be free but doesn’t feel the need to back that up anyhow. I was given the impression that this new OS represented the bulk of Encom’s resources and probably was to be meant to keep the company in the black for at least a few years. You could argue that Encom could offer up the OS for free and charge for it’s technical support, but that’s only viable if the entire business model was built around it, without such a system in place Sam’s squandered likely billions of dollars with no way of recouping these losses. The Sheriff of Nottingham was not a multi-national company employing thousands of people who may lose their jobs because you gave to the poor. Good job, Sam, these people are going to be fired right before Christmas because of you. Following Sam’s stunt, Allan (Bruce Boxleitner, also returning) informs him of a mysterious page he received from his father’s old office. Sam investigates Flynn’s Arcade and discovers his father’s secret lab and shortly of course finds himself in the computer world. Before I continue, I have to say a word about Flynn’s secret lab. For one thing I don’t know why he really needed a secret lab. As the head of Encom he could have had a private lab built for him anywhere with normal locks on the door, he didn’t have to have one built in his old arcade with a secret entrance behind a Tron arcade cabinet. And why the need for secrecy anyway? For all accounts it seems his research was being done for the betterment of mankind and was going to have been freely shared. A secret lab with a secret entrance makes him look like a Bond Villain. But it’s really that secret entrance that bothers me the most. If for whatever reason you’ve decided you need a secret lab with a secret entrance, why would you put said entrance in the middle of an arcade? You’d have to limit your access to your lab to before and after business hours, or else negate the whole idea of a secret lab with a secret entrance. Once Sam’s in the computer Legacy progresses in a very similar fashion as Tron. Sam is captured, forced to play in gladiatorial games, drives a light cycle, etc, etc. If you hear me talk about movies (or really any fiction) enough you may notice I take odd leaps of faith with the suspension of disbelief while at the same time harping over errors in logic and such. This is because I will gladly buy in to whatever the reality of a story is, but will not forgive going against the established reality. There are some rare exceptions to this when, for example, the audience is led to believe in one reality which is later shown to have been false. Legacy however seems to make a multitude in errors in holding up the truth of the world, this is of course exacerbated due to the nature of this being a sequel and building on an established world. I was never super in to Tron, and don’t hold it up as any sci-fi paragon of movie making, but it is the established canon of this movie, so I’d expect anything true in Tron to be true in Legacy. For example, and yes keeping in mind I’m fully on board with the whole premise of being zapped inside of a computer, in Tron when Flynn is teleported into the MCP mainframe he appears as any other program, memory disc and all. When Sam enters the Grid he is wearing exactly what he was wearing in the real world. He doesn’t get any glowing clothing until he goes through some very strange stripping and outfitting ritual. Why does that strange S&M room even exist? My logical complaints of Legacy are legion. For my next points I want you to try to remember that this is happening in a mostly normal (if very advanced by 1989 standards) computer system. The programs are programs, same as you having running in your computer. With the exception of CLU and the ISOs. The entire world is meant to be a visual representation of software and hardware. As such the Users follow the same rules. They did in Tron and the should in Legacy. So why would Sam bleed when hit? He is not physically there. He is really a program as much as any other program, he just has SuperUser access. With that in mind there is also no reason Flynn should have aged, and if he ages why at the rate of the real world? Time passes in Tron like it does in Narnia. Also why do they eat? And why the hell is there a night club? Why does software need to drink and dance to Daft Punk? Why does it appear that light cycles have mechanical engines? How the hell can the tail gun on a bomberesque light vehicle jam? HOW!? Another note on that night club scene. There really is a lot of ridiculous things going on in there, and I’ve heard people really gripe about a lot of it, as I have done to some extent myself. Regardless, it was one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Daft Punk is mixing up a sound track live, there’s a crazy proprietor that just seems to evoke ‘wtf?’ more every time you see him. I could see how just about everything I loved about this scene could cause someone else to check out. But I decided to go along for this ride. My next complaint is really nit-picky and I know it. This is the way it is because this is a movie made in 2010 intended to make money rather than make sense in a canonical way. The