A companion to the TRON 2.0 Unofficial FAQ that provides up-to-date
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TRON Sequel News Updates

By TronFAQ on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 10:06 AM

LAST YEAR'S TEST CONCEPT FOOTAGE TRAILER
HAS FINALLY BEEN RELEASED IN HIGH QUALITY!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH OR DOWNLOAD IT!



LAST UPDATED August 4th at 5:49 PM ET: See the latest update.

For older updates, please visit this previous article.


UPDATE 1: At the time I'm writing this, it's July 22nd, 2009. The day before the second trailer for the TRON sequel is rumored to be shown at the 2009 San Diego Comicon.

There has been an absolute flood of new information today, which I expect to continue over the next several days. I'll do my best to cover every bit of news that I can find. But as I do this in my spare time, it can be difficult keeping up with it all. It's sometimes hard to compete with the more established news sites. I think you'll find, though, that fan sites — like this one — tend to find and cover news and rumors about the TRON sequel that the larger sites don't.

There's so much news, that it's difficult to know where to start. Well, before I begin with all the latest news, I want to share some information I've been withholding for close to a year.

The following portion of this update has been removed. Perhaps one day, long down the road, the information this update contained can be spoken of once again.

UPDATE 2: Over at the MTV Movies Blog they interview Sean Bailey, one of the producers on the sequel. Here's a quote from the most notable part of the article.
That visual test showed off a high-tech clip of a lightcycle race—a take on one of the many iconic scenes from the original film—and the crowd went wild. Cut to 2009: with the “Tron” shoot having wrapped in Vancouver just a week ago, the task for filmmakers is both the same and quite different: everyone is well aware of a new “Tron” and there’s not a ton of complete footage available to show off.

No matter though! Bailey promises new looks, surprise appearances and—fingers crossed!—a peek at the 3-D visuals of the new flick.

“We just don’t have that much finished stuff available,” Bailey explained. “We hope to have a trick or two up our sleeves that will make the panel worth attending and have a few new things to let people know about. We might be seeing some 3-D.”

It's not only that the movie finished filming mere days ago. This new "Tron" is also just incredibly CG-oriented, and the digital post-production process won’t be finished for another year, Bailey said.

- Eric Ditzian, from MTV Movies Blog article where he interviews TRON sequel co-producer Sean Bailey
So according to the article, there's the possibility that unannounced guests and other surprises may be in store during the Disney panel at the 2009 San Diego Comicon. So far, only Sean Bailey and TRON director Steven Lisberger have been confirmed as guests.

Bailey is also asked about the sequel's title, and comments: “I think we’ll be clearing that up pretty soon”. Is it possible then, that the final title of the sequel will be announced at Comicon. Let's hope so.

According to rumor, the title might finally end up as TRON 2. Apparently, Bruce Boxleitner was seen at a recent London film and comic convention wearing a shirt with TRON 2 logos on it. It's possible this may have just been another placeholder title used at the time the shirt was made, though.

This would be a laugh, considering all the variations that have been gone through. That they'd end up going with what was the obvious choice, right from the start! TR2N and TRON 2.0 also would be good choices, though. Meanwhile, simply TRON (leading to confusion with the original film), TRON: Insert-Subtitle-here, and TRZ are awful.

Thanks to deadly_cookie and rustiswordz for the tips.

UPDATE 3: Yesterday (July 21st, 2009), Disney began a viral marketing and ARG campaign in advance of the TRON presentation at the San Diego Comicon.

The sites SlashFilm, Collider.com, IGN, UGO, Film School Rejects, Coming Soon, First Showing, and JoBlo.com have all stated that they received mysterious packages containing new Flynn's Arcade tokens, and USB flash drives with pictures stored on them that contained some kind of code. Each site was randomly sent one of 5 pictures that all needed to be pieced together in order to help decipher the code. The pictures can be seen below.




And over on the UGO Movie Blog, Jordan Hoffman created a video where he talks about and shows himself holding one of the Flynn's Arcade tokens.



The following part of this update contains massive spoilers, so you may want to stop reading here!

After deciphering the code, it was discovered that it contained the message "Flynn Lives". If you visit the URL www.flynnlives.com, here's what you'll find.

    
Click each picture to view a larger version

The site includes a timeline of events in Kevin Flynn's life, and some fictional articles from various press sources, that explain what happened to Flynn after the original TRON film.
1989 -- Kevin Flynn alleged to "disappear." Initial facts raise many questions. Many of us were suspicious.

