CR Blog
Tron goes fast-forward into the past
Advertising, Digital, Graphic Design, Music Video / Film
Posted by Johnny Hardstaff, 28 January 2011, 17:27 Permalink Comments (17)
In 1982, amidst a politicised and combative period of bombs and impending apocalypse, Disney offered audiences an escape into a new internalised world in the form of the emotionally autistic film Tron (original trailer below). In so doing, Tron captured the cold hearts and predominately introspective male minds of embryonic designers everywhere, thereby predefining the visual language of technology and modernity for a generation.
Tron's impact on the visual code for all things ‘digital' cannot be underestimated. Here was a global blockbusting film about technology that existed because technology had facilitated it. For perhaps the first time technology had blatantly made a film about itself, invoking an aesthetic in retrospect successfully determined as much by its own technological limitations as by the expert styling of the incredible hired talents in Moebius and Syd Mead. Tron light-cycled its way into design and the creative imaginations of millions, and in so doing forever co-opted the vector, the pixel and the grid, indelibly stamping its presence upon almost every visual manifestation of technology since.
THE LEGACY LIVES ON
Importantly, in a pre-internet age Tron originally captured for the first time the dream of living virtually and in so doing spawned motion graphics' own totemic aesthetic and sense of modernity (the term as naive and dated as the film itself). The film's legacy can be identified throughout the slew of dated ‘modern' visions outputted during the 1990s and 2000s by a generation of early adopters, who had formatively been exposed to the film as children and who - in the creation of digital worlds - could now themselves wield pro-sumer variants of Tron's own custom designed animation software.
Given access to this previously inconceivably powerful software, what did Tron's pre-pubescent audience now seek to create as adult designers? Unsurprisingly they sought to recreate Tron. Within the creative output of the last 20 years, adulatory Tron references abound. The legacy, it seems, lives on.
So, when Disney returns to this film nearly 30 years later with its sequel, Tron: Legacy, one wonders just what impact the sequel will have on designers of the future? Technology and the world has changed enormously, so what has happened within Tron's parallel universe? How now does the future look?
Somewhat dispiritingly, Tron: Legacy looks and feels almost exactly like Tron, but channeled through a three year-old Audi commercial. The great crime here is that nearly 30 years later Disney has invoked almost exactly the same aesthetic. Whilst the sequel could never have ignored its predecessor's visual legacy, one would have expected Tron: Legacy to have radically reinvented it. Not so.
If modern technology has shown anything, it has shown that it can be warm, human and relevant. Instead we are presented with a charmless bombastic anachronism. Plot was never Tron's strength, but here we are treated to a suspect and clumsily fascist storyline that together with its visual styling, composition and soundtrack would surely solicit the approval of Leni Riefenstahl and Albert Speer. These fascist allusions are actively amplified by its score. Though marketed as one of Tron: Legacy's strengths, not for us the original film's inventive electronic Bach of Wendy Carlos. Instead imagine Triumph of the Will sound-tracked by an industrialised Wagnerian marching band.
STEALING FROM THE PAST
Had this ‘visual prog rock' been made over ten years ago at the birth of the then imminent 80s revival and conceived primarily as a vehicle for a Daft Punk then at the height of their powers, this would have been an infinitely more agreeable and significant experience. Instead Disney has missed the boat and through a blue-screened cinematic equivalent of ‘dad dancing' cried out in ‘digital oompah' to a generation too sniffy, too emotionally challenged and too busy wallowing amidst the emotional landfill of their own referential introspection to care about this film.
But it is particularly ironic, given this film's subject matter, that the greatest missed opportunity within this cinematic experience lies in the film's inability to harness modern technology. If there is one recent film that is best placed to harness 3D, then it is Tron: Legacy. A stylised virtual world within which anything can happen is simply screaming for deep, rich and immersive 3D. It should be a showcase, a pivotal moment for all that is genuinely fantastic about 3D. Indeed, here is a film begging to be interactive. Instead we are mostly fed shallow seemingly faux 3D and fail to transcend the digital baroque of surface and gimmickry.
Perhaps the fate of film in post-post-modern times is that it must steal back from its past (in this case not least The Matrix), but it strikes me that one of graphic design's most exciting frontiers is its intersection with production design in film. On paper Tron: Legacy was a truly wonderful opportunity for incredible and original art direction to improve upon and sustain a never- before-seen technological aesthetic. On paper Tron: Legacy was an open goal built solidly upon a foundation of great originality. The problem, I suspect, is that in design terms it never was ‘on paper', at least not in a contemporary Moebius or Syd Mead's sketchbook. Where we craved the shock of the new we have instead found Tron's legacy to be at best ‘conceptual mo-cap', and at worst a generational vacuum.
