I’m thinking perhaps of buying myself the soundtrack album, just for some of the ambient beats. While discussing the sound, the Daft Punk soundtrack is great. I think I'll pick up the soundtrack on disc. My better half – who has studied sound engineering – was even impressed by the quality of the sound (although she wasn’t quite as impressed at the overall product as I was). There’s a winning combination right there. Throughout the film, the sound mix constructs an elaborate atmosphere at least as well as the superb visuals. That’s a rare feeling, and it immediately made me appreciate the film. From my perspective, for the briefest of moments, it actually felt like I was flying. During the opening title, we zoom through an evolving cityscape, but we hear the air fly past. Sound has a greater impact on our perception than we give it credit for. Part of the reason for the effectiveness of the 3D here as opposed to other similar productions is – I suspect – the sound mixing. It’s small things, but it’s very noticeable. It seems like the characters are actually flying over an abyss as they discuss things, or it feels like they are actually walking closer as they chat. It wasn’t necessarily the action sequences where I saw the wonderful layering effect, so much as the smaller character shots. However, I did notice the depth in the sequences on film. I’ll concede that I am not a 3D convert perhaps because I wear glasses anyway, or perhaps because of the way it has been handled by the studios. The surroundings and the stunts are visually amazing – it might not be the game-changer that Avatar was (it arrives a year too late, perhaps), but taken on its own terms it looks absolutely stunning. The sets no longer look like an aircraft hangar painted black with the odd neon safety stripe attached – instead it seems like an actual world. On a purely superficial level, Tron: Legacy is unadulterated visual candy – it’s sugar for our brains. In many ways, the sequel feels like a debt is being repaid – here’s a chance to see the original and daring vision as it was imagined all those years ago. It seems only fitting, perhaps, that Tron: Legacy took so long to make it to the screen – those impressionable young future movie-makers have come of age in the thirty years since the original. It was very much a movie of its time, held back by the status of the industry at the time – and yet inspiring a whole new generation of film-goers and film-makers as to the possibilities. However, it was also somewhat awkward and clunky – to the point that several sequences in the movie had to hand-animated rather than digitally modelled, because time and technology worked against the crew. It was brave and bold, and it demonstrated more than any other film of its time what was possible with computer-generated imagery – it was a statement of intent and a proof of concept. I admired the original Tron perhaps because of what it attempted rather than because of what it accomplished.
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