pls dont stop running it! ill be there soon to pay to watch it!!!
Also, they decided to cast Jared Leto. That’s enough to keep some people who’d otherwise watch the movie away.
Jared Leto is a producer for the movie and is probably the one trying to make Jared Leto happen.
I was one of the people who stayed away because of Jared Leto.
I was sooo gonna say this… I’d rather have anyone in the celebrity world
Also, this
A random famous person is accused of socially inappropriate behavior and they’re banned from Hollywood before any evidence has been presented… But Jared Leto is accused of sexually harassing and terrifying his costars, going overboard with his “method acting” behind the scenes, which brought up a huge public debate over whether method acting was a legit thing or just a sign of poor acting skills… and the dude keeps getting cast in big films.
Does he have friends in really high places or something? Does he have dirt on Hollywood elites? Why is this guy still making movies?!
I think someone else pointed out that he is a producer on the movie. So, I guess he has enough money to throw his weight around, and that gets him more money or something. Ridiculous world, this is.
It’s not as brainy as the past films and tries to appeal to the multiplex masses
Once again by trying to appeal to everyone Hollywood and corporate America have appealed to no one. Congrats, you made a movie no one wanted to see. Old Tron fans saw you trying to make a bland corporate written sequel, and people who have never seen Tron see a bland action movie with no plot.
And with is “brainy” in this case? Do they mean plot? That is crazy smart people don’t want to just explosions and that we want a plot?
I’m a really big fan of Tron, and I loved the far-too-late sequel with the excellent Daft Punk soundtrack, but Ares has 1) Jared Leto and 2) Looks stupid as heck. So even some people in their ‘target audience’ are taking a pass on this one. Stop trying to make every damn movie a ‘franchise’, hollywood.
This movie should have been made 12 years ago
I’ve only seen one ad, and it looked nothing like a Tron movie… Like are they even in a computer? Stupid.
The first time I heard about it was a week or so ago, and the description someone gave me is that the computer people come into the real world. I dropped my jaw and thought to myself that the idea is the exact opposite of what made tron… well, tron.
Jeez Louise guy, watch your language! There’s fucking children in the room!
I loved the original Tron as a kid, I enjoyed Tron Legacy. I will never see Tron Ares because Jared Leto is a black void of personality. I’d rather rub salt in my eyes then watch him trying to act.
I just went and saw it.
Honestly, it was fine except for every time Jared opened his mouth to monologue. I got no evidence other than my guts that say he wrote all his own dialog, and it’s like listening to a teenager try and sound smart every single time.
The soundtrack eats planets. Go bump that shit on loop.
Why Jared Leto?? Are they not aware hes box office poison? I was hyped and it looked amazing until I saw his face. Stop giving him work. Hes so awful
He fronted a bunch of the money to make it, apparently.
I watched it on Flixbaba lol ngl I think if we can Stable Diffusion and voice ai his face and voice into someone elses it’s a decent movie.
Tron Ares is a very long NIN video.
I prefer just enjoying the soundtrack.
The main problem is they are leaning too hard into the spectacle and not putting enough into the story and characters that would make the movie appeal to a far wider audience. The Matrix is still a cultural icon because of a combination of awesome special effects, memorable characters, and creative scenes. The original Jurassic Park still stands out as one of the best movies ever made, because it has awesome special effects, memorable characters, and creative scenes.
That is also before the massively inflated budgets for the last two Tron movies. They could have saved a significant amount of money by cutting down some of the special effects fight and chase scenes and instead showing more character interactions to make those scenes memorable. The later Matrix movies fell into that trap too, but not to the same extent. I keep bringing up The Matrix because if someone asks “What was that series of movies where the people go into the computer and fight computer programs?” that vast majority of people are going to say The Matrix.
The matrix is a classic because it took a basic philosophical idea (Plato’s cave) and told an interesting story out of it. The visuals and zeitgeist are what took it from a nerd movie to one of the most iconic films ever made. The visual language of it is still used. A political movement over a decade after the movie came out named themselves after a scene in the movie. People still talk about the ideas behind it and will say they’ve “left the matrix” as a way of describing a less than zen “enlightenment”. By combining an idea the average person could get their head around, but might be a bit heady for some of them, and a modern for the time fear (these computers seem to be more and more controlling us rather than us controlling them) it got people discussing it and remembering it.
