Progress City, U.S.A.

Greetings, Programs!

My TRON poster has an added bonus at the bottom: “The 21st Century begins October 1st, 1982 at EPCOT Center in Florida”

The film, Disney and nerd blogospheres collided recently with a widely publicized story that Disney is planning to release its long-gestating sequel to the film TRON in 2011. Furthermore, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s to be produced in 3D.

For the uninitiated, TRON depicted a world inside computers where programs appear as electronic avatars of their real-world users. Jeff Bridges starred as Flynn, a down on his luck videogame programmer who is enlisted by Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) and his girlfriend Lora (Cindy Morgan) to hack into the mainframe of their employer ENCOM. ENCOM has been taken over by sinister middle-manager Ed Dillinger (David Warner), a bureaucrat who rose to power on the profits of game designs stolen from Flynn. Dillinger is using the MCP - his Master Control Program - to lock down access to the ENCOM systems and appropriate the work of others.

Boxleitner as TRON

When Flynn breaks into ENCOM to hack its system, the MCP digitizes him and downloads him into the mainframe. There, he meets TRON (also played by Boxleitner), an electronic gladiator who is forced to battle other free programs on the game grid. You know, the typical sort of thing. Anyway, Flynn finds himself in an electronic version of Spartacus complete with disc battles and the iconic lightcycle races. Flynn and TRON must find a way to escape the grid, defeat the MCP and make the system safe for free programs once more.

Lightcycles. Teh awesum.

TRON was brought to Disney by director Steven Lisberger, who had previously attempted to find funding for the film as an independent feature. Lisberger secured funding from Disney after providing a test reel demonstrating his intended techniques with a mockup of the disc sequence. The film remains significant for its combination of live action, backlit animation and an unprecedented amount of computer generated imagery. Its designs are iconic, benefiting from the contributions of legendary designers Syd Mead and Jean “Moebius” Giraud.

The Solar Sailer

Disney has toyed with the idea of sequelizing TRON for several years; despite the fact that the original film made only marginal profits and received mixed reviews, time has made it a cult favorite and it remains a seminal inspiration for a generation of artists in the computer and entertainment industries. It’s usually acknowledged that the film was ahead of its time, and despite its flaws - its script needed a bit of polishing, it needed a touch more humor and personality and a smidge of tightening - it’s a fascinating film that deserves revisiting.

It was reported last Fall that Joseph Kosinski was in final talks to direct the new film, which would be produced by Sean Bailey and original TRON director Steven Lisberger and scripted by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. Kosinski, a commercial director, has also been signed to direct the Logan’s Run remake for Warner Brothers. Those concerned about an untested director taking over the reins on the film might be somewhat assuaged by a look at his previous work; he certainly shows a talent for creating mood and atmosphere, and his Nike promo might as well be an audition for TRON. In any case, I’d rather have him in the director’s chair than some hacky journeyman or - even worse - Michael Bay.

Hopefully negotiations will pan out this time; in 2005 it was announced that screenwriters Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal would be writing a remake of TRON, and prior to that Lisberger himself intended to film a sequel. Widely reported to be called TRON 2.0, Lisberger’s film was much talked about between 2001 and 2004 and had gone through several script drafts despite Disney’s cold feet in greenlighting it. Progress on the project allegedly accelerated due to the success of the original film’s 20th anniversary DVD release and the fantastic 2003 videogame sequel. Sadly, Disney never went forward with the project.

The TRON videogame actually outgrossed the film - through partial contributions from yours truly

So now that production seems to be going forward again, will it actually pan out this time? Here’s hoping. But if it does, I have some suggestions. If you’re listening, oh wise ones in Burbank, this is what I would do to make TRON 2 a success:

• - Get Lisberger involved. TRON is his baby, and his credit needs to mean more than just a check in the mail. The studio apparently liked his sequel script, so have him active in the process. Get the visual designers from the original involved, as well.
• - Wendy Carlos must do the score. Carlos, the electronic music pioneer, created the iconic score for the first film. Don’t go cheesy techno, don’t go cheesy alt-rock. Don’t go with any of the generic staples of the genre. It must be Carlos.
• - Keep the vibe. It seems that Kosinski gets the moody, spartan aesthetic of the original. If this were to turn into a quick-cut, rapid-fire action fest it would totally ruin the weird and otherworldy feel of the first film. Don’t go Michael Bay. Don’t pander. Make a film to last, not a spastic regurgitation of the latest hacky trends.
• - I cannot emphasize this enough. Get Jeff Bridges. He has already indicated his willingness to take part in the project, which would be a fantastic tie to the original. Rumors about Lisberger’s film hinted at a storyline involving a programmer going into the mainframe to track down Flynn, who was living in the machine as a ersatz electronic Colonel Kurtz. One assumes this plot, if even accurate, has been abandoned, but Flynn must return. One would not object to seeing Boxleitner or Warner either; just don’t make the film about angsty, trendy tween offspring of the original characters.

