Diaries of a Tron:Legacy Fanatic

Dear Diary,

I have a feeling my friends are all tired of me dominating their Facebook feeds with back-to-back posts about Tron:Legacy… as if the billboards and commercials weren’t enough already. So I’m going to fangirl in private. I watched the movie in IMAX-3D right after my flight from China, jaw-dropped the entire time. I stepped outside the movie theatre onto the grid of the Real World, imperfect in the way the Grid was “perfect”. I’m glad I got a taste of the Grid when I visited Disneyland weeks before, for the elecTRONica street club/party (read my post about it here). The Daft Punk cameo nearly caused me to wet my pants. Is my life that unexciting that I have to find solace in a fictional, glow-in-the-dark world? Maybe it’s because I’m a Pisces, and we are notorious for living in our imaginations 70% of the time. Or maybe I’m just bored of my environment, despite the fact I was traversing in Asia the last week (wait.. that’s another attribute of Pisces… right?)

I went to see the movie again the next day at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood–a dazzling laser show preceded the viewing.

Tron:Legacy laser show at the El Capitan Theatre.

A replica of the shiva device transporting you into the Grid (at the El Capitan)

I must say I enjoyed the movie more the second time… and who am I kidding, I have to see it again with my dad, for whom I just bought a Tron Light Cycle toy for (I got the Kevin Flynn one). The more I look at that toy the more I realize I should have bought one for myself… I mean, it LIGHTS UP!!!!!! Damn it’s cool.

!!!!! Now I really want one for myself!!!!

While at the Disney store next to the El Capitan, I also picked up the hard copy of the Tron soundtrack. I must point out 2 extremely cool things about this item:

1. The CD resembles an identity disc–it’s completely black on both sides, the top side printed with circles of turquoise.
2. The CD insert explains how the soundtrack was created, starting with Daft Punk meeting with director Joseph Kosinski at 101 Cafe in Hollywood, WHICH IS LITERALLY DOWN THE STREET FROM WHERE I LIVE! HOLY CRAP!!!!

Tron:Legacy soundtrack CD

Reverse side of Tron:Legacy soundtrack CD

After viewing the movie for the 2nd time, listening to the soundtrack on repeat, and cozying up in bed with my Tron:Legacy artbook, I started sketching the details for my Quorra costume (next year’s Comic-Con), trolling the web for screencaps and promotional images. I guess it’s no wonder my friends all associate me=Tron. Sigh.

And while scouring the internet for images, I stumbled upon this poster of BRILLIANCE!! I need more music posters to adorn my room, anyway. AND IT GLOWS IN THE DARK! Unfortunately it was only sold with the pre-order of the soundtrack. But you know what that means! Time to eBay.

Tron:Legacy Daft Punk limited edition poster. Image via highsnobiety.com

Well, that’s enough Tron talk for now. Better get back to work and contemplate things happening in real time, like Christmas and potlucks.

Sincerely,
The Menace

P.S. Cool elevator unit in my Guangzhou hotel. Portal into the Grid?

Why do I feel like I'm the only one who is giddy over these things 😦

Disneyland, You Were the Happiest Place on Earth. But I’m Just Going to Say It Was Because of elecTRONica

I would like to apologize to everyone who hangs out with me from now until … oh, let’s say.. the very last day of this year–I’m apologizing for my continuous chatter about TRON. If you don’t want to endure me raving about TRON during our moment of awkward silence as we’re hanging out over coffee, maybe you don’t want to invite me out for the rest of the year. I’ll understand.

A good friend of mine went to the elecTRONica weekend event at Disney’s California Adventure 2 weeks ago, and immediately afterward, started texting me furiously about possibly making a Tron costume with me. I had mentioned that I wanted to recreate Quorra’s (Olivia Wilde) outfit a couple months ago, for next year’s Comic-Con. I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what had gotten him so excited to partake in such a huge project.

I agreed to go to Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure to scope out this elecTRONica thing–mind you, I am not a Disney fan. The last time I went to Disneyland was… was when Space Mountain was renovated. That was probably over a decade ago. Wow. I am old. Needless to say, I had a fantastic time at Disneyland and now everyone thinks I’ve gone soft. IF ONLY THEY KNEW HOW MANY POINTS DISNEYLAND GOT IN MY LITTLE BLACK BOOK FOR INCORPORATING THE WORLD OF TRON INTO THE WORLD OF DISNEYLAND.

Enter here for elecTRONica. Thank you Alan Ma for this awesome photo.

