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
Tags: 1980s, 3D movies, Arcade, Arcade game, Daft Punk, Disney, Disneyland, Electronica, Flynn, Movies, Olivia Wilde, Shit we're excited for, Technology, Tron, We worship