computer world the movie takes place in was designed by Flynn in and before 1989. As such I think Legacy SHOULD look very much as Tron did. The light cycles are very much analog as opposed to their digital nature in Tron. If the system Legacy takes place in were designed in 2010 rather than pre-1989 a lot of these things would make sense, but not only is the system old, it exists on a mainframe which is not connected to the internet so there is no way for things to have been updated that way. I have to talk about the young Jeff Bridges (and to a lesser extent Bruce Boxleitner) for a moment. It’s really pretty impressive, but holds up best when you don’t get to see him for very long or clearly. It does still have some uncanny valley issues, though not nearly as frightening as, say, the abominations inhabiting The Polar Express. I suppose it was never truly unsettling as much as it just felt a bit off. Sometimes it did kind of strike me as looking more like a young version of current Jeff Bridges rather than looking as Kevin Flynn did in Tron. I’m about to get into some spoiler territory so before I do I’d like to sum things up for anyone who may want to avoid them. I’m going to be giving Tron: Legacy three stars, spoiler alert. Jeff Bridges was great, the film looked very good, and what story there was was interesting. I feel this movie had the potential to do a lot more if it had given the story a little bit more fleshing out instead of relying on the flashy visuals to keep people entertained. Pretty much every beat in Legacy is predictable. Flynn sacrificing himself to make good Sam’s escape. Quorra (Oliva Wilde) escaping out into the real world, and I have further issues with this that will become more apparent in a moment. Building towards the climax Legacy commits a ridiculous act of deus ex machina. This really irked me. It’s just plain lazy. Allow me to explain. Fairly early on it’s made readily apparent that CLU’s dual wielding henchman is Tron. I really think they should have explored that more, as it ends up being one of the only plot points in Legacy with any amount of subtlety. But since subtlety isn’t this film’s strong suit it could be that it’s just poorly executed. Fast forward to near the end, our heroes are making good their escape, and Tron is situated to deliver a finishing blow. But instead in that moment decides “I fight for the Users” and instead acts as a road block in CLUs pursuit. This is poor and sloppy story telling for many reasons. First and foremost this is just silly deus ex machina. Second, the viewer has very little reason to believe in this change. If we’re to believe CLU can rewrite a program to do his bidding, how could this happen? Third, his act is largely inefectual. Were that scene to be removed from the movie it would change nothing. There is another major plot point that doesn’t sit right with me. This has been debated, but I stand by my guns, this is a leap I’m unwilling to take. I do want to point out, that this is possible that it’s not a fault (in my perception) of the movie logic, but rather an error made by a character. There may be no way to know this, but I believe we’re to believe the character is not in error. In the last act it’s revealed that CLU’s evil master plan is to use Flynn’s identity disc to not only leave into the real world himself, but take an army with him. I don’t buy into how this is remotely possible. Recall that the process in which the Flynn’s enter the computer world makes use of a device that was being created to develop quantum teleportation of physical objects. An object is scanned into the computer, if you will, and reassembled in another place. It sounds like it works rather identically to teleporters in Star Trek, but I’m not a huge trekkie, so I could be wrong. The Flynn’s never bothered with that last step as they were always scanned into the computer and hung out there. Their physical bodies don’t exist in the computer, their existence in the computer is all the data in how to put them back together again. Also their consciousness continues to exist, apparently. The programs making up CLU’s army however don’t have all that mountain of data on how to build a perfect fully functioning human body. So were they to access and pass through the portal I can’t tell you exactly what would be constructed, but it wouldn’t be human, and would likely be very inconsequential in size as the amount of information in a program is minuscule when compared to the amount of information that would be required to build a person. It also seems to me, that even were this plan to work, CLU would only have an army of guys with sticks. This would still be a bad thing, but I don’t see them conquering the world. They’d be lucky to take Detroit. It is a stretch, but I would be able to buy into CLU being able to exit using Flynn’s identity disc. Despite all these issues I had with it, it is still a fun movie. It visually engaging, Bridges is great, and generally just good fun to watch, but I can’t say the movie as a whole is great. It had the potential for greatness, and unfortunately fell short of that mark. 3 out of 5 identity discs

