If you haven’t already grabbed tickets for tonight’s TRON Night, head over to TRONTonight2010.com for details on standby tickets. Disney previewed the footage this morning for press and we’ve got scene-by-scene descriptions of the 20+ minutes of footage below. Please be aware, the following contains detailed spoilers so, if you are headed to the theater tonight, you may want to wait and see it for yourself.
The footage begins with an opening of computer text being typed onto a black screen. “Greetings programs,” it begins, explaining that all the footage is from the first half of TRON: Legacy and that, while the 3D effect doesn’t kick in until Sam Flynn (Garret Hedlund) enters the Grid, the scenes that precede it are still designed to be viewed with 3D glasses on. Wrapping with “End of line,” the opening is signed by director Joseph Kosinski.
SCENE 20: SAM’S APARTMENT
Sam Flynn rides his motorcycle to his apartment, a makeshift studio constructed out of a cargo container with garage doors on either side. It’s night and from his view we can see that it’s placed right beneath a steel bridge, looking out on the water. He greets his dog (a black and white Boston Terrier named Marv), telling him, “You were a big hit tonight” and goes to the fridge.
Without turning to look, he greets Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner), who is revealed to be standing in the room as well. Alan comments on the view and points to the bridge, saying, “I hear you did a triple axle off her.”
Sam’s changing (he mentions that he “smells like jail”) and as he puts on a new shirt, we can see large wounds on his back. Alan comments on his “message to the board” of ENCOM and Sam smiles saying, “That was all Marv’s idea.”
Whatever it was that Sam did seems to have been a stunt designed to show ENCOM that he’s not interested in taking over his father’s company. Alan notes that he does something like this once a year and adds, “You have an interesting way of being disinterested.”
Alan then breaks the big news: He received a page from Kevin Flynn’s arcade, from a number that’s been disconnected for more than a decade. Sam is cynical (also making fun of Alan for still carrying a pager).
“He’s either dead or chilling in Costa Rica,” Sam tells Alan, “Probably both,” then adding that Alan is talking as though he could go to the arcade and find his father sitting there.
“Wouldn’t that be something,” says Alan.
Cut to the exterior of Flynn’s Arcade, late at night. It’s run down with a faded “Space Paranoids” billboard on top. Sam pulls up on his motorcycle and unlocks the door.
Inside, the games are covered but spring to life when Sam trips the circuit breaker. A jukebox begins to play Journey’s “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” as Sam moves to the back of the arcade and to the “TRON” console. He tries to put a quarter it, but it slips right out the coin return. Picking it up from the floor, Sam notices a groove and discovers that the game is on a rotating disc (just like the replica arcade at Comic-Con).
Moving into the dark hallway of the arcade, the song switches over to The Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams are Made of This.” A door reveals Kevin Flynn’s office and a dusty computer monitor with the derezzing laser right behind it. Sam begins to type, not entirely realizing that he’s activating the device. It hums to life and —
SCENE 27: RECOGNIZER CAPTURE
One of the scenes shown at last year’s Comic-Con (but now in full 3D), Sam comes face to face with a red Recognizer. It lands and guards take him aboard the craft. locked in a light field along a number of others. He tries to ask them about his father, but they are just speaking meaninglessly. One of them turns and glares at him, revealing his face is half missing.
We see that this Redeemer is part of a larger fleet, all headed towards a large conical building that looks a stadium.
Inside, each of the prisoners is approached and identified as either “Rectify” or “Games.” Sam gets games and is taken to a light-disc elevator that takes him down to a large empty room. From four sides come four attractive women in skin-tight white suits (one of them is Beau Garrett’s Jem). They surround Sam and illuminate their fingers, touching them against his clothes which rip to shreds, falling to the floor and getting sucked away instantly.
A black bodysuit materialized around him and the women gather armor that they clip to his body.
“He is different,” one of them says.
Sam is then given an identity disk which is clipped into his back, causing his eyes to flash with light.
“What am I supposed to do?” Sam asks.
“Survive,” says Jem.
SCENE 32: DISC WARS
Sam is in the middle of a rotating platform floating in the center of a stadium. Sort of like a series of cuboid tennis courts, two players are put face to face in a Disc Wars fight, rotating around concurrent variations of the same game.
Sam is unsure of what to do at first but is forced to learn quickly as his opponent begins throwing his disc. Dodging the blow, Sam starts to do the same, finding that the floor is made of polygon shapes that shatter once a disc hits them. He nearly falls, but is able to cling on and pull himself him.
The other player comes at him aggressively, leaping at him, but Sam smashes the floor where his opponent is about to land, causing him to fall through and lose the game.
“I won!” Sam shouts, “Now let me out of here!”
From a shadowy private booth, we see the masked Clu watching the game with interest.
SCENE 52: ESCAPE ROUTE
A black with white light outlined four-wheeler races against two orange Light Cycles. The cycles both leave the famous TRON trail, but the four-wheeler does not. Sam is in the passenger seat and a mysterious helmeted form is driving.
The light cycles pursue the four-wheeler, which fires two missiles that blast a hole right in the side of the stadium. Behind it, one of the cyclers is destroyed but ejects just before being derezzed, flipping through the air and, before he hits the ground, generating a new cycle around him.
The four-wheeler drives through the hole, leaping from the exterior of the stadium across a chasm to a rock terrain. Pulling her helmet off, Quorra (Olivia Wilde) introduces herself to Flynn (referring to him as the one-word Samflynn) and explaining that the cycles’ power doesn’t work outside of the stadium. The four-wheeler, though, is clearly something special.
She drives, amused by Sam’s confusion, promising that everything will make sense soon.
SCENE 56: SAFEHOUSE
Quorra and Sam arrive at a location hidden within the desolate rocks. Riding in an elevator, they enter an all-white room with sort of Japanese decor. One wall has a bookshelf with real, physical books and, in the corner, is a white, classic Light Cycle that Quorra says is still faster than anything on the grid.
On the floor, in a meditative state, is Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), seemingly unaware that Sam is in the room.
“I dreamed of Tron again,” he says to Quorra without turning around, “The first time in years.
“It’s a sign,” she says.
“A sign of a weary mind,” he says dismissively, before stopping and standing.
Turning around, he sees Sam and comes to embrace him. Though he’s happy to see his son, he’s emotionally distant, saying that they’ll talk at dinner, leaving the room.
Sam is obviously having a hard time controlling his emotions, but maintains as deadpan face as a tear falls from his eye.
MONTAGE
The footage concludes with a montage of scenes, many of which have been featured in the trailer, including Light Planes, Michael Sheen’s Castor, Daft Punk’s cameo and a final shot of Clu (the de-aged Jeff Bridges) shouting, “Your move Flynn! Come on!”
TRON: Legacy hits theaters on December 17, 2010.
