#324. 'Tron' (Disney+)
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The gang tackles the 1982 original Tron, and the verdict is nearly unanimous derision: Sonny delivers a full-throated takedown, calling the costumes cheap-looking foam-rubber garbage even by 1982 standards (especially next to Blade Runner, The Thing, and Wrath of Khan, all released the same year), mocking the incoherent "games that don't matter in real life" logic, and marveling that a movie named after its least important character became a franchise at all; JVL, who was exactly the target eight-year-old audience in 1982, recalls the crushing disappointment of a movie sold as "the next Star Wars" that turned out to be 45 minutes of corporate-IP courtroom drama, though he defends the iconic light-cycle and Recognizer design work and Ben Mendelsohn-shaped praise for how much better a modern actor could have played Dillinger; Mike, watching for the first time, is baffled that it isn't really about a video game at all, can't tell the identical-looking programs apart, and wishes he were watching The Wizard of Oz instead. They also compare it unfavorably-but-slightly-better to Tron: Legacy and dunk on the incoming Tron: Ares, concluding Disney only keeps rebooting the IP to justify its "kick-ass" theme-park ride. Before any of that, the opening third is consumed by a long debate about airport-timing personalities (JVL's obsessive early-arrival habit vs. Sarah Longwell's zero-buffer philosophy, Sonny's flight-anxiety insomnia), Mike's rambling story about getting cornered by an over-enthusiastic Halloween-loving stranger named Luciano at a Manhattan tiki bar, and a box office segment covering Taylor Swift's The Official Release Party of a Showgirl topping a weak weekend and One Battle After Another's soft holds in premium large-format theaters.
From the show notes
What a bad movie this is!
Full transcript
Mike00:00:00Hey, hey, hey, it's the big master control program everybody's been talking about.
Guest00:00:04Kevin Flynn, computer genius. Taken prisoner and held captive within the digital world of the computer itself. Trapped inside an electronic arena where love and escape do not compute.
Mike00:00:51Welcome to the Sub-Beacon podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my two co-hosts. We've both been derezzed more times than I can count, but somehow keep respawning for another episode of this podcast. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Check us out on Instagram at Sub-Beacon. And, well, am I forgetting anything else? I don't know.
Sonny00:01:18I don't know. Are you? This is your job. This is my job.
Mike00:01:21Warren, come on. And we're going to be talking. I was trying to think if there was another account to follow. Go to Sub-Beacon.com. Listen to new episodes every Friday. Join the conversation in the comments. We've been getting a lot of comments, by the way, on these episodes. People love.
JVL00:01:38Because we're talking about hornets.
Mike00:01:41Hornet talk.
JVL00:01:42People love hornet talk, but they love. That's how Joe Rogan got where he is. That's right. 15 hours of hornet talk a week. We should have a hornet cast.
Mike00:01:50They love the pinball talk, too, JVL. Don't sell yourself short. But you can only do that over at Sub-Beacon.com. Tell your friends and family. We're going to be talking about. About Tron, the original Tron, the movie that spawned a franchise.
Sonny00:02:04The movie that started it all.
Mike00:02:06Later on in the show. But first, let's see what is going on with everybody. JVL, you want to kick us off? Yeah, I just.
JVL00:02:17So this is like an interesting. Like, you know, there are two kinds of people that that dynamic. And when it comes to travel, I think there are two kinds of people. There are the kind of people who obsessively. Plan and try to weeks ahead of time or locking the perfect flight or the perfect. And then there are people who just can't be bothered to do any of this. And they just do it all last minute by the seat of their pants. And this breaks down to how how early you get to the departure place, right? You either show up a good two hours early at the airport every time or 45 minutes for the train. Anyway, I am the I am the obsessive planner type and the get there super early type. And I just this week on a trip to D.C., I I made a conscious decision to try to live the other way where I bought my train ticket literally as I was leaving the house to go to the train station and then leaving the office to go back to the train station. And I found myself like I I got there three minutes before the train down to D.C. left and for the train back to to Jersey, I had to. Run through Union Station like Tom Cruise in the firm and I was the last person onto the train and the conductor just like shaking her head like as I come and I. So here's what I would just like to ask you guys, because my my my friend Sarah Longwell is she lives every day like that and she she is one of these people who if she arrived. At the airport more than 10 minutes before they close the airport door, she considers that a personal failure because she has wasted her own time and she's like, you know, no, like I, you know, I I should be why should I be sitting around like I should I should make sure that I'm I'm optimizing that I I'm not losing dead time like that and I just don't understand how anybody can live like that and I've just wonder what your guys thoughts are question how you approach this aspect of life JVL.
