Gridbugs


Does anyone know what the point of this scene was?

Yuri seemed to specifically note the presence of the "gridbugs" while on the sailer, but then it is never revisited or referred to again in the movie. It feels like maybe a scene was cut or something. Sorry if this has been asked before, I can't find any mention of it in the subject headings here.



reply

Good question...probably to add some sort of suspense...or maybe there was a scene cut because of money...Lisberger said that they made the film with little money...

reply

You're probably right. It was probably there to add suspense. The delivery was really weird though. But many of the scenes in the movie were awkwardly executed or delivered.

While Lisberger should be admired for Tron's technical accomplishments he doesn't seem to be that great an overall director.

reply

In most other related media to TRON: Legacy the grid bugs tore up the grid...destroying it...but still the writers did nothing else with them...they were just there...I like the idea of having gridbugs, but I'll have to agree with you the gridbugs are not brought about well.

reply

I seem to recall reading or hearing somewhere that there was supposed to be a lot more with the gridbugs but it just never happened. Like it was in te script but nothing ever came to fruition.

reply

The gridbugs were used better in the video game than in the movie...I'd imagine they probably could have been used similarly by attempting to de-rez/corrupt Tron and the other programs as they try to dodge them to get to the tractor beam. The gridbugs in the movie were so obviously cartoonish that it looked visually goofy to be included in a feature film and probably should have been edited out -

reply

The gridbugs in the movie were so obviously cartoonish that it looked visually goofy to be included in a feature film and probably should have been edited out
This is definitely true by today's standards.

However, those CGI effects were cutting edge for their time and probably cost so much to make that they couldn't justify not including it in the final cut.

Though like the above poster said, they probably envisioned a bigger role for the bugs in the plot. If I had to guess, when they saw how much it cost to render the small sequence that we saw, they probably decided to forgo any further interaction with the gridbugs.

reply

The Gridbugs actually weren't CG, they were done with traditional cel-drawn animation. As for why they're there, apparently there WAS going to be more of a scene involving them, but they ran out of time/money and weren't able to finish it. So what little was done was tossed in rather than being scrapped. Been a while since I watched all the DVD extras, but pretty sure this is covered somewhere in that 5+ hours of material.

Watch The Multimedia Chronicles on my YouTube page:
http://www.youtube.com/zaranyzerak

reply

It's funny. I ripped this to my iPod the other day to watch on the train. It's amazing how much of this was hand drawn. I heard on the special features that this was the case, but watching it now, it becomes way more obvious.

reply

Yeah, the hand-drawn sections (except for the close-ups of the light cycles) were really obvious even when the movie debuted. The traditionally animated portions have that Disney movement to them. The grid bugs, for instance, have a sort of jaunty bounce when they move. The CG sequences move in a much more rigid fashion. I'm not sure CG "tweening" at that point was capable of more complex "easing." But I still like the 90-degree instant turns of the light cycles and the impressive virtual camera movement. I don't know any other animation that had done that before.

reply

But the animation of the gridbugs was done 3rd-rate in comparison to the rest of the movie which used a more 3-D disney animation enhanced with CGI. Those gridbugs were the only thing in the movie that I recall that were run-of-the-mill 2-D animation -

reply

The discs in flight were pretty obviously 2D. Another hand-drawn piece was the device that drops the ball into the ring game. It looked like something out of a Road Runner cartoon.

As someone else said above, the grid bugs were supposed to play a more significant role but were cut back and given that brief screen time. They don't make much sense and serve no purpose other than as a time bridge to the next scene.

reply

Even non animated stuff. A lot of backgrounds were hand drawn. It's a cool mix though. I actually respect the movie MORE for it.

reply

I don't see this as the big deal some are making it out to be. It was merely a glimpse of some of the strange world of Tron, nothing more. Yes, maybe there was a scene that was dropped before it was made concerning the grid bugs, but that doesn't make the scene where they are mentioned seem out of place or strange. The grid bugs were a part of the video game, so they got a mention in the film. Simple as that.

- - - - - - -
Whose idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have an "S" in it?

reply

Tron Legacy director Joseph Kosinski has mentioned that we may see some form of "Gridbugs" in a third Tron outing. Tantalizing!

"BEHOLD! The Son of our MAAAAYYYY-KAAAAAAHHHH!" - Castor (Tron Legacy)


reply

I don't see anyone making a "big deal" out of it, just pointing out that it IS an odd scene, considering: the entire scene is a total of two shots, the bugs are hand-drawn instead of CG, there's no indication of where the bugs are in relation to the characters, and they are never seen or mentioned again. It's rather like that bit in the Stallone Judge Dredd movie where Armand Assante quips "send in the clones," and the clones then never appear. If they couldn't finish the scene, it would've made more sense to cut it completely; the film would be shrunk by maybe ten whole seconds. And incidentally, the game was based on the movie, not vice-versa. That was back in the wonderful day when they didn't base movies on video games.

-There is no such word as "alot."

reply