It’s a member of the exclusive clubhouse of the greatest year of movies–1982. In a summer that gave us E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Blade Runner, Poltergeist, and John Carpenter’s The Thing, Disney’s groundbreaking Tron is a great movie, and it stands the test of time as a unique science fiction classic. For a movie fan, if you were stuck in a time warp you could hardly find a better place to be than 1982. Getting noticed in a year of movies like Conan the Barbarian, Rocky III, First Blood, Tootsie, The Secret of NIMH, The Last Unicorn, Night Shift, The Man from Snowy River, Tex, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High, was no small feat. Tron sees the 35th anniversary of its release this week. A cinematic milestone? Of course. A must-see classic? Absolutely. Better still, you can view Tron in a more vibrant and detailed clarity than how you may have viewed it in a local 1982 movie theater thanks to an updated 2011 Blu-ray release.
For those not involved in the computing world in the early 1980s, Tron first introduced audiences to programming terms like the Master Control Program (MCP), random access memory (RAM), and the idea of avatars. It introduced us to light cycles, an early CG home run–even decades before quality 3D or IMAX–viewers were ducking and dodging in their seats as opponents exploded into the walls of the Grid. Identity discs brought to life what were only blips on the screen in the “real” world, and we cringed as Flynn took a step too close and almost fell off the game rings. No other film since looks like Tron, not even its big budget 2010 sequel Tron: Legacy or its 2012 animated series Tron: Uprising. Its backlight animation worked amazingly well for our first entry into a world we hadn’t seen before. Video games were just beyond the stage of blip games like Pong. It was a time before the Atari 2600. It was in this world that director Steven Lisberger was able to film Bruce Boxleitner as Alan Bradley aka Tron and Jeff Bridges as programmer/hacker/high scorer Flynn in a complex blue-black and white costume and fill in the details in post-production and place them in a brilliantly colored, infinitely tiny, futuristic universe. The look was both retro to an almost 1940s vision of the future and yet also it pushed ahead, way ahead, to some future we will never really meet. Just look at this futuristic, visionary image from early in the film where Bridges plays an avatar of his real world character–well before anyone knew what an avatar was:
And the story works. Tron offers a one-of-a-kind and unreal world where, in the classic sci-fi style of The Fly, you can be teleported to someplace not outside but deep within this world, where Flynn tries to understand his new world of the Users, to fight to survive with identity disk battles and light cycle races, and to get home. Boxleitner, who would get far less screen time than Jeff Bridges, provided an understated hero for a generation of kids. David Warner (Time After Time, Star Trek V, VI, Star Trek: The Next Generation), the best actor to play a villain in any franchise, also played a dual role as Dillinger and the MCP, giving movies one of its all-time best villains, and adding yet another perfect genre performance to Warner’s portfolio. Caddyshack’s Cindy Morgan as Lora/Yori, Dan Shor as the ill-fated RAM, and Barnard Hughes as Dumont all created memorable supporting characters (plus master stuntman Vince Deadrick, Jr. (Iron Man, True Grit, Star Trek Enterprise, Fletch, Romancing the Stone) to boot).
A familiar universe awaits fans of TRON. Derived from the look and feel of TRON: Legacy, Disney’s 2010 sequel to 1982’s original sci-fi classic TRON, Disney Games has released TRON RUN/r, a new runner game with spectacular visuals and a cool and exciting soundtrack. It’s the next iteration of TRON following the Emmy Award-winning animated television series TRON: Uprising.
Return to the world of TRON with TRON RUN/r, a new lightning-fast, action-adventure runner with a twist! Blaze through dynamic circuits, face off against adversaries, and hone your DISC and CYCLE skills on 32 levels. Then, challenge friends to the grueling STREAM program that will test you with endless combinations of modes and levels! How long will you survive?
The story of TRON began as a video game, so it’s a natural evolution for the franchise to dip back into its roots, so you can imagine playing the game back at Flynn’s arcade.
Take a look at these trailers for the game and see for yourself:
If you find typical animated series on Cartoon Network visually boring, this new series is for you. DC Comics’ DC Nation on Cartoon Network has finally achieved a satisfying blend of eye-grabbing visuals and smart storytelling in its newest animated series, Beware the Batman. A follow-on to Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Beware the Batman is a fresh take on Batman that opens up possibilities for a long-term animated series with interesting villains of the week similar to those we enjoyed with the 1960s live action Batman series, but skip the camp and humor for some gritty situations and snappy dialogue.
