They’re being chased by Barbossa (Rush), who’s now working for the crown and is also missing a leg. All are in search for the legendary Fountain of Youth, and they have to beat the Spanish there – who want to destroy it? I dunno, I kind of lost track of the plot amidst all of the swashbuckling.

I enjoyed this movie more than I did Pirates 2 and 3, but they do introduce some new characters into the mix here (a young priest and a mermaid) that have a romantic sub plot that’s totally not necessary and kind of distracts from the movie at large. Jack was still fun to see, and it’s great that he finally has his own movie – but I feel like the saying “too much of a good thing” really comes into play with this flick. Jack was great in Pirates 1 because of the strong supporting cast, and in this flick there’s just not enough for him to play off and have some great scenes. Sure Rush does a great job at stealing the show again as Barbossa, but there’s just not enough for him to do and the fact that he’s working for the crown makes him a less interesting character.

Basically, you go to see this movie for Depp and to hear some more great (or decent) Jack Sparrow moments. And you get that. But totally skippable in 3D.

One day, Alan Bradley (Boxleitner) gets a page from Flynn from the arcade – which has been shut down since the 80s. Sam goes to the arcade and discovers The Grid. Once there, he comes to find that it was Clu and not his father that sent the page. Clu has taken over the Grid and is building an army to invade the world of humans – and the only thing he needs to succeed is the Master Disc, which is located on the back of Kevin Flynn’s back.

After being rescued from The Games by a mysterious woman / program named Quorra (Wilde), Sam eventually is reunited with his father. Now it’s a race against time to get back to the real world and stop Clu from the outside, before Clu’s army makes it out into the world of humans.

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For those of you who don’t remember Tron (and I can’t blame you if you don’t. I mean, it was only the first live-action movie to use computer animation effects, was one of the most expensive movies ever made, and also is a little-known cult favorite among sci-fi nerds), you may find this movie a little lacking in the explanation. Sure they explain the core of The Grid and the players, but they make a lot of references to the first flick that may be lost of audiences. Namely myself, who hasn’t seen the original Tron since college. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the movie can be a little difficult to find – especially since Netflix has a backlog waiting of people who, like me, wanted to get caught up before seeing the new flick.

But let’s not dwell on the original, let’s talk about this flick.

Tron Legacy is everything I knew it would be, but is sadly lacking some key areas – namely story and characterization. Like many “visual feast” movies, this one introduces characters and we understand that we should like them, yet we never really get a chance to know who they are. Take Sam for example: he breaks into his father’s company every year and hacks their systems, then goes home to crack a beer after a daring escape that involves jumping off buildings (or maybe he only did that this year, who can say for sure). Sure he has some understandable daddy issues, but that just doesn’t feel like enough depth to me.

The other problem with the movie is a lack of explanation for things. I call this the “Flynn Said It” rule, where basically Jeff Bridges makes a rhetorical comment and the audience is meant to take it as truth without explanation. For example, The Grid is going to change the world – but how is a world populated by personified programs that like to party, dance to rave music, and hang out at gladiatorial games supposed to help improve humanity? My favorite was when he said that Clu could only change programs, but then how did he page the outside world? To me this feels like the deeper threat: that Clu has found a way to communicate with the human world, and therefore is dangerous whether he gets out or not. But we don’t dwell on such things in a movie that is sold on (and it’s best points are) the visuals.

Tron set the standard of computer integration (literally) for sci-fi movies. Unfortunately, like other sci-fi movies that set the bar, the sequels are held to a bit of a higher standard. Like we want them to set it even higher. (Think Terminator 1 and 2, which set the bar for special effects in movies, and then compare it to T3 which was more of the same…and a piece of garbage). Tron does a pretty good job on improving upon what came before, but don’t expect to see anything new here. This isn’t necessarily bad, though, because what Tron lacks in redefining special effects it makes up for in visual style and a kick ass soundtrack. I can see this movie being huge among cosplayers, fashionistas, and Halloween costumes. But the production designers did exactly what you want to see in a sci-fi sequel – built upon what came before, modernized it, and made it cool again. And Tron delivers that in spades.

The movie capitalizes on the things that made the original awesome (light cycle bikes, memory disc combat, lights on people’s clothes) and has made it cool – and then made even more stuff (light planes, martial arts disc combat, LED lights on clothes). And the movie delivers the cool, for certain. Not only in the visuals, but also in the music.

The soundtrack was done by Daft Punk, who many anime and sci-fi fans should be familiar with. They do a good job of taking a movie score, adding in 8-bit techno music, and making it into something that I’d buy in a store (or download for my mp3 player). Like the production designers, they took what came before and they improved upon it – modernized it – and even added a little something of their own to it. If you liked soundtracks like The Matrix, you should probably get this score.

So there are a few things that I hope I can prepare you for in this movie that will make it a little more enjoyable. First off, skip the 3-D. The movie wasn’t shot in it (entirely), and it effects weren’t designed for it. Sure, they’re there, but why spend money on a fully 3-D movie when you only get one that includes a little 3-D? And certainly nothing as spectacular as Avatar. It wasn’t “bad” per se, but it certainly wasn’t necessary.

Second is the visual effects, specifically when it comes to Clu – or as I like to call him, CG Jeff Bridges. The animators did a good enough job for the work to be passable, but when on the screen with real actors you can tell that there’s something just not quite right with the face. The way the mouth movies, something in the eyes – whatever it is, it looks off. It’s kind of a nit picky thing, but is sure bugged me while I was watching the movie. So be prepared for that.

