Now, time for some late late late impressions for Disney's viral event promoting TRON: Legacy!
Everything took place on April 2nd, the first day of Wondercon. The evening started with a cold wind and a small crowd. When I arrived at seven thirty, the main stage was set up, a searchlight was erected, and the mix position dudes looked incredibly bored. It took about half an hour for the crowd to get pretty big, and by then everyone was buzzing with TRON excitement.
I could go into a detailed breakdown of what exactly happened, but there's plenty of that to be found on the web. One of my personal favorite blogs, io9, goes into mind-numbing detail about the forty minute event here. Also check out the official website here.
Basically, Disney poured some decent dollar figures into making some fairly interesting entertainment to promote their new movie. I know nothing about the TRON universe, but the whole event was well put together. I was expecting something flashy, but the core of the show was a fake protest against Encom, the company responsible for the game "Tron" within the movie.
Between the too-long speech from the fake Encom executive, and the mildly interesting but oh-so-fake stage blitz from the protesters, nothing was terribly exciting. Things only really got interesting when a helicopter sporting the Encom logo buzzed the crowd twice, and a small blue figure leaped out of it to parachute down over our heads.
Frustratingly enough, no one explained who the stuntman was. I walked away wondering if it was just some flashy show of "ooo, aaah" to get people talking. Apparently, though, the man with the parachute was supposed to be the son of the main programmer for Tron. His parachute act was meant to "crash the party" and ruin the press conference.
All in all, the parachute sealed the deal. I don't regret my time there, but they definitely could have kicked everything up a notch. Did it make me more interested in the movie? A little, but you won't see me in line for a midnight release.