What first will draw viewers to Beware the Batman is the high-resolution, three-dimensional effect of the cutting edge CGI animation itself, similar to the realism we’ve seen in Tron: Uprising, but even more so like the stylish visuals in The Incredibles. Although the Batman himself may be the least eye-catching of the hundreds of Batman incarnations out there, he has his own style here that may grow on viewers. But Alfred, the villains, Tatsu Yamashiro, all look incredible. Wayne Manor is a beautiful mansion on the edge of a cliff, something you’d expect to see from Richard Branson. Gotham looks like the moody covers to The Dark Knight Returns. The action sequences are full of explosions and chases offered up in ways you haven’t seen before, too, with realistic and futuristic 3D technology effects like those in Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report.
It’s the end of December and another year is winding down. Everywhere you turn someone is talking about the Best of 2012, so here we offer our take, resulting from absorbing more content this year than ever before, from books to movies to TV to comics, we reviewed and previewed entertainment from most of the big comic book publishers, and received screeners of shows and books from different publishing houses. And we watched a lot of TV and went to a number of movies. So what was the best of the best this year? No one will ever have the same list but here’s where we ended up:
Best Genre Movie: The Hobbit. We had to wait all year for the release but once we saw it–it was well worth the wait and we want to go back and see it again and again. How could you possibly follow one of the only fantasy films ever to win a Best Picture Academy Award and expect to come close in quality and entertainment? Peter Jackson figured it out. Not even The Avengers came close to touching this epic film with giant sets, special effects, elaborate costumes, a perfect story adaptation, and the best CGI creature to date: a Gollum even better than in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Best Dramatic Film: Argo. It was an international event more recent in the public psyche than even Watergate, yet it had never been addressed on the silver screen before–the kidnapping of American nationals in Iran. Ben Affleck served as both director and star of the film and performed both roles brilliantly. Both exciting and funny–with the incredibly bizarre hook of using Hollywood to create a sci-fi B movie as CIA cover to sneak in to Iran and remove a small group of hostages–it was a story worthy of adapting to screen. Brilliant!
Best Animated Movie: Brave. Kelly McDonald’s wonderful Scottish voice, an all-star Brit voice cast including Emma Thompson, Bill Connolly, Julie Walters and Robbie Coltrane, coupled with Brenda Chapman’s story and the best of Walt Disney and Pixar’s animation so far, make Brave the slam dunk animated film winner of 2012. A gorgeous film about a tough and feisty red-headed girl skilled with a bow and arrow who wants to make her own destiny provided a great story for young and old alike.
Best Animated TV Series: Tron: Uprising. Disney Television Animation finally figured out a way to bring its Tron franchise forward with Tron: Legacy, and this prequel series gives us what the movie lacked–more Bruce Boxleitner as Tron. We hardly noticed this wasn’t a live action series, and with voice actors like Frodo’s Elijah Wood, Alien’s Lance Henriksen, Paul Reubens and Tricia Helfer, you could hardly go wrong. The brilliant choice of lighting, futuristic yet retro light cycles and funky soundtrack made this one worth coming back for each week.
Best Actor: Silas Weir Mitchell, Grimm. With the updates for the second season of Grimm, Mitchell’s reformed Blutbad Monroe was hard to beat as the sometimes hilarious sometimes dramatic glue that held the series together, setting up new conflicts, like the strange discovery of Renard and Juliette’s relationship, sure to drive the story next year.
Best Actress: Ksenia Solo, Lost Girl. As succubus and series star Bo’s tagalong human friend and roommate Kenzi, Solo held half of the dramatic workload for the Canadian series first released to U.S. audiences this year on the Syfy Channel. The Latvian born actress plays it funny and smart–she makes for the ideal kickass girl from the best genre fiction stories.
Best Breakout Role–Female: Cobie Smulders as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill in The Avengers. We knew her already from How I Met Your Mother, but Smulders took what could have been a throwaway background role in the biggest movie of the year and instead put her character’s footing almost on par with the Avengers themselves, heading up an early chase scene and appearing with Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury throughout the film. Now she’s set to come back for the next Avengers films, she’s a character that we never knew about but are glad she’s on the team going forward.
Best Breakout Role–Male: Max Greenfield as Schmidt in New Girl. Greenfield is one among a handful of great young actors in New Girl, now in its second season, but this season his character Schmidt stepped out to create the craziest, most hysterical moment of nearly every episode. Whether he is ranting that there is no black Santa Claus, or trying to show a stripper how to lap dance the right way, whether he is wearing his high-cut male kimono, ranting about germs, or his stupid actions result in him putting the most money in the coffee table jar, Greenfield took a funny part and stretched it to insanely funny. This from the same guy who performed dramatic roles in Veronica Mars, Life and Castle? Awesome.