Mike00:04:27I have a question though about. About Sarah's like the time that she is spending or a person like that is spending before they get to the airport right like what is it that in the time that someone like you or I because I'm similar to you in that way although in some ways different but like that we're there in safely waiting outside the gate or on the platform for when the thing shows up or when it's time to go like that time what is the person
JVL00:04:58who is not doing that doing are they like you know finishing paying their bills or folding their laundry or I assume curing cancer yeah I guess it must be but or either curing cancer or doing something so cool I can't even conceive of it but like it's something like I don't like what goes on inside clubs past the velvet rope I don't know but it must be amazing I guess what the reason I'm asking is because it makes a huge difference if it's like well there do those people are using that time
Mike00:05:28not to wait outside the gate but to get something productive done or are they just farting around at home and like just kind of live in every part of their life as like I don't know I don't know what I don't think Sarah lives that lives her life I don't know I assume Sarah is like has phone calls and stuff to make right like if I was making if I was on the phone all the time with people I would not want to be in the airport that's like that's a bad place to be on the phone you don't you don't want that
Sonny00:05:57um I am I am the obsessive planner type I am the get there two hours early type I do not I do not care for uh the the folks who stress I don't stress and and like this this is a problem for me because I got two small kids so like we spend up we end up spending a lot of time in the little junior airport play area where they're like there's like the saddest play area ever it's the worst I mean it's very sanitary though I'm sure it's genuinely it's genuinely the worst. place in the in the world um but we end up we usually end up spending Michael don't you worry antimicrobial they take care of it they they hose it just just rolls it rolls right off those bacteria uh so I but I uh but the but but it's it's kind of a false dichotomy for us I feel like because if I get to a place an hour early and I'm sitting there like I can do work I can write or I can I can read a book I need to read or I can you know I can I can I can do things like I can't record a podcast I can't shoot a video but like I can I can I can do my writing I can do my reading like it it is it is not unused time for me you could watch Tron on your phone the way it was I could watch the way the way Jeff Bridges intended I don't even know who the director of the original is uh like we'll talk about that later the way the way that guy intended you to
JVL00:07:27watch it on your on your but is it for you a question of productivity or is it a question of not feeling the the rising panic of like oh what if I miss my because for me like I don't know what I think happens if you miss your flight but it sounds horrible like if if you miss your flight is it like showing up late to school which is a thing that I had a real it goes on your record I mean let me tell you nobody was more obsessed with getting to school on time than me because I was like I I don't know what they do to kids who show up three minutes late to school that's how I mean
Sonny00:08:02how are you gonna get into Harvard if you show up late to school the airport gate guy holds you upside down and shakes your pockets until all of your money falls out because you're paying a lot
JVL00:08:13of money for the next flight that's what you're doing for me it just all feels like I'm not gonna get my gold star I'm a person who wants a gold star from everybody he comes across in life and I and I hate and resent the people who are giving me the gold star like as they're pinning it on me I sit there and I just like oh I fucking want to just beat the crap out of you but I have to get the
Sonny00:08:38gold star anyway right right no I feel you um I uh I feel I'm more ambivalent about the gold star but I do I am I am like I am terrified of not I am terrified of missing a flight and the way this manifests for me is that I cannot sleep the night before if I have a morning flight if I have like if I have like a 9 a.m if I have a 9 a.m flight so let's say I'm I'm sleeping in a hotel and I've got a 9 a.m flight the next day that means I gotta get up and I gotta be at the airport no later than eight eight is like the absolute
JVL00:09:12later hour before the flight oh look at Mr. Carefree Mr. Hippie Dippie Summer of Love
Sonny00:09:20that's why I get that's why I get how was Woodstock I get the pre-check so I can just skip right to the front of that line um uh so I mean I need to be there at least an hour but then I have to I have to figure in I always whatever the whatever the longest theoretical time is that I will be in the uber I always add like 20 minutes it's like from from like downtown from downtown DC to DCA for instance is about it depends on traffic but it could be you know let's say 20 minutes let's say let's say it's a 20 minute I will order the uber like I will order the uber an hour ahead of the hour ahead of time yeah so I will I will probably end up getting there like 80 or 90 minutes ahead of time is what usually ends up happening right right that's that's how I but but but so this means so let's say I've got a 9 a.m flight that means I need to be there at 8 that means I need to order my uber at 7 that means I need to be up at 5 30 I gotta I gotta be if I'm not awake by 5 30 and my body knows this and that's why it wakes me up every 15 minutes starting at 4 30 my body's like uh you sure about this you sure about that you sure about that so sure it's not 5 30 yet let's check let's better check that jack reacher with a clock in your head and I tell you I tell you it's it is a and that is that is my that is how my version of this manifests it like
Mike00:10:47it fucks up my whole sleeping cycle so I will say that um the familiarity of a particular like getting to the airport like getting to a specific airport like national uh airport uh and knowing how long certain things take I think has reduced my anxiety about this quite a bit where like I don't feel as strongly about building that extra buffer sonny that you were talking about because there was a time in my life where I was doing it all the time and I knew exactly what it even kind of what I get obsessed about are like checking things like traffic like okay is there going to be something freakish with traffic which do you see there could be um the last time I was
Sonny00:11:38flying out of DC there was a marathon going on and I'm like this is why this is why I always tell the marathon I like I was like I was checking I was looking at the uber and I was like why is it taking so long what is it why isn't it going the direct way and then I looked at my google map and fucking marathon going and all the streets are closed off well here but I had built in enough
JVL00:12:01time so there's an issue good good yeah there's I was gonna say there's only one area of my life in which I do live like Sarah and that's showing up for movies because if I get to a movie theater more than 30 seconds before the actual opening credit title like showing the studio with the Paramount logo or the Warner Brothers if I'm there for more than 30 seconds before that I feel like I have failed and royally wasted my time like I I don't want to see forget the trailers I don't want to see the coke commercial with the nice mixed race couple putting themselves in like the team versions of Fast and Furious and West Side Story I don't want to see Nicole Kidman's plastic face I don't want to see the the this is IMAX you can see a movie or experience if I see a frame of that shit when I sit down I do waste about three minutes just kind of like I can't believe it you don't want to watch you don't
Sonny00:13:01want to watch the Dolby Vision uh ad where it shows you that this is blowing the fire this is
Mike00:13:06the real black this is the blackest black yeah how do you feel about the THX uh logo with the
JVL00:13:12sound they don't do that they don't do that anymore well wasn't THX a competitor to Dolby
Sonny00:13:17yeah I mean Dolby is Dolby it does like essentially what the old THX now the audience is deaf
