An Episode-By-Episode Look At... Tron: Uprising (Ensatsu-Ken)

Introduction:

So, as a mostly lazy ass dude who sits around just reading and/or watching a bunch of animated series whenever I have free time, I figured it may actually be nice to use the Internet to its fullest and actually take the time to express my opinion on what I’m watching. Unfortunately I’m usually too lazy and not skilled enough of a critic or writer to really thoroughly analyze a full body of work, though I may suck it up and try my hand at that some time down the road. For now, though, I came across an interesting little idea to rip-off borrow from a particular reviewer on the Internet: Doug Walker. You may be more familiar with his more well-known character, the Nostalgia Critic, but recently he has been doing an episode-by-episode V-Log series of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I myself think it’s a great concept to watch a series that you’ve never seen before and then give your thoughts on each episode to both please some of its fans and also get them to berate you for every little minor thing you don’t notice or forget to mention. On that note, I have decided to attempt the same thing with different shows which I have not tried before (preferably short ones), and the first on my list is Tron: Uprising. So, without further ado, let’s see what I thought of the first episode.

“Beck’s Beginning”

Hmmm...I'm not sure there's enough blue in this world

I should probably make it clear here and now that I have only ever seen the original film for Tron, and that was a few years ago, so I don’t particularly remember it in detail. I also have yet to watch the long-awaited sequel to the original film, Tron: Legacy. That said, none of that should really matter, as the animated series should be a work that stands on its own merits, and should not be feeding off the success of the films which established its Universe in order to be seen as a quality work. For that reason, I will refrain from mentioning anything that ties this series into the grander Universe that connects to the movies as much as possible, which includes any perceivable plot-holes which I notice, though if any fans just flat-out can’t resist correcting my ignorance, feel free to do so.

Putting that little note aside, why not just get down to what I thought of the first episode? Actually, this episode is a prelude to the rest of the series, as far as my understanding goes. The series quickly starts off with a very welcome and necessary prologue to this….uh, prelude. Anyways, it’s pure exposition, but understandable as its necessary to get people up to speed with what’s going on in this very strange and interesting world of lights and programs that for some reason resemble people. Now, I don’t want to go too much into the plot of each episode and just focus more on what I liked and disliked about it, but for a brief bit of context, the general gist of things seems to be that these characters (referred to as “programs”) exist in this cyber-world of sorts, referred to as The Grid, which was once oppressed by some evil force, but saved by a grand hero referred to as Tron. However, as we learn, once Tron had liberated The Grid, he attempted to perfect the system of this digital utopia, and to help him along with the process he made a copy of himself called Clu. However, in a common trope of story-telling the creation turned on its master and then basically seized control for himself. It is said that Clu overtook Tron and left him for dead. Why a digital program didn’t just do the logical thing and make sure that his main threat for opposition was dead is a bit beyond me, but perhaps that could be chalked up to him being the copy of Tron who was essentially a human in the original movie called Jeff Bridges Kevin Flynn, who was later converted into a digital program, or something of the like. So, maybe the idea was that Clu may also then have some humanity conflicting with the rationale behind his decisions. Or I might be looking entirely too much into this and nit-picking too much about a kids show. And yeah, I know I said I would avoid making comparisons to the movie, but I made an exception here to try and come up with an explanation for something to the best of my ability.

Still looks less static than the actual Jeff Bridges

At any rate, the episode is split into two segments. The first segment involves the main character of this series, Beck, being introduced through an act he performed in fighting against Clu’s established forces as a rebel, only under the disguised identity of Tron, who up to this point everyone assumes to be dead. He is caught in the beginning of the episode and interrogated by a masked program who questions him about his actions, and the rest of the episode is cleverly told through flash-backs. The second segment deals with Beck’s friends getting captured and Beck having to dawn on the Tron suit to liberate them from being sent to a coliseum in which they would play games for their life (which probably wouldn’t be as cool as it sounds).

Now, I’m a bad news first kind of guy, and like to close out things with the positive aspects, so let me get my criticisms of this first episode off right away. For one thing, I have to be honest and say that I’m not too fond of the character designs in this series so far. Now that’s a really subjective thing so I can overlook it, but to elaborate on what I mean, I think it feels a bit confused. It has a 3D style of animation akin to shows like Green Lantern: The Animated Series, but at the same time the character designs seem to be aiming for a pseudo-anime style akin to something like Avatar: The Last Airbender. On their own these art-styles are fine, but I just don’t feel that they mesh well together. The anime style seems to be made for traditional 2D animation with maybe some 3D cleverly slipped into the background, but the way this series pulls it off comes off a tad awkward. It’s a nitpick to be sure, but something worth mentioning. On another note, I tend to find the animation to be adequate, but also a tad static for the type of action this series attempts to execute, which I think is done fine for the most part, but also lacks a feeling of smoothness and fluidity that you would expect from the “physics” of this kind of world.

