View Photo Gallery

Olivia Wilde and Garrett Hedlund star in the highly anticipated sequel "Tron Legacy," due in theaters this December.

Credit: Walt Disney Company

Big day for trailer premieres, and the difference in approach between the last "Iron Man 2" trailer and this first "real" trailer for "Tron Legacy" is night and day.

I love the new "Iron Man 2" trailer precisely because it basically kicks in the door, swaggers onto your monitor, and dares you not to have fun.  It's packed with money shots, and it is aggressive in the way it introduces characters and storylines.

This "Tron Legacy" trailer, on the other hand, is the very definition of a soft sell.  The Daft Punk cue, written for the trailer, is all gentle dynamics and slow build.  Even once the action switches from the real world into the world of the game, it's still just suggestive.  There are a few beats showing action, but I get a feeling all this is supposed to do is suggest tone and mood and the look of the movie.

We do get our first looks at Olivia Wilde and Michael Sheen in the game world, and there's a particularly creepy shot of Academy Award-winner Jeff Bridges as Clu, the young digital version of himself, and seeing just that one shot, I am absolutely amazed at how authentic it looks.  It's nothing like that effect in "X3: The Last Stand," which felt artificial.  Here, i just looks like they found some footage of a young Jeff Bridges.

It's also our first look at Garrett Hedlund as the son of Bridges, looking for his father, and what surprised me (pleasantly) is that he comes across as a real adult, not as a teenager.  That makes him a formidable lead, and watching this trailer makes me very curious how his "Captain America" screen test went.

There is a lot to like in this new trailer, and I have my fingers crossed that this could be that rare sequel that actually exceeds the original film.  "Tron" was a sensation for kids my age when it was released in the summer of 1982 because it didn't look like anything we'd ever seen before.  But as a film, it's got some real pace and tone issues, due in large part to Steve Lisberger's inexperience behind the camera.  He is still involved this time around, but I'm hoping the involvement of other talent like Edward Kitsis (one of the writers of "Lost") and Joseph Kosinski, whose got an amazing eye, means that we're going to get a film that finally delivers on the potential of this world.  Here's the trailer for you:

It's going to be interesting to see the action sequences that were shot in 3D using the Phantom HD camera, which can record footage at 1000 frames per second.  That sort of crazy super slow-mo with the digital FX we've already seen in the early tests and this new trailer should be positively hallucinatory, especially when seen in an IMAX 3D theater.

If nothing else, December 17, 2010 is going to be a visual treat.  Now let's pray there's a film here that lives up to that.  And for a larger version of the trailer, click here.

Can't get enough of Motion/Captured? Don't miss a post with daily HitFix Blog Alerts. Sign up now.

Don't miss out. Add Motion/Captured to your iGoogle, My Yahoo or My MSN experience by clicking here.

Not part of the HitFix Nation yet? Take 90 seconds and sign up today.

You can e-mail me at drew@hitfix.com or follow me on Twitter, where I'm DrewAtHitFix.