Mike00:13:23but here's here's the reason here's the reason JVL is because the movie is not going anywhere the movie is theater is not leaving you behind there is something about like watching the plane fly away or in your head fly away but I will say the the last thing I'll say about this is the the gold star element of this is something that I can a relate to with you JVL but also be I have turned a corner in my life where the gold star is increasingly nothing to me because because it means nothing to the people as you who are giving it to you right like nobody is giving you nobody's actually giving you the gold star and it has for a for a kid like me who was like uh I had to get I wanted that 100 a plus gold star like everything you know um he's a pleasure to teach you know sort of thing like that I like I have maybe I have lowered my expectations for myself in my life but like I've just sort of like you know what nobody cares about giving me that gold star they're probably not even going to do it and so it's it's a little liberating um I'm just with the anxiety like the anxiety of like because I've had that moment where like I've missed something and it wasn't a flight it was what was it a tv hit oh where I drove myself
Sonny00:14:55in uh why would you do that uh I don't know I don't know the whole point the whole the only
JVL00:15:03good thing about going on cbn the christian christian broadcast network is that who it was
Sonny00:15:08the only the only good thing about tv is feeling like a big shot because they send you a big black car to pick you up and take you there and then some of the drivers anymore the driver waits there for you the driver waits for you while it was this was always the highlight so i don't i i've never done much tv i like i can count on two hands the the total number of tv hits that i've done but the the the best was the best was uh red eye back in the back in the day back in the yeah that's a lot of time red eye was red eye was the best because they would they would they would pay for me to take the train i would take the acela up to to to new york city and they would pay for a hotel and they would pay for the car and the car would pick you up he'd meet you downstairs and he'd be like oh mr bunch and and i'd be like sonny please and then i've and then and and then we'd we'd go to the studio and he'd be like all right i'm just gonna sit right here for you i'm just gonna wait right here i'm like thanks man that's great and then you go do the show and then you come back oh man that was but that was like it's not like i got paid for any of this there was it was all emotional
Mike00:16:20payoff because the car well i generally uh i do when that's offered and has been offered and before i worked for a cable news channel uh would would take that often um for what i don't know what the specific reason was this was more than 10 years ago um that this incident happened um maybe i was like i was going to go into the office and then needed my car for i don't know there's for whatever reason i drove myself in and it was a as there often is jvl i think you and i used to talk about like it's like every like 14 days or so like the area around the pentagon just just comes to complete standstill seizes up for no apparent reason um and it was one of those days and i just remember being on the phone with the with the booking producer and be like i don't think i'm gonna make it like uh well you need to try and i was like well i don't think i'm gonna make it were they paying you no there was no there was no pay so i didn't need to but i don't need to try that hard sweetheart well i wasn't i was not invited back on for a good six months after that incident i was i think that i was
Sonny00:17:30in the dog house you know what that's totally fair though you brought that on yourself you
JVL00:17:34brought that on totally rejecting you're working for them for free there this is the thing bookers are asking you to do favors for them oh i know so i don't i know fucking yes and no oh you'd like me to come and help you make money depends on the show depends yeah but but but jvl and i get nothing for it i have to give up my productive time that i could be using to help myself make money to help you about the gold stars it's a gold star about all the text
Sonny00:18:01messages you're going to get from people who are like uh i was watching cable in my hotel room and i thought i saw you on the channel as i was flipping by what was that because i've gotten that i've gotten that text before i was like you did you did see me as you were flipping by msnbc or whatever channel i was on cnn anyway uh all right well sonny what's going on with you nothing we i i actually have nothing interesting to talk about this week so i'm glad we did almost 20 minutes on being on time for things it's uh that that that that that really saved my ass
JVL00:18:36michael how are you buddy good chat uh going on uh i'm fine how's your fall you know we sat down as the dodgers were in extra innings with the phillies the game's probably over by now i came
Mike00:18:45down here in the 12th inning uh well good you're watching you have already watched more playoff baseball than i have um because my fall has been
JVL00:18:54you know consumed by little league baseball um so michael you gotta suck the marrow out of this man
Mike00:19:01in a few weeks baseball is going to be gone i know but my team my team had a terrible season um like the mets were were kept out of the playoffs so like i'm happy with that and i'm just i'm just ready to move on how is your little league season going or is that not what you want
JVL00:19:18to talk no that's not what i want i didn't want to talk about that either um back no all i wanted
Mike00:19:22to say was so okay so i was it was interesting uh jvl you and i were like ships passing in the night uh this week because i was in new york uh for work for a couple of days and i um found myself
JVL00:19:36at one point um sort of like i was covering something district no i was covering something
Mike00:19:45and it went pretty late it was yeah very funny it was uh it was going on for quite a quite some time and i had not had dinner and it was late and i was like i i really just like want to go eat somewhere and you guys may know because i've written about this and i've talked about it but um i'm something of a of an enthusiast for tiki bars and tiki drinks and so uh there was one within like a 12 minute walk from where i was uh that of some renown um um and so uh it was great i had a great time there um and uh what's the name the black banana the name is paradise paradise lost um and uh paradise lost huh yes losing something else there i bet it's a tiki bar come on guys um yeah yeah yeah it's got anyway uh uh and i had a great time but uh so you know but i was like on my own did you get girl drink drunk uh no i did not get girl drink truck i did not have a chocolate juju um uh they make uh they make strong drinks there um but i signed up to the bar and um there was uh and you know you're just at the bar and like there's a guy sitting next to me and is the bar made of bamboo no there is bamboo in other places but um it sounds like a fake tiki bar no it was fantastic you guys should definitely look it up but uh all what i was going to say is this so i sit next to this guy and we're talking uh and he wait wait stop
Sonny00:21:18stop stop stop stop stop all right so you go to a bar you go to this bar you're
JVL00:21:24by yourself yeah tiki bar we buy girly fruity drinks they're not losing your innocence you go
Sonny00:21:30to the tiki bar where you're drinking the umbrella drink with the piece of pineapple in it and you see a man there and you go and you sit next to him he's sitting next to no no i was placed there like it was oh so you were placed there all right so that that second question though is who asked the first who struck up the conversation this guy did okay that's mildly more acceptable and he wanted to know if so sailor what you do
Mike00:22:01no he started talking to me about how uh he was very excited to have come here because of the because he loves halloween and because of the hollow and i'm very confused at this point like halloween this is a tiki bar um and then i realized there's like some like they've like halloweenized it you know they've got like some halloween so it's like a tiki bar but it's got like halloween stuff um and he just starts talking to me and he doesn't stop talking to me in my entire the entire time i'm there about all kinds of stuff but he's sort of obsessing over telling me about how much he loves halloween and uh like going on and on about what a great holiday it is uh and the conversation was like a little little odd a little crazy he's a nice guy but like no i was a little done with it after about the first 10 minutes um but it was dressed like dr frankenberger i named david s pumpkins no it wasn't but he might want to change his name to david s pumpkins um but it did get me thinking because like it weird because i was like oh well you know like why is it your favorite holiday he's like because it doesn't have you know he was like it's not like thanksgiving where you gotta like make this meal and you gotta meet with family you don't like and you know it's not all the hullabaloo with presents you gotta buy for christmas he was going on about how all the other holidays are inferior and all the superior things about halloween and you know what the guy had a point and i was i was thinking about how like really there is kind of something for everybody in halloween uh right like if you like decorating your house uh if you know there's the kids there's the trick-or-treating like the horror movies like and it's like something that people i mean i guess christmas is kind of this way but like people really do like celebrate halloween for the uh for the entire month of october question yes what does it have for people
