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And from a financial standpoint, how did Disney fare in their attempt to embark on setting a new blaze of Tron hysteria (or at least mild mania?) The fact that they are proceeding with the previously mentioned television show and another movie (which conceivably could be less expensive since they won’t be reinventing the wheel technology-wise) is really the only answer, but it can’t have been an easy one. After opening to $45 million domestically, it went on to recoup its budget back here - barely - with $172 million. Overseas kicked in approximately $230 million for around $400 million worldwide.

What I don’t grasp is how Disney sees this franchise eliciting the same kind of excitement the next time around. There was pent-up demand in some quarters and to a modest degree it filled the slot of Christmas 2010’s Avatar, but domestically I see any continuation of this delivering decreasing domestic returns on the order of the Narnia series. I also don’t see it expanding its success in foreign markets, but with The Fast and Furious, Ice Age, and Pirates of the Caribbean sequels continuing to deliver ever-greater overseas returns, this could be shortsightedness on my part.

I haven’t yet gotten to the plot, the performances, the visuals, or the music yet and though I have been actively avoiding the former, I will touch on it first as my observations about a key element blend in very nicely with my thought on Jeff Bridges’ “dual” roles. On the surface, Tron Legacy is just like all the other “boy has father, loses father, finds father being held captive in a secret digital world and endeavors to rescue him” stories out there. (In that regard, it fits in very nicely in the long line of Disney films where parents are absent or dead.)

Plot: While I accept that Sam and Kevin Flynn (humans/users) can get sucked into the virtual world and that by the same token, Quorra (a program) can exit the Tron world to enjoy a nice ride on the back of Sam’s motorcycle and glimpse her first sunrise (the one truly human note in the film and a well-played understated moment), I still don’t understand the promised utopia that Flynn Sr. claimed to have stumbled into with the virtual world or the threat of world destruction that Clu (Kevin Flynn’s virtual alter ego) aimed to unleash by escaping into our world with hordes of corrupted programs made live flesh. At the risk of offending those who have put time and thought into it, I honestly don’t think it matters. The plot and Tron world both appear to collapse these junctures and distinctions by the very end, leaving me left to ponder (SPOILER) if Cillian Murphy’s unbilled cameo in the film’s first reel as the son of the villain from Tron could in any way possibly point towards where future installments are headed.

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