So...what happened to Yori?
You know. It is the obvious question. Simply from a storytelling perspective. Its a logical question. Only a bad writer forgets about a main character he has written somewhere in the last act of the story.
Well. You're the ones who decided to make a sequel and finally make TRON into a franchise. Don't talk to me about videogame plots. Don't talk to me about comic books. Those things are great, but can I watch them like movies?
I'll tell you what. I'll start considering the TRON 2.0 videogame when a fan screen-captures the entire game and edits it into a movie I can watch on Youtube. (The same applies with TRON EVOLUTION). (Hey man, its Tron stuff, I have the freakin soundtracks to those games, believe me, I'm all about it, but they ain't the movies, and they ain't any more part of the story than all those novels George Lucas came out with before EMPIRE STRIKES BACK came out.) I understand that TRON videogames are fun. I think TRON DEADLY DISCS, MAZE-A-TRON and SOLAR SAILER are awesome. Good fun. Not exactly part of any story which can be taken seriously though.
Comic books are interesting, but they've never really drawn me in, and the makers of TRON know that not everybody is going to read comic books. And, since you're not willing to hire real writers to write TRON novels, and are only willing to put out some children's books, there's no material here which answers our questions.
So the question remains, and the question remains obvious. What happened to Yori? What happened to Lora Baines? We gather that the intention was that Alan married Lora, and so we thought, Tron and Yori lived happily ever after...but not in TRON LEGACY.
For months before TRON LEGACY came out, I asked myself, where the hell's "Tron?" He's not in the trailers, nobody's talking about "Tron." After all, he's the title character. It's called "TRON" for a reason, not FLYNN. As it turns out he's a mystery character, it would have been a spoiler, I get it, it didn't really work excellently, but turned out alright, and I get it...our Tron has gone evil, and he became Rinzler. Not a bad idea, actually, a pretty good idea, but you forgot to provide a 'motivation' for his redemption...seriously guys, read the script that's been written next time, before you start filming it. Now people love this movie. Now here we are, ready to pony up more money to see another one. That's a good sign. All we expect is that you do the rational storytelling thing...and let us know what happened to Lora and Yori. Is that really too much to ask? The silence and mystery around this whole thing is a bit weird. Unless, we're about to all be pleasantly surprised that YORI created the ISOs, and LORA builds a new laser to create a new Grid. Something like that would be most excellent, but all we're saying here is, you have one gigantic 'trilogy plothole' if you don't tell us what happened. This isn't some campaign to get 'Crewman No. 6' from Episode 63 to be in your next movie, this is a main character you nutballs! We're trying to STOP you from making a BIG mistake here. We're on your side.
TRON and CLU were re-booted into Flynn's new Grid. That I understand. We are now about to get a television series which is a prequel to TRON LEGACY. Sounds like a plan, sounds like a way to explain some things. So far, it doesn't sound like YORI is in TRON UPRISING. Um. Why the hell not?
Did Dr. McCoy get booted from STAR TREK THE WRATH OF KHAN? Nope. Did Princess Leia not appear in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK or RETURN OF THE JEDI? No. Did Officer Lewis disappear from ROBOCOP 2? Not at all. (Well Hicks and Newt did get totally screwed out of ALIEN 3....for no good reason.) I've done negative campaigns before, they certainly don't work. I'm trying to be positive here, because I did like TRON LEGACY, so this is most certainly a positive campaign. Help us out here guys, we do want to go forward with you on this. But let's be real...
So you gave us TRON LEGACY. Great. Good job. Now...what's the explanation? There isn't one. Lora Bradley appears in a promo video. Cool. That's a start. Ram is there too in another one. Nice work. Now, we can all say, hey, TRON LEGACY...good second chapter, now finish the story with the original characters. Otherwise, TRON LEGACY will eventually become seen as nothing but an extravagant scheme of some sort to make a big 3-D special effects film. Let me say this: IT MAKES NO SENSE NOT TO HAVE LORA OR YORI in any future installments of TRON. Karen Allen returned in the last Indiana Jones film, which might have been the only good thing about that movie, but at least they tied it up with the beginning of the story. You have made a better film than Spielberg, TRON LEGACY is 10 times better moviemaking, and even storytelling than INDIANA JONES AND THE CRYSTAL SKULLS. (Or whatever the hell they called it.) So that's telling you something isn't it?
I'm telling you guys, not only is there NO REASON to ignore this character, the TRON franchise will basically make no sense if it does not include these characters. I understand you have a couple new characters. That is inevitable. It happens in every sequel. Good idea with Dillinger's son. Great idea. Now... let's take advantage of the story we already have. There is so much that can be done with Yori and Lora, it would be utterly absurd not to include them. If you, DISNEY, actually continue to ignore these characters, well, then there is something seriously backwards and wrong with you. Maybe we're all being silly here, but you must realize what we're beginning to realize, the first TRON movie was something more extraordinary than what most of us really imagined. Its ideas apply to the world we live in today, in some very strange ways, and bravo to Steven Lisberger for that. One very particular element of that is Yori.
George Lucas obviously destroyed Star Wars with his prequels, because he ignored simple storytelling issues which he supposedly created in the first place, and for some reason could not maintain them in these crap prequels, and now, they're laughable failures which few people can even remotely take seriously. Do you want that to happen? Do you really think you can pull one over on us? You're still in good company here, most of us accept TRON LEGACY, and love the ideas in it, all you have to do now is hire a writer who knows what he's doing, and how to finish this story the way it should be finished. We're not telling you HOW to involve YORI and LORA in TRON 3, or TRON UPRISING, we're simply telling you, if you go forward without these characters, your TRON 3 will go down in history, after all this work you did on TRON LEGACY, as disappointing as TERMINATOR 3, as idiotic as REVENGE OF THE SITH, and as half-assed as ALIEN 3. Don't make this mistake. You have plenty of time, and plenty of lessons you can learn from here. We're not asking you to give 'Guard #2' a starring role here, we're not asking you to make sure you include the "BIT," we're asking you to return to the third main character of TRON. I just have to ask...what's the issue here? I mean, what's the deal? Does YORI piss you off that much or something?
Come on guys, I know you like money, and that this is a business, well--don't make a stupid business decision where you kill a huge money making franchise because you don't know how to write a script. This really is that simple.
I'll put a provision on it. I'd rather her fate be a blank slate than have her shoved into the proverbial fridge and killed off in some "by the way" manner.
ReplyDeleteTo the webmaster: THANKS! I just came on over here from tron-sector and I am more than glad to find this place!
ReplyDeleteOne thing I didn't like about Tron:Legacy was the exclusion of Lora/Yori from the story. There would be no travel between the real and digital worlds without Dr. Lora Baines-Bradley's pioneering Shiva Laser project, which she created (along with the late Dr. Walter Gibbs). Also, Yori played a significant part in the ENCOM 511 as one of the programs that managed the simulation sector. I can't understand why Kevin Flynn wouldn't have copied her over to help maintain his own private system. I also didn't like Kosinski's explanation of her absence during one of the promo events - while it was cool to see her in that Space Paranoids Press Conference, she didn't even have any lines at all, and she was just present as Mr. Bradley's Wife.
In closing, I demand that Lora/Yori show up in all future TRON-related stories, as it is only the right thing to do! And I also hope that she's not window dressing to be killed off, or just put in as some insignificant character. I'm writing a fanfic and you can best believe that Dr. Lora Baines and YORI are playing a part in it.
Thanks for the site! Will be checking this out.
Sincerely,
Renegade Program@tron-sector.com
"I also didn't like Kosinski's explanation of her absence during one of the promo events"
ReplyDelete--what did he say exactly?