Best Guest Appearance: Scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson’s appearance in Action Comics. It was a bit of a marketing gimmick, but what could tie the education of real science, a popular TV non-fiction series host and comic book readers together better? The real star-vested Tyson found a possible location for Superman’s home planet of Krypton, revealing it to the Man of Steel in the pages of the ongoing series.
Best TV series: Arrow, CW Network. We got our first look at the pilot for this series at Comic-Con this year and loved it, but wasn’t sure how it would appeal to a mass audience. Pretty much everyone we know watches this series, including those who would never otherwise think to look at a series about a masked superhero. We have a critical eye out for all things Green Arrow, but Arrow, led by a well-cast Stephen Amell, surpassed our expectations.
Best Comedy Series: New Girl, Fox Network.New Girl wins this category from one simple thing: This series made this writer laugh so hard his gut hurt and corresponding tears shot out of his eyes from the quick humor in so many scenes this year he lost count. And when the series dipped into dramatic elements it never veered far from the core of what makes the show work–it’s a comedy first. Tuesday night this year was New Girl night. Jess, Nick, Schmidt, Winston and Cece could be the next Friends (but funnier) if the series can get a wider audience.
Best Single TV Episode: Sherlock, “A Scandal in Belgravia,” BBC America. You just have to watch this episode of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman’s brilliant series over and over. The entry of the beautiful and unpredictable Irene Adler, played by Lara Pulver, was perfection, and Cumberbatch and Martin’s scene with Sherlock’s brother Mycroft in Buckingham Palace can’t be beat. Sure to be a classic episode for years to come.
Best Cliffhanger: Shawn’s dad gets shot, Psych, USA Network. It seems like it has been forever since Shawn’s dad Henry, played by Corbin Bernsen was shot at the end of this season’s last episode of the hit USA Network comedy/drama series. At its core, Psych is a light-hearted pleasure, so they just CAN’T kill off Henry. We’re really looking forward to finding out.
Best Series Ender: In Plain Sight, USA Network.* In a year where several mega-hits wrapped for good, including House, M.D., The Closer,Awake, and Chuck, one series finale tied up all the necessary loose ends the best, and that was the aptly titled “All’s Well that Ends” from In Plain Sight, which ended after five solid seasons. The writers skipped the gimmicks, with no gut wrenching death scenes for major cast players, but instead honored the characters as they’d been for the entire series, rewarding viewers with an end where everyone wins. *Update: Leverage‘ssurprise December 25, 2012 series finale came in with a powerhouse finale, slightly trumping In Plain Sight at the last minute after we posted this piece. See our review here.
Best Series that Cancelled Too Early: Awake, NBC Network. We only got to see 12 episodes of Awake, but in those episodes we saw a great paranormal drama develop. Jason Isaacs, like Paul Blackthorne, is one of those actors you want to helm a series every week. His dual role of father who lost his kid and husband that lost his wife, both in the same auto accident, showed this actor could do anything with a role. Although they were able to nicely wrap-up Awake in its last episode, we’d prefer to have seen a lot more of it.
Best Surprise in Entertainment: Dallas, TNT Network. How was this even possible? Who would think to take THE 1980s primetime soap and bring it forward to 2012, AND think it could work? TNT mixed a CW Network-inspired young cast with a plot continuing the struggles in the classic series and melded it into something for anyone willing to give it a try. Larry Hagman’s J.R. Ewing never missed a beat as the ultimate TV villain, even in his 80s. The writers took bits from the tangents of the original to concoct the main storyline of two young heirs fighting for family and social dominance. The result was addictive TV.
Best Comeback: The ensemble cast of Major Crimes. The great thing about a great ensemble cast is that you like every player equally. When this is successful, you can stand to lose a character or two and still keep going, or as was the case with the wind-up of The Closer, lose three main characters: Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson, Chief Pope, and Sgt. Gabriel. Major Crimes added three new replacement characters and never missed a beat, pleasing fans who knew it was too soon for the stories from the L.A. Major Crimes unit to end.
Best Second Wind: Haven, Syfy Channel. Some cable TV series limp along and just end after a year or two. Haven’s single theme of solving the riddle of “the troubles” seemed a candidate for this, but something switched on with the 2012 season allowing the rich stories and great cast chemistry to give us the series’ best episodes in its three-year run so far.