So if you’re one of those skimmers who goes straight to the end of a review, this part’s for you: the summary. Tron Legacy is a visual feast of a flick with some cool ideas and concepts that it never really fully fleshes out. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing for the casual movie-goer. The movie has style in spades, and an awesome soundtrack that will appeal to movie fans and video game nuts alike. Basically, kids will love this movie – and sci-fi fans will enjoy the visual aspects of it. Fans of the classic movie have little to fear here. It does a good job of doing what a sequel should: taking what came before, modernizing it, and adding to it.

Go see Tron Legacy. But save your money and skip the 3-D.

Speaking of my next convention, I’ll be a guest of honor at Cyphan out in Wheeling, Il (where my book was printed)! Cyphan is a brand new sci-fi show, and it’s going to have some special guests from some semi-popular sci-fi shows (cough cough Firefly cough cough Battlestar Galactica cough cough).

The guy who’s running the show just linked me to the TV spot that he produced, which will run in Chicago promoting the show during StarGate episodes on SyFy.

Link

Cyphan takes place June 25-27 at the Westin Chicago North Shore Wheeling, IL. Be sure to check out the website and order tickets. I’ll be hosting a panel about making webcomics Friday, and possibly again Sunday.

Hope to see you there.

After this arc is done we’ll go back to regular updates with my modern artwork. I’ve spent this time mostly prepping for conventions, but I was able to work on the buffer a bit so that’s good.

I hope you’ve been enjoying this flashback story (meaning that I made this almost 7 years ago now), and I look forward to sharing new stories with you moving forward.

FRIDAY
-1-2pm: Opening Ceremonies

-5-6pm: Marketing and Advertising your Comics: Doing what you love and following your passions can be hard. Trevor Mueller has two successful webcomics, The Temple of a Thousand Tears and @$$hole!, and he still works a daytime job in an advertising company. Who better to ask than him about advertising and marketing your comics?

SATURDAY
-11am-12pm: Trevor Mueller and the Panel that Shall Not be Named!: What ever shall I be talking about during this panel? Could be goofy con stories, could be writing advice, could be something embarassing that happened the night before – there’s only one way to find out!

-5:30-6:30pm: How to Create a Webcomic: Have you ever thought about starting up your own webcomic, but you don’t know where to start? This panel will cover the basics of whether or not to use webcomic hosting sites, positives and negatives of working with others, and why every comic should have a script to accompany it.

SUNDAY
-10-11am: Reading With Pictures: Guests Russell Lissau, Josh Elder and Trevor Mueller will talk about their latest exciting project, the READING WITH PICTURES anthology and the organization that bears its name. “RWP: Getting comics into schools and schools into comics…”

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Also, @$$hole! updated with a brand new page. Be sure to check it out!

To be fair, the Goof Troop movie wasn’t a bad flick. But he was still the worst part of it by far.

So in today’s @$$hole!, I got to release some frustration about Goofy. And I enjoyed every minute spent on that page.

Hold on, allow me to back up here. The time is Leave It to Beaver era 1950s, and the world has been over taken by the zombie apocalypse. In an effort to protect society, humanity has gathered into suburban camps with tall fences to keep the zombies at bay. However people can still turn into zombies inside the fence when they die or have accidents. Since space for graveyards is limited, the people have turned these zombies into servants, doing the undesirable jobs. To keep their human flesh desires in check, each zombie is fitted with a neck collar to suppress their hunger.

Enter Fido (Connolly), an older zombie who joins the Robinson family. Timmy, the little boy of the family, begins thinking of Fido as a pet. One day, Fido’s neck collar is damaged and he accidentally turns the old lady neighbor into a zombie. Of course, all hell starts to break loose from there and the result is one of the cutest zombie movies since – well, I don’t know when.

Fido is excellent on all fronts, from the classic Disney-esque story about a boy and his dog to the trials and tribulations of life. All under the guise of a zombie movie. The performances in the movie are very fitting. It’s the kind of movie that you don’t really want to see end.

If you like 1950s cinema, comedy, or zombie movies, then I highly recommend Fido.

The bad news is that I find myself back in the job pool, hunting for work and finding an agency where my skills and experience can be utilized to their fullest. Unfortunately I can’t get into further details on this (and those who know me know that I love to rant), but for now I try to see this as a blessing in disguise. Namely, because I may have time to start reviewing movies and games again.

The good news is that I went out and bought a new laptop. Since the computer that I had been using was a work laptop (and a Mac at that, which kept crashing any Microsoft programs that I had to run every day), upon trying to turn on my old personal laptop I came to the conclusion that it was just too old and too slow for the purposes that I needed it.

The new device is father sleek, fast, and efficient. In fact, it’s technically better than my desktop computer – which is 7+ years old and I never sign it on the internet anymore. Mostly because if I ever did, it would shut down and never work again. There’s just not enough space on it for any more Windows updates, and since it’s not going online it doesn’t really need any updates.

So last week Friday another @$$hole! uploaded, continuing the adventure of Carl trying to stop the evil Michael Eisner. And today a new Temple story went live, where we see Seymour (who we know is not a fighter) getting into a scrape with some Bishops in the Capital City market streets.

This week I’m prepping for C2E2, and I’ll talk a bit more later this week about my convention exclusive print (to promote my story in the upcoming Reading with Pictures anthology), as well as my signings and panel schedule. Then next month I’ll be a guest of honor at ACEN, which is one of the most fun shows that I go to every year! Gonna be a blast!

VOTE!

Eisner gets serious and calls on the guards. What do evil Disney guards look like, you ask? Well, we’ll find out on Friday.

VOTE!

Seriously, this is probably my favorite explanation for what a villain is ever.