SAN DIEGO, July 24, (Agencies): Back in 1982, first-time director Steven Lisberger brought mainstream audiences into the world of videogames with the sci-fi thriller “TRON”, using early computer-generated imagery that paved the way for today’s 3D movie blockbusters.
Now the long-awaited sequel “TRON:Legacy”, out in December from Walt Disney Pictures, is poised to push 3D technology and digital performance capture a step further.
“TRON;Legacy” finds the son of videogame developer Kevin Flynn being pulled into the digital world that has trapped his father for 20 years.
Director Joe Kasinski took the technology that was introduced in the backward aging 2008 movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” to create a completely virtual human character, Clu, played by Jeff Bridges who was also the star of the original “TRON”.
“One of the big technological leaps we’re trying to take with this film is in our villain, Clu, who is played by Jeff Bridges, but he looks like Jeff Bridges did in 1982,” Kasinki said.
“Jeff is driving his performance, but he is a digital character,” Kasinski told thousands of fans at the annual Comic Con convention this week.
Bridges said one of the things that had always bothered him as an actor was that, before now, a different actor would be cast to play a younger version of a character in the same film.
“Now you can play yourself at different ages, whether it’s a younger version of yourself or an older version of yourself, digitally,” said Bridges.
In many ways, filmmakers found that making the new “TRON” movie was helped by the kind of technology that was introduced as science fiction in the original film.
“The irony here is that 28 years ago we were trying to figure out how we were going to get Jeff Bridge’s character into cyber space, and I made up this crazy idea that he gets scanned by a laser and ends up on the game grid,” said Lisberger, who directed “TRON” in 1982.
“Now, we’re making ‘TRON: Legacy’ and they scan Jeff with a laser in real-time and boom, he pops up.”
Even the 3D technology powering the film, that was developed by James Cameron and Vince Pace for “Avatar,” has received an upgrade through new cameras that hit the market right before filming began.
Kasinski said the end result will be a 3D experience that immerses audiences even deeper in the on-screen action.
“TRON: Legacy” is set within the world of video games and, of course, audiences will be able to learn about some of the happenings within this universe through a new video game prequel from Disney Interactive Studios.
“TRON Evolution,” which will ship just before the movie opens, will feature actors from the movie and serve as a bridge between the two films. The game will be available in stereoscopic 3D on PC and PlayStation 3.
‘Machete’
Robert Rodriguez loves Comic-Con, but the San Diego Convention Center is just too limiting. So the filmmaker decided to unveil his new movie, “Machete,” on a street corner instead.
Rodriguez showed about seven minutes of footage from the film at an outdoor party Thursday night that featured free tacos and margaritas, scantily clad dancers, a dozen tricked-out low-rider cars and a graffiti wall.
Stars Danny Trejo and Michelle Rodriguez were on hand for the celebration. The film also stars Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, Don Johnson and Lindsay Lohan.
The seven-minute clip was sexy, bloody and action-packed. In one scene, Alba puts out an attacker’s eye with a stiletto heel. In another, Trejo’s character slices open an opponent’s stomach and rappels down a wall with his intestine.
“The human intestine is 10 times longer than the human body,” Robert Rodriguez said. “True fact.”
The writer-director said “Machete” is a film of and for the fans, who clamored for a full-length movie after seeing a trailer in 2007’s “Grindhouse.”
“I was never going to go beyond the trailer,” he said.
The film focuses on Trejo’s character, Machete, a renegade who’s fighting against corruption in the United States and Mexico. Robert Rodriguez wrote the part for Trejo, his first starring role in a 25-year career.
“No matter where you go, there’s always going to be corruption,” Robert Rodriguez said. “So you almost have to create this superhero that can solve a problem that we find unsolvable ourselves.”
Pilgrim
“Scott Pilgrim vs the World” won over Comic-Con.
At the end of Universal Pictures’ “Scott Pilgrim” panel at the pop-culture convention Thursday, director Edgar Wright had a surprise for the crowd. He invited anyone handed a button marked with an 8-bit rendition of the title character’s face at the start of the session to follow the filmmaker to a world premiere screening of the movie.
“Would you people like to follow me to the theater right now to watch the film?” he asked.
Wright stepped off the stage away from assembled cast members and quickly disappeared into a sea of more than 6,000 convention goers. Outside the San Diego Convention Center, masses of people split off into different directions, eventually converging seven blocks away on the historic Balboa Theatre for the comic adaptation debut.
“I’m so, so glad I made it,” fan Jennifer Gladwell said. “I didn’t know where we were supposed to go!”
In the frenetic flick based on the comic series of the same name, Michael Cera plays a zero-calorie-soda-lovin’ bassist smitten with neon-haired delivery gal Ramona Flowers. To win Flowers’ heart, Pilgrim must smite her seven deadly exes — one is a telekinetic vegan, for example — in duels punctuated with many video game flourishes.
The hundreds of fans who made it into Thursday night’s surprise screening roared for the “Mortal Kombat”-style matchups and feasted their eyes on the splashy visuals, set in a stylized version of Toronto in which ladies can yank giant hammers from their purses and the “Seinfeld” theme unapologetically blasts before domestic situations.