Best Genre-Related Advertisement: Star Wars Super Bowl ad, Volkswagen. The best Super Bowl ad last January with a dog, a James Brown tune, and a pristine recreation of the Mos Eisley Cantina from the original Star Wars was an instant classic that will be hard to beat in 2013. Complete with its own recreated hive of scum and villainy, Tom Spina Designs’ creatures gave us something we want to see more of–maybe a new Disney-produced TV series based in Mos Eisley using all these obscure characters fanboys know by name? Missed it? See the full ad here.
Best Press Marketing: Coma mini-series press kit, A&E Network. We at borg.com received tons of content this year, from books to comics to advance screeners, but one marketing gag was so awesome in its own right it surpassed what it was advertising. The advance marketing for the Coma TV series marked a possible return by A&E to the classic TV shows we used to get in the days of shows like Price and Prejudice or Nero Wolfe. Sporting an underground conspiracy plotline, print and online ads created a cool concept that the mini-series itself did not quite match. When we received a human organ carrier in a “thawed” labeled box that we cautiously unzipped to find the screener, well that was just too awesome not to mention again.
Best Costumes: The Hobbit. The Hobbit already made our Best Genre Movie of 2012, but it’s worth a second nod for having the most incredibly crafted costumes of possibly any film made so far in any year. Building on the costumes of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, the slow panning of the camera in The Hobbit allowed us to see every seam on Bilbo’s patch-work coat, and every new emblem on each dwarf’s tunic. How can a production make so many unique costumes for one film? The result sets the standard for all major films to come.
Best Borg Appearance: The Cyborg Gunslinger, Doctor Who episode, “A Town Called Mercy”. Andrew Brooke’s gunslinger was a slick-looking borg addition, a throwback to Westworld that gave us equal parts of good sci-fi and classic Western movies. Doctor Who has created the best costumes and make-up of any sci-fi franchise in the past few years and this guy just looked great.
Best Web Series: TableTop bi-weekly Internet series, Geek and Sundry. Wil Wheaton, known for Star Trek: The Next Generation and more recently his appearances on Big Bang Theory and Leverage, as host of his own online series, brought us all back from the video game world to the boardgame format that allows friends to really interact and have fun for their own game nights. He chatted over great games like Tsuro, Munchkin and Zombie Dice with friends and celebrities alike, and showed us what could easily translate to its own Game Show Network series.
Best Villain: The Harp Seal, Battlepug, Mike Norton. Easy choice. This year’s Eisner Award winner for best digital comic revealed this unexpected villain, a funny surprise for readers. Imagine a world where the harp seal gets its due–a role reversal where warriors fear him over all other creatures. A great idea.
Best Ongoing Comic Book Series (tie): All-Star Western, DC Comics. Artist Moritat and writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti took a long-dead comic book title and bridged 1800s Gotham City and Jonah Hex to make a gritty and fun book that rose to the top of DC Comics’ New 52 titles first released in September 2011. Who knew a Western comic could be this good? Bionic Man, Dynamite Comics. Phil Hester took a Kevin Smith script and expanded on it, taking the most nostalgic bits of the classic Six Million Dollar Man TV series and updating it for 2012. The highlight of the fun was an appearance by the classic TV series guest star, Bigfoot.
Best Single Comic Book Issue: Thor, God of Thunder #1, Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic. How do you reintroduce a classic character like Thor in a new way? Exactly like Aaron does in this first issue of his new series, breaking up his story into three time periods, and highlighting the changing face of Thor over time. Ribic’s lush images of Thor and a certain strange new world escalated this book to the top of my year’s reads.
Best Comic Book Art: JK Woodward, Star Trek The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation². J.K. Woodward’s painted artwork throughout this limited series was stunning. Probably the best depiction to-date of Star Trek characters in a comic book, Woodward took a fanboy’s dream job of merging two of the biggest sci-fi franchises together for the first story ever attempted and delivered a great looking story, now available in a trade edition. We just want to see more.
Best Comic Book Cover Art: Mystery in Space, Ryan Sook, Vertigo Comics. Ryan Sook had a big year, providing sensational covers for everything from The Shadow to the new Sword of Sorcery to one of our favorite titles, Justice League Dark. But his cover for Vertigo Comics’ Mystery in Space #1 blended sci-fi and fantasy in the best way, with a steampunk angel painting the universe inside a spaceship with the help of flitting fairies, or is she creating our actual universe? A great idea and perfect execution made this a standout on the store shelf this year.
