Tonight the lovely Mrs. Hobbit and I, joined by one of our hobbit-spawn, went to our local theatre for Tron Night. If you don't know what that means, it's essentially Disney's grand marketing sweep, wherein you watch 23 minutes of the upcoming film Tron: Legacy in glorious IMAX 3D. Sure, the cynic in me wants to condemn such a PR stunt, but Disney knew that my response to 'come see scenes from the new Tron movie for free' would be borderline Pavlovian, and I would be unable to resist.

Okay, maybe more than borderline. I think I drooled a little when filling out the ticket request form.

So here's what we saw tonight, in a nutshell. Spoiler free, for the most part, unless you have no idea what the second film is about.

After an intro from the onsite PR team, we put on our 3D glasses, and were treated to a handful of scenes from the film in their entirety. Well, actually, when it first started, the video didn't work, so after a few jokes about MCP and 'I can't believe they filmed this in ZeroD', it fired up and we were on our way.

We meet our young protagonist Sam Flynn, unwilling heir to a Fortune 500 company, young and impetuous. He is visited by family friend and surrogate father Alan (the nerdy guy from the first one. Well, shit, they were all kind of nerdy. Well, you know, the one who is nerdy in the real world but kind of badass in the virtual world and ends up with the hot program chick. That guy.) Alan informs Sam that he received a page from Sam's missing father Kevin from the old closed down Flynn's arcade. Sam investigates, and, of course, beams himself into the virtual world. In the next few scenes we saw, he is caught by a Recognizer, given his armor and identity disc in a scene that will spawn several bedroom fantasies and at least one restraining order, and fights in the Games. He meets up with Quorra, discovers the fate of his missing father, and generally kicks some ass. The last few minutes were essentially an extended trailer, showing all the little nuggets of joy that made the audience involuntarily yell 'WOO!'.

Lots of good things to say about this trailer. The visuals were amazing; the CG layout of the Grid looked clean and cutting edge, with enough of a nod to the old Tron to feel familiar. The Daft Punk score is mesmerizing, making the soundtrack a release day purchase for yours truly. From what we saw the acting was tight...I've not seen much of Garrett Hedlund's body of work, but he seems to carry the role well. And Quorra, well, damn. We've seen Olivia Wilde look good before, but in Tron Legacy, she looks so ridiculously good that I kind of just want to put her in a glass case to stare at all day. I mean, it'll have airholes, and stuff. I'm not a monster.

The only negative seemed to be that the 3D was a little wonky. In scenes where it worked, it was amazing, adding a surreal, almost creepy level of depth to the digital world. But in a few scenes, it seemed as though the 3D was trying too hard, laid on too aggressively, and just made some bits hard to watch. Here's to hoping they can tighten it up a bit before release.

So, that was it. We got a wristband, and a poster, and went on our merry way, with joy in our hearts, and light cycles on the brain.

I won't. I won't say it......

no....

fine.

END OF LINE.

Greetings, program.