I can't help but feel claims that Tron Legacy is "just another big budget movie that's all about effects" is a claim made out of nostalgia for the original. Because that's all Tron ever was. I know that it's the hip thing these days to act old and cynical, and dismiss all modern entertainment as just "big budget garbage".

The original Tron spent most of its time on its effects, on its action sequences, and on trying to look exotic and cool for the sake of it. That it had some human warmth and characterization was due to the strength of the cast and the director inserting nice touches at the right moment.

In my mind, Tron Legacy is the same thing. It is an exceedingly crafted film, with a huge amount of care and outright love for the source material in every frame and every composition. If you ask what Legacy means "to me", then it is the follow through on a promise that the original film tried to make, and fell short of in its own ways due to the limits of its era. It is also the delivery on the promise of its story.

For example, I can't believe the people who think that Legacy is pointless or a "forced" sequel. That's pure hogwash. The original Tron ended with a gargantuan question begging to be answered: Kevin Flynn wasn't just going to sit back and bankroll some money from his new pay grade at Encom. The man was a brilliant computer scientist who just discovered an alternate reality and a magic teleportation device in the basement. For anyone with a slim thread of imagination, the really interesting thing about Tron was wondering what happened next.

In reality, a guy like Flynn would use his position, power, newfound money, and the Shiva laser to start some serious sh*t. Tron Legacy is built entirely on the concept that Kevin Flynn did precisely that. It's one of the most natural and organic sequels to a film I think I've ever seen.

There's just too much automatic, sad, and self-blind hate these days for anything that attempts to create a connection to a previous work. Geeks and nerds are protective of their treasures, and huddle around them to hiss and spit at anything that comes near; even if that which approaches does so with respect.

Well, I'm going to skip going on about what particular personal meanings Legacy had for me, because I do feel a deeply personal connection to it but,... a. it's deeply personal and hard to describe, and... b. trying to describe it would make me sound like a zoom-dweeb.
So I'll just say, that basically, I liked it. It reawakened my Tron fandom from nearly thirty years of sleep-mode since the original Tron, and while yes there were things which could have been done better, I was still very impressed with it.

However,...I do understand though, the very good points several have made here about why they were disappointed.

In Legacy there is a sinister, dark, foreboding, stormy, tense feel to so much of it, so different from the original Tron. And an interesting contrast to the other visual constant in the film, which is 'light' (lightsuits, cycles, etc) I think that pervasive darkness reinforces what someone else on the boards said, that "we get the sense that the Grid is certainly no longer the utopia Flynn once thought it was". We get the real sense that it's become a place which not only mirrors treachery in the real world but could even expand to become a threat in the real world. So with that in mind, I do wonder if in some ways that darker mood may not be the very underlying reason for so much what some may find disappointing about Legacy.

In my case, I walked in the theater expecting lightcycles, and walked out of there wowed but slightly edgy, in that the storyline made me think about things which I would rather not. (which, to me is the sign of a good movie) That edginess I felt made me want to nitpick on parts of the film, to avoid thinking about the ways the storyline unsettled me, until I caught myself and realized that's what I was doing.
Because let's face it, Legacy wasn't the colorful fantastical wonderland the first Tron was, that place which took us far from the cares/concerns of our own world..instead, we see things affecting the Grid which have wreaked despair and havoc in our real world's history, such as tyranny, supremacy, genocide, and those things are hard to watch. For entire cultures, they're painful to even be reminded of. Very scary when seen in context of our real world in which technology has become so advanced and hate has become so prevalent. Those themes aside, we also see in Legacy themes of family and abandonment in the Sam/Kevin story, and that too is hard to watch for some of us. Whether it's how we view Sam's behavior, or Kevin's mistakes, etc, we relate to the characters and we have strong feelings either for or against the characters' choices based on what our own life-experience with family has been. I think that may be one of the examples of the Dagobah thing someone here mentioned...i.e. "we get out of the film only what we bring into it".

Anyway, even if the film falls short of some expectations, it has certainly brought forth strong reactions and personal feelings/objections from so many, and even with just that in mind, it's hard to see it as a disappointment. Personally, I liked it, but, to each their own.

I could easily write several pages about this film, as I was very impressed by it, but I'll try to condense it to a shorter, "Reader's Digest" version. I wasn't sure what to expect going into this film, as I had never seen the original, but after waiting a week or so when the DVD came out, I went and checked this out at the video store, and I was shocked. Usually when I watch a movie, I can tell by the end of the first viewing if there was something in the film that just didn't sit right with me, and whether or not that ruins the entire experience. With this film I couldn't find anything, and that's only happened one other time, with ironically enough another Disney movie, Toy Story 3. I loved this movie from start to finish, and I've watched it a good five times since then, and needless to say I own the Blu-ray/DVD combo and almost all the merchandise I want. This all being said, I can't understand how people are upset with the supposed lack of character development or plot, because to me those were both there, and after watching the first film, I would definitely have to say that TL was a major improvement over it, even though it's had a good 28 years of technological advancements to take advantage of.

In TL, you have Quorra, the naive, yet loyal and open-minded girl, who's the last of her kind. She yearns for knowledge, and by the end of the film she has become a fierce friend to Sam and a devoted student of Kevin's, having implemented his teachings into her actions. With Kevin, you have the "Creator" who was originally blinded by his inconceivable power and control, so much so that it led to his downfall, and he has the humility to recognize that and come to terms with it, even admitting to his mistakes. CLU, the "apprentice" to the master, who feels betrayed by his master and yearns to fulfill his purpose, as it's all that he knows, and when his master tells him his existence is useless (in a sense) he loses it. And then you have Sam. Sam was a very well developed character in my opinion, as he goes through the typical "hero" transformation. As a child he had already lost his mother, and now suddenly his father and best friend goes missing, with people alluding to him just running away, and at Sam's age that's got to be tough to deal with. Then, he's raised by his grandparents until their deaths only a few years later, so over the course of about 10 years this little kid has lost almost all of his family, and is left to fend for himself, and even though he still has Alan, imagine how that must feel. Thinking along these lines, I can easily see how he would grow to be independent, and almost somewhat resentful to people in general. Then, when he's a full grown adult, he finds out that possibly his father is alive, and he winds up in the seemingly made up world that his father entertained him with as a child. He meets his dad, and when his dad asks how he's been doing, he really doesn't have anything to tell him. That part really got me to thinking about how I would feel if I hadn't seen someone that important to me in a really long time suddenly reappeared and if they would be proud of what I eventually did with all that time.

Overall, I guess this film to me represents the deep bonds of family, as Kevin is willing to die for Sam, as is seemingly shown, and the sense of responsibility that a life-changing event can have on an individual. It also is about the fruitless search for perfection, and the need to realize that we all have our flaws and faults, but that we can get through them. Even though this is a Disney movie, I didn't once feel that is was throughout my viewing of the film, and that alone I think says a lot.