On a grey day, I made my way into London to the IMAX theatre near Waterloo. Typically, the London Tube network had a myriad of problems for us to negotiate but we got to the IMAX at 13:15.
I guessed that there was approximately 100 people already queueing up. Many stereotypical characters made up that queue and I set about spending the time looking for Tron related clothing. Thankfully, there wasn't any Joe Maynard style costumes but I did spot original Adidas Tron tops and an original Tron t-shirt. Otherwise there was the obligatory
Last Exit To Nowhere Blade Runner shirt and 80s retro themed Tees on display.
We were kept waiting for some time. If I recall correctly we went into the auditorium at about ten to two :O The annoyance of this went away as we were presented with "Flynn Lives" T-shirts, whilst basic they were a pleasant fanboy surprise.
We took our seats and eventually were told that, due to the time difference, we were the first group to see this teaser trailer. Being a typically English audience, we didn't know wether to "whoop" or clap. A few self-conscious "whoops" could be heard before we all joined in to clap the trailer.
The trailer begins with Bruce Boxleitner's character Alan Bradley telling Sam Flynn that his father has been missing for 20 years and was pioneering anything from computers to medicine.
"I've told you that I'd let you know if I ever had information about your missing father."Sam is given a set of keys to Flynn's place, after being told that a call was made from a line that had been disconnected for 20 years. Sam is then seen racing through the streets on a real world motor bike. This reminded me of Kirk in the 2009 Star Trek movie.
Flynn's is now a dark deserted place; a contrast from what we remember from the original movie. (I felt nostalgic goosebumps at this point). Sam comes across a Tron arcade station; the exact same one that we used to play back in 1982. He shoves in a quarter, for it only to be spat out again. The Arcade machine opens to reveal a secret hidey hole with an old PC on a dusty desk. Sam sits down hits a few keys and we see a familar laser fire up behind him.
What follows is the usual teaser trailer montage of superfast edits of material that has already been finished, including;
A great shot of a newly designed Recognizer hovering over a number of humanoid programs. This time, the Recogizer has a lot more moving parts and looks very well updated as does everything else.
We see the young Flynn in the concpit of this thing. There is a shot of what looks like a version of Flynn's Clu program. Clearly he's not necessarily on the side of the angels.
Olivia Wilde is seen languishing on a couch.
There are shots of programs fighting with discs.
We see Sam Flynn wandering up to a door flooded with light, Jeff Bridges' voice saying "It's been a long time" with a shot from the test footage seen last year, of older Flynn.
Lastly, the cool neon Tron Legacy logo comes up with a release date. We see Sam Flynn in a light cycle racing against another, cutting him off. We see his opponent de-res, as Sam says something like "cool".
And that was that. They showed the trailer just the once, frustratingly with no other footage. The powers that be did not learn a lesson from the Avatar IMAX preview that ran a good 15 minutes with an intro from the film's Director. I was prepared for this eventuality but had hoped for something a bit more substantial.
But what I did get was reassurance that this movie is going to be something special, like the original.
See the trailer online this Friday, allegedly.
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