Jesse Heinig
@jesseheinig.bsky.social
2.5K followers 230 following 1.7K posts
Game designer. Writer. World of Warcraft Classic developer. Original Fallout dev. Classic World of Darkness developer. Former Star Trek Online developer. He/Him. Account represents personal views.
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
jesseheinig.bsky.social
It's... ok

They had a lot of trouble stitching together two mythologies, and the uncanny valley was in full effect
jesseheinig.bsky.social
It's like a mid film but part of what sells it is, like its predecessor, it's just so damn weird and aesthetic.
jesseheinig.bsky.social
Final shot is a weird reversal of the first movie, in which our world becomes more and more like the computer world. Instead this one is introducing the naive waif to the beauty of nature, beyond programs and city lights, to trees and sunrises.
jesseheinig.bsky.social
In a switcheroo, instead of the sun being sacrificed to save everyone, it's the father. Then the son ascends to Heaven and he takes the entire world and keeps it as his identity disk
jesseheinig.bsky.social
And Tron falls into the Sea of Simulation and he transforms back to his true self, because immersion is diving in the subconscious, he must wake up cleansed, baptized
jesseheinig.bsky.social
"Made it"
Lots of duality in this movie, it is after all about two worlds and is movie#2
jesseheinig.bsky.social
Clucifer can't make new programs, he can only repurpose them, aka Lucifer can't make devils, he can only convert angels
jesseheinig.bsky.social
A nice twist might've been Clu discovering that Flynn's disk is incomprehensible to him. Humanity can't be so easily decided and reduced to numbers

He can still use it to open the door, but the creator remains an enigma

But, I'm not the one writing this movie
jesseheinig.bsky.social
Comparing Quorra to Sam's rescue pooch is supposed to give them a connection, but comparing Olivia Wilde to a dog was... well, another poor choice
jesseheinig.bsky.social
Castos is a crummy character, feels like he exists just to move things along

The story of the Purge and the isos feels more relevant today, eh? The state arbitrarily scooping people up off the street and genociding them?
jesseheinig.bsky.social
(Re: The Apple: The silver surface reflection is for the FX team to show off, and also editing that famous art piece of the artist looking at the orb, AND literally going "on reflection" to intro a flashback)
jesseheinig.bsky.social
Since they committed to doing Paradise Lost, using the apple (of Eden, of course) to open the flashback to the creation of Clucifer is smart
jesseheinig.bsky.social
I miss the echoing vibrato of the digital floors from the first movie. Sounds like clogs on wooden floor. Boring choice there.
jesseheinig.bsky.social
A nice bit of worldbuilding would be to explain the organic food at the dinner table, alas

Costume design is great tho, esp. For K. Flynn. Barefoot is a good choice
jesseheinig.bsky.social
Making Quorra act like a human in her first appearance is a good choice, as it shows that all she knows she learned from K. Flynn
jesseheinig.bsky.social
Clu could've called Sam "child process." Missed opportunity
jesseheinig.bsky.social
Like, just start with the un-narrated section of Sam motorcycling to Encom, then let the story unfold from there

Instead of, what, a narration over a bunch of TC screens?

Ugh
jesseheinig.bsky.social
The intro to Tron: Legacy is so ham-fisted
They are so scared that viewers won't be able to figure out what's going on by showing them stuff, that they added a prepend narration to spoon-feed it to you

+
jesseheinig.bsky.social
Was watching a series with an episode titled "Hard Times" and the streaming service starts playing the Burt Reynolds movie "Hard Time"

Like it's mislinked in the service, if you try going from one episode to the next it just goes to the movie (which is unrelated to the series)
jesseheinig.bsky.social
They're giving them the defense manual

"While we are on offense shifting the Overton window right, this is what you are defending against"
jesseheinig.bsky.social
The things that bugged me the most were:
* The cheap nods to Brubaker/Fraction's Last Iron Fist story without any of the charm or gravitas
* The re-use of a through line that they'd already done in another Netflix show (PTSD, from Punisher)
* "Let's open the show with the hero useless"
jesseheinig.bsky.social
Right? Like I would be in for Django Unchained, the Assassin's Creed game.
jesseheinig.bsky.social
Like, the first TRON movie actually builds its living-world elements off a very real, very specific premise: One dude (Dillinger, David Warner) steals code from another dude (Flynn, Jeff Bridges) by using an AI PROGRAM THAT STEALS SHIT AND PUTS HIS NAME ON IT (the MCP). SOUNDS RELEVANT TODAY

+
jesseheinig.bsky.social
Like there are so many very basic questions that you can build a TRON movie on:
* Do we have a purpose? Are we created or evolved?
* How does tyranny take hold, and how do you resist it?
* What happens when you put faith in something that is revealed to be false?
* Is consciousness real?

+