JVL00:24:03who don't love satan michael what i'm taking from this conversation is that you need a pair of uh apple airpods so you can have a clear indicator to everybody in your immediate vicinity that you're not interested in speaking to them so it's so funny because like
Mike00:24:23this sounds like you're this sounds like you're you guys's worst nightmare like sit up in a bar
Sonny00:24:30and have somebody talk to you like that i wouldn't say it's my worst nightmare but it's it's like as you're descending the levels of hell i would have left way i honestly i wouldn't have stayed
Mike00:24:42but here here's the thing like he was perfectly nice and pleasant what i was really wanting to do was talk to the folks behind the bar because again this is like uh something that i am enthusiastic about and i wanted to talk to them about different things and i know there's another tiki bar in um in new york that i've been to and i know the guy who who is the is the top bartender there and i was trying to i wanted to like talk a little shop with them and eventually like later on in the night i did get that chance and it was great and we had like a great conversation what did you ask what what are the behind the scenes tiki bar things to know well just talking about like uh ingredients you know uh what rums they use um you know stuff about uh i mean it's really like like we don't have to go in there's there's so much to talk about this movie i don't want to drag this on and on um but i do understand that you like this is like your worst numbers it was more an inconvenience and a little annoyance for me um to have sort of my time at the tiki bar uh after a long day of working where i was just i'm trying to like unwind sort of uh hijacked by a guy who really loved halloween and wanted to tell me all about it so there we go i don't know i don't know what the point of the story is but maybe we can move on
Sonny00:25:56sure shall we i think we discerned a lot done making fun of me i think we've unlocked certain doors here that i don't know will ever
JVL00:26:06shut again he said he was both an analyst and a therapist an analropist his name was dr tobias
Mike00:26:16something or another it sounded german anyway no his name was luciano actually um i'm just telling you what happened all right he was there to get a new start let's talk about the box office why did i bring this up why don't i why am i glutton for punishment
Sonny00:26:36i don't know but it's it's great content yeah all right uh let's talk box office this week
Mike00:26:43number one of the box office taylor swift the official release party of a showgirl 34 million dollars at the box office number one this is i'm not quite sure what this is is this like a documentary or like a fake documentary i
JVL00:26:58had to look into this you can't throw this new album if you know you can go for it like i know what it is but it it's like a it's a series of it's a variety show basically it's like here's the world debut of the music video here's some behind the scenes interviews here's some and so it's like 90 minutes of just content mushed together it is not like going to see the eras tour
Mike00:27:22yeah and it's not but it's not and it's not even like a making of documentary well that's part of
Sonny00:27:29it there there is like a making of the video as my as my daughter informed me it takes three weeks to shoot these music videos after she went to go see it she went she went to go see it's informative education three weeks it takes three weeks to shoot these music videos like okay interesting
JVL00:27:47uh no okay go spends a year on each one of those yeah
Sonny00:27:52but they do it all in one shot you should watch some real music videos kid have you ever even seen the animated daft punk ones come on all right you know actually after
Mike00:28:06watching this movie this week i was thinking about the uh the dire straits money for nothing uh video um you guys familiar no oh yeah animation that's that's that's all i could think of while watching this movie anyway um okay what what okay so what should we take away this is just like a movie right like just yeah designed to play on little girls the big takeaway from this is
Sonny00:28:28without the taylor swift nonsense thing uh the box office this week would have been under 50 million dollars it's it's a kind of a disaster out there um i will say look uh you know um one battle after another is down 50 percent weekend over weekend which is a it's a very that's a very weak hold um for a movie that needs to have legs it needs to leg out uh to to you know have a chance of making its money back it's a very expensive movie 150 to 170 million dollars or 130 it depends on who you ask but let's say 150 um it uh it that that movie is that movie is uh pretty much doa and i can tell you why i i'll i'll i'll just tell you how doa it is um the you know we again we here in i i mentioned this i think last week but we here in dallas we have one of the five one of the 10 70 millimeter imax right theaters right and i've just been watching like how busy the 70 millimeter imax theaters uh have have been for this and they've been more busy in new york and la but this is very much a new york and la movie it is not a dallas movie and i will say the last on the last day that it was playing that the each each showing had sold like 15 tickets um so it was uh and that you compare that to sinners which had like 90 full crowds the entire three-week run it had in the 70 millimeter imax or even like the the interstellar re-release that did two weeks and sold out every show like it the this movie has not this movie has not broken through to mainstream consciousness
Mike00:30:05like people are not like it's so interesting that you say that because i feel like i've had so many normie friends ask me about this movie and i don't know what to tell you that's shocking that it's not like it's that's shocking to me that they've asked me about it i'm like really you know about this movie or care about this movie but
Sonny00:30:22yeah um i mean it's not leo people like leo i don't know but it's it's it's dead it's dead in the water uh you know it'll it'll it'll limp along it'll it'll it may maybe it'll get a boost around um around award season time but by then by award season it's going to be out on vod it'll be on hbo max like i don't you know so it's uh i think i you know that this one this one's an l for warner warner brothers has had the best year of any studio so they can take they can take an l here after the success of sinners minecraft uh conjuring last rites um everything else they've done this year has has worked for them weapons weapons was a big weapons yeah um so like they they they they're they're all right but it's but it is interesting that their two biggest auteur driven two of their three biggest auteur driven things they made three big bets this year they made a bet on sinners which is directed written directed by uh ryan coogler of course a black panther fame they uh they released the bong john who movie mickey 17 right um earlier in the year that bombed that that was that was a disaster uh and then they they released this and and this i think you know is not as big a disaster as mickey 17 but it's it's not far off um again maybe it legs out maybe they win a bunch of awards off of it it could it could honestly win seven oscars i could see that happening so people love this movie and people are the people who like this movie are really into it um and uh you know it hits it hits a lot of the political
Mike00:31:58buttons that that folks like so but but now it's in the imac stuff it's been kicked out by avatar
