The line to get into the fabled Hall H stretched well past the convention center, practically down to the marina. People wanted to get into the hotly anticipated Tron Legacy panel, and were willing to do anything to gain entrance -- even sit through the wan Megamind panel immediately preceding Tron Legacy. Now that's love.
Join me as I liveblog the living RAM out of Tron Legacy starting NOW.
11:22 Panel moderator Patton Oswalt greets the audience: "Good morning, furries!"
11:26 Patton introduces a clip package showing the far cultural reaches of Tron -- including Family Guy, Robot Chicken, 30 Rock and even Tron: On Ice! Oswalt: "Why couldn't we get Blade Runner on ice?"
11:30 Enter the stars -- Garret Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Bruce Boxleitner, Michael Sheen and the Dude himself, Jeff Bridges.
11:32 The director Joseph Kosinski knows his audience: "This is shot in true 3D, there's no post-conversion." And the grateful nerds go wild with approval.
11:35 Bridges had to act against himself, de-aged by computer to the 35 year-old version of Flynn's computer program, but he thought his younger self was kind of a diva: "Man, he was just a jerk, hitting on Olivia, eating all the carbs I couldn't at craft services, what a diva."
11:41 Michael Sheen is a British firecracker: "This film is actual in 4D, because Jeff Bridges adds an extra dimension of awesomeness. And while 27 years in a long time in between characters for Jeff to return to it, I believe in-between the new and old Wall Street, I believe Michael Douglas aged approximately 237 years."
11:45 Oswalt "We're now going to run an 'In Memorium' package for all the fans who died waiting for a sequel."
11:50 And now the money shot: the eight minutes of exclusive footage:
· Open on Hedlund, "This isn't happening, this isn't happening."
· Suddenly, the cruiser for Space Paranoid is above him
· "This is happening."
· Hedlund is taken aboard the cruiser protesting, "I'm not a program."
· Hedlund gets scanned and set to "Games" where a quartet of hot lady programs strip him of his clothes and hand him his ldentity Disc.
· "What am I supposed to do" he asks? "Survive," says the hot lady program.
T· hen a blazingly fast compendium of light cycles, disc tossing and general mayhem, with a brief shot of Michael Sheen duded up like the Thin White Duke era Bowie,
· Close on a digitally-youngerifed Bridges saying to Hedlund, "I'm not your father, but I am happy to see you."
· Damn girl, that footage was impressive.
12:00 The audience gets a chance to be part of movie as Skywalker Sound records them freaking out, screaming "Dee! Rez! Dee! Rez! Dee! Rez!" to add to the crowd scenes.
12:02 Bridges gets even more audience cred by declining to go into too much detail about the movie. "You know, man, I love movies and I try to know as little as I can before I go in to see it. It's the best way to see it." Jeff Bridges, Academy Award-winner and firmly anti-spoiler.
12:07 Bridges briefly hijacks the panel to discuss how he and Jackson Browne both hate plastic water bottles, and urges the audience to kick their bottled water habit.
12:09 Identical twins ask Olivia Wilde, "Now that you have an appreciation for video game, do you also have an appreciation for guys who play video game?" Smirk. Wilde plays to the audience, "You guys are so discerning and smart, so I'm really happy to learn all about video games. My last video game was Duck Hunt!"
12:16 And now we get to see the new trailer as well! Such riches! And now you can too.
12:20 Oswalt leads the audience in a round of applause as the panel exits.
12:22 And so many surprises! A teaser about the new Pirates of the Caribbean and an introduction to the director of the new, re-booted Haunted Mansion: It's Guillermo Del Toro!
12:28 Del Toro explains that he loves the Haunted Mansion ride, has a whole room in his house dedicated just to Haunted Mansion art and paraphernalia. He details that the movie will be live action, 3D, and not a comedy, but more of a funny, scary movie. The movie will be reintroducing the character of the Hatbox Ghost, who the movie pivots around. And there will be absolutely NO Eddie Murphy.
Bring your children says Del Toro, but be aware that they'll scream. "I hope to make an E-ticket ride, and to steal a whole bunch of props."