1990 -- Sightings of Kevin Flynn by ordinary citizens, including high-credibility "Level 3" sightings of Flynn in NYC's Central Park during a Shakespeare Festival, on the fringes of a San Francisco street fair, and the notorious "Elvira" sighting of Kevin Flynn at Halloween celebrations in West Hollywood, California. Unfortunately, these initial sightings display certain characteristics true to this day -- nothing has been confirmed and photographic evidence has been lacking.

1992 -- Sightings continue. Several of us make contact thru Usenet and begin correspondence.

1994 -- First Flynn Lives! meet-up in Dayton, Ohio. We resolve to continue our efforts to find out the facts behind the mysterious disappearance.

1998 -- Letter from Kevin Flynn to a founding member of the group gains media attention, then debunked. Founding member (now ex-member) checks into a mental hospital for observations.

2001 -- A $5,000 award is offered to anybody who can prove Kevin Flynn is alive. By December 31st, alas, nobody had satisfied our jury and the money was spent on a great party for all of the "Troniacs" we know and love!

2002 - 2005 -- An era of low visibility for our group. Sightings drop off, and interest seems to slacken. Thank heavens that is over!

2007 -- Interest picks up as the "Albino Cow" Flynn sighting in southern New Jersey energizes a new generation of activists.

  
    
Click each picture to view a larger version
1985 -- Kevin Flynn retires from ENCOM to create "a digital frontier which will reshape the human condition."

1989 -- Kevin Flynn disappears. Since that time, ENCOM has grown to become the largest computer technology company in the world, but its creative heart is missing.


Widowed since 1985, Flynn has kept his romantic life out of the press ever since.


Since his [Flynn's] infamous departure, no one has filled the void, but the EnCom corporation has subsisted on a backlog of ideas, sketches, and programs rifled from Flynn's personal files.

When COO Alan Bradley stepped down in protest of this practice - what he characterized as "grave robbing" - skeptics again theorized that it would be the end of EnCom.

In 1989, Kevin Flynn disappeared. For those of you following previous updates, this is nothing new. The general plot of the sequel has been known for months. But the timeline and fictional articles do reveal some new specific details about what happened to Flynn, Alan, and Encom, between the end of the film and now.

If you click on the moving spider (from the TRON Arcade game) at the bottom of the site, it opens a window with a timer counting down to 9:30 PM Pacific Time on January 23rd, 2009. A message there states "Meet us at the cul de sac near the corner of 1st and J when the numbers run out. You’ll know who we are."

Many believe what will happen, is that people who show up at a certain location tomorrow near the San Diego convention center, will be led to what possibly turns out to be a real life version of Flynn's Arcade to help promote the sequel. The Terms of Use page on the site, lists an address that is near to the convention center and the meeting location. Could this be where the potential Flynn's Arcade will be located? Whatever it turns out to be, it will be interesting to find out.


On one of the Flynn's Arcade tokens, it has the phrase "Home of TRON" imprinted on it. As it turns out, if you visit the URL www.homeoftron.com, you'll find another site.

    
Click each picture to view a larger version

On this page, they have mockup images of a Space Paranoids arcade cabinet, and a screenshot from Flynn's game "Vice Squad" which we never saw in the original TRON film. Very nice.


To whichever marketing team came up with this viral campaign: I salute you. It remains very true to the spirit of the original TRON film, and shows that someone did their homework when they researched the history of both the film, and events in the field of technology since the film appeared in theaters. Comparing Flynn to industry leaders like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, and likening Encom to be as big or even bigger than Microsoft, is sure to warm the hearts of technology geeks everywhere.

I'm not sure that TRON fans would refer to themselves as "Troniacs" or "Tron-heads", though. ;)

Just for fun, I snooped through the code of both sites looking for any hidden surprises. The only thing I could find when I checked earlier, is that there's some javascript code for handling video that currently isn't being used. So it's possible that some videos, or perhaps even the new Comicon 2009 TRON sequel trailer, may appear on the Flynn Lives site.

Doing a domain name lookup for both www.flynnlives.com and www.homeoftron.com leads to disappointment, as both sites have been registered by proxy. Meaning, that either Disney or their marketing company don't want you to know who exactly was responsible for these sites. However, one curious thing to note is that both sites are hosted by Amazon.com. Amazon does provide backend services such as cloud computing and hosting, though. So this makes some sense.

UPDATE 4: I'm going to pack several smaller news items into this update.
  • G4TV will be covering some of the events at the 2009 San Diego Comicon, and broadcasting them on their channel. So there is a possibility that what goes on at the Disney panel may be shown, including any TRON related news.

  • It's been rumored that the TRON sequel trailer shown at Comicon tomorrow, will also be shown together with James Cameron's Avatar when it debuts in December of this year. Avatar will be another 3-D CGI extravaganza of a film, so it makes a lot of sense to attach a TRON trailer to be presented before the film's opening credits. Let's just hope we don't have to wait until Avatar to see the TRON trailer again . . .

