TRON: LEGACY
We revisit Daft Punk’s techno-movie soundtrack.
In 2010, the score of Disney’s Tron: Legacy raised a question: if yesterday’s futurism is often today’s false retro prophecy, would Daft Punk’s music date the movie faster than US soft-rockers Journey dated the 1982 original? A decade on, the answer is laser-clear. Though Joseph Kosinski’s film struggled to engage its gears, Legacy’s score has improved with age, making Daft Punk the nu-Tron stars of the show.
True, early reviews were less convinced. Some fans of the helmeted digi-dance duo seemed miffed that Legacy sounded less like a Daft Punk album than a film score (an odd complaint to make about… a film score). Others dubbed it derivative for its homages to Hans Zimmer (rhythmic strings), Brad Fiedel (hammering Terminator beats), Vangelis (worldbuilding Blade Runner synths) and John Carpenter (moody synths), alongside earlier influences Bernard Herrmann and Maurice Jarre.
Yet even if Zimmer did advise Punk men Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (working with composer Joseph Trapanese), the duo’s mix of a 90-piece orchestra with whiplash electronics offered its own potent fusion: a timeless retro-future vision, rewired from fragments of the past and (circa-2010) present.
Noting the music’s nods to “classic Hollywood scores”, Bangalter — who previously scored Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible — himself compared Tron’s digi-world to Lawrence Of Arabia’s desert. That emphasis on horizon-wide scene-sculpting drives Overture and The Grid, which resemble searchlights scanning game terrain for life signs. The string ostinatos, buff timpani and electro-colours of Recognizer stress hybrid ambitions; meanwhile, the Fiedelian throbs of Armory and Arena mount masterful evocations of laser-lit space.
Elsewhere, power and beauty sit in balance.
The Game Has Changed evokes mounting discord so emphatically, its later redeployment for a Game Of Thrones trailer seems almost inevitable. Adagio For Tron adds lush emotional riches, recalling Wendy Carlos’ score for the 1982 original. End Of Line honours the past in other ways, massaging retro-arcade samples into roaring rhythmic barrages; Derezzed follows to dizzying effect.
Throughout, Daft Punk navigate tonal extremes with brisk precision. After the amniotic chill-out beauty of Solar Sailer, the horror-show flavours of Rectifier rouse Herrmann’s ghost. Disc Wars is weighty yet graceful, End Titles is thrillingly bombastic yet lovingly layered. And despite Disney’s craven excess of special-edition releases, the nine extra tracks available are worthy complements to a score with sturdier legs than its parent film. As Tron 3 gathers rumour-mill momentum, the new question is — one more time, Punk men?