I’d argue the other Wachowski masterpiece, sense8, was also so good because it took philosophy 101 (you can only truly know yourself) and told a story around it (but what if some people could know each other as well as themselves), it just had the misfortune of being kinda boring for the first few hours.
I think a lot of screenwriters could take a hint from that. Rather than trying to just tell a story, try to write a story that is built on ideas that you want to talk about or have people talk about. Try to create a harmony of aesthetic and plot with the point. And producers need to not try to shove these stories into easily marketable shapes. No story is great without risking being bad
See, this really explains why nobody can get this franchise right: nobody knows what the fuck is wrong.
Well, I’ll tell you what’s wrong with this franchise: it’s boring. You have shocking and wonderfully stunning visuals along with awesome soundtracks, but the story is boring as hell. All of these three movies are just so dull.
Make a Tron movie about something interesting, and people will go to see it. It’s a simple as that.
The thing is - the original became a cult classic in part because of the “cutting-edge” special effects. These modern takes look flashy, but they’re not showing us anything “cutting-edge”.
Funny enough, I think the now-dated look of the original is part of its charm. I wonder if a Tron sequel would do better with a “dumbed-down” look.
I saw the original in the theater. It was exactly as amazing as advertised.
But it’s been a long time since then
I saw the sequel in imax. It was also amazing. In no small part due to the soundtrack and aesthetic. The plot and acting was meh. Deaged actor tech was also uncanny valley, so was the weakest part.
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Honestly studios have been leaning on effects for so long now, and they have got so good that it doesn’t really matter anymore, I haven’t been impressed by VFX for some time now and not sure I ever will be again especially with AI use ramping up.
Right… That’s why a $33 million box office on $180 million budget is “totally fine“
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Good luck with that. 98% of Hollywood is derivative writing, and yet the unions protest AI.
AI can’t write better, I’d protest the thing taking my job too
LOL. downvotes…how many ripoffs of Aliens have we seen now? 20? 40?
How about F1? complete plot ripped off from Stallone’s Driven, and people loved it.
In limbo is how it has always been. It is really impressive/amazing that Disney dropped 180 mlll into this “franchise’. Both previous movies were flops.
What made them think this would be any different?
I don’t know what made you think that, but you’re wrong. Both Tron 1 and Tron 2 were moderate successes
2.5 the budget is a financial success.
Tron 82 cost 17 mill to make and made 32 mill.
Tron Legacy cost 170 mill to make and made 400 mill.
The Wikipedia articles literally say “moderate success”
That’s assuming today’s standards for a film’s financial success are the same as in the early 80s. Were they?
I think generally twice the budget to break even. Anything past that is a success. However, it varies depending on marketing and expectations. Some sleeper hits make multiple times their budget on minimal marketing, just from word of mouth. Some huge blockbusters spend lots on marketing and barely make a profit without going over 2.5 times budget.
Nobody knows what to do with Tron because nobody knows what made the original a fucken hit. I dont think you can get that again.
The original was a flop, it just got a cult following because tech nerds felt recognized in a movie about ‘them’ and ‘computer stuff’ with delightful 80s cheese that appeals to that audience.
Why Legacy didn’t succeed though I honestly don’t know. I remember seeing it as a kid with my dad in the cinema, it was like the 2nd movie I ever saw in cinema and we both loved it, the ads for it were everywhere and it was pushed as the IMAX film to sell the format to the general audience, every TV played clips of it at the store to sell the FullHD television sets.
No clue why it didn’t catch on, I rewatched it recently as an adult and honestly it has the same general appeal of a simplistic hero’s journey in a unique and very visual sci-fi universe. It reminded me the most of a movie like Star Wars, and for a 2010 film, it felt as good as if it released 20-30 years prior, and even had a universe that hits at something bigger, just like Star wars, not to mention Daft Punk who were still fairly popular at the time because they still did stuff.
The original wasn’t a flop, it was a moderate success
Can’t agree with that. Legacy traded the cool visuals and psudoreligious-techno story for the front of an apple store. The original is still inspiring today with the visuals. Its still one of the first things thought of when people mention computers, virtual reality, or anything that has to do with humanizing computer systems. It had a lot going for it which is why we are discussing it right now. The sequels all fail because they abandon the visuals and still tell a shit story. No one cares about Olivia Wylde’s character, nobody cares about Clu, nobody cares about making armies in the real world with code. Show us a digital planet again, show us a free system with programs using I/O towers. Sequels fail because they always abandon the original Tron.