  • Over at Aint-it-Cool News, they have a picture of Jeff Bridges doing his impression of "The Dude" from The Big Lebowski, doing his impersonation of CLU in TRON. Or, something like that. It's one hillarious picture. :)

Thanks to Maxiekat for all of the above tips.

UPDATE 5: The MTV Movies Blog has another interview with TRON producer Sean Bailey.

In the interview, Bailey states that the film is a sequel but it's "stand-alone". Meaning that you won't need to have seen the first film, in order to follow along in the sequel. It will be mostly self-contained. But he goes on to reassure that the film will "honor the original" by featuring (updated) versions of the Light Cycles, Tanks, and more. This is the first time Tanks have been confirmed to be in the film.
. . . producer Sean Bailey confirmed to MTV News, will honor the roots of the original—lightcycles, tanks and more—while acting as what he termed a “stand-alone sequel.”

“You don’t have to know the ’82 movie to come in and appreciate and enjoy this one,” he explained. “That said, we accept what happened in the ’82 movie happened in ’82. Our movie is set in 2010. We built a mythology that spans the intervening 28 years of, ‘Here’s what we think happened with Kevin Flynn and with [nefarious software corporation] ENCOM and all those principle characters. Here’s what we think happened inside the Tron universe and in the real world.”

In this mythology, Flynn disappeared in 1989. While there are a lot of theories as to what happened to him, no trace of the former computer programmer has been found. His son Sam (Garrett Hedlund)—a gifted tech geek himself—grows up never knowing what happened to his father.

“At the beginning of the movie, [Sam is] given a clue or a prompt and starts to investigate, which leads him into the Tron universe,” Bailey said. “And things have really changed.”

Of course, much has remained the same. Lightcyles, tanks and other vehicles—souped-up, cutting-edge versions of course—play important roles in the film. Bailey also said fans can expect the appearance of some completely new vehicles.

Bruce Boxleitner, who played ENCOM employee Alan Bradley and—within the electronic world—Tron himself, also figures prominently into the story. While the story kicks off in the real world, the majority of the film takes place in the Tron universe.

“It’s a darker universe than the original, and there’s a lot of intensity,” said Bailey. “It is a Disney movie. I think most likely we’re on the harder edge of PG. [But] our ambition was to make a movie that [adults] were as excited to see as an eight-year-old boy.”

- Eric Ditzian, from MTV Movies Blog article where he interviews TRON sequel co-producer Sean Bailey
The mention that Encom is a "nefarious software corporation" has my interest piqued. Also, it seems that the name of Garrett Hedlund's character is indeed "Sam" Flynn now, instead of "Sean" Flynn. Too bad. Though, I suppose I'll get used to it.

The mention that Bruce Boxleitner "figures prominently into the story" is interesting. According to rumor, Bruce himself has said that he only had a "small part" compared to TRON alumnus and sequel co-star, Jeff Bridges. This rumor makes it sound like Bruce will only be playing Alan Bradley, and not TRON at all. This jibes with an earlier update I posted.

Thanks again to Maxiekat, and nick-meredith, for the latter info about the Bruce Boxleitner rumor.

UPDATE 6: Cinema Blend is reporting that executives at IMAX, are hoping to bring the TRON sequel to IMAX screens. The article doesn't state whether this will be in regular IMAX, or IMAX 3D. One would hope the latter!

And I completely forgot to mention, that there is a rumor that the TRON sequel is confirmed for a Christmas 2010 release by Bruce Boxleitner.

Thanks to Maxiekat and nick-meredith for the tip about the Christmas 2010 release.

UPDATE 7: In addition to covering the 2009 San Diego Comicon on television, G4TV will also be covering various events on their web site with streaming videos.


Fortunately, one of those events is the Disney 3D panel where the TRON sequel trailer will be shown, and where Sean Bailey and TRON director Steven Lisberger will be talking. And who knows what other surprise guests may show up . . .

The Disney panel stream will start at 10:45 AM Pacific Time, which is 1:45 PM Eastern Time. I don't think G4's video stream of the Disney panel will show the trailer. It will probably be limited to the speeches. Still, it's definitely something to look forward to!

Thanks to TRON.dll for the tip.

UPDATE 8: Thanks to some detective work by Neuromancer, it's pretty much confirmed now that the mysterious "Meet us at the cul de sac near the corner of 1st and J when the numbers run out. You’ll know who we are." message on the www.flynnlives.com site (mentioned in a previous update) will lead the people who gather there to a re-creation of Flynn's Arcade.

Near the address on the Terms of Use page on the Flynn Lives site, is a building that looks very similar to the building used as Flynn's Arcade in the original TRON film.