Best Comic Book Cover Art Runner-up: Hawkeye mini-series, David Aja. Aja’s six unique Hawkeye series covers served not only to entice us to read this mini-series with great use of simple colors, but his own artwork between the covers made us feel like we were rewarded with what was advertised–a very cool and unusually stylish series.
Best Comics Collected Edition: Flash Gordon, Volumes 1 and 2, Titan Books. These were the best presented books we reviewed this year. Reprinted Sunday comics from the 1930s and 1940s in a giant-sized edition that allowed readers to appreciate the story and art of creator Alex Raymond was a feast for the eyes. The content allowed readers to see just how relevant and interesting the original mash-up of sci-fi and fantasy could be.
Best Retro Reviewed Book: Moonraker, Ian Fleming.Casino Royale was a great read, Live and Let Die was a bit of a letdown, but Moonraker was as exciting as any book I’ve read in years. Far different from the film of the same name, this thriller was packed with spy world intrigue. Compared to all the other retro reviews this year, including Philip K. Dick classics, this one really stood out.
Best Reviewed Book: Dracula Cha Cha Cha, Kim Newman. Although it was initially released in 1998, a new edition was re-released this year. The best “post-modern steampunk” mash-up and incredibly detailed world building made this novel a great read, full of artful prose and creative crossovers. Newman also added another level of storytelling, mixing the real world with the world of fiction, and the result is a densely packed, enjoyable volume.
Best Mash-Up of Fiction and Non-Fiction Worlds: James Bond accompanies the Queen to the Olympics. 2012 was the Year of Bond with his 50th year in film. How better to highlight the best of Jolly Old England at this year’s Summer Olympics than to begin with a meeting of the current James Bond, Daniel Craig, and the actual Queen Elizabeth II in her 60th year in Buckingham Palace, followed by a faked aerial dive by the Queen over the stadium in London. The Queen was a real sport, adding herself to the long list of Bond girls. And don’t forget the real-world borg Oscar Pistorius’s impressive showings at the Olympics this year.
Best Genre Event: The Firefly 10th Anniversary Panel at Comic-Con. More than 7,000 fans stood in line for only about 5,000 seats but the all-night wait was worth seeing most of the cast of Firefly reunite with creators Joss Whedon and Tom Minnear to talk about the short-lived series. Firefly fans are a passionate bunch, and were able to get Whedon to make the big-budget movie Serenity a few years after cancellation. But get most of the stars to come back ten years later? Pretty cool feat. With Whedon and series co-star Adam Baldwin (Jayne) dropping by to greet the people sleeping and standing in line overnight it was an event that attendees will never forget.
Best News Story: George Lucas sells Star Wars rights to Disney. Some liked it and some hated it, but as months go by we’ll see what it all means. As entertainment goes, this multi-billion dollar exchange was the talk everywhere this year.
Best Science Story: Curiosity lands on Mars. NASA’s description of dropping a rover on the surface of the planet Mars sounded like threading a needle blind-folded wearing gloves. Its early morning coverage of the successful landing was something like the moon landing, and made everyone want to see what more we can do in the space program now that the last Space Shuttle has been mothballed. What will the future hold for NASA and humans in outer space?
Best Nationwide Genre Participation Event: The Avengers Marathon, AMC Theaters. We only wished for something like this when we were kids–the ability to watch something like all the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies in one screening. The lead-up to the midnight premiere of The Avengers allowed fans to watch all the lead-in Avengers films so far: Iron Man I and II, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger. A great idea that will hopefully continue with other franchise films.
Best Single Thing for Genre Works: The Avengers movie. Genre, and specifically superhero, films needed a good kickstart. The dark and dreary Dark Knight trilogy from Christopher Nolan was monopolizing superhero films, and we needed a giant, vibrant superhero film to usher in a new age of comic book films and Joss Whedon delivered the goods. It’s not a perfect film (and what is?) but was completely fun and entertaining, delivering something every fan could enjoy. Challenging the top two positions for all-time box office draw also showed everyone that fans want to see more of this kind of movie.
What were your favorites? We hope a few of these are on your own list. We at borg.com will be back with more coverage and reviews in 2013.
No doubt Oscar Pistorius’s unprecedented entry and run in the Olympics this weekend will go down as a highlight of these games. The first person to bridge the Summer Olympics and the Paralympics, clad in neither bionic nor cyborg prosthetics but walking “blades” certified to give no advantage to him against other runners, South African runner Pistorius gave a competitive go of it in his 440 meter semi-final track event. Truly he’s an inspiration to everyone, disabled or not.