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Danny's Meaty Content - It's Time to Raise the Curtain

By: Dan Tommie

There is a wide spread misunderstanding on what a family film is. Most people don’t know, and unfortunately it seems most movie studios don’t know. A family film is not a kid movie. A kid movie is almost literally a poor man’s family film.   A kid movie only sets out to entertain children, and that doesn’t take much. Bright colors and upbeat music is enough to make kids happy most times. As movies go, kid movies are a pretty safe bet. They’re usually cheap, quick and easy to make and usually make money. Someone may be able to prove me wrong, but I don’t think there is a such things as a good kid movie. Throw a rock at a movie marquee and you’ll hit about three kid movies. A family film is a completely different animal. They are meant for the entire family, and not just trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. They supply things that the intelligent movie goer expect to find. Characters with depth and progression. A story with a beginning, middle and end. A mediocre family film will have moments come and go which are recognizable as peddling to certain demographics. A good family film will feel as if every moment is for everyone. The Muppets is such a movie. I expected to enjoy this movie. I did not expect to love it. Oh man, was this movie good. I don’t really know how to start. Well, I guess the beginning is a good a place as any. There’s a few things you could say The Muppets is about. It’s a little bit of a coming of age story, a little bit of a movie about the relationship between brothers and a little bit about the relationship between a man and a woman. Or occasionally a frog and a pig. In the first case the movie is about Walter [Peter Linz (puppeteer and voice)], a newly introduced… well… Muppet, but that’s not entirely correct in the mythology of this film, as Muppet refers solely to the performers of The Muppet Show, kind of like despite popular belief every Englishman is not in Monty Python. Here’s what we’ll do: muppet (small ‘m’) will refer to the Henson created puppet, while Muppet (big ‘M’) will refer to a member of The Muppets. Starting over. In the first case the movie is about Walter [Peter Linz (puppeteer and voice)], a newly introduced muppet who grew up watching The Muppet Show. Being the only muppet in his idyllic Real America small town, The Muppet Show gave him something to relate to. In that regard I suppose The Muppet Show is kind of like muppexploitation. As such Walter leaps at the chance to join his brother Gary [Jason Segel] and his girlfriend Mary [Amy Adams] on their big trip to LA. For Walter it is very much a pilgrimage to… Mupecca. The relationship between Walter and Gary (not a muppet, by the way) is charming. Also a little cutesy as the two seem to live in a bit of a state of arrested development. This is for three reasons, I’d say. Gary’s devotion to his muppet brother, their existence in this town plucked straight from Leave it to Beaver and lastly because I think they’re both kind of man-boys. Or occasionally muppet-boy. In that regard the movie is as much of a coming of age story for Gary as it is for Walter. Interestingly the relationship between Gary and Mary feels flatter than the one between Kermit and Miss Piggy. But that’s more praise for the ability of the muppets to come across as real characters with real emotion than it is an indictment of the human performance. The human romance is given a sense of reality by the difficulty it’s faced to overcome, but the muppet equivalent has very parallel themes while also being performed by hands in felt. The Muppets does just about everything right. The cameos are just good fun. The musical numbers are generally great, one or two of them struck me as falling just below the mark, but not enough to really take me out of it. The level of nostalgia felt just about right. It plucked the right heart strings without seeming like it was excluding the younger crowd for who wouldn’t understand the history. I really enjoyed Jack Black in this movie. That’s the first time I’ve been able to say that for years. I was constantly impressed with how much character and emotion could be delivered from a puppet which so often you just don’t get from computer animated characters. Hear that Lucas? There are very many places in this movie where it could have gone horribly wrong. I think the movie is protected by that it knows what it is and knows what it isn’t. It has no problem poking a little fun at itself or light heartedly breaking the fourth wall. For example, the antagonist is a very stereotypical evil rich guy. But instead of playing it straight and being a glaring fault the film has fun with it. The dude’s name is Mr Richman. He doesn’t maniacally laugh. He says “Maniacal laugh.” The movie is also very aware, and in some cases about, that The Muppets have largely been out of the public eye for a long time and that people might not care about them. I don’t know how much of that was an actual concern in the making of the movie, but it seems that people have responded by saying “Yes we do.” 5 out of 5 hands in felt.