  

Thanks again to Neuromancer for his excellent sleuthing skills.

UPDATE 9: The www.flynnlives.com site has been updated. There's a new message there with a link to a map, showing exactly where to meet tonight for the Flynn's Arcade event. I guess the marketing team realized their instructions were a bit . . . cryptic.


Thanks to Overmind for the tip.

UPDATE 10: The title of the sequel is TRON Legacy! Here are all the best photos I was able to find in my various searches.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Thanks to Mr. Sinistar and Maxiekat for finding or providing tips about photos; Movieline, Ain't-it-Cool News, and JoBlo.com as photo sources.

UPDATE 11: IGN has a video interview with TRON Legacy producer Sean Bailey and director Joseph Kosinski.


And IGN has posted a second video where they interview Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, and Garrett Hedlund.


Olivia again mentions a December 2010 release date for the sequel, which backs up Bruce Boxleitner's earlier statement.

Thanks to Alan1 for the tip about the first video.

UPDATE 12: Mr. Sinistar has found a bootleg video of the 2009 San Diego Comicon TRON Legacy panel. Many thanks to him for this score!

Watch the video now, before Disney swoops in and has it pulled. If you want to save and keep it, use a plug-in like DownloadHelper in Firefox.




As for the "Flynn Lives" viral get together, so far it sounds nowhere near as exciting as everyone thought. It's some kind of scavenger hunt, where people need to shine black light on special posters, to make invisible ink glow to find clues. What those clues will lead to, I don't think anyone knows yet. (I'm writing this at just after 10:00 PM Pacific Time, so the viral get together has only been going on for about half an hour.)





It might lead to a re-created Flynn's Arcade, or it might not, judging by this snapshot of one of the posters on the right.



  

Yes, the Flynn's Arcade re-creation is real! I feel glad for all the people who went, because I was beginning to get a bit worried that maybe they were wasting their time chasing around easter eggs that lead to nothing.

And what's this . . . a Space Paranoids machine, specially made for the event?

  






More pictures and videos! They had a life-sized model of a Light Cycle in the Arcade! Holy crap.

Thanks to Simbeau and Mr. Sinistar for the tips regarding the pictures, videos, and what the viral meet up was all about. And to davecobb for providing the videos; kateyrich, mrbosslady, and First Showing for providing the photos!

You know that music in the third video where the Light Cycle is revealed at the Flynn's Arcade? Sounds like it could be Daft Punk, right? Well, the same music can be heard faintly in the bootleg TRON Legacy panel video. This strongly suggests it is, indeed, music from Daft Punk that's going to be in the film.

UPDATE 13: I have three more videos of the Flynn's Arcade viral event, plus two brief bootleg excerpts of Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde speaking at the TRON Legacy panel. A couple of these videos have profanity in them, so they would probably not be considered safe for work.








Thanks to devincf and supercoolgeek11 for posting these videos, and to Mr. Sinistar for the tip that lead to finding one of them.

UPDATE 14: I found some more pictures from the Flynn's Arcade viral event.

  
  

Thanks to Mr. Sinistar for the tip on where to find them, and saturnine for providing them.

Later, I might be able to post some high resolution close-up photos of the Light Cycle if I can get permission from a friend.

UPDATE 15: Last night at the Flynn's Arcade viral event (July 23rd, 2009), it was discovered if you shone a black light on to the back of Flynn's Arcade T-shirts that were being given away, there was invisible ink with what turned out to be a web site URL.

Visiting that URL took you to a new section of the www.flynnlives.com site, where you were greeted with a page asking for unlock codes.


People playing the specially created Space Paranoids game at the event, would apparently see codes on the screen if they played long enough, as seen on the right.

As of the time I'm writing this, 4 of the 5 unlock codes have been found. The unlocks provide differently scrambled pictures, that when pieced together will reveal a high resolution picture of the new Light Cycle. There are also sound clips from the character of Flynn. Once all 5 codes have been found, I'll post the Light Cycle picture and all the sound clips.

The Flynn's Arcade will apparently at least be open until Saturday July 25th, and an update as seen on the right from the www.flynnlives.com site states that the Arcade will be open again tonight (July 24th) starting at 9:00 PM Pacific Time.

Thanks to Mr. Sinistar, VRAM, and Tron 3.0 for their tips, and thebruce0 for providing two of the pictures.

UPDATE 16: The official TRON Legacy web site has recently gone live! See it for yourself.

The site has a survey you can take to let them know whether or not you like the site, and a way to sign up for news updates.


Thanks to VRAM for the tip.