So in honor of the closest person we’ve found to a real-life borg Olympian, we are presenting this list of the ten most interesting sci-fi or fantasy sports we’d like to see in a future Olympics. In whittling down this list we have eliminated motor sports or the like, so no pod racing or light cycle races (but we’ll make an exception for broomsticks). We also found far too many gladiator events in classic sci-fi, going back to the original Star Trek’s “Gamesters of Triskelion” and “Bread and Circuses” battles to Star Trek Voyager’s Seven of Nine vs. The Rock arena combat called Tsunkatse, to the combat in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, which continues on this year in genre shows like Bo’s battle to the death in Lost Girl. So we’ll skip those for this round. Most of our games reflect a possible evolution of today’s games and come from sci-fi TV or movies, but we just had to throw some fantasy events into the mix for good measure. So here goes:
Updating who knows what Olympic sports—Parrises squares (Star Trek: The Next Generation). A future J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot movie sequel really could do some good by showing us an actual Parrises squares match. The often celebrated Star Trek universe game has been played by everyone from Tasha Yar to the EMH’s daughter on Voyager (who sadly, dies from a Parisses squares injury). But all we have seen are the uniforms. This barely makes our cut because we simply haven’t seen the game in action yet, yet the possibilities from what we’ve heard from Star Trek characters is enough to make it to the list.
Updating taekwondo and judo—Bat’leth and Mok’bara (Star Trek: The Next Generation). In the episode “Parallels,” Worf returns to the Enterprise from a bat’leth tournament. Part of the plot revolves around whether he scored first or ninth place in the games. He even has a nice trophy to show for it:
Mok’bara was Worf’s version of taekwondo, an elegant art of movement for the Klingon set. Both of these are future martial arts we’d like to see added to the Olympic slate.
Updating fencing—Lightsaber dueling (Star Wars). Ben Kenobi showed Luke he could practice his saber work without anyone getting hurt. You can even perfect your skills with a floating spherical sparring partner. Fencing uses foils, sabers or epees. Maybe lightsabers can be set to “stun”? I can’t think of a more elegant sport for a civilized age.
Updating fencing, judo and taekwondo—Anbo-jyutsu(Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek Voyager). We’ve only seen this played by Will Riker and his dad and B’Elanna Torres and Kes, but that was all we needed. Cool uniforms and football-type padded gear, these guys really play hard.
Updating basketball—Pyramid/Triad (Battlestar Galactica), and Serenity basketball(Firefly). Less elegant than martial art competitions, street sports like Pyramid/Triad and “Serenity basketball” (played in the episode “Bushwhacked”) allow everyone to get into the act with little upfront cost to play. Even when the end of the world just happened, you can assemble a pick-up game of Pyramid, even on board a starship like the Galactica.
Serenity basketball seems to have less clear rules, but we’re sure it can factor in to a future Olympic event.
Updating hockey—Rollerball(Rollerball). The game itself really sold the movie. Maybe we were cheering for James Caan because we still saw him as Brian Piccolo playing alongside Gail Sayers in Brian’s Song. Nah… he’s just cool in everything. What an intense action sport Rollerball would be in real life, and so much fun to watch in-person. (And yes, we allowed this sport on our list even though they use motorcycles).
Updating triathlon, skiing and shooting—James Bond skiing (The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, The World is Not Enough, with nods to Arnie in True Lies). Good luck making it down the black diamond while someone is trying to throw you off balance. We’d substitute blanks for bullets so our athletes can come back for more. We saw a bit of this in an old Chevy Chase Saturday Night Live skit with the Olympics and Claudine Longet. Not a lot of Olympic sports add the element of surprise like this “sport” could.
Updating discus—Identity discs (Tron, Tron: Legacy, and Tron: Uprising). Think discus but a bit more precarious, and we don’t even need a disc battle-to-the-death like in all the Tron live action and animated shows. Just something that puts the thrower off balance as he’s trying to make a great throw, with the addition of a boomerang feature in the discus and two athletes throwing the blindingly lighted discuses at each other–so there’s some dodging required.
Updating rugby and soccer—Jump Ball (Starship Troopers). You can’t beat a sport where men and women play along side each other on equal footing. And Johnny Rico and his pals looked like they were having so much fun, too. Part indoor football, and full contact, with cool gear–all that makes this one a game everyone would want to play and watch.