This is so unabashedly against the grain and out of touch with reality you have my respect just for having this opinion.
I mean, seriously? Tron? The original Tron? “One of the first things thought of when people mention [insert any word here]?”
I would wager the vast majority of people have no idea there even is an original before Tron Legacy, and I don’t even blame them, and out of the people who do know of it, I can imagine only like a few of those people actually watching it.
Original was definitely far more niche than Legacy in terms of reach and appeal, and the visuals in Legacy are definitely more appealing and impressive and oft-cited as such from critics and general audiences.
I have a soft spot for the original as much as anyone can, I watched it as a kid on a Blu-ray after seeing Legacy in the theaters and then my autistic ass would tell my parents that I can’t do homework because “I’m just an accounting program” and honestly I wish I could do that at work too.
Buuut not only is it fairly obvious that the Legacy sequel is more popular, but it’s also quite frankly a far better movie overall, even if it’s less unique.
That said I’ve never actually heard anyone claiming anything contrary to this, so def big props for saying something so outlandish so brazenly.
Edit for the record:
Tron (1982)
Budget: $17mln
Obviously not a lot of butts in seats, but it made it’s money back, almost doubled.
Tron Legacy (2010)
Budget: $170mln
$400mln is a lot more reach. On a budget of $170mln it has more than doubled it’s money back.
Doesn’t seem like a flop, does it? But it makes sense they’d think of it that way when you wonder what Disney probably expected by pumping even more money into merchandising, video games (even for the PC and PSP), a wholeass animated kids show, it’s not too surprising they still wound up disappointed.
Plus this was from a time when studios would make ever-more expensive blockbusters and expect insane returns on even a small degree of IP recognition alone and so pump everything in for that magical one big hit.
Then of course, we got:
Tron: Ares (2025)
Budget: $180mln, yes - somehow more than Legacy, despite that movie looking like an OG fat PS3 if it was a movie, and this movie looking like the Tron video game for the PS3.
Sufficed to say it made a tron of money. That areshole Leto must have some pretty big dirt on somebody to get this made.
You got me, I wasn’t stating facts just opinions and fee fees. Maybe it is just me, who thinks of the original when I hear Tron, and not Legacy. Now, we can play the gross profit game all day but a lot of factors changed in daily life from 1982 to 2010. Including inflation. 1 dollar in 1982 is like 2.26 on 2010 money. We also see Disney gaining am unfathomable reach, with Tron Legacy releasing worldwide and in China, while Tron only released in 1000 or so American theaters. Is that a fair comparison? Enough to call me out as brazen and bat shit? Not really. I mean Tron was Disney’s highest grossing live action film for five years. It was nominated for multiple awards. I just dont believe your analysis takes in all facets surrounding the original release compared to the sequel. Quite literally a different production level with less interesting visuals, less unique, and just about the same sort of confusing story. If we could have some sort of comparison where people are exposed to the two and vote on it, you’d find the original has a lot of merit and is far more focused in scope than Legacy.
Including inflation. 1 dollar in 1982 is like 2.26 on 2010 money.
That still doesn’t really put it anywhere close. Plus it’s moreso about budget vs. return when we think of flops.
Idk it’s just extremely obvious that objectively speaking more people have seen Tron Legacy - a highly marketed high budget action blockbuster in IMAX 3D with state of the art visual effects, Olivia Wilde, Jeff Bridges and a soundtrack done by one of the most popular and recognizable musicians of all time. and especially of it’s time than Tron, a fairly goofy low budget sci-fi B-movie from the 1980s starring Jeff Bridges before he was really all that popular featuring Wendy Carlos noodling on a synth.
This is obviously not to say that one is bad, or that one is worse than the other, those are completely unrelated concepts.
I am primarily interested in discussing why Legacy didn’t appeal to general audiences as a way of understanding what makes a mass-appeal successful movie, because while Tron 1982 is also a good movie - it is very obvious why it didn’t appeal to general audiences.
We also see Disney gaining am unfathomable reach, with Tron Legacy releasing worldwide and in China, while Tron only released in 1000 or so American theaters. Is that a fair comparison? Enough to call me out as brazen and bat shit?
That’s like my entire point though. Obviously more people saw Tron Legacy, compared to Tron. But it’s not just the reach either, as we can also see with Tron Ares.