End of line.

There’s been a great deal of news lately about various upcoming Disney and Pixar productions, what with this year’s release of WALL-E inching closer and the first hard news starting to leak out about Up and Toy Story 3. Rather than crank out a couple of posts a day with each small story - other sites are bound to have them up quicker anyway - they’re collected here en masse in case you’ve missed anything. I’ve also included a few stories concerning Ratatouille and its director Brad Bird, as they begin to reap the fruits of the end-of-year awards season.

Ratatouille

Aside from its Oscar nominations and other awards, Ratatouille has collected the Golden Tomato for best-reviewed wide release of the year from critic metasite Rotten Tomatoes. Director Brad Bird spoke to the website about the award and the film’s critical reception. Other honors the film has earned include an award from the Broadcast Film Critics Association for Best Animated Picture and nominations for awards from the Art Directors Guild for production design, the BAFTAs for Best Animated Film, the Producers Guild of America, and the American Cinema Editors for Best Editing (Darren Holmes).

In a series of interviews, Bird has spoken about his influences and demanded respect for animation writers, as well as describing the process behind the writing of Ratatouille’s screenplay.

Finally, as a neat little extra, Pixar artists have created a Little Golden Book featuring art from the short Your Friend, The Rat. The short, which premiered with the DVD release of Ratatouille, was directed by Pixar story man Jim Capobiano, who highlighted the creation of the film on his blog. The book features actual production art from the film and is available at Amazon.

WALL-E

Buzz for WALL-E continues to build as more information leaks out from the film. Musician Peter Gabriel has revealed on his website that he is writing music for the picture, while new images have been posted on /film and the Disney Reporter (shown here). I’ll speculate that the other robot in the stylized drawing is EVE, the futuristic robot with whom WALL-E falls in love. She can also be seen on the recently-revealed cover of The Art of WALL-E, shown below and available for pre-order at Amazon.

More merchandise is on the way; a few screenshots have been released for the tie-in videogame under development at THQ. The fan community has gotten in on the act, with a group dedicated to building their own real-world replicas of the titular robot. We’ve even seen the first WALL-E case mod.

Expect interest in the film to expand after its upcoming Super Bowl ad.

Up

Upcoming Pixar linked to the above image, as seen in the Disney animation exhibit at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It’s the first piece of character art released from the film depicting the protagonist, who has been described as a senior citizen who “travels the globe, fights beasts and villains and eats dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon.” Reports say that the story is loosely modeled on the tale of Don Quixote, perhaps indicating that the hero is more imaginative than actually daring. Personally, the above picture strongly reminds me of Spencer Tracy in his later roles, such as Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner? or Inherit the Wind.

Toy Story 3

Possibly the biggest story to come from this update is that not only will Toy Story 3 be produced in 3-D for its 2010 release, but it will be preceded to theaters by 3-D re-releases of Toy Story and Toy Story 2. John Lasseter, Pixar co-head honcho and director of the first two films, will oversee their conversion to 3-D from the original data elements. Toy Story 3 is being directed by Lee Unkrich.

As the Variety article linked above points out, Disney is increasingly using 3-D technology to draw viewers to cinemas. What remains to be seen is whether this will prove a viable artistic tool or just another cyclical trend such as when 3-D surged in the 1950s and the late 1970s and early 1980s. Will the technology add anything besides gee-whiz factor to the new film, and especially the already existing films, or will it just be a gimmick? It’s estimated that the number of 3-D capable theaters nationwide will be in the thousands by the time of the film’s release; while I trust Pixar not to pull a Fozzie Bear (”cheap 3-D tricks?!”), it will be interesting to see how this plays out. The release schedule:

- Toy Story - October 2, 2009
- Toy Story 2 - February 12, 2010
- Toy Story 3 - June 18, 2010