Tron Legacy was released on 12.17.2010, and I went and saw it. I was enthusiastic about the movie when I saw the Comic Con teaser trailer about a year ago. In it, an anonymous player is killed off by another masked figure who is revealed to have an obviously computer-generated face of Jeff Bridges.
Although the look of the face (left) reminds me of totally CG faces in older movies (Robocop 2, The Lawnmower Man), it still could be explained by the limitations of an environment depicting a network or system. It seems as though Disney assumed their audience would expect more from a movie released in 2010. This would explain why the makers of Tron Legacy decided to put everything into recreating Jeff Bridges' face as it appeared in the 1980s.
In Tron Legacy, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) explains the creation of Clu, a program written to maintain and advance his new system. Clu was based on Flynn himself in the 1980s, so he physically resembles Flynn from that decade. As a result, Disney not only decided to recreate Bridges' face for Clu, but for a 1980s Kevin Flynn as well. I personally had not seen any new trailers for Tron Legacy, but I had heard of the new representation.
Why This Wasn't Convincing
I've seen Tron (1982) many times, starting in the mid 1980s whenever it was aired on syndicated television (not cable), and then several times later. I've also seen other movies starring Jeff Bridges from that era, such as Starman, many times as well. Jeff Bridges' wife apparently "signed off" on Disney's CG 1980s Jeff Bridges, and I'm assuming she knows her husband a little better than I do, but I still don't feel the representation was accurate. Given facial movements I'm sure are extremely difficult to reproduce, I'm only comparing still photos (top of post); the bottom middle and bottom right photos are from Starman (1984).
Too Much Faith In Effects
Disney's reliance on a completely computer-generated recreation of a young Jeff Bridges was total. We see him talking to his son sometime in the mid- to late-80s, making rousing political-type speeches (with enthusiastic facial expressions), and engaging in typical dialog with other characters. This attempt at creating an artificial actor, both in the real world and in a computer-generated one, was a step too far for the capabilities of even Disney. Although the Clu character seen in the Comic Con trailer (above) does seem limited, it would have been a safer bet when combined with showing a young Flynn a lot less in the finished film, so that the limitations of Clu's face could be explained by the limitations of the system -- the graphic environments seen in the original Tron were meant to represent those seen in a very advanced video game, not real life. As an added bonus, it would have emphasized Clu's artificial nature. He may be a construct created by a computer genius, but he's still a construct focused only on the goal of creating a perfect system (The Grid).
Instead, we see a young Kevin Flynn and Clu used very liberally, which leads me to believe Disney estimated Tron Legacy's audience would be easily convinced by its creation. I wasn't.
Plot Failures and Comparisons
Clu has taken full control of the new system by present day, with the original Kevin Flynn living in exile on the rocky undeveloped outskirts. Flynn explains Clu was programmed to perfect the system, and he has the capability to somehow leave it if he obtains Flynn's disc. For some reason, Clu hasn't utilized the space located outside the center of the Grid, or the barren landscape exists as a result of Clu's actions. It is not explained. A larger problem is the lack of explanation of Clu's ability to exit the system and presumably exist in the real world. Flynn discovers Clu's army of converted programs he's accumulated over the years, and simply states "he figured out how to do it" (i.e. escape to reality). While fans of the original Tron might have found the idea of somehow digitizing a person with a laser implausible, the idea was at least briefly explained and demonstrated with an orange in the first film. In Tron Legacy, the process of bringing a program into the real world isn't whatsoever. At the end of the film, Quorra (Olivia Wilde) escapes from the Grid into the real world. How?
A better idea would be to explain more about the Grid and its influence in the real world. Before Flynn's son Sam is transported into the Grid, he discovers a secret room within Flynn's arcade, presumably filled with servers and other computer hardware. This is the extent of the Grid in the real world: a small room full of old equipment and a powerful program within the system who was able to page someone from a disconnected phone number. In the original Tron, the Master Control Program (MCP) at Encom is nearly sentient to the point that it has control of its user, Dillinger, through blackmail and controls the Encom system strictly. It explains it has accessed systems worldwide, appropriated information and programs, and could cause international instability by breaking into The Kremlin. In 1984, computer systems were just beginning to be used widely in infrastructure. They were networked to an extent, but compared to today, these networks were small and limited. Why not simply incorporate the same threat in Tron Legacy? It could've been explained that Clu was responsible for the instability in the world, and that he slowly has been working to bring current governments and structure in the outside world down in order to somehow take control -- at the very least from within his system, in order to improve upon it. Networks of today are far more integrated, permanent and advanced. For example, networking speeds have jumped dramatically since the 1980s.
Although Tron Legacy is most likely far more successful than the original was back in 1982, it could have been much better. It's another (lesser) example of a great opportunity to create an interesting and significant science fiction film (albeit based on one not many people took seriously) that was somewhat squandered.
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