UPDATE 17: The test footage concept trailer from last year, and shown again this year at the TRON panel at the 2009 San Diego Comicon, is the unlock reward for finding all the Space Paranoids codes from the Flynn's Arcade viral event!

WATCH OR DOWNLOAD THE TRAILER HERE!

DOWNLOAD LINK TO
HIGHEST QUALITY VERSION - 1920x800 244MB

Finally, no more crappy bootleg of last year's trailer! And the trailer positively confirms a 2010 release date.

Thanks to Fygee for the tip!

UPDATE 18: Since all 5 unlock codes were found for the Flynn Lives Derez page — which is how the test footage concept trailer from last year became available — I've created a video that lets you see the completed Light Cycle picture that was made from the scrambled ones, and listen to all of the audio clips from Kevin Flynn.



You can download the completed high resolution picture from this link.

Thanks go out to Chris Carlozzi (aka Elev8tor) for completing the Light Cycle image from the scrambled ones.

And just for the record, here's what the completely unlocked Derez page and trailer page look like.

  

UPDATE 19: JoBlo.com has a fantastic interview with TRON Legacy producer Sean Bailey and director Joseph Kosinski, that's almost 10 minutes long.


Highlights of the interview are a remark from Kosinski saying that the Light Cycle race in the concept footage trailer is just a "sliver" of what to expect in the final film, and Bailey confirms that Jeff Bridges plays a dual role. (Namely, Flynn and CLU.)

MTV Movies Blog also has a video interview, with cast members Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, and Garrett Hedlund. But you need to be a U.S. resident in order to view it. International fans are out of luck. Lame! (Of course, there are ways around the IP check they do to determine if you're in the U.S.)

UPDATE 20: Two more video interviews from Wired and Olivia Wilde Fan's YouTube channel.


UPDATE 21: Here's a brief video showing the start of the 2009 San Diego Comicon TRON panel, with Jeff Bridges.


Thanks to SnuggleBubble05 for the video.

UPDATE 22: Fellow LDSO member and friend zook_one has provided me with some of his photos from Flynn's Arcade on Thursday night. Below are the high resolution photos of the Light Cycle that I mentioned I might be able to post, in a previous update.

Zook_one has taken some of the clearest, highest quality, most detailed close-up photos of the Light Cycle that I've seen anywhere. I'm very thankful to him for providing me with them!

Please visit zook_one's personal web site, or drop by the forum on the LDSO site and say thanks!

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

UPDATE 23: The www.flynnlives.com site has been updated yet again. It mentions how the arcade will be open tonight once more (July 25th, 2009), and there's also a button you can click to sign up for news updates. These updates will probably be similar to — if not the same as — the updates you'll get by signing up at the TRON Legacy film web site.


Thanks to TechFalcon for the tip.

UPDATE 24: Hope you're not sick of pictures and videos of Flynn's Arcade, because I still have more! But this will probably be the last update regarding the arcade. Unless I find out when it closes, or if it's going to stay open a while longer.

The first few photos are some celeb pictures, of the cast and crew in the Arcade. They must have visited there for a photo session, before heading over to the San Diego convention center.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



Thanks to Cinema Blend and io9 as sources for the majority of the pictures, Daddyo for more pictures and two of the videos, and GeekFilterNet for one of them.

UPDATE 25: G4TV has a brief video interview with Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde. The TRON segment begins at the 2:24 mark. You may want to skip the first two minutes though, as it might not be considered safe for work.


UPDATE 26: Over at UGO, they've confirmed that Flynn's Arcade opened for the last time on Saturday July 25th, 2009. The arcade is now closed. Too bad it couldn't have stayed open to promote TRON Legacy until it hits theaters, but it was to be expected. Disney must have dropped a bundle even to just keep it open for these three short days.

  
As an example of attention to detail, notice that the Space Paranoids game is copyrighted "© 1989 ENCOM". A nice touch.

And as it turned out, the building that contained Flynn's Arcade was not the one mentioned in a previous update. The building did not resemble the one in the film at all, though it looks like they tried to make the exterior's style at least look a little like the original. The fact that there was another building nearby that looked so similar to the one in the film is one heck of a coincidence, though.

Many sites have posted coverage with additional details of what the experience in the arcade was like, if you care to read them. Early visitors to the arcade received Flynn's Arcade tokens, and a lot of people walked away with Flynn Lives posters, Flynn Lives shirts, and Flynn's Arcade shirts.

Cinemablend Flynn's Arcade coverage
Collider.com Flynn's Arcade coverage
Slashfilm Flynn's Arcade coverage
io9 Flynn's Arcade coverage
Sci-Fi Wire Flynn's Arcade coverage
First Showing Flynn's Arcade coverage - Part 1
First Showing Flynn's Arcade coverage - Part 2
UGO Flynn's Arcade coverage

Thanks to Elle for one of the links.


