Thursday, April 7, 2011

Tron: Legacy Reconfigured

On Tuesday, along with the release of Tron and Tron: Legacy on blu-ray, Disney released a second Tron: Legacy soundtrack called Tron: Legacy Reconfigured.  This album features remixes of Daft Punk's original score by a slew of international music producers who specialize in electronica.

At first I was sort of worried that this album might be a hot mess of mixed up styles and random sounds and, though it's true that each artist has their own very individual style, each piece retains enough of Daft Punk's original work to make the album fairly cohesive.  It's sort of like a love letter to Daft Punk from their peers.  It's not all like an album of dancehall mixes.  It's more like further explorations of the original material with the artists trying to mine the original tracks for more gold.


For me, the highlights are "Arena" remixed by The Japanese Popstars, "C.L.U." remixed by Paul Oakenfold and "Fall" remixed by M83 VS Big Black Delta.

I would love to see Disney give the same treatment to Wendy Carlos' original Tron score.  I think it would be great fun to play with her work using the technology of today.

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Tron: Legacy on Blu-ray

Tron: Legacy was released on blu-ray on Tuesday.  Several different versions are available including one that's packaged with a new blu-ray edition of the original Tron.  I elected to get the two-disc DVD/blu-ray combo in 2D.  There's a 3D version as well but, frankly, I sort of think 3D TV is a dumb idea.  For the amount of content that's available it's not something I'm willing to invest in.
I have to say I'm a bit disappointed at the lack of bonus features.  Most of what's on the disc has already been leaked online.  I was hoping for many more interviews and featurettes about the design elements and visual effects of the film.  Disney has always been a little wary about revealing too many secrets about their productions.  I think it's unfortunate.  I like when the filmmaking process is totally transparent.

Lack of features aside, the film looks fantastic on blu-ray.  In order to maintain the original aspect ratio of the scenes shot for IMAX, the ratio sometimes changes.  I thought this would be really distracting but I actually barely noticed and most people probably wouldn't at all.

As a little added bonus from the Disney Movie Club this month, I received this sheet of Tron: Legacy stickers.  I'm not sure what I'll do with them but they're kind of cool!

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