In addition to merely aesthetic elements of the series, I do find that so far at least, not much has been done to establish the importance of any supporting characters. We of course get to know Beck throughout both segments of this episode, as he’s the main character, and he comes off as an honestly very likable take on the young, passionate rebel archetype. We also get to know a bit more about Tron himself, as its revealed early on that Beck’s masked interrogator is really Tron in disguise, who was “interrogating” Beck to test if he could be a worthy successor to his cause. Based on this first episode, it would seem as though Tron is going to have a sort of mentor-to-student sort of relationship with Beck, who will be serving as his protégé. These two characters are well-defined so far, but understandably since its only the 1^st episode, I can probably forgive the lack of characterization of the supporting cast members. That said, it does feel a bit like a cheap when one of Beck’s friends is killed off early on to generate some emotion and sympathy for the rebels, who you can tell are the good guys because of their blue and white light streaks, as opposed to Clu’s forces who are obviously bad guys because of the harsh orange and red streaks they emit (an obvious but ultimately clever way to highlight this stuff for kids, I suppose). Other than that, my only other negative so far is that while the techno-vibe of the music is very well suited for this series, the composed scores do feel forgettable.

So guess which one of these characters exists for the sole
purpose of being killed off?

On a more positive note, the art-design of this series, in regard to the environment and backgrounds, is pure eye-candy. It is important to stress this point because with the limited color-palette that the The Grid allows for (primarily wide black backgrounds with variations of blue and orange and a few other less pronounced colors), it would be easy for the visuals in this show to become aesthetically repetitive and grating after just a few episodes. As it stands, the images displayed in this series take full creative use of the design of The Grid, leading to several terrific set-piece moments, with a particularly great action scene involving a train in the second segment of this episode. Another important strength displayed in this first episode is just how great the writers and animators did at building up this world. You can learn so much about how the programs in The Grid operate by well-written quips and exchanges between characters as well as several scenes based only on visuals alone. Its a hard thing to do and deserves more appreciation than what most people would give it credit for. Additionally, while the story so far is going in a predictable direction, it’s also one that I’m a sucker for. Interestingly enough, though, this series currently seems to resemble a superhero show more than anything else, with Beck assuming the identity of Tron as a disguise which he keeps hidden from both his enemies as well as his friends. This tone is also helped along by the villains also feeling like a legitimate threat, as we get a total of two casualties, one per each segment.

In regard to the villains, I also do enjoy how there seems to be a bit more dimension to some of Clu’s forces than just being one-note, anti-fun machines. One character, Paige, is shown to be a formidable opponent for Beck, but also has clear indications of being more layered than the rest of Clu’s forces, and may possibly even be a future ally of his. There is another scene in which Beck ends up sparing another program who is one of Clu’s soldiers, leading said program to return the favor by helping Beck to complete his rescue mission even at the cost of his own life for his betrayal. This is stuff that I have certainly seen numerous times before, but as I often say, I can deal with un-originality if the execution is well done, and in the premiere of this series, it is handled exceptionally well. Finally, I must make note of the excellent voice acting this series has to offer. Of particular note is Frodo Baggins Elijah Wood as Beck who brings a sense of both passion and innocence to the main protagonist of this story, as well as Bruce Boxleitner who has an unforgettable voice for Tron, carrying somewhat of an Optimus Prime-esque tone to his voice, while still coming off as something entirely unique.

Word of advice: don't let the guy you are interrogating keep
his lock-pick... or his weapon

Now, I’ve gone into more detail than I would normally go into for a single episode of a series, but I wanted to set up my first impressions of this show to a particular standard that would make it easier to talk about the rest of the series, so don’t expect all of my entries to be nearly this long. As it stands, I quite enjoyed this first episode quite a good deal, and am actually eager to delve into the rest of this series. There is a lot of potential for a good or even great show here, so I’m hoping that the writing can really keep improving in future episodes, while the visual style of the series manages to maintain its flare and appeal. Here’s to seeing you all in the next episode!