Meanwhile, the Associated Press has recently released a brief video Interview with Jeff Bridges.


And an artist going by the name of Cryda Luv' has done a really nice reworking of the Daft Punk theme, heard when the Light Cycle was revealed at Flynn's Arcade.


UPDATE 27: Retrorandy has some photos that were taken when Cindy Morgan (who played Lora and Yori in the original TRON) visited Flynn's Arcade. I have to say, Cindy still looks stunning today.


To see the rest of the photos, please visit this page.

Meanwhile, at Apple's trailer site they've added a page for the TRON Legacy concept trailer. Note that the trailers on Apple's site are lower quality than the ones released on the Flynn Lives site. So don't bother downloading the Apple versions. Get them from the Flynn Lives site instead.


And two more videos from Comicon have appeared. One is courtesy of IFC that covers some speeches at the actual TRON Legacy panel, while the other covers a conference which was held afterward. Unfortunately, this second video of the conference has poor audio and it's difficult to make out what's being said. Also, be warned that this second video is almost 28 minutes long!




Thanks to Mr. Sinistar and SuperScooby for their tips, and Olivia Wilde Fan and CollectionDX for providing the videos.

UPDATE 28: Collider.com has an interview with Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, and Garrett Hedlund.


The only new piece of info mentioned by Garrett, is that their scenes with the Light Cycles haven't actually been filmed yet. They're going back in September to do motion capture sessions for the Light Cycle scenes. The part about practical sets (instead of just using bluescreen) when filming the electronic world scenes, has already been known for close to a year if you've been following the updates on this site.

The site Direto de Hollywood has another interview with Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you speak Portuguese), the interviewer dubs over each of them as they speak to translate what they have to say. Which makes it hard to hear what the actors had to say in English.


And on the details page for TRON Legacy on Apple's trailer web site, the cast listing mentions James Frain again. This confirms that he's in the film, something we pretty much knew about already for months.

UPDATE 29: JoBlo.com has just found confirmation that Michael Sheen will also be appearing in TRON Legacy. This is something that, again, has been suspected for months.


A possible spoiler follows, so you may want to stop reading here.

For anyone wondering who Richard Brautigan is, mentioned in one of the audio clips on the Flynn Lives site (see this update to listen), you can read up about him in this wikipedia article. He published a book of poetry called All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, which "envisions a world where cybernetics has advanced to a stage where it allows a return to the balance of nature and an elimination of the need for human labor."

This gives us a clue as to why Flynn went back into the electronic world, and what he's attempting to do there. His eventual plan is probably something along the lines of trying to bridge the two worlds permanently.

UPDATE 30: Access Hollywood has a nice four minute long interview with Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, and Garrett Hedlund. Thanks to ohnotheydidnt for finding it.


UPDATE 31: Latino Review has a video interview with TRON Legacy director Joseph Kosinski and producer Sean Bailey. I can't embed the video, so you'll have to visit the site to see it. A lot of direct questions are asked, most of which the two evade.

Spoilers follow, so you may want to stop reading here.

Kosinski does, however, reveal that the character of TRON is going to be in the film. I'd already heard this from a couple of sources, but hearing it straight from Kosinski seals the deal.

And when asked whether the MCP will appear in the film, both don't confirm it but don't deny it either. So you can pretty much take that as a "yes", the MCP is also in the film. This is something that's been suspected for quite a while.

Thanks to ZootCatchy for finding the video.

UPDATE 32: The site MoviesOnline.ca has a lengthy interview with several of the cast and crew of TRON Legacy, including Steven Lisberger, Joseph Kosinski, and Jeff Bridges.

Be warned that this interview contains a few spoilers.

Thanks again to ZootCatchy for the tip.

UPDATE 33: High quality videos of the entire 2009 San Diego Comicon TRON Legacy panel (excepting the movie trailer footage that was shown) have appeared online, even including the question and answer (Q&A) session. Altogether, the videos add up to about 18 minutes of coverage. Thanks to HallHCoverage for making them available.





In an interview on the site Coming Soon, Disney films studio exec Oren Aviv has a bold claim stating that "the stuff you saw last year is bad compared to what it's gonna be in the movie. The tipping point for me was Joe Kosinski, his vision for the movie".

And one final video about Flynn's Arcade. G4TV has a nice chronicle of events leading up to the discovery of the Flynn's Arcade re-creation. The whole Flynn Lives and Flynn's Arcade ARG/viral was done by 42 Entertainment.


Please check back later today for another update. Even though the entire panel is now available in video form, I'll still be posting my summary of what happened at the 2009 San Diego Comicon TRON panel.
 