Updating rugby, polo, and basketball—Quidditch (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, etc). Beyond the flying, Quidditch offers multiple goals and ways to win, and that puts this toward the top of our list of exciting otherworldly sporting events. On the one hand it’s another form of “air hockey” (or “basketball on broomsticks with six hoops” as Harry calls it) where you have to get the ball in the goal, but with the addition of the trickier seeker’s job, viewers can choose which part of the game to watch—assuming someone can film all the details and project it on a nice jumbotron. And like Jump Ball, boys and girls play together on the same team. With neat equipment like the quaffle and bludgers and the zippy little golden snitch, who wouldn’t get excited about this kind of match?
So that’s it. Cheers to Oscar Pistorius. We hope he comes back for the next Olympics.
Disney Television Animation has announced a mega-panel at Comic-Con for Friday, July 13, 2012, featuring the creators and voice actors from the new Disney XD series Tron: Uprising.
Bruce Boxleitner, the voice of Tron, headlines the panel along with series star, Elijah Wood, who plays the young Grid cycle repair technician turned rebel named Beck. Former Battlestar Galactica star Tricia Helfer, the voice of The Grid, is also scheduled to appear, along with Emmanuelle Chriqui (Paige), and creative staff Charlie Bean (executive producer/director), Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz (consulting producers), Alberto Mielgo (art director), and Robert Valley (lead character designer).
Disney also released the rest of its animation panel schedule:
Saturday, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. — Phineas and Ferb Q&A Panel (Room 6A) featuring a clip from a coming two-part cliffhanger episode “Where’s Perry?” Panelists include Dan Povenmire (creator/executive producer & Dr. Doofenshmirtz), Swampy Marsh, creator/executive producer & (Major Monogram), Vincent Martella (Phineas), Alyson Stoner (Isabella), and Dee Bradley Baker (Perry).
Saturday, 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. — Disney Channel Television Animation Q&A Panel: (Room: 5AB), featuring footage and clips from upcoming Disney Channel’s Fish Hooks and Gravity Falls series, plus a first look at the upcoming series Wander Over Yonder. Scheduled panelists include: Noah Z. Jones (Fish Hooks creator/executive producer), Maxwell Atoms (Fish Hooks executive producer), Justin Roiland (Oscar on Fish Hooks), Kari Wahlgren (Shellsea on Fish Hooks), Alex Hirsch (Gravity Falls creator/executive producer), Michael Rianda (Gravity Falls creative director), Jason Morgan Ritter (Dipper on Gravity Falls), Craig McCracken (Wander Over Yonder creator), and Lauren Faust (Wander Over Yonder co-producer).
Tron is one of those franchises that has barely been tapped for its universe of potential stories about the Grid. The original movie Tron followed Jeff Bridges’ character Flynn as he became sucked into the computer sphere, into the video game, Tron. The graphic novel Tron: Betrayal smartly covered the events after the original film, to provide a segue into the new Grid universe in Tron: Legacy, a strange, cool, new world of the Grid on the big screen. Tron: Legacy met Flynn again, this time an aged hermit-slash-guru, trapped for years as an outcast rebel leader, and his son, who enters the computer world to find him. We got a brief glimpse of Tron’s real-world equivalent (Bruce Boxleitner, Chuck, Scarecrow & Mrs. King), but didn’t see much of Tron himself. The excellent updated role play video game Tron: Evolution features even more of the new world, but not until now do we get what we’ve wanted all along, more Tron, and specifically more Boxleitner as Tron. Unfortunately Tron isn’t the lead of the new animated weekly half-hour TV series on Disney XD, Tron: Uprising, but he gets an important key role as Jedi-like mentor to Elijah Wood’s young Padawan-esque character, Beck, years after the events of Tron: Legacy. The story is one of persecution and revolution, and the whispered message across the Grid is “Tron lives.”
You’ll find plenty of parallels to Star Wars and other good science fantasy and science fiction, even cool references back to the original Tron movie itself, like the little floating diamond that repeated the word “yes” with nice comic timing. And you’ll be hard pressed not to try to compare it to the Clone Wars animated series. I think the art, sound, story, music, color, depth, movement and vibe leaves not only Clone Wars behind, but any other animated series that comes to mind, after watching the first three episodes broadcast yesterday and last Tuesday. If there is any drawback it may be characters and producers still getting comfortable with the dialogue and techno-babble, but this may just get ironed out over the course of the series. The other drawback is getting used to the string-bean thin and tall hero characters of this universe. But those items are easily dismissed for all that is very cool in this series.
