The difference between technology from Tron to Tron Legacy is stick figures to fully populated cities. All that fancy stuff doesn't make it any easier to save the cyber world though. The young stars of Tron Legacy still had to wear complicated light suits that made basic scene work exhausting.

"Once in the Tron world we wear this very technical suit," said Garrett Hedlund. "That's fantastic and it looks amazing every time it's on screen, especially in 3-D, but for two months straight, all day, every day, and being in this you start to forget what it was like to film a film with just jeans and a T-shirt."

Jeff Bridges, who reprises his role from the 1982 original, recalled the down and dirty style in which they made the first groundbreaking film. "Looking back at that first one it was such an advanced thing," Bridges said. "I remember it was shot in 70 mm, black and white, and we had black curtains and white adhesive tape. That was basically our set. It was all hand tinted by Korean ladies. We were in Korea and it was hand tinted. I don't know how much CGI there was."

New light cycles and deadly discs may be even higher powered in the new Tron, but don't take the little things for granted. "[It's] physically just grueling day after day, either the cable works, or certain stunts we had to do," Hedlund continued. "The most minimal of stuff can be very tedious. Just taking one knee and holding your arms out straight, it's tough. It just looks great."

Tron Legacy still has two years of visual effects work before its release in 2011.



Story/Interview by Fred Topel

Starpulse contributing writer

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