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corrielleI went to the Tron premiere last night at the El Capitan withlynxgriffin and yamikonumber7, which was a great deal of fun. I gave my last final yesterday morning, and after decompressing for a few hours, I drove over to Lynx's house and had an unexpected but delicious dinner with her family before we headed over to pick up Kia and drive to the theater. I've never been to downtown Hollywood at Christmas, and it was... much like Hollywood usually is, only colder, and with more sparkly lights. We walked over to the Chinese Theater and looked at all of the hand prints and footprints in the cement. I've never actually done that before, and it's a pretty darn impressive gathering of notable... hand prints. There were classy old actors like Cary Grant and Clark Gable a few feet away from Bruce Willis (who also wrote "Yippee ki yay..." in his cement, which made me laugh a lot) and Johnny Depp. When we found the big section devoted to the original Star Trek cast (not hard... it's right next to the main walkway, and there's a big plaque with the Enterprise in the middle..) , I really wished I had brought my camera. It was really special, considering that two of the original cast have passed away since.
We had ice cream at the soda fountain next door to the theater, talked about various nerdy things, and purchased some of the limited edition stuff they had. (I ended up with two Tangled pins that are extra special... I'm so glad they still had them.
We picked up our popcorn and soda, ogled the light cycle they had out in the lobby and the big PotC 4 metallic skull they had set up off to the side, and found our seats, which were all the way on the right side of the theater. They were still perfectly good seats, though. We got to watch a fun laser light show before the movie, which was pretty darn cool. I'm a sucker for lights and colors moving in time with music, as my multiple trips to World of Color prove.
The movie was fun. We had a lot of discussion afterward about how it's very different from the original because how we conceptualize technology and artificial intelligence has changed, and the main concerns of the story manage to reflect that while still dealing with some of the same issues of stability and perfection versus the free flow of information. I also had all of my recent class discussions of dystopian novels running around in my head, and that added an extra dimension to my thoughts on the film.
And my spoiler free review is... fun movie. Worth seeing on the big screen because it is visually stunning. Decent plot and character arcs with some fascinating and generally coherent world-building, though there were some times when I thought to myself, "Explain, movie... EXPLAIN!" The end was a bit rushed, and it felt like there was some "tune in for our next movie" business going on, but all in all I liked it, and it did a nice job of referencing the original in fun ways while at the same time updating it for an audience with today's concerns and attitudes about technology.
One thing that did detract from my experience was the fact that they showed it in 3D, which is usually something I avoid like the plague. Now, let me say first that the 3D in this movie isn't gimmicky. Lynx was explaining to me beforehand that good 3D brings the audience in to the screen more fully rather than jumping out at the audience and reminding them that they are in fact sitting in a theater, and I think that the 3D in Tron accomplishes that goal quite admirably. There's just one little problem. I've worn glasses since the 2nd grade. So,I have to put the 3D glasses on over my normal ones, and getting them situated right so they don't slip or fall off and so that the screen is in the part of my field of vision that is covered by both of sets of lenses makes my neck stiff. Not to mention that the extra lenses in my glasses interact oddly with the 3D glasses (even more so when it's midnight and I've already had a long day, I would imagine...), and so I end up with a throbbing headache if I don't take the 3D glasses off every once in a while. However, when I do that, everything that's not in the foreground of the movie looks fuzzy. This is why I NEVER pay extra for 3D showings and go to 2D showings if at all possible. It's like paying extra for a stiff neck and a headache with very little extra benefit, and I don't even have the choice of taking the glasses off if I want to see any of the detail in the movie at all. *sigh* What really pisses me off is that PotC 4 is probably going to show in 3D at midnight at the El Cap, and obnoxious glasses or no, there's no way I'm missing that. (Seeing the trailer for On Stranger Tides in that theater even made me giddy...)
lynxgriffin and yamikonumber7, which was a great deal of fun. I gave my last final yesterday morning, and after decompressing for a few hours, I drove over to Lynx's house and had an unexpected but delicious dinner with her family before we headed over to pick up Kia and drive to the theater. I've never been to downtown Hollywood at Christmas, and it was... much like Hollywood usually is, only colder, and with more sparkly lights. We walked over to the Chinese Theater and looked at all of the hand prints and footprints in the cement. I've never actually done that before, and it's a pretty darn impressive gathering of notable... hand prints. There were classy old actors like Cary Grant and Clark Gable a few feet away from Bruce Willis (who also wrote "Yippee ki yay..." in his cement, which made me laugh a lot) and Johnny Depp. When we found the big section devoted to the original Star Trek cast (not hard... it's right next to the main walkway, and there's a big plaque with the Enterprise in the middle..) , I really wished I had brought my camera. It was really special, considering that two of the original cast have passed away since. We had ice cream at the soda fountain next door to the theater, talked about various nerdy things, and purchased some of the limited edition stuff they had. (I ended up with two Tangled pins that are extra special... I'm so glad they still had them.
We picked up our popcorn and soda, ogled the light cycle they had out in the lobby and the big PotC 4 metallic skull they had set up off to the side, and found our seats, which were all the way on the right side of the theater. They were still perfectly good seats, though. We got to watch a fun laser light show before the movie, which was pretty darn cool. I'm a sucker for lights and colors moving in time with music, as my multiple trips to World of Color prove.
The movie was fun. We had a lot of discussion afterward about how it's very different from the original because how we conceptualize technology and artificial intelligence has changed, and the main concerns of the story manage to reflect that while still dealing with some of the same issues of stability and perfection versus the free flow of information. I also had all of my recent class discussions of dystopian novels running around in my head, and that added an extra dimension to my thoughts on the film.
And my spoiler free review is... fun movie. Worth seeing on the big screen because it is visually stunning. Decent plot and character arcs with some fascinating and generally coherent world-building, though there were some times when I thought to myself, "Explain, movie... EXPLAIN!" The end was a bit rushed, and it felt like there was some "tune in for our next movie" business going on, but all in all I liked it, and it did a nice job of referencing the original in fun ways while at the same time updating it for an audience with today's concerns and attitudes about technology.
One thing that did detract from my experience was the fact that they showed it in 3D, which is usually something I avoid like the plague. Now, let me say first that the 3D in this movie isn't gimmicky. Lynx was explaining to me beforehand that good 3D brings the audience in to the screen more fully rather than jumping out at the audience and reminding them that they are in fact sitting in a theater, and I think that the 3D in Tron accomplishes that goal quite admirably. There's just one little problem. I've worn glasses since the 2nd grade. So,I have to put the 3D glasses on over my normal ones, and getting them situated right so they don't slip or fall off and so that the screen is in the part of my field of vision that is covered by both of sets of lenses makes my neck stiff. Not to mention that the extra lenses in my glasses interact oddly with the 3D glasses (even more so when it's midnight and I've already had a long day, I would imagine...), and so I end up with a throbbing headache if I don't take the 3D glasses off every once in a while. However, when I do that, everything that's not in the foreground of the movie looks fuzzy. This is why I NEVER pay extra for 3D showings and go to 2D showings if at all possible. It's like paying extra for a stiff neck and a headache with very little extra benefit, and I don't even have the choice of taking the glasses off if I want to see any of the detail in the movie at all. *sigh* What really pisses me off is that PotC 4 is probably going to show in 3D at midnight at the El Cap, and obnoxious glasses or no, there's no way I'm missing that. (Seeing the trailer for On Stranger Tides in that theater even made me giddy...)