The elecTRONica “party” takes place in the Hollywood Pictures Backlot–you enter through a portal similar to the ones seen in the “Tron” trailer. You walk down the “street”, and there are “programs” throwing identity disc frisbees. At the end of the “street” there’s a bar serving “glojitos” and “digitinis”. The “glojitos” come with glowing, color-changing “ice” cubes, and the digitinis are served in glowing, color-changing martini glasses. I had a sip of the glojito and an entire digitini to myself, and I will admit that the digitini was very, very hard lemonade.

Glojitos

Digitini complete with glowing glass. Thanks Alan for this photo!

In the center of the “Tron” street club/party was the DJ stage. There were some people dancing around, and a whole lot of security, as there were children and teens under 21. I wasn’t paying attention to the music the entire hour I was at the stage but the DJ that night played a good mix of top 40’s and Daft Punk.

DJ booth

Near the back of the street club was the viewing room for an exclusive 15-minute sneak peak of “Tron”. I won’t say much but I can only put it this way — I’m going to need to bring extra panties for the actual movie, because 15 minutes of “Tron” pretty much blew my mind and I’m not sure how I’m going to survive the 2-hour movie, in IMAX-3D. I might actually be in Vegas the weekend of the movie, and you know what? I’m still going to go out of my way to watch it, no matter how hungover I might be.

Pretty damn cool sofas. Again, thank you Alan for this photo!

Another notable destination in the elecTRONica party is Flynn’s Arcade. I wish I had a better photo of this, but it is basically a replica of the arcade in the movie. Old school arcade games like Galaxia, Frogger and the actual Tron game are housed in Flynn’s. We got souvenir tokens and I’m still excited about how cool it is even if everyone I’ve showed it to thinks I’m a 5-year-old boy who finally upgraded to playing Legos from Duplos.

Flynn's Arcade. Thanks to Alan Ma for this photo!

Look! It's Atari!

And then there was a holy light that shone from above...

The final thing I’d like to point out about elecTRONica is the Laserman. I at first thought he employed the same technology as pop/electronica musician Little Boots, with her laser harp, but his laser show was at a completely different level. I can’t really describe a laser show on a blog; you’ll just have to go see for yourself.

Laserman performing at elecTRONica

The dance party/street party is only occurring during the weekends at the moment, but after Thanksgiving, the parties will commence nightly. Partying at Disneyland? Being buzzed at Disneyland? Both were previously incomprehensible to me. I, who, never truly enjoyed Disneyland even as a child, finally had a smashing time at the theme park, all thanks to a movie where all the characters wear glow-in-the-dark leotards.

Flynn’s Arcade–been there done that.

Flynn's Arcade token from elecTRONica

Don’t Turn the Lights On

I am very lucky to be able to listen to electronica music all day at work. I don’t know where I’d be without it. So you can imagine my excitement earlier this week when Daft Punk’s “Derezzed” was finally circulated around the web, and I can only count down the minutes until my coworker taps me on the shoulder to tell me she knows it’s been on repeat for the past 4 days.

She hasn’t yet, so I’m going to continue with my elecTRONica and spotlight the “Tron” pop-up shop setting up November 19 at Culver City’s Royal/T cafe. Royal/T may already be familiar to all of you who have a SLIGHT interest in maid cafes. Keyword: SLIGHT. It comes as a bit of a surprise to me that the Tron pop-up would take place at Royal/T–the last time I went was for the Hello Kitty retrospective. My mistake for associating Royal/T with all things adorable.

The “Tron” pop-up store will infuse together 3 drastically different areas of interest–high-end fashion, cutting-edge technology and somewhat, nerd culture. I will be waiting on opening day to see how this works together since A) I work in fashion, B) I started this blog. Goldilocks might have just found her perfectly hot cup of tea at Royal/T come November 19.

The store will feature $800 shoes from shoe artisan Jerome Rousseau, designer jewelry indirectly inspired by the film (I say indirectly because the designers did not sculpt the jewelry for Tron), as well as other limited-edition “Tron” goodies from labels such as Oakley.

I wonder if the store will sell these amazing Anastasia Radevich heels?

Anastasia Radevich light-up shoes. Image via luxirare.com

As with the Hello Kitty exhibition I attended, Royal/T has also created a special “Tron” menu, including an “Identity Disc” cake–white-chocolate lava cake with blueberry sauce (I think I have to see this to determine if it even appears appetizing).

HOWEVER. If you are seeking to purchase the Daft Punk-composed soundtrack to the movie, it will not be released until December 7. The store closes December 23, so if you’ve run out of Christmas options for all your Tron-giddy friends (and maybe you have a couple G’s to throw down?) you’re gonna be making a lot of people very happy this holiday season. Hell, you might even make some new friends.

Tron pop-up "concept" collage. Image via latimes.com