The Legacy of TRON

The original 1982 movie

So I know it hasn't gotten the best advance reviews, but I can't tell you how excited I am to see Disney's new movie, TRON: Legacy.

For Gen X'ers who verged on science fiction geekdom throughout their childhood years, TRON was one of those classic sci-fi movies from the '80s that made you marvel at the special effects and go to sleep dreaming about being a hero with a light cycle and an electric frisbee.

The TRON arcade joystick

The original TRON from 1982 brought an added bonus: the classic arcade game that allowed kids like me the chance to enter into cyber-combat for 25 cents a pop. I played the TRON game at a local arcade called "Circus Circus"in my hometown of Paragould, Arkansas. TRON was front-and-center when you walked through the door, looking impossibly big to my grade school eyes. The manager even parked a little wooden platform in front of the joystick so shorter kids could see the screen. No telling how many quarters I fed that into that machine.

The latter-day sci-fi sequel is always bound to disappoint on some level. Whether it's Star Wars on the big screen or V on television, the remakes are bound to fail just a little bit - even with better scripts and superior special effects. Without the wonder of a kid in a movie theatre and an oversized box of popcorn, something gets lost. In the late '70s and '80s, who among us worried about George Lucas' choppy dialogue, or the Ambervision sunglasses the visitors wore in the V mini-series? We were all just happy to be there.

But none of that means that the remakes don't have an irresistible appeal. The criticisms I've read about TRON are predictable: The script is thin and the movie tends to rely on special effects to entertain. But you know what? I still think that's worth the price of admission. Now if Santa will just bring me a light cycle, I'll be all set...