The Making of “Tron: Legacy” May Be Cooler Than The Movie Itself

It’s definitely a digital age in movies as more and more are trying to meld real-life with computer generated effects to find the happy medium. There are those who believe that the trend is damaging the industry. We won’t explore that here.

What we will look at is a pretty darn cool video from a movie that demands the need to be digital. Tron: Legacy was born from one of the original fully-digital movies and in many ways carried out its charter splendidly. This video that shows some of the ways that the graphics were created takes us into a world that few get to see. When the veil is lifted, it’s clear that the technology used to create the movie is almost as amazing as the movie itself.

Perhaps more so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sAZMCUOW24

Tron Legacy Keeps the Internet At Bay

Welp, Tron: Legacy is out on Friday, and if you currently exist, chances are you’re going to see it. In the event you don’t exist, there’s probably a hypothetical quantum world where your un-self will see it anyway. This movie’s moistening the loins of geeks the world over, and I’d be hard pressed to imagine you’re not one of them. You’re reading Techi, after all.

With the advances in computing in the last 28 years, you’d have to think that writing Tron 2 would be quite a task – y’know, now that the internet exists and all, the world of Tron would seem to be limitless.

But that’s just what Legacy director Joe Kosinski was looking to avoid. In an interview with Discover, he explains his vision of the Tron world, 3 decades later.

I didn’t want to make a movie about the Internet. That’s kind of a trap. It can make your movie feel dated the weekend after it comes out. I really liked the idea that this was a closed-off system like the Galapagos Islands, where the simulation has been constantly evolving and growing on some server locked away in some hidden place. That way it felt more like a Western: The world is large and expansive, but at the same time, there’s a code or a set of rules you have to follow. If you want to send a message to someone, you can’t just beam it across cyberspace. You have to get on your light cycle and deliver it in person. You understand that there are repercussions in physicality that make it feel as non-virtual as possible.

A digital Galapagos. Awesome. Sort of like the laptop I found on the side of the road a couple weeks ago – running Windows 3.1 and with only a floppy drive, it’s been closed off from the evolution of technology for decades, too. Once I find a power cord for this thing, who knows what kind of Tron-like dystopian civilization I’ll find inside?

Kosinski warns me well, though. “Technology can be a very powerful and useful thing… if left unchecked, it can turn out to be a very dangerous thing as well.”

Maybe I’ll just leave it well enough alone.

Tr-iAd: Tron Lands First iAd on the iPad

The first iAd on the iPad will be for the upcoming movie “Tron Legacy“.

A Tr-iAd.

And thus, the era of app-based tablet advertising is officially launched. This full-screen iAd will be the only one we will see on the iPad in 2010 and is loaded with rich graphics, touch navigation and nearly 10-minutes of video native to apps. Unlike other forms of advertising, this iAd will be extremely interactive with a theater locator, loads of images, and a preview of the movie soundtrack (which you can, of course, purchase through an iTunes module on the iAd itself).

“Disney and Apple are excited to debut the ‘Tron Legacy’ iAd today as a special preview of iAd for iPad, which launches next year,” said the companies in a statement for Ad Age. “iAd brings ‘Tron’s’ pulsing energy and vivid graphic style to iPad’s stunning display, creating a truly immersive ad experience.”

With his hands (and money) tied into both companies, this is a big day for Steve Jobs. It’s the second time the iAd platform was launched with a Disney movie – iAd for the iPhone and iPod Touch launched with “Toy Story 3” in April.

Like Tron? Signature Tron Furniture at Design Miami 2010

If you were a fan of Tron or are a fan of Tron: Legacy, you’ll survive nicely in one of these fabulous chairs. Designed by Dror Benshetrit for Walt Disney’s Signature line, they will be on display at Design Miami 2010.

Marvel Heroes Get TRON’d The F*** Up

I hang out with an awful lot of comic book dorks, and many of them have been cowering in fear since Disney’s fateful acquisition of Marvel, wondering what impact The Mouse will have on their favourite superheroes. Generally, I’ve told them not to worry – Warner Bros has owned DC for, what, like, thirty years, and if you ask me, that’s been nothing but good news for Dr. Bruce Batman and Friends.

But I digress. Check this bizness out, as it’s the first Disney/Marvel tie-in I’ve seen since the acquisition, and it’s geek chic as hell.

Do I really need to explain it? It’s Marvel heroes, done up TRON-style. These are variant covers of regular issues, so I don’t know how much more than ads for the upcoming TRON: Legacy these are (probably 0% more), but you gotta admit, this is totally new kinds of ballin’.

Well, you don’t have to admit it, but we’re all friends, here.