Sonny00:32:032 correct yeah avatar 2 was last weekend there were they lost some it has it has lost all of its premium large format screens more or less except except for like the real rare ones like the vista vision the imac 70 millimeter all right so uh any other box office thoughts uh
Mike00:32:21no okay well let's move on and talk about uh a mo the movie we're just you know talking about because a sequel i guess or a software tron aries tron aries is out it's a sequel i have no idea
JVL00:32:37same universe it's got jeff bridges in it as the original jeff bridges is in it all right all right
Mike00:32:42well that's out on netflix right or something um it's just like your opinion man um but i know i fuck i hate the fucking eagles i kept expecting him to say that in the movie that we're talking about this week which is tron from 1982 sonny you want to give us a big boy review of this uh
Sonny00:33:04tron uh motion picture tron written and directed by steven lisberger the great steven lisberger uh stars jeff bridges as uh hold i gotta pull up the actual thing flynn jeff bridges is kevin flynn who worked for the the programming company ncom and he got fired he got fired because uh the evil ed dillinger dillinger that's a name uh stole his stole his work with his secret program the master control program um and uh and flynn has been trying to get his games back because that's what dillinger stole dillinger stole his games and he made a ton of money he's basically like the game yeah i don't know dillinger's like the game programming genius guy except he's not because all of flynn's stuff and flynn's been trying to steal it back so he's been sending his program clue clu uh codified likeness utility into uh into the grid to get his what you have to understand about this movie is that it came out in 1980 so this movie came out in 1982 it came out a couple weeks before blade runner and there's there that in itself is just an interesting like two glimpses of the future what will the future look like um but but it came out in 1982 and that it's very important to remember that because my understanding of how people in 1982 understood computers to work is that they were magic boxes that you typed words into and things came out the other side nobody i i don't think anybody actually understood how a computer worked in 1982 because the way the computers work in this movie is that you type words into a computer and then a little man runs around the grid going through
JVL00:34:51file boxes it's like a medieval version of how like no kidding like you know medieval times they would think well what are the spirits well you have little men inside you it's the
Sonny00:35:02homunculus it's exactly no i mean it's like it's so funny it's so funny because this movie is i mean this movie is horribly dated and all the ways you expect it to be horribly dated like the costumes are this is this the costumes are made of this awful kind of foam rubber that looks like as people are walking around looks ridiculous and fake i mean this is set five years after star wars like star wars had stormtrooper costumes and stuff like those things looked real and this looks like something homer simpson taped together the night before his kids had a school project do like that that's what that's what the that's the level of costuming in this movie and like again it's dated and all the other ways you would expect like the graphics and everything anyway long story short uh no my i'm sorry i part is where they're walking around they're walking around uh two of two of the programs i don't know several characters in the grid are walking around and they see what are described as i believe power units like spare and it's like it's literally a guy walking around with a bunch of fuses jutting off of him and it's like i was like this is the most ridiculous thing i've ever seen um anyway i had forgotten how absurd so much of this movie is long story short uh flynn gets d d gets sucked into the grid by a laser a laser takes him apart piece by piece and brings him into the grid and everybody in there thinks he's a program but he's not a program he's a user the users are like gods to the programs because the users give the programs meaning but he is a user and he uh and he has to escape he has to escape from the grid prison before he gets put into the games where he will be destroyed by ed dillinger's own program that looks it looks like him it's called sark he's the second in command to the master control program which uh has decided that it's going to take over the world by the way this is kind of this is not even really the main thrust of the movie this is like it's so funny there's there's there are really two different plots going on here one is kevin flynn's like i gotta get my fucking games back i gotta this motherfucker stole my games i want my games back meanwhile master control program's like i am infiltrating the kremlin and the pentagon and i am taking over the entire world from the final mission impossible yes i could do it better than these humans because i'm i'm i can do it 800 times better than the humans that's he can quantify how much better he can run things 800 to 1200 times only that much only by that much that's not really that impressive like if you're sucking up all of this computing re computing power man you should be able anyway um they she goes into the machine and he discovers that uh the girl from caddy shack is uh she's she's and she's sexiest program i'm sorry
JVL00:38:13when she shows up on screen she is in like an industrial chemical suit with uh the like you know uh with hard hats and glasses and by the end of this fucking movie she's in like her midriff is bearing and her like tits are busting out it's just like oh my god because she is she is brought on as oh i'm a serious scientist she's a scientist you know and by the end she's just like oh i like bull fights on asses jones dr christmas jones dr christmas
Sonny00:38:50anyway uh long story short flynn defeats the master control program and they all escape now you'll notice i have not mentioned one character that character's name is tron this movie is named after this movie is named after like the 17th most important character in the movie i don't understand i don't understand who the movie doesn't work if you call it flynn who well no so this is 100 i actually think this is 100 percent what happened the movie someone at buena vista was like well what do we call this movie and somebody was like we could call it computer wars or we could call it game world or we could call it flynn flynn's arcade we could call it and everyone was like these are all terrible names and someone's like i don't know why don't we call it tron there's a character named tron that's a cool name sounds like electronic tron one word name it's a cool name it is a cool name it's a cool name it's a cool name but tron tron fights for the users i don't know what that means precisely because it's never a hundred percent it's a religious
JVL00:39:53conflict because master control and sark uh are there too they basically they are niche they want to kill god yes and the users are gods and what they're trying to do is convince the other programs to stop believing in the users which are the false gods this is true
Sonny00:40:10and the movie would be much more interesting really if it if it dived into this but the uh but like so so what happens is master control program runs around kidnaps other programs that are i guess on the internet none of this is really explained very well well
JVL00:40:26the internet doesn't exist but that's okay he's gonna do that anyway whatever use net use net or
Mike00:40:31whatever whatever the fuck program is connecting everything it's the it's the companies it's the companies programs that they have sold to banks and other insurance companies insurance companies
