In Scandinavian countries, it was once common to bury a fish until it rotted, then dig it up and eat it.
Most Americans would say they’d never do anything so unhygienic. But the Walt Disney Co., possessed of an overstuffed pop-culture pantry, has done something almost as gamy: It’s excavated a 28-year-old flop, Tron, and is offering it as a Christmastime delicacy.
To be fair, Disney isn’t simply reheating leftovers. It’s concocted a sequel, with the curious title of Tron: Legacy. (“Legacy,” ironically, being a high-tech euphemism for “obsolete.”) Everything in the long-delayed follow-up is said to be brand new, except the dopey premise and the likelihood that it’ll lose a bundle.
The new Tron, like the first one, is about flesh-and-blood humans who somehow get trapped inside a computer system (aka “The Grid”). And where the original struggled to break even on a $20 million budget, the new one is tempting box-office calamity with a cost estimated between $150 million and $200 million. (That’s a hefty uptick, even adjusted for inflation, and Hollywood insiders are predicting a weak opening.)
All right angles and black backgrounds, the 1982 Tron was ahead of its time principally for having a video-game tie-in. The home computer was then a rarity, and an underpowered one.