Color me thrilled (the color of thrilled is neon blue)

I just read at I Heart Chaos (careful there - lots of NSFW stuff on that site, but typically you need to click at least one link to get to it) that the TRON: Legacy trailer was released at the San Diego Comic Con today, and I'm tickled blue. The original TRON was one of my top childhood movies - I was an absolute fanatic, to the point of having a TRON-themed birthday party one year. It played at the Genesee Theater near my house the summer before I turned 12 and I must have seen it a dozen times. The theatre staff even hooked me up with a freestanding cardboard marketing kit from Smuckers of TRON (Bruce Boxleitner) holding a box full of these fold-out magazinelets about the movie, with a full-size wall-poster at the center. I think they had children's activities and stuff about the movie's special effects on the inside flaps. I still have one somewhere, I should dig it out.

I remember reading the book after I'd seen the movie a few times, and then explaining the movie to my mother, who wasn't in any way computer-savvy and didn't necessarily understand what was going on. Even without the book, I would have devoured this movie completely. I was already a computer nerd at 11 and TRON was the perfect blend of computers, action, and every nerd-kid's fantasy of merging with technology to become more powerful than anybody.

The most surprising thing, to me, is that it will have taken some 30 years to see a sequel to this film. Granted, it wasn't a blockbuster success, but with all the ways technology has impacted our lives since the original TRON, it seems like there were ample opportunities to bring it back and make it a hit. The closest thing we got was the TRON 2.0 computer game. Which, don't get me wrong, was pretty damn good. It's one of those games I go back and replay from time to time because the storyline and the functionality of the game were both outstanding. But it wasn't a movie, and TRON was such a groundbreaking motion-picture in terms of using computers to directly impact the look of the film, that it deserves a sequel now that CGI has become de facto in the industry.

The trailer itself looks fantastic. Everything has a very modern, updated look to it, yet it's still very recognizable as TRON. I don't know too much about this movie and intend to do some research tomorrow, but I sure hope that it lives up to its potential and, as its title implies, its legacy.