The Program Abides
March 2, 2011 5:11 PM   Subscribe

The Tron Lebowski: that motherboard really tied the room together, man.

Fairly well done overall; the Light Cycle scene cracked me up.
posted by bwg (36 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
Nice -- would really love to know what the CollegeHumor folks spend on their budget for these types of shorts. They are not half assed at all.
posted by cavalier at 5:16 PM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


What's next? True Lebowski? Lebowski Heart? Fearlebowski? The Fabulous Lebowski Boys?
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 5:17 PM on March 2, 2011


It's a good parody. And thorough.
posted by 2bucksplus at 5:17 PM on March 2, 2011 [29 favorites]


Even Bigger Lebowski. He'll be the man for his time and place.
posted by theredpen at 5:18 PM on March 2, 2011


is Aubrey Plaza in this video: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1948132 ?
posted by rebent at 5:25 PM on March 2, 2011


You want a bit? I can get you a bit, believe me. There are ways, Dude.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 5:36 PM on March 2, 2011 [4 favorites]


The light-thingies on the sweater are priceless.
posted by NoraReed at 5:37 PM on March 2, 2011


Nixon!
posted by donpardo at 5:39 PM on March 2, 2011


rebent: yes.
posted by infinitewindow at 5:41 PM on March 2, 2011


Did the people acting in it never see the movie?
posted by Threeway Handshake at 5:44 PM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


Up next: the Dude asks Old Fink what the fuck he is talking about.
posted by theredpen at 5:47 PM on March 2, 2011


I think the people acting in it have only seen this. (MPG direct link)
posted by infinitewindow at 5:50 PM on March 2, 2011


Why does college have its own category of humor? Is it like college music? Because I still listen to The Smiths and I graduated ages ago. Should I stop? I'm so confused.
posted by punkfloyd at 5:59 PM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


I'd been playing with this idea in my head for a while, mainly because Jeff Bridges is in both Tron (which is a pretty movie, and... that's about it) and the Big Lebowski (which I love dearly), so this could never meet my expectations.

It was still pretty good, though. The actors could have worked on their delivery more, and the writers could have tried to make some of the lines more relevant to computing/the Tron universe. For example, Walter could talk about friends he lost to Y2K.

Also, my attributes give me every right to execute here! I'm sitting here, enjoying my coffee.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:16 PM on March 2, 2011


I'll just drop this here - I happened to see that Daft Punk live mix today, after watching this clip.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:21 PM on March 2, 2011


That is far, far better than it had any right of being. They absolutely had me with Donnie at the bowling alley.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:45 PM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]


I see you rolled your way into the semis. Dios mio, man. Liam and me, we're going to fuck you up.
posted by phaedon at 6:52 PM on March 2, 2011


didn't do much for me. never seen tron, would that help?
posted by brevator at 7:14 PM on March 2, 2011


Yes, seeing one of the two movies this clip conflates would lend a certain amount of applicably.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 7:43 PM on March 2, 2011


"Let me tell you something, pendejo. You pull any crazy bullshit with us, you flash a disc out on the grid? I'll take it away from you and shove it up your ass until you de-rez."

...

"1000 year olds, dude."
posted by Eideteker at 8:04 PM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


(I suppose I could have used "cycle" for "year" but meh.)
posted by Eideteker at 8:06 PM on March 2, 2011


This movie was already made. It was called Tron: Legacy. It was, like, digital jazz, man.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 8:24 PM on March 2, 2011 [2 favorites]


That was great.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:01 AM on March 3, 2011


I liked it up until the ending. Something about that just didn't sit well with the rest of the short. I was expecting the disk to flutter back or maybe de-rez and then blow back over The Dude, but not de-rez him. Still, the other 99% was great!
posted by snwod at 12:04 AM on March 3, 2011


I was prepared to hate this, but casting MCP as the "Big" Lebowski was genius.
posted by benzenedream at 12:20 AM on March 3, 2011


Bio-digital jazz, man!
posted by XhaustedProphet at 12:45 AM on March 3, 2011


Wave of the future, 100% digital.
posted by anthom at 5:21 AM on March 3, 2011


Jackie Treehorn treats objects like data, man!
posted by KingEdRa at 6:18 AM on March 3, 2011


"You can imagine what happens from here." "He fixes the link?"
posted by KingEdRa at 6:20 AM on March 3, 2011 [4 favorites]


Error?! ERROR?! WHO'S THE FUCKING VIRUSES AROUND HERE? You want the data packet? Come get and get it!

Somebody stop me, 'cause I could do this all day.

posted by KingEdRa at 6:27 AM on March 3, 2011


I saw Tron Legacy. It looked good, the plot didn't make much sense if you try to think of it in terms of actual computing (which is the same issue with the other Tron film), and Jeff Bridges/the writers/director worked in some Dude-isms ("You're really messing up my zen thing, man." and at one point we see some bad programs mess with his place. Sadly, there's no rug to be soiled.). The Daft Punk music was mostly ambience, save for a fight scene with a David Bowie lookalike I really liked. Of course, I looked up the David Bowie lookalike, and it turns out he's actually a pretty good actor who played the guy who wasn't Nixon in Frost/Nixon.

Basically, watch it if you want an aesthetic experience, but don't expect a good story. Disney pretty much copied their MO from Tron 1. Use a bunch of cool special effects, make some coy references to computer science in a sea of pseudotech, and not really worry so much about the plot.

Also, this would be a good time to mention that Tron 2.0 is a very good FPS RPG which still looks pretty good despite it being pretty old now. I guess the simple, blocky environments and objects and glowsuits are easy to render without too much in the way of stressing the GPU. And the plot actually makes sense. Rather than trying to balance the plot between something the general public gets and nerds like, I remember it being more cogent with the technobabble. But I think I remember some parts of its plot that don't line up with Legacy, so I'm guessing it's not canon.
posted by mccarty.tim at 6:35 AM on March 3, 2011


and Jeff Bridges/the writers/director worked in some Dude-isms ("You're really messing up my zen thing, man."

Of course, Jeff Bridges' originally character in Tron was a bit of a dude to begin with, so it's not really surprising.
posted by Atreides at 6:55 AM on March 3, 2011


No, Donny, these men are zero-byte files; there's nothing to be afraid of.
posted by grubi at 7:51 AM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


the plot didn't make much sense if you try to think of it in terms of actual computing

It was still more technically accurate than Hackers. God, what a piece of shit.
posted by grubi at 7:53 AM on March 3, 2011


"Interactive erotic software. The wave of the future, Dude. One hundred percent electronic!"
posted by bwg at 7:59 AM on March 3, 2011


I liked it up until the ending. Something about that just didn't sit well with the rest of the short. I was expecting the disk to flutter back or maybe de-rez and then blow back over The Dude, but not de-rez him. Still, the other 99% was great!

The ending strikes me as a parallel with the ending of Legacy, in which (does anyone care if I spoil Tron: Legacy? If so, stop reading) "The Dude" was actually destroyed by "Donny"'s, um, digital-code ashes.

Basically, watch [Tron: Legacy] if you want an aesthetic experience, but don't expect a good story.

I thought the story was fine, it's just not what it seems to be. It has surprising depth as an exploration of family, aging, ambition, creation, perfection, self-acceptance, etc, and roughly two inches of depth as a chase movie and/or a hard-sci-fi flick. That's fair enough, given that most movies go the other way, and I think the writers were quite successful with what they were trying to do with it.
posted by vorfeed at 4:06 PM on March 3, 2011 [1 favorite]


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