Johnny Hardstaff is a director and designer, represented by RSA and Unit9 in the UK. See www.johnnyhardstaff.com
| Subscribe online and save 29% | |
| Subscribe to Creative Review and access the entire CR online back catalogue plus regular subscriber only content... |
17 Comments
It promised so much...and delivered so little.
[comment deleted by moderator]
2011-01-30 20:14:00
[comment deleted by moderator]
2011-01-31 15:49:00
you expected to much, it's a movie made for 12 year olds
and not a bad one at all in that context
(personally i thought parts of it were beautiful)
let's lament the death of visionary sci-fi movies as a whole
if i have to sit through one more film inspired by 2001, Alien, Blade Runner, Solaris or Silent Running
i'll eat my entire Cinefex collection
2011-01-31 19:17:05
Creative Review, you can do much better [comment deleted by moderator] than this.
(and no I'm not particularly a lover of Tron).
2011-02-01 09:36:00
@ 'derek and clive' and 'Jonathon Limpwinkle' (making fun of someone's name? Seriously?)
This is the kind of moronic anonymous bullying that puts people off visiting blogs. 'derek and clive' perhaps you would know who Mead and Moebius were if you'd bothered to read the piece properly as they are mentioned earlier on with links to outside sites about them and their work. In the interests of raising the tone of the debate, your comments have been deleted
PatrickBurgoyne
2011-02-01 10:31:08
Personally I think you've hit the right tone with this article. Loved it! Analytical and informative.
2011-02-01 15:47:00
Very intelligent and thorough piece (and lots of clever-sounding words and references I had to Wikipedia). Although I agree that Tron: Legacy wasn't a revolutionary, perception-shattering masterpiece, it was a pretty good blockbuster with some awesome effects. Implying that it would primarily please Nazis and cause a ‘generational vacuum’ is a long stretch.
I watched a promo making-of film about Tron: Legacy, and the 3D director spoke very well about how big, jumping-out-at-you 3D had already been done, and that the use of 3D in Tron: Legacy was intended to create a much more subtle depth-effect of looking into a screen. I though the difference between the 3D Tron world and the non-3D real world was just right.
2011-02-01 18:31:58
I was like every 10 year old back then. I loved Tron. I loved the imagery and it didn't matter that there wasn't much more to it than that. I think todays 10 year olds will love this film, every bit as much as we loved the original. It's a remake really, not a sequel. If they departed too much from the visual aesthetic, then it would just be dumping what made the first one so good. Maybe Johnny just thinks he would have done it better and just wants to tell everyone? Was he asked to submit a treatment for it?
2011-02-01 18:35:49
@Devilgate
No, he doesn't - we asked him to review the film and compare its likely influence compared to its predecessor. No, he wasn't. PatrickBurgoyne
2011-02-01 19:45:48
Although i enjoyed Tron, more than i thought I would, I do agree with JH comments...although to be fair the film and its legacy had a lot to live up to and would anything of really compared to it for designers and luminaries like Johnny? But what other films around these days have created the impact films like Tron, 2001, Aliens etc did in those days? With the amount of pressures studios put on releases and films these days to break even ..do any big budget films really try to break boundaries or do anything revolutionary from a design point of view unless its been researched and focus group'd to hell...film these days i find are rarely inspirational, or break through in a design point of view because they are made with the masses in mind. And i def wouldnt of expected it from Disney, but dont get me started on that...
2011-02-01 21:05:07
I thought this was a great film, although more of a remake as someone else has commented. The Matrix was one film that was over-hyped, yes the effects at that time were ground breaking but the dialogue and some of the acting was awful! I fell asleep trying to watch the Matrix and the sequel a few times, something I very rarely do. Tron 3D lived up to my expectations and I thought the effects were awesome, no messing around with the look and feel of it just improved massively to today's cgi standards. As far as 3D films go, they seem to be another gimmick from Hollywood to make up for lack of originality and another excuse to charge extortionate cinema ticket prices!
2011-02-01 23:33:39
Returning to this blog somewhat late in the day...
I know what Trevor means when he says that 'I was expecting too much'. I respect his opinion, I just fundamentally disagree with the concept of 'expecting too much' from a high-budget CGI heavy imaginative piece of Hollywood entertainment. In my opinion, if we manage our expectations in line with what gets made, then we will get fed bad films. The way to drive up cinematic standards (or any standard really) is to vote with your feet, or in this instance, write a review that reflects what you (it was an 'opinion piece' for the magazine) thought of it.
Naturally, I had to go and see Tron: Legacy (the whole of Tron: Legacy!) because I had been asked by Creative Review to review it. Truthfully, I'm no original Tron fan boy. I could take or leave the original, but I do understand its importance and its place in history.
I am however a big fan of science fiction as a genre. Science fiction to an extent helps drive progress in all manner of areas. It's where we do our dreaming. It's certainly where Modernism did some of it's dreaming, and it's a very natural playground for designers.
