Disney hires writers for Tron remake

Ask anyone who was old enough to remember the 80s, or watches Jimmy Kimmel Live, and you will know that one of the great movies of that decade was Tron. Man, did that blow us away! There was nothing like it. A guy inside a video game?!? Choice!!!

And now that we have a fat man in a homemade Tron suit making the rounds on evening variety television and all sorts of tidbits of info and rumour about new Tron games and movies. Variety.com is reporting this morning that Disney has hired two writers to pen a remake of the 1982 classic.

"Disney has hired screenwriters Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal to fashion a remake of "Tron," the 1982 film about a computer programmer who gets sucked into the parallel world of a computer program."

A couple things trouble me about this.

Let's start with the writers. I did a bit of digging to see what these guys had done before. What sort of credentials did they have? Right now both have written a movie titled Warrior, to which IMDB writes, A drama about the warrior Boudica and her rise from peasant roots to become a military leader who led Britain against the Romans in 61 A.D., and who was posthumously crowned the first queen of the empire. Okay. Maybe, that'll work. Luc Besson gave the peasant girl to warrior leader thing a go with Joan of Arc and that sucked nuts. But go on. Don't let that disuade you from trying. After all, she was French.

But what have they done before that? Let's start with Brian. IMDB has a pretty lengthy list of TV appearances and bit parts in some motions pictures. The most notable being the numerous times he was 'Guy' on Felicity. Other than that? Nothing worth noting. Okay, but Lee will be better right? One would hope so. Sadly, IMDB has nothing written down for him except for the Warrior writing credit. Holy Crap! Are you serious?!!?

So we've two guys who have only one movie to their credit. A movie that no one has seen yet or given any thought too. Two guys who are working on what is to many Gen-Xrs [and I promised myself I would never use that term - EVER] a pretty significant moment of our early childhood movie experience. A generation, need I remind you, that has a pretty firm grip on this whole internet movie geek community thing and at times will cripple you before you can even stand up. You're taking our precious childhood memories and remaking it?!!?

Remaking. Remaking. No matter how many times I say it, it just sends shivers up my spine. Sequel. Prequel. Chapter. Bride Of. I don't have a problem with these words... yet. Remaking though? Oh that just makes me ornery and unpleasant around the shop. You don't have to remake it. You have my permission to add a chapter to it. But you don't have to remake it. Please. Don't remake it. Don't bastardize my childhood memories with state of the art CGI and green screens and hot young actors. Make it smart. Go ahead and make it fun and whimsical but dear lord make it intelligent.

Remember you have more than one generation to please now. This'll have much broader demographic appeal than your standard 12 to 14 year old male group. Pretty lights and sounds may work for a younger generation but if you piss me and my generation off? Lord help you when we find you in that dark alley.

You have been warned.