Sonny00:40:45sure why not i that i'll that sounds fine my point i might my big question though is how are they all can how is he going out there and getting these things but that's neither here nor there um uh what is happening well the magic box this is this is what's happening so so here's what i here's what i've never understood about this movie all right so master control programs going out and stealing all these programs and he's making them fight in the games now are we to believe that when flynn for instance is playing uh my line what well when he's no when no before that though when flynn is actually in his arcade when flynn is in flynn's arcade and he's playing paranoiacs or whatever that fucking game is called um space paranoiacs or space paranoid space paranoids uh when he is playing space paranoids right and he loses the game does that kill a program does is that is he playing as one of the programs and it dies i don't believe so no okay so this is just this is a separate gladiatorial school that only involves programs that never interact with the real world is that right basically what's happening right well that's dumb that's even dumber than what i imagined okay anyway uh it's like the ricket ralph aspect to this well anyway long story short uh you've said that three times defeats master control program and comes back he re-rezes in the real world he i i again don't i'm not a hundred percent sure what happens here he jumps into a beam of light and then he comes back out of the laser and he's he's whole again he it's very funny he reappears in the exact position in which he left where he's kind of like leaning back like because he he got hit by the slayers and he went ah and he's got his arms up in the air and he comes back exactly like that for some reason i don't i don't entirely understand why um anyway this movie's dumb and it's and it's and it's dumb in kind of fun ways but but not that fun and it really it it does it it set aside again set aside the technical limitations like movies have special effects and they're different year over year whatever the actual the actual design elements that they could control like the costumes just look shoddy and cheap in a way that really this could easily fit in with any mystery science theater 3000 movie like i just it looks it looks cheap and bad in the worst ways not even not even like again the dated ways it just looks it looks cheap and shoddy for the time particularly compared to movies like blade runner star wars star trek blade runner like this movie comes out the same year as the wrath of khan and blade runner and like i'm sorry it looks like garbage
Mike00:43:43end of rant thank you sonny jvl you were the prime audience for
JVL00:43:48tron when it came out yeah yeah i first i want to explain so tron is a special effect that went in search of a movie project and so the the entire tron only exists because the director steve whatever his face um they developed the technology which would allow them to put the faces on computer constructs which is now a staple of how everything is done like they are inventing modern cgi for this right and uh having this walk so quantum mania could run right and they decided well we got to be able to make a movie uh let's let's do tron video games are hot put it in video games and uh i i don't think you guys can properly understand the level of disappointment because this was sold to me and my friends as if it were the next star wars and it had video game stuff and if all you're seeing is the commercials like that i am sorry yes the costumes are terrible but when you're watching on a 4-3 ratio television screen at home that's like oh my god it's in color and you see that design with the the bright primary colors and like but then the deeply washed out everything else with but they've got human faces and it's unkind because it's not animated but it's clearly not happening in the real world and it's they're on a light cycle and he's inside a computer oh my god it's like the new star wars and especially because the other new star wars is this r-rated thing with with han solo in it that we're not allowed to see and uh and we got to get computers are amazing i have a trs-80 at home and i'm learning how to program in basic and and then you go there and it's it's 90 minutes and 45 minutes of it are spent like running around this computer firm and it's about like intellectual property and in trademark rights
Sonny00:46:04hey whoa whoa let's not let's not denigrate the two great properties of our time i'm just saying
JVL00:46:12eight-year-old me and all of my friends from the haddonfield friend school were like what the fuck is happening what is this bullshit where where no and in fact so one of the funny things is he in the opening scenes of the movie flynn is in his arcade and he is playing a game a cabinet video game which is the game tron which is released in arcades simultaneously with the movie tron tie-in and which is an unbelievably terrible arcade game the idea was it had three games in it you could choose which one you played you played light cycles or the disc thing or the end master control which is really like a rip-off of arachnoid or arcanoid you know it's a brick blow-up game and anyway the level of disappointment for this with me my friends was total we resented the shit out of this thing that's why they didn't have a sequel right because the kids did not like this I have not seen it in 40 years I have to say uh the reason it achieved cult status is because it is actually a B movie this is not at all like a Star Wars this is much closer to like the the crazy Flash Gordon that we did yeah do you remember the crazy Flash girl like the Dino De Laurentiis yeah yeah like everything was insane and the costumes are saying the queen score right this is much closer to that yeah and it's there's big plan nine from out of space energy going on in it and that's why it feels dated because it's not even that it's date is it this is executed and conceived of as a B movie I would just say one thing as bad as the movie is um if the Dillinger character if we had a time machine and we could take 2025 Ben Mendelsohn back to 1982 oh yeah and give him the part of Dillinger this movie immediately goes to a B plus
Sonny00:48:32I don't think that no I don't I don't blame I don't blame David David Warner's great for
JVL00:48:39David Warner is great but that role is written for future Ben Mendelsohn I can see that that
Sonny00:48:47is I don't know if it improves the movie but no I I the real problem with this movie as you say JBL is that it spends half of the movie outside of outside of the grid this is all
JVL00:48:59these movies like the matrix has this too right you know when you are showing people an exciting new world then every frame of the movie that doesn't take place inside the exciting new world
Sonny00:49:08is is a loss yeah yeah you get you get you get away with some setup I think you get away with some setup but like but even even in the matrix like
JVL00:49:17the the setup takes place in the matrix like yeah well they and this so tron starts they actually give you a meaningless light cycle battle yes inside that makes no sense to you because you don't understand anything that's going on and then they never reference it again and they flip out into the world of n-com and all the corporate intrigue and uh and it's like again because you like the Buena Vista note is guys you gotta get us inside the game sooner and their answer was uh i guess we could put a light cycle battle in okay yeah and so there's like no context light cycle just sitting there in the first three minutes tease this is what you're gonna get later it's uh it's it's bad and it does sort of amaze me that it has been durable enough i think the reason it's in photography and i'm sorry there are some the light cycles are absolutely iconic the logo design and word mark of tron just the t-r-o-n utterly iconic the i don't even know what we call the ships like the the the little floating the recognizers the recognizers right those the design on those things is just badass incredibly simple but fantastic flips out go right really really strong and the vector graphics on those looks really cool and just the the way of having those big primary colors neon as part of the but it's just great character
Sonny00:51:01design and that is enough to be iconic i assume i assume you watched on uh disney plus right so i i also watched on disney plus and i part of me wondered if there had been some sort of digital punch-up of the recognizers and some of the other effects because they they are noticeably
JVL00:51:25sharper than the rest of the effects work i don't think so it's because the recognizers are vector graphics yeah and everything else then becomes like the three-dimensional with surfaces on them right right so you're rendering not just lines to give you the the illusion of three dimensions but polygons right and i believe the state of the art in 1982 was that you could make i'm just thinking about the star wars game do you remember the star wars video game which is all done vector graphics and like the tie fighters in the star wars video game look fantastic because everything is line vectors but polygons which is what the the solid stuff that gives us everything else that's going on in this movie um that looks terrible all the stuff that looks terrible is being rendered with polygons and i think that technology just wasn't there wasn't there yeah do you know this was not uh the academy did not allow it to be considered for visual effects because it was considered to be cheating because it was using computers and oh that's interesting isn't that funny that is very funny the fucking movie invents the modern cgi and doesn't even get to be recognized for it you cheated um yeah michael what did you think seeing it so i had never seen it before and um did this did it exist in your memory recesses at all as like a thing that people older than you like if you had friends with older brothers did any of them be like yeah tron or this is just like nothing it's