The best part may very well be the band Daft Punk’s soulful, hopeful, sometime dark, sometimes bright techno music that is borrowed from their unique and stunning score for the film Tron: Legacy and carefully and expertly edited into this series. The thumping base line and synthesized strings at the right movements take you into this new world to the point you find the art direction and sound together creating a complete universe–and you will question whether this is a movie or a video game or an animated series. Imagery of a classic Encom light cycle has glass-like mirror reflections of animated characters that looks like it could exist in the real world. Water flows like real water, yet nicely done with a computerized edge to it as in the original Tron film.
And then you have Bruce Boxleitner as not an elder Tron so much as a mature Tron, leader and icon of this new uprising. His character looks a bit like Boxleitner without the need for motion capture technology. Elijah Wood’s Beck is young and impulsive. Emmanuelle Chriqui’s Paige and Kate Mara’s Perl are cool, tough villains. Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica, Burn Notice) provides the perfect voice for the voiceover introductions as well as the voice of the Grid. Lance Henriksen’s (Alien) Tesler is a slicker villain than Jeff Bridges’ motion capture computer-generated character Clu from Tron: Legacy. And Paul Reubens’ voice is perfect for Tesler’s henchman.
You can’t forget the animation itself, and Disney has outdone itself here. it looks like it must have taken years to developed this type of imagery. Some scenes look they come from the best of Pixar’s achievements, including some that just establish setting, with little or no action, although the light cycle chase scenes are seemless and exciting as you’d hope for.
That’s a pretty catchy introduction to the new animated series previewed last year with the home release version of Tron: Legacy on DVD and Blu-Ray and at Comic-Con in San Diego. Back then the prediction was that we’d see the series by this January, and there are no reports out from Disney as to the cause of the delay. LikeThe Hobbit and rebooted Star Trek, this will be a “sequel prequel” fitting in between Tron and Tron: Legacy, but apparently after Jai Nitz‘s Tron: Betrayalgraphic novel, since it will start after Clu takes over the Grid.
The early trailer looks fun, like a cross between the original Speed Racer series from the 1970s mixed with a little modern anime, and it shares the overall feel of Tron: Legacy, the live action film that continued the adventures of Flynn and Tron from the original film, Tron, from 1982. It also looks to have a lot in common with the Tron: Evolution video game released last year. Clearly Disney appears to be coordinating its Tron franchise elements, although the release of Tron: Uprising would probably be more popularly received closer to Tron: Legacy’s release.
Tron: Uprising , which was originally to be available January 3, 2012, is now scheduled for release in May. Early marketing describes the book and animated series as follows:
When the computer world of The Grid is taken over by an evil tyrant, one young man named Beck must join forces with the legendary hero Tron to free his home city. Under Tron’s tutelage, Beck will take on a secret identity to fight back, bringing a superhero sensibility to the world of Tron. Featuring brand new settings, characters, and vehicles, TRON: Uprising will bring a unique style and classic storytelling to the Disney Channel and Disney XD! The animated original movie, hitting TV screens in spring 2012, will kick-off a brand new series in summer 2012. Kids who can’t get enough of superheroes, action-adventure stories, and the sleek and unique look of TRON are sure to love this retelling of the TRON: Uprising original movie. The novelization will be a retelling of the events of the movie, and will include a full-color eight page insert with frames from the stunning animated feature!
The series is expected to air on Disney XD and possibly the Disney Channel. There has been no other releases about whether or not there will be an animated movie as stated in the promotional materials. Tron: Uprising will air in 10 initial episodes.
But the best part is the voice cast, with Bruce Boxleitner, practically non-existent in the title role in Tron: Legacy, who will reprise his role as Tron; Elijah Wood, who played Frodo in The Lord of the Rings series, will play Beck, a character on the Grid that is trained by Tron and takes on the show’s villain, General Tesler, played by Lance Henriksen (Alien series, The Right Stuff, Terminator). Also appearing will be Mandy Moore (Tangled), Paul Ruebens (Batman Returns, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mystery Men), voice actor from hundreds of animated series Fred Tatasciore, Emmanuelle Chrique (Entourage), Nate Corddry, and Reginald VelJohnson (Die Hard, Die Hard 2).
graphic novel, since it will start after Clu takes over the Grid.
video game released last year. Clearly Disney appears to be coordinating its Tron franchise elements, although the release of Tron: Uprising would probably be more popularly received closer to Tron: Legacy’s release.
, which was originally to be available January 3, 2012, is now scheduled for release in May. Early marketing describes the book and animated series as follows:
