Music Review | Tron: Legacy OST by Daft Punk

Tron: Legacy has a lot to prove. The decades-belated sequel to a nostalgic sci-fi "classic" from the early 80s, it's already been the subject of much ado about nothing courtesy of doom-saying industry analysts wondering whether its positioning as this holiday season's blockbuster of choice will be borne out by that old economic chestnut: the numbers. And you know, probably it won't.

But let's take the long view, say there's more to a movie than its box office. And indubitably there is. There's more to Tron: Legacy than a chart of potential profit and loss already, what with the odd beast of a soundtrack synthbotpop double-act Daft Punk have put together for it. That's - yep - the same Daft Punk you're thinking of. The guys with the anime music videos... the Kraftwerk-esque arrangements you're sure to know even if you'd rather you didn't.

So, an hour of music fit to shake your tush to on the dance floor? Surprisingly, not so much. The Game Has Changed, goes the title of track eight - an incredible clashing, hissing crescendo of sound that'd bleed bombast if you cut it - and it's a safe bet you'll come away from this score assured it has. If you're after another album along the lines of Discovery, forgive me for saying it, but these aren't the droids you're looking for.

However, as far as Daft Punk are from their comfort zone, they equip themselves remarkably well. A single, exquisite refrain - sometimes swollen and celebratory, sometimes tender and melancholy - flits deliberately through the soundscape, an intensely memorable motif which handily ties together the disparate threads of the duo's latest efforts. Only thus are Daft Punk able to pull together such a swathe of influences, most notably from Hans Zimmer's stellar score for The Dark Knight in Recognizer and The Game Has Changed, but you don't need to listen closely to pick out strains of Blade Runner in Arrival, touches of (of all things) Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi in Outlander, Nocturne and Finale, and here and there a miscellany of bits owing a debt to the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Terminator. It shouldn't work, but oddly enough, it does - thanks in no small part to that recurring aural motif, without which I dare say the twenty-odd short pieces Daft Punk have composed for Tron: Legacy would function as one not at all.

The clubbers who Daft Punk have made their bread and butter from before now won't be best pleased by the orchestral Tron: Legacy score, I fear - Derezzed is the duo's only offering in that regard, and while it might appease a few such aficionados, it feels otherwise a sweaty techno token at odds with the remainder of the soundtrack's more considered soaring - but with this album the robot brothers stand to inherit a whole other army of fans. It's more than a little derivative, yes, yet it hits on all the right notes, and the film itself, whatever its eventual legacy, will certainly be the better for it.

Here Be Predators

The incredible trailer for Tron: Legacy surprised the hell out of me the other day, so I thought, in light of the release of another new teaser, why not give Predators a shot, too?

On Friday, at the South by Southwest film festival, the movie's producer Robert Rodriguez introduced a few minutes of new footage. Here it is:

I can't say this brief sneak peek sells me on Predators as immediately as last week's trailer made damn sure I wouldn't be missing the Tron sequel come Christmas, but all the same, there's a lot to like here. A snappy sound-bite from Adrian Brody seems to encapsulate all that I understand of the premise behind this franchise reboot: "This planet is a game preserve... and we're the game."

For the most part, the design looks solid. The world, what little we can see of it, looks great, and the future tech seems authentic at first glance - although the unveiling of the new breed of predator leaves me rather cold.

The thing about Predators that most surprises me, however, is the cast. Alongside the aforementioned Adrian Brody we have Lawrence 'CSI Level 2' Fishbourne and the gentleman who was the voice of Venom in Spider-man 3. As Rodriguez says, they "can't compete with Arnold Schwarzenegger," but they're a promising bunch nonetheless. And they've signed on for a reason.

Whether that reason is a massive bag of cash... we'll have to wait and see. I guess it's all up to director Nimrod Antal, whose efforts in the past leave me no more certain what caliber of film to expect - the surprisingly excellent Vacancy bodes well, though his follow-up, Armored was a bit rubbish, really.

Still not at all sure about this one, but I'm hoping for the best. I'd really like to see a good Predator reboot - there's certainly plenty of room for interesting new stories set around that mythology - but at this point, and so close now to its July release, it's just as likely we're looking at another film on the level of Aliens vs. Predator here. That we're only now seeing some footage doesn't bode particularly well, that's for sure.

Thoughts, film fans?

We Can Do It For You Wholesale

I was skeptical about Tron: Legacy. In part six of the epic Speculative Cinema in 2010 feature that ran in throughout late January and early February, which you can read in full here, I wrote: "It's easy to forget that Tron was deemed a massive flop upon its initial release, and whatever the appetite for a sequel amongst fans who've picked up on the original in the decades since, I don't honestly expect Tron: Legacy will appeal widely enough to the greater public that it will be judged any more of a success. It could be good; it could even be great."

That said, the trailer released a few days ago really got my blood pumping. Dark, stylish, and atmospheric, Tron: Legacy, our first real look at why the studio seems to have such faith in first-time feature-film director Joseph Kosinskui that they're already talking two sequels and a potential CG spin-off series for TV wowed me on all counts. In case you haven't seen it already, take a look:

But that's not really why I'm posting. I'm posting because yesterday, Dark Horizons - Garth Franklin's excellent Aussie film news and reviews resource - ran a screengrab comparison from the trailer above and the original Tron that brings to light what an astounding job of de-aging Jeff Bridges the special effects gurus behind the sequel have done:

I mean, differing lighting conditions aside, isn't that amazing? Perhaps they can't yet physically immortalise us in our youths, but with the help of a little green screen, a graphics package and some quad-core processing power, it seems like we're finally getting to a point where nearly anything is possible.

They've tried this sort of this in the past, with uniformly uncanny results - as with Tom Hanks in The Polar Express, for instance - and of course as the tech gets better and the techniques becomes ever more practiced, the end product will of course improve. But come on. Young Jeff Bridges has never looked so good.

Oh, do me next, effects people!