Mike00:53:06cultural detritus so tron to me was this mysterious movie that existed that i had absolutely zero desire to see and but was i i didn't want to see it but i wanted to know what it was um if that makes any sense um it's like it it exists it was in blockbuster you know it was like one of the boxes of blockbuster but it's it's in this sort of uh lacuna of the of a time period when like my dad doesn't like didn't didn't watch movies growing up but like my mom was very into movies and so like so many movies that we watched as a kid were things that she watched and would get it at blockbuster but like for kids movies like late 70s through the time we were born she was not watching kids movies because she was she was an adult and so uh like that's how we ended up watching things like caddyshack or slapshot way too young you know it was my mom but oh yeah this is a good one like oh wait no i can't show this to my like seven-year-old um um in the mattis household it was different absolutely i do remember my dad uh we're watching slapshot with us and like the first 10 minutes it's like you know he's thinking oh it's paul newman it's a paul newman movie and it's like there's like there's like 30 fucks like within the first 10 minutes and there's like like naked tits out it was just like it was like whoa okay we're not watching this anyway um so tron was just this mystery to me so what is this thing and correct me if i'm wrong i mean there there was some element of it at disney world at some point and i can't there is now there's a there's
JVL00:55:05a ride like a roller coaster which is very well regarded it's the best it is i'll say i i think
Sonny00:55:12i've been on every i've been on every ride in north america at disney at all the at all the parks i think it is the number one ride it is the best of all of the rides like it is it is an actual it is a it's a real it's it's real good
Mike00:55:32it's real well maybe this wasn't this wasn't there this wasn't right in the 90s but something about anyway the point is is that it was it was on the shelf but not something that i ever watched so i i did not know what to expect i had the concept that it was like about a video game so i was shocked when i watched it this week and like it's not about a video game like it's not really video game at all like i had this idea that it was like jeff bridges goes into a video game and has to like play the video game and like somehow he's maybe even being controlled by somebody outside like playing the actual video game but he's like a character in it and like once it was clear that that was not at all what this was like any mystery about it like just like kind of just shattered and i was like i gotta sit through this boring fucking movie for the next like hour and 15 minutes like what what is this what is this movie is what i kept saying
Sonny00:56:35for a movie that is only 94 or 96 minutes long it feels much longer oh yes so okay so i have a
Mike00:56:45one this is very odd to be a walt disney motion picture and to have a visit sorry but it was
Sonny00:56:54yeah that was it was so buena vista is is is owned by disney but it is not it was not branded as a walt disney picture was branded branded as buena vista which is like that was also like the
Mike00:57:07rocketeer for instance yeah but there's no kids in this movie there's one kid who tells lacy underall flynn is right and otherwise there's no kids and so like it's like the anti spielberg movie in that way it's like like there's no point of entry for like somebody who would be the target audience like i don't know young little jvl to like attach themselves to so i'm supposed to care
JVL00:57:38about this guy because let me tell you again as an eight-year-old jeff bridges might as well have although character who is like i guess 25 in this he's cool he's a hip young cool young guy is so old that to me is indistinguishable from the guy who comes in who's like the steve wasniak character um and uh and that what i'm supposed to care about is his drama about his designs being stolen like i'm video games were stolen doesn't somebody have a lightsaber where the laser swords
Sonny00:58:15he was going to be the most successful video game creator of all time jvl he was going to do that
Mike00:58:22and it was stolen from him come on man by sark yeah anyway so okay so no entry point um i have to say i could not figure out what was happening in the computer like i was like watching it like what is go like who is that i can't i couldn't most of the time it took me like to like halfway through the movie where i could figure out like whose faces were in the little program suits i was like am i supposed to know who that is am i supposed to recognize ram uh yeah like who is i was like who is ram and who is tron and like like figuring out that tron was the guy the new boyfriend who i don't even know what it's bruce yeah bruce scare crow that's right scarecrow this is king um and i was like but like you can't see because they all kind of look the same when you like just have their face like this a cover with
Sonny00:59:21like exactly the same except they're all indistinguishable except for lacey under all
Mike00:59:26because she's sexy she's got her little sexy form-fitting thing but like that flynn has like
JVL00:59:33a toga thing right yeah i think yes so flynn flynn i could visual tell but also as a like he's like
Mike00:59:40spartacus i guess yeah um okay so that but it was just very difficult to figure out because like i don't know who these characters are and there's like things happening to them and like it was just confusing as hell um one thing i all i kept thinking about through the entire movie was this is the wizard of oz like you know like i like i kept expecting like jeff bridges to be like and you were there and you were there and you like because like everybody's got their like little avatar and um i was just like i wish i were watching the wizard of oz instead of this like it would be
JVL01:00:20more enjoyable um the showdown in the wizard of oz where dorothy throws water on the witch is like a thousand times more tension yes than the denouement of this in which the mcu is just mcp mcp mcp is just like a face like the kool-aid man face blurred onto a thing and he's sword on from power rangers he's
Sonny01:00:51he's a spinning dreidel he's and he just he just goes and he goes around and around until somebody hits it with a disc there is a like there no god sonny god no i i there there's a south park joke that i think is just it's the same
JVL01:01:09thing it's but it's a dreidel it's yeah yes yes the the thing about this that i think is is interesting is that from the very birth of cgi in 1982 until today the year of our lord 2025 43 years later cgi still doesn't know how to do the thing which is to end a movie with a cgi battle that has any dramatic tension to it and it's funny that that flaw and this is like filmmakers just make it they make it fifty times a year and it's been like and it's not like there's like some grand past where well you know once upon when they first did this they knew how to do it now they've never nobody has ever figured out how to do this cgi final battles are weightless and horrible and they never work and just get some practical effects in there like make a make a dozen miniature models of x-wings and run cameras. Along them as you as you guide them down a make believe trench and then set off fireworks to blow it up and that has dramatic weight people care about that absolutely you need
Mike01:02:26you need you need to feel real because it's flat it's a screen and you gotta make it feel real and you can't do that on computers final like other quick thoughts. There was there's a scene that really took me out of this extremely boring movie. Which was there's a moment with like these like spiderly looking things. Do you remember it's like which they just look straight up like like hand-drawn animated like it doesn't look like anything even remotely futuristic and it just felt like what it was just another moment was like what is this movie and why is it so that's the other thing I kept thinking was like why do people like this movie like I don't get like what nobody liked it.
