COMIC-CON 2010

Comic-Con 2010: Our Live Blog of Disney's Tron Legacy Panel

by Alex Billington
July 22, 2010

We're currently sitting in the massive Hall H, right next to a giant 3D screen, at Comic-Con 2010 waiting for the extremely highly anticipated panel for Disney's Tron Legacy, featuring appearances by the entire cast including Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, Garrett Hedlund, Bruce Boxleitner, and director Joseph Kosinski. This is one panel we've been waiting for and this should be the highlight of Comic-Con 2010, so we're going to be providing live blog updates below as it's occurring, with quotes and reactions live as it happens. I wish we could show you the footage they're probably going to show us, but you'll be able to see some online soon.

11:12AM - Waiting for the panel to start - we'll keep you updated! Stay tuned!

11:21AM - Patton Oswalt takes the stage to kick off the Disney panel. Absolutely the BEST moderator for panels in Comic-Con history, or definitely close to being at the very top.

11:24AM - Showing us a "mini-documentary" talking about the legacy of Tron, or rather the legacy of Encom and so on.

11:26AM - Was a great video showing EVER clip where Tron was mocked, like in South Park and Family Guy and everything, all to the beat of Daft Punk's "Around the World."

11:28AM - Patton introduces the talent onstage: director Joe Kosinski, producer Sean Bailey, director Steve Lisberger, actors Garret Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen, Bruce Boxleitner and Jeff Bridges.

11:30AM - Kosinski: "I knew we had to push the boundaries technically, creatively, and story-wise." They also made fully illuminated suits this time. Shot this on real 3D cameras, "the good stuff" Patton says.

11:32AM - Bailey talking about putting this together after they first debuted that footage two years ago. Calls Joe Kosinski a "visionary filmmaker" (I agree) and how they then also came across Daft Punk, then started casting, and they had to have Kevin Flynn and they had to have Tron, and they're very happy they could get both of them. Very focused on a father-son story in this.

11:36AM - Hedlund calls this the "wardrobe of a lifetime." Talking about the suits with actual lights in them and so on.

11:37AM - Wilde talking about how great it was to play a "powerful, tough, kick ass woman" calling Quorra a "fearless warrior." She's always wanted to play a fearless warrior and got to fight and so on. Did as many of their own stunts as they could, but she trained in martial arts without wearing heels, then when put the suit on with 4" heels it was a different experience.

11:41AM - Asking Boxleitner what it's like to star in another Tron. Absolutely thrilled to revisit a character like this 23 years later.

11:43AM - Bridges: Great to get to play with all the technology, that's what was great about the original, and that's what's also great about this one with all the new technology. Boxleitner & Bridges joking about how they "threw actual frisbees" back then and had "Tron dance belts."

11:44AM - Asks him if he ever saw this day coming. "It proves to me that some things, good things, take a really long time to happen." "You just keep doing what you think is right and hope it works out in the end" - a line from the original Tron that holds up. In same way, working on this one it feels strangely familiar to the first film.

11:45AM - Patton jokes they're going to run a quick "in memoriam" of all the Tron fans that died while waiting for this.

11:46AM - Going to show us footage, be back here in 8 minutes once it ends. CAN'T FRICKIN WAIT!

12:02PM - Okay, delayed update, but a LOT just happened. We watched about 8 minutes of footage that was MIND-BLOWING. Visually, this is the most incredibly progressive, amazingly visual movie I have ever seen, even more so than Avatar. This truly is the next step above and beyond Avatar, Kosinski has done it. We got to see Hedlund taken as a "program" and put into "games" and a few clips of various disc battles. And then at the end - LIGHT JETS!

12:03PM - Director Joe Kosinski just pulled off one of the coolest things in Comic-Con history. He brought Skywalker Sound here to record the Hall H audience cheering certain scenes that he will put in the movie in the end. We followed a "bouncing-dot" set of directions on the screen and chanted things like "de-rez! de-rez! de-rez!" over and over. They will probably be added to various disc battle and game scenes where you hear the audience cheering and it was absolutely amazing.

12:06PM - Bridges: One of the things that attracted him to return is that this is a "modern myth" and he says we need modern myths nowadays. One of our themes of this movie is the "dark side" of technology, and it's happening so fast we haven't developed any ethics, and we don't know anything about the long term effects of all this technology we're developing.

12:12PM - Watching the Q&A, not too many interesting Tron questions, but we'll keep you updated!

12:15PM - Asked how it went from being called Tron 2 to Tron Legacy. Because it was a father-son story at its core, passing on the legacy from father to son. It both fit on it creatively and also spoke philosophically to the movie they wanted to make.

12:20PM - Panel is over! Sorry guys, nothing more to report at this time.

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