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19 comments so far.

  1. Anonymous July 23, 2009 2:26 PM
    G4 Is only showing a live blogging feed, no video of the panel...
    :(
  2. Anonymous July 23, 2009 7:12 PM
    I can't believe they not only kept the "anal sex" logo but made it even more graphic by adding the final part of the "R" to add a more "phallic" touch to the "TR" symbol. Great.

    Next thing you know, the real "TRON" of the TRON franchise will be limited to an extended cameo. Nothing says respect like having the title character of the original entirely upstaged in the 'sequel'... Or is it 're-boot'... Or is it 're-imaging'... Or is it... Oh, forget it.

    With my luck, we won't even get a PC port of the movie tie-in video game...
  3. Anonymous July 23, 2009 9:08 PM
    From the pix, I have to say it's too wet looking. Too many external light sources. The cool thing about the original was that instead of objects being seen because light was bouncing off them, everything generated it's own light. The lack of shadows and reflections in the original was also part of it's charm. Looks like they're over-doing it on the visuals. It shouldn't look "closer" to real life. It should be original and unique looking.
  4. Anonymous July 23, 2009 9:39 PM
    I think the key ingredient and what was so visually fresh about the original movie was that because it took place inside the world of the computer, you didn't need to follow real-world physics. Floating rings, vehicles with non-touching parts, and light itself as a physical object were completely acceptable.

    In this preview we see clouds, rain, and vehicles with all-touching parts: these are all associated with real-world physics!

    I am not impressed. I sincerely hope this is reworked with far more imagination!
  5. TronFAQ July 23, 2009 10:04 PM
    Just some quick thoughts as I work to pull together all the myriad sources of news and sift through them.

    Title: I'm okay with TRON Legacy. TR2N or TRON 2.0 might have been better choices, but that's obviously debatable. Not the best title, but not the worst either. And anything is better than TRZ. TRON Legacy is a nice nod to the TRON 2.0 game, by the way. Part of the game's plot involves finding the TRON Legacy code. That's probably where they got the idea of the title from.

    Font/logo: Still not a fan of it. Would much prefer they just stayed with the original.

    Look of the electronic world: Like most have already said, it's imitating the real world a little too much. It's got a sort of Blade Runner noir-ish kind of look to it. Even the old trailer from last year was more true to the original look, and I was already bitching about it looking too realistic back then. These pictures just took the realism another notch forward.
  6. Anonymous July 24, 2009 4:27 PM
    They have released the concept footage!!! Go to the url at flynnlives.com with the new section and click HIREZ!!! OH MY GOD!
  7. TronFAQ July 24, 2009 4:49 PM
    Thank you Anonymous! Or is that Fygee? :)

    About bloody time! Finally, no more crappy quality bootleg trailer. I thought they'd never release a high quality version, at this rate. (Well okay, not never. But I was beginning to believe it wouldn't show up until the DVD/Blu-ray release in a couple of years from now.)
  8. Load"*",8,1 July 25, 2009 1:49 PM
    I don't mind the computer world looking more like the real world. Maybe they are thinking that as "Users" improve technology and computer graphics, it directly effects the "Programs" world. The better our game graphics get, the better looking their world gets.
  9. zook_one July 25, 2009 3:23 PM
    The Picture ot the cool dude playing Space Paranoids it me.
  10. TronFAQ July 25, 2009 4:05 PM
    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_AEX12AyRPTw/SmlHiLyJoCI/AAAAAAAAA0E/eqFe8ud9Qsc/s1600-h/space_paranoids.jpg

    You mean that picture is you playing the game? Haha! No way! That's awesome. I had no idea it was you, from the back like that.

    Thanks again many times over for the high quality Light Cycle photos, Z!
  11. zook_one July 25, 2009 6:45 PM
    Yep that's me... I had one of the 5codes that unlocked the Hi-Rez Trailer.
  12. daddyo July 25, 2009 11:55 PM
    Haha nice zook. Nicely done TronFaq!
  13. Rob Nair July 26, 2009 3:44 PM
    @ Anonymous User #2: WTF? Anal sex logo?!?! You must see anal sex in a lot of things around you because I've been staring at the logo and trying to figure out how it looks like anal sex and I just don't get it. I wonder why it is you read anal sex into things... hmmmm?

    @ TronFaq As to the "too realistic" complaints... well one logical explanation may be that the computer world has always emulated the human world. Why else would programs manifest in a bipedal humanoid form? We also get the sense from the first film that the computer world and the programs that inhabit it are endowed with the very spirit of the programmers who created it, influencing the very nature of that world. It stands to reason that as time and technology progresses that said influences would continue to change and shape the computer world to more closely resemble our own.

