Trailer Wednesday: Tron Legacy, “Guardians”

Trailer Wednesday brings us some upcoming movies with exciting visuals. First is 300 and Watchmen director Zack Snyder’s animated film debut Legend of the Guardians, an epic adventure featuring owls. Second is Disney’s 3D sequel to the geek sci-fi cult classic Tron, entitled Tron Legacy.

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Legend of the Guardians

Animal Logic, the animation studio behind Happy Feet returns with a story not nearly as strange but still visually astounding based on this trailer. “Feet” didn’t win an Oscar for nothing: it was the attention to visual detail. In a year where Pixar is going the commercial route with Toy Story 3, “Guardians” could be a contender for Warner Bros. yet again. The film is based on the popular books The Guardians of Ga’Hoole, which centers on some young barn owls who believe the legends they’ve been told about the guardians and try to seek them out when their friend is kidnapped by some bad owls. “Guardians” soars into theaters September 24.

View “Guardians” trailer on imdb

My Thoughts: I think animation, especially of the action/adventure variety, would be a natural transition for someone with Zack Snyder’s imagination. From these two minutes, it’s safe to say “Guardians” will certainly be breathtaking. Owls are about the closest thing to penguins when it comes to cute feathered animals, which I think serves this film well despite not being an animation comedy like every similar film tries to be. This could definitely be a film for everyone, not just kids.

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Tron Legacy

Ever since a little test clip and some graphics showed up at Comic Con, dorks like myself have been interested in this long-delayed sequel. You’ve got to imagine of all their properties that Disney had to have a good reason to update Tron: someone pitched a good story idea/vision and oh yes, 3D. Disney, after the success of Alice in Wonderland so far, clearly was the first studio or entity other than James Cameron to see 3D was going to be a big part of the future or at least this decade. The art direction for Tron Legacy looks outstanding in 2D on my computer, so I can only imagine how it will be in 3D, especially since it was filmed to be 3D. The story focuses on Flynn (Jeff Bridges) son who come across his abandoned old arcade in search of answers about his father and ends up getting zapped into the computerized world of lightcycles and fledgling programs. The film stars Captain America hopeful Garrett Hedlund as Flynn’s son. The movie comes out in the money spot of the holiday season, December 17, 2010.

Watch “Legacy” trailer on imdb

My Thoughts: After this trailer (and having recently seen the original for the first time), my anticipation of this movie just went from “ok” to “yessss!” As I mentioned before, the art direction just looks brilliant. They stayed with the same blocky designs with neon coloring only they made everything look sleeker and better. It’s delicious (and so is Olivia Wilde). I’m so impressed to see something like this come from a first-time director in Joseph Kosinski. Given the time of year and what we just went through last weekend, I could see Oscar nominations for art direction and cinematography for Claudio Miranda just from these clips alone. Notice the awesome music? I’m not sure who is scoring the film, but there’s original music by Daft Punk, which is perfect.