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Danny's Meaty Content - Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright

By: Dan Tommie

If you’re of my generation, or even of the one which predates my own, I’d say most likely Calvin & Hobbes holds a special place in your heart. It may have been the perfect comic strip. And it may have resonated with you in many ways. Maybe you identified with Calvin the Outcast, or Calvin the Intellectual, or Calvin the Dreamer, or Calvin the Adventurer, or Hobbes the Philosopher, or Hobbes the Romantic. Maybe you identified it as something special among the largely mediocre realm of the newspaper comic strips. Or maybe you just thought it was funny. This comic really is something special. It’s become so much more than itself. I can think of no other strip, with the possible exception of the also great (if very different) The Far Side, which could be out of newsprint for so long and still be relevant. The Peanuts may also deserve mentioning here, but it’s still printed in rerun. Bill Watterson really did create art, something very few of his peers could claim. He also created characters which are loved still today, 16 years to the day of the last Calvin and Hobbes strip. Watterson never licensed Calvin and Hobbes for merchandise. If you bought one of those stickers with Calvin pissing on the Chevy emblem, you’re kind of pissing on Watterson. And you look like a total tool, too. It’s because of this that I’ve not headed this with an image of the iconic characters, and also why I won’t link to any of the art I’ll be talking about in a bit.  There’s a problem with creating something beloved. People always want more. They can even get a little entitled about it. Some might have churned out Calvin & Hobbes ad infinitum. Maybe we could still be reading new strips today. And maybe the would still be great. Maybe I’d finally know what the noodle incident was. Or maybe they wouldn’t be. Maybe it turns out he stopped writing when he stopped having anything to write about. He’s said as much. I heard someone recently talking about a band they loved which only put out one album, after which the singer died. For a long time he regretted never being able to hear more from this band that he loved, until someone pointed out that he’d never have to suffer through listening to a bad album of theirs. Because the internet is what it is, there is no shortage of Calvin and Hobbes fan art. Some of it is rather unfortunate. But some of it is very special, and respectful of Watterson’s work. In particular I’m referring to the various strips and images created by various artists of Calvin with his Daughter. Most of them seem to infer he married Susie, and most of them depict Hobbes’s future adventures with his old friend’s progeny. Frankly it’s heartwarming. The idea of this can speak to you in as many ways as the original strips did. All the more so because many of the original readers are entering this stage of their life now. I also find it heartbreaking, because I don’t believe Calvin sees Hobbes anymore. That makes me sad. It should make you sad, too. Growing up can be rough. This is an idea I would love to see Watterson himself explore. But he won’t. I’d think going back to papers would be simply out of the question for him. Maybe even if he was given complete carte blanche. I’d think the most likely home would be here on the web.  Webcomics make money, and I bet he’d be able to pull enough traffic to make it worthwhile even without merchandise. But, of course I seem to remember him speaking out negatively about web comics in the past. It’s just a shame.  It seems such a missed opportunity.  And I feel torn between my respect for Watterson as an artist, and my entitled urge to shake him and shout “DANCE MONKEY DANCE!” Not only do I not expect that would work, but it’s probably also illegal to shake a man and order him to dance.