I didn’t call you “bat shit” (one word btw), I expressed respect for having such a wild take because I’m also a huge contrarian on Lemmy at times.
I mean Tron was Disney’s highest grossing live action film for five years.
Because Disney didn’t make many live action films during that time.
https://www.thegibsonreview.com/blog/disney-through-the-years-the-1980s-live-action-features
The only one I personally even know of from this list is “Honey, I shrunk the kids”.
literally a different production level with less interesting visuals, less unique, and
That’s subjective, I prefer the visuals of Legacy by a mile, and I think they are far more unique, they’re just also more generally appealing because they don’t look so low budget (even for the time Tron 1982 released).
All of these things should’ve made Legacy even more of a success though even if you were right.
I also don’t think it’s even remotely reasonable to compare the story in Tron 1982 which is about something like stealing a video game’s code - incomprehensible to general audiences - and Tron Legacy, which is a pretty nice simplistic hero’s journey about a guy meeting his long-lost dad. Very human, very mass appeal, very star warsy. Should’ve been a bigger hit and idk why it wasn’t.
If we could have some sort of comparison where people are exposed to the two and vote on it, you’d find the original has a lot of merit and is far more focused in scope than Legacy.
No it wouldn’t.
You are saying that based on your opinion of the original. You do understand that not everyone shares this opinion? In fact what facts and figures we have indicated the opposite.
Heck I’m quite sure Disney did their research for Ares and found that copying the Tron Legacy aesthetic tested better by focus groups, because y’know - it’s the one thing everyone says was great about that film.
You do also understand what mass-appeal means, yes? It’s not really about merit. Art doesn’t become popular because it has merit, if anything above the level of what can be considered a “professional” or “competent” production of anything, I would wager that merit has an exactly inverse correlation to popularity.
Legacy is ass. The original is far more unique. I will die on this hill and thats fine. You can dissect each part of my comment but the fact still remains that Tron as an IP is fucking dying because of the choices of it’s descendants. “Mass appeal” was apparently not enough. You have to stand for something to be something, not just what you think everyone wants to see, and the original Tron was not trying to be something everyone wants to see.
I honesty think people just like the Daft Punk score I dunno, it’s not a very good movie at all, the first was far better and had a lot more substance. Somethings don’t need a sequel maybe, it was a movie for it’s time and place.
Tron was hardly even in Legacy. He had a little screen time as Wixler (or whatever the name was) and then near the end of the film we learn that one guy is Tron right before he crashes his plane.
If you’re going to make a Tron movie, you should include Tron in it.
The original was a flop,
I completely disagree. I was a kid when that came out and we all fucking LOVED it. It was unique, amazing to look at, a great score (which you probably know the melody), spawned several popular video games, and was forever printed into the minds of that generation. “Flops” don’t do that.
It didn’t make Star Wars money, but it didn’t lose money.
Yes I like it too, I mean in terms of success
Tron/Wreck-It-Ralph crossover.
It’s a less stupid idea than casting Jared Leto.
just make it look cool, sound cool, and give it a vaguely sensible story.
vaguely sensible story
“Oh shit. I’m stuck in the computer! Hey, how do I get out of here?”
“Just go over there.”
Then just fill in what happens on the way over there.
Going into the computer is boring in a time where we are all in the computer all day. Make a sci fi series where the characters are transported to some green land with good food and sunshine.
That’s you watching lotr.
Make a sci fi series where the characters are transported to some green land with good food and sunshine.
Strange World by Disney.
monkey paw curls ; I hate disney. Or more like, I hate that these days everything is disney.
Right, but there’s ways to get disney stuff without paying them 😉
No I mean I hate their products; I hate their story telling codes. I hate how Disney tells stories. And by that same logic i hate that the American disney story telling structures are so widespread these days. It’s just a monopoly.
Ah, okay. We dislike some of their stuff, but not all. We agree it could be a lot better though!
Cringe
TRON was already dull, but now you can watch a sexless incel-coded one starring a crook bloke.
Agreed. Only saw the second one but it was so boring that the only thing I remember from the film was the Daft Punk cameo. It completely turned me off from ever wanting to see the original.
How are we pronouncing “ares”?
TRON: ARSE
I laughed at loud at the “ARSE” reversal
It’s such low hanging fruit omg
I absolutely loved this. Thank you
I was more making a joke about how close “ares” is to “arse”, but thank you.
Arse Technica