Sonny01:03:14So this is this is this is just like did right now this is this is my final point about this movie is that nobody liked it at the time nobody liked it at the time. There really wasn't that big of a cult of fandom around it's not like there are Tron conventions right like people are kind of like a Tron you know I heard once I have no idea if this is true but I heard once that the reason that they made they decided to make a sequel was that in like 2005 or something. A Disney exec was talking to his 13 year old daughter who was like hey we saw this movie Tron it was it was hilarious and crazy and we loved it and he was like we gotta we own Tron we own Tron we're gonna do we're gonna do Tron 2 we're gonna make a Tron movie and this and that tracks totally with what was happening in 2005 to 2008 or so right it was all IP uh exploitation and like there again there's there's a there's a kernel of a cool idea to Tron which is like okay if you get pulled it would be cool to get pulled into a video game and have to play the video game to survive that's a cool idea that's a cool idea and Tron Legacy is I will say Tron Legacy is a better movie than Tron it's not good precisely it it's very it's it's very entertaining if you think of it as like a Daft Punk music video but it's got some great sequences and it's it's just better because 80% of it takes place inside the grid. Like the whole movie once he gets sucked into the grid they're just there and it's it's better um the uh but like nobody like nobody like Tron Tron Legacy came out Tron Legacy died like it grossed 350 million dollars or whatever but the movie cost 200 something it was an insane insanely expensive movie um it looks again it looks good because it was directed by Joseph Kosinski who's the guy who made uh Maverick like oh yeah and F1 like guy knows how to make a movie. Um and he he he for for he the movie he made is is fine it's not great but like nobody liked Tron Legacy nobody was like we gotta get it we gotta get another Tron movie and now this Tron Ares movie comes out it's worse than Tron Legacy it's probably slightly better than the original Tron but it makes the same fucking mistake which is like two-thirds of the movie is set outside of the grid maybe more than that.
JVL01:05:40Say what you will about Tron Ares. The title is boss the logo is boss like everything about it just looks kind of cool I'm sure the movie's dog shit so but this is this is like this this is like the theme of this bizarre
Mike01:05:58franchise which is like all the things that are superficial are nails nailed it it's like it's like it's it's like looking for good writing and good visuals and good by the way I I guess I love Daft Punk so I'm sure the the 2010 movies uh soundtrack is is is great uh this movie soundtrack it's awful it's awful especially again I keep thinking about how Blade Runner is like out at the same time as this movie and like that yeah it's like it's like this night and day in terms of badass movie and terrible movie um and uh I don't know this is this is this is the most yeah I can't believe I
Sonny01:06:43I could not believe what I was watching I was like this this is July of July of 1982 you get Tron in like the the first two weeks I think it comes out in the second weekend of July and then at the end of the month you have Blade Runner but also The Thing I think the I think Blade Runner and The Thing come out like within a week of each other at the end of July 82 um and like again that's that's another movie and what about E.T. what about E.T. I mean E.T.'s also E.T.'s doing a different thing you know I know but it's like coming out at the same time yeah no I mean I like again the the whole point is it you know again but but like The Thing The Thing with its score by in and uh by Morricone you know like it's it's uh everything about this movie is bad and wrong and it just I I it astounds me that they keep trying to turn this into a franchise and I'll tell you exactly why they keep trying to turn it into a franchise because Disney owns the IP and they've a kick-ass ride at the at Disney World and they got to keep making these things they got to keep making these things because you want people to come to your kick-ass ride so they got to slog
JVL01:07:52through it's a really bad series of movies these movies only make sense within the context of Disney's larger corporate IP ecosystem flywheel yeah that's what it is yeah they should call it Tron flywheel Dodgers walked it off the bottom of the 11th I saw that I saw that all right
Mike01:08:12uh any other final thoughts on Tron all right that's all the time I can't wait for the next
Sonny01:08:18Tron movie they'll they'll crack this code eventually that you know what they should
Mike01:08:22mash up Avatar and Tron to uh Tronitar Tronitar two two franchises nobody actually likes uh
Sonny01:08:30Tronitar tiki bar number three that's the the whole thing could take place in a tiki bar
Mike01:08:34Tron now you're speaking my language it's now you're talking it's just uh wait what
Sonny01:08:38was your friend's name what's your new friend's name Luciano Luciano it's just Luciano talking about how much he loves Pandora and so you go to Pandora and they've got the floating rocks up in the sky and it's like a floating mountain everybody loves floating
Mike01:08:54mountains uh I wish I were a girl drink drunk right now all right that is all the time we're giving to this episode tell us what you thought about Tron in the comments leave us a comment on Instagram and we will talk to you next time yeah um oh we didn't talk about the guy the the the funny the part that where I was just like I had to like burst out laughing and just like give up on like caring about this movie which was like the old guy the guy who started the company his little wizard of oz character was
Sonny01:09:32the guy the guy in the little like he it's like he's like in a trash heap
Mike01:09:37I don't even understand what that is he like spins around and he's like he's like he's a garbage pail kid it's that way it's like what is what is going on like it's like a little volcano
Sonny01:09:50man no the the costume designs on all the like this the the like background characters in in the grid are hilarious it's like um it's like oh it's like never-ending story the the the sequence of never-ending story when they go to like the the the the castle where the the little princess girl is and it's just like a bunch of like the lamest shit you've ever seen in your life that somebody slapped together in 30 seconds okay that's what that's what that whole sequence is
Mike01:10:22okay the difference is that was like a bunch of germans making west germans making like a movie on uh shoestring budget this is disney like no excuse no excuse no this i don't think this is a
JVL01:10:35maybe i'm wrong i don't think this was a big budget production okay well it should have been
Mike01:10:40would have looked better
Sonny01:10:42they made it for 17 dollars i'm sure it's fine
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