    Another logical explanation hinges on Kevin Flynn himself. From what we've learned Kevin has been inside the computer realm for 20 years. It would make sense that he should have the skills, means and desire and time to program in changes and reshape the computer realm to be more comfortable for himself and to emulate the kind of existence he is used to in the real world. We see evidence of this in his overlook abode in the computer world in the form of food and beverages on the tables and a fireplace. These are not necessary things as I doubt his digital self requires such sustenance or warmth, but there are there most likely to make him comfortable with his surroundings.

    One thing that worries me about all this nitpicking of the film before we've seen a finished product is that it paints the fan community in a bad light and can have a negative influence upon any future Tron properties like video games or more movies. The fan reaction for the last two ComicCons to Tron have been very positive and may indeed have been the only reason why this film was able to be made at all. I'm not saying that the movie is above criticism, or that you shouldn't express your opinions about it, but lets not nitpick this project to death before it's even had a chance to hit the theaters. I don't know about you, but I'm just thrilled that we're getting a Tron movie after all these years at all.

    From what I've seen so far I get the impression that the franchise is in good hands right now. The early marketing (i.e. the websites, Flynn's Arcade, the creation of an actual Space Paranoids arcade game) seems to be coming from people who really "get" the Tron community. The filmmakers really seem to be going out of their way to show us that they understand that they understand how much we, and they themselves, love the original film. I highly doubt they're going to squander this early enthusiasm by delivering us a sub par film that doesn't acknowledge it's roots.
  14. TronFAQ July 27, 2009 11:45 PM
    Another logical explanation hinges on Kevin Flynn himself. From what we've learned Kevin has been inside the computer realm for 20 years. It would make sense that he should have the skills, means and desire and time to program in changes and reshape the computer realm to be more comfortable for himself and to emulate the kind of existence he is used to in the real world. We see evidence of this in his overlook abode in the computer world in the form of food and beverages on the tables and a fireplace. These are not necessary things as I doubt his digital self requires such sustenance or warmth, but there are there most likely to make him comfortable with his surroundings.

    That was my conclusion, as well.

    Although Kosinski has been explaining that the TRON environment on the Encom mainframe has apparently been going through an iterative process of self-evolution: I don't think a closed system (he mentioned it's isolated, cut off from networks) would have evolved like that. There was no real need for weather simulations, for instance.

    No, if there's a credible story explanation for the increased realism to be found . . . it's that Flynn has been reshaping the electronic world to more closely resemble what he feels comfortable with. He's been slowly turning this world inside the computer, into a simulation of the real world. With all the creature comforts he remembers, including food, furniture, a fireplace, candlesticks, etc. in that abode we saw him in.

    Flynn is essentially a diety in the electronic world. He can probably do almost anything. He must rival or surpass the power the MCP had back in the original film, by now.
  15. daddyo July 28, 2009 1:13 AM
    I actually asked for a game token, they said that only the comicon people (with bands?) got them. Oh well...
  16. TronFAQ July 28, 2009 5:51 PM
    I just found out there's a scam going around, about a so-called "15 minute secret press only" version of the TRON Legacy trailer.

    This is FAKE. Don't fall for it. The site that claims to have it, has advertising and then states you have to take a survey to access the trailer. Well, it's just the same trailer that was freely released by Disney to the public. This site is trying to make money off people who fall for the scam.
  17. TronFAQ July 30, 2009 3:47 PM
    There's are also a few audio tracks out there, some of which are claimed to be the actual Daft Punk theme heard at Flynn's Arcade.

    They're all FAKES so far. Re-interpretations of the theme, done by other artists and fans.

    Not that there's anything wrong with them being made. I enjoyed the Cryda Luv' version. What's wrong is if anyone tries to pass them off as the actual Daft Punk theme. Either intentionally, or because they've been duped themselves.

    Cryda Luv', for example, never tried to claim it was the actual theme. But a bunch of news sites started reporting that his version was the real thing, without checking first to see if this genuinely was the case.

    Which is pretty irresponsible of them. What happened to proper journalism, and doing your research first?
  18. Anonymous August 11, 2009 8:04 PM
    I'm late to the news and only found out about it here: http://www.savvycrew.com/community/showthread.php?t=3448

    The HD trailer can be seen here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcofAcUcgKw

    This will be great in 3D IMAX so Disney better not screw this one up
  19. Unknown August 28, 2009 2:59 PM
    I really, really want to be cautiously enthusiastic about this movie, knowing Disney's track record with both TRON and sequels, but seeing the viral campaigning that thay're doing makes me believe that this film is in good hands.

    As an additional note, the Cryda Luv' rendition kind of reminds me of the Game Boy Advance Killer App theme. Nice!

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