Science fiction has fueled designers imaginations for generations. Though I'd argue that there have been some great sci-fi films recently, Trevor is right, the last considerable batch of great science fiction ('Blade Runner' / 'Alien' / 'THX1138' etc) came a time long ago when US independents (eg: American Zoetrope) had blown the doors off the filmmaking system, delivering us high-calibre films ('Taxi Driver' / 'Apocalypse Now' and so on) that by their existence permitted inventive risk taking in science fiction to flourish.
The system has now, however, closed down somewhat. It's largely about focus groups guaranteeing high box office returns as 'Poepull' smartly observed, and staying afloat in a recession which has an enormous impact on creative risk taking, though many fantastic features (and some of them sci-fi) still regularly get made.
I wanted to like Tron: Legacy, but wasn't surprised at what I found. Maybe I am just the wrong age to review this film? Trevor makes a good point about it being aimed at 12 year olds. Well, it is aimed at 12 year olds. It's also, being a PG, aimed at all children and upwards (PG: Unaccompanied children of any age may watch). In being a PG it's also aimed at the family (Disney do love a family movie because it means just about everyone will be paying to watch it), anyone who has ever liked Daft Punk, and of course, anyone who ever liked or remembered the first film. So that's just about everyone then.
That is a millstone round any directors neck. 'Go make a film that will be amazing, take risks, work with a loved intellectual property and alienate no one!' I don't envy that kind of situation, nor working in that kind of system in the first place. Directors don't just get attached to projects, they get unattached.
But why is it important that light sci-fi entertainment is resonant and strong enough to have a great constructive impact on the imagination? It's incredibly important because it shapes and inspires young minds to go and create the future. This is where the danger of a generational vacuum looms. If you put the same old in then you'll get the same old out. HOWEVER.... I think that if we look to the cinema for original science fiction to inspire young minds, then we are looking in the wrong place. Great stuff is happening, it's just happening elsewhere in abundance in other more contemporary (and traditional) areas.
Gaming is doing it incredibly well! Television is still doing it well (Doctor Who may not be to my or everyones taste, but it is a colossal hit on and off screen - Even Futurama was incredibly playful and ambitious).
But here is where I think it gets really exciting. Advertising. Brands are starting to fund short films and games and all manner of progressive content, and content that is specifically targeted at groups, not at everybody. Yes it's early days. Yes, no doubt the budgets will be lower, but the creative opportunities as brands strive for thrilling media will be bigger and better and weirder than ever. And this is where we, as designers, get involved more directly. More of us making more fantastic work that doesn't have a three to five year gestation period before it does or doesn't get the green light.
This is why it's important. It's not about feature films. It's about us.
2011-02-02 15:47:08
So Tron 2 is our fault now?
2011-02-02 17:24:03
Watched the film at the IMAX. Then went again. Plot is bobbins but visually stunning.
Asking the sequel to have as big an impact as the original isn't realistic given the ubiquity of future tech in films. It's just new news any more. Weirdly something like Avatar (blue people aside) is probably closer to real future tech in terms of military vehicles and whatnot.
Anyways, like someone else said in the comments, it's a film for 12 year-olds (and people who will happily leave their brains at home to visually OD at the IMAX for a couple of hours), so just enjoy it for what it is.
2011-02-02 17:59:30
I couldn't get the movie "Big Lebowski" out of my mind during Tron: Legacy. Better even, there was this gal a few rows back that would pick up on the mannerisms. The dude has always been the dude. Wasn't expecting too much from this re-make. It's time for a new story, somebody!
2011-02-09 02:03:57
Yes, it failed to deliver a fantastical look at the new. The differentiation between remake/reboot/sequel has never been as blurred as it is now. Yet, it did give us Olivia Wilde in skin-tight pants, so there's that.
2011-02-18 18:15:19
Could this article be any more about the writer?
2011-03-29 11:48:00
Get the RSS Feed
Related subjects and keywords
Subject:
Most recently commented
| Brand New Debris Quilt (2) |
| CR June 2012 issue (8) |
| A Balloon for Britain (5) |
| Pretty Ugly or plain ugly? (27) |
| Olympics ticket designs revealed (25) |
Most read
| Olympics ticket designs revealed |
| Freehand: the software that wouldn't die |
| Lance Wyman in Norwich |
| The story of Pentagram |
| FF Chartwell: a graph-making font |
Subjects
| Advertising | (1082) | |
| Art | (420) | |
| Books | (268) | |
| Digital | (437) | |
| Graphic Design | (1224) | |
| Illustration | (675) | |
| Magazine / Newspaper | (215) | |
| Music Video / Film | (742) | |
| Photography | (368) | |
| Type / Typography | (268) |
