I'm going to turn that accusation around on you. You seem to want to ignore any argument against Tron being a run-away smash. Honestly, I have no vested interest in Tron.
I'm not sure what I said that would lead you to believe I'm not familiar with the original. I remember when it came out. I thought it looked cool but was kind of boring. I revisited it recently and confirmed that it wasn't a very good movie. But it was kind of fun to watch for the nostalgia factor.
"Flop" is a relative term. This comes from Box Office Mojo:
"
Tron, a movie perceived to be ahead of its time with its computer-based virtual reality, was considered a box office disappointment in 1982. In the shadow of
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, it made $33 million, or the equivalent of over $85 million adjusted for ticket price inflation. A decent amount of people saw it in theaters, but not enough to make it profitable nor match the hype surrounding its release."
(Link:
http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2678)
I think it is more fair to call the original Tron a "disappointment". But I don't think "flop" is unfair either. Expectations for the original Tron were just as high as they are now for Tron 2. If it had broken even at the box office, it would have been a huge disappointment. But it didn't even do that.
To call "Tron" a flop is not a misconception, it is consistent with the facts, but it is also open to debate. At best, it was a massive disappointment to Disney at the time.
Agreed. But I'm not sure I get the relevance.
The reverse is also true. Most people aren't familiar with the property and those that are mostly remember it as a flop. There is a cult following that is enough to make for a successful DVD release. But not enough of a cult to make for a blockbuster.
And before anyone misunderstands my point, I'm just saying Tron Legacy will have to stand on its own. If it's good, it will do fine. If not, it will have a big weekend and sink like a stone.
I think it's a very valid point. The reason you can't name another movie like Tron Legacy is that conventional wisdom would suggest it is a bad idea to make a sequel to a nearly 30-year-old movie that was never popular to begin with.
I won't rehash the "flop" argument. But your dismissal of "flop" is not supported by facts.
Again, I'm not saying Tron won't be a hit. But to act like it is a sure thing is naive. There's no precendent for a movie like Tron Legacy.
No, it's not at all like saying that!
For the record, here are some sequels that came out more than 10 years after the original:
16 Year-Gap: 2010 (1984),
The Godfather Part III (1990),
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999),
Rocky Balboa (2006)
15 Year-Gap: Escape from L.A. (1996)
14 Year-Gap: Exorcist: The Beginning (2004),
Basic Instinct 2 (2006)
12 Year-Gap: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986),
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003),
Clerks II (2006),
Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
10 Year-Gap: Hannibal (2001),
Be Cool (2005),
The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008)
And here's some sequels made more than 20 years after the original:
(I'm leaving off Indy 4 as it was only 19 years after Indy 3.)
Rambo 4, Wall Street 2 and Land of the Dead were 20 years after the previous film in the series.
Psycho 3 - 23 years after Psycho
Color of Money and Herbie Fully Loaded - 25 year gap
There's a few foreign films with gaps approaching 30 years. I'll leave those out as well.
Race to Witch Mountain (technically a continuation of that franchise) came a full 31 years after the second Witch Mountain film!
I get that some people were confused by the computer stuff back then. I know I followed it just fine and I was in grade school. But that wasn't the problem with Tron. It could have been filled with techno-babble and still been a hit if the story and the characters were more engrossing. That's the primary reason why the movie failed.
Fair enough. There were other reasons why Tron failed. And one of them was that Disney had a very bad track record at the time. Much like the Black Hole, Tron was a part of that track record. They were both ambitious films that could have moved Disney in a bold, new direction. But instead they came up short due to bad execution.
The main problem with the story is the pacing. Yes, it introduces some cool ideas. And they were very original when the movie came out. Maybe even ahead of their time. But the movie doesn't develop those ideas into a compelling story. It just falls apart in the final act. Once the appeal of the visual effects and the concept wear off, you find yourself looking at your watch.
This could have been mitigated if the characters were engaging. But the characters are so two-dimensional you never really care what happens to them.
Obviously, that's my opinion. But it's been the prevailing take on Tron for going on 3 decades.
Like you, I hope it does well. In fact, I am confident of a strong opening and that it will do decent box office. I'm skeptical it will be a smash hit. I'm not sure it will do well enough to inspire an actual park attraction beyond ElecTRONica or some similar temporary events.
Again, my point isn't that Tron will fail. Merely that its status as a block-buster is not a sure thing. And there are many valid reasons to be skeptical.
I'll also venture a prediction that Harry Potter will be the movie of the season. Tron is in competition for the #2 spot.
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I forgot there were so many. But correct me if I am wrong, but most of those movies were successful, so time alone does not guarrentee a poor showing. The argument surrounding it's original success are more valid but still arguably flawed.
:hurl:
