A Geeky Guy's Guide to Tron: Ares
I just returned from seeing (hearing) Tron:Ares and boy are my eyes and ears tired... but in a good way.
I was about eleven years old when the first Tron movie came out back in 1982. I did not really like. I know I was supposed to like it. I was an eleven year old boy with an Atari who wanted to go to the arcade any time he could get a ride and who had HBO (not hideous body odor). Tron was on all the time but it just wasn't good... but I still watched it because it looked kind of cool for the time. To be honest, the only thing I really liked about Tron in the 80s was the awesome Atari 2600 video game joystick that came with a bad Tron game.
Although I know I saw Tron:Legacy that was released in 2010, I honestly don't even remember it and had no urge to ever see it again.
So why was I so eager to rush out and see Tron:Legacy? That is simple, I found out Nine Inch Nails was doing the music for the movie. As soon as I heard that a few months ago, I was in. I love industrial music. NIN is one of my favorite bands of all time. In addition, Trent Reznor (who is NIN) has become an amazing music composer for movies. He really knows how to set a mood and punctuate cool movie scenes. Although he won an Oscar for his score on The Social Network, I feel his best work is in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. So when I heard he'd actually be going back to industrial for this movie, I absolutely had to see it in the theater with the best sound I could find.
Knowing that it would also have stunning visuals, I decided to go all out and see it in LieMAX (that is not a typo, I did not see it in real IMAX as there is only 1 in my state... and most likely yours). I was not disappointed. The visuals were incredible. The only problem is that after playing some video games lately, these visuals simply looked like expensive and well made cut scenes from a sci-fi video game. The big difference was seeing them from a LieMAX projector on the (relatively) big screen did make them way cooler.
But the star of this movie for me was Nine Inch Nails original soundtrack (with a little Depeche Mode love tossed in for fun). The songs reminded me of why I fell in love with NIN when I was a teen. The bets were hard. The guitars were distorted. The BPMs were perfect for stomping. I'm actually a bit surprised I didn't just get up and dance. the songs were that good. They were also a ton of them. I would say there was cool music playing about 70% of the time. Nearly every scene that did not have dialogue was accompanied by incredible electronic music.
If it were not for the visuals and music, this movie would have completely sucked. Every second there is dialogue is wasted time. Luckily there is not much. But what little dialogue exists is so cliche. There was actually one pretty cool and insightful line late in the movie... but then they repeat it and explain it so it lost all of its coolness and meaning. This caused a serious eye-roll by me. Luckily then another song started so I was fine. For me, that is what this movie was: killing time until another song came on. I enjoyed it when the time killing method was a cool visual but most of them were along side cool music rather than instead of it. The only thing that disappointed me was that a secondary reason for my excitement was that I love Jodie Turner-Smith who plays Athena. Sadly, she barely speaks so she was totally wasted.
There is a McGuffin that they chase throughout the movie to at least provide some kind of reason and urgency for the action, but honestly, that didn't matter. The creators clearly wanted an excuse to show really cool special effects while vehicles chased each other and blew up real good. If this was indeed their goal, they definitely accomplished it.
So do I recommend this movie? If you like Nine Inch Nails, you must see it in a theater with awesome sound. If you think it would be cool to see a bunch of real awesome video game cut scenes projected on a big screen, see this in a premium theater. If you like movies with a plot, never watch this. In fact, if you aren't seeing it in a theater, I have no idea why you'd watch.
The visual effects of that movie must be impressive, but the truth is, I love movies with a plot, so I'll pay attention to your review and not watch it, so I'll save that money on the movie theater and maybe invest it in Hive, taking advantage of the market drop
Reading your review, I realized that the visuals and music of the movie are not the real attraction of the story. Because the way the author praised the Nine Inch Nails soundtrack, I think this is the aspect that the audience will enjoy the most.
Nine inch nails, it's been years since last time I've read this name, good music... I was curious on this movie as I seen the previous one
I was just speaking with my bf yesterday about this one, as it seemed quite interesting to watch. So you dropped your review just in time, thank you!
It looks cool, thanks for sharing about this movie. I didnt watch this yet, but maybe i need to watch in theater first.
The soundtrack is the best, there's not much more to add to your comment, my friend. Only those who want to see it can do so without any problem, but it may not be the best option because it might not be to our liking.
I actually have listened to the soundtrack a few times now, but I don't plan on going to see the movie. I didn't see Legacy, and I probably will skip this one. Like you though, I was interested when I saw that Trent and NIN was doing the soundtrack for it. It's been a good listen so far. I need to play it a few more times to really meditate on it. I've seen NIN twice live before, and while we almost died at the first show, the second one was really good. I saw they are touring again and I was trying to talk my wife into going, but she didn't seem interested...
I’ve seen them about 10 times and every show has been incredible. I skipped this last one Because it was in a huge venue and I couldn’t get pit tickets. Now… about Thai almost dying. Please elaborate. The same almost happened to me when I saw The Revolting Cocks.
Wow, that's impressive! I would never go unless I could stay out of the pit! It was at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit and I think they had two bands open for them. The first was Electrolux (if I remember right), we were on the floor and things were pretty tame. Then Queens of the Stone Age came on and things got a bit crazier. By the time NIN started we were basically getting crushed. One of the friends I was with at the time started having a panic attack so we started to fight out way out of the crowd. I remember a girl falling next to me and I'm pretty sure I stepped on her ankle (I wasn't light even then, so it had to hurt). We made it to the back of the crowd and I don't remember much about the show after that. The second time was at the Pine Knob amphitheater and that was much better. We had fixed seats and it was an enjoyable show. I think Peaches opened for them that time.
I thought it was going to be a similar story. About 35 years ago I went to see the Revolting Cocks (a side project of Ministry and several industrial bands). I was right up front. Maybe a row of 2 people deep in front of me. The pit got so crazy that the entire crowd was shoved to the front. I could literally pick up both feet and just hang smashed between people. I couldn't breathe. I had to motion a bouncer to drag me out of the crowd.
I felt like I wanted to watch it too so I could hear the sound of the movie you liked hehe. Well, it's cool because you've been watching it since you were a kid and until now, they've made again a movie.
It such a great movie
!ALIVE
In childhood, all children are the same and they are not interested in watching movies but in playing games. We also used to play games at home like that. We used to play Taken 3 and other games like that, Need for Speed and other games like that. So here I am saying that in childhood, children do not like watching many movies, but later when we started watching movies, we saw real life stories in many movies. So I would definitely like to watch this movie.