TRON: Legacy

"The Game Has Changed" is the name of one of the tracks on Daft Punk's score to Tron: Legacy, and it also fits Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo's music for the film. When it was announced that the duo would score the sequel to one of sci-fi's most visionary movies, it seemed like the perfect fit: Their sleek, neon-tipped, playful aesthetic springs from their love of late-'70s and early-'80s pop culture artifacts like Tron. However, Tron: Legacy takes a much darker, more serious approach than the original film and Daft Punk follows suit, delivering soaring and ominous pieces that sound more like modern classical music than any laser tag-meets-roller disco fantasies fans may have had. Tron: Legacy's legitimacy as a score may surprise listeners unaware of Bangalter's fine work on 2003's Irreversible; while that score actually hews closer to Daft Punk's sound, it showed his potential for crafting music beyond the duo's usual scope. Working with the London Orchestra, Bangalter and de Homem-Christo fuse electronic and orchestral motifs seamlessly and strikingly. "The Game Has Changed" may be the most dramatic example: It starts with a wistful wisp of melody that sounds like a ghost in the machine, then swells of strings and brass and buzzsaw electronics submerge but never quite overtake it. Elsewhere, "Recognizer"'s pulsing horns and synths and "The Son of Flynn"'s arpeggios and strings are so tightly knit that they finish each others' phrases. Daft Punk get in a few clever nods to Wendy Carlos' Tron score, from "The Grid"'s blobby analog synth tones to "Adagio for Tron"'s mournful sense of lost wonder. However, for most of Tron: Legacy, they're concerned with pushing boundaries. It's not until the score's second half that the duo's more typical sound emerges on "Derezzed"'s filter-disco and on "End of the Line," where witty 8-bit sounds evoke '80s video games. These tracks come as welcome relief from the tension Daft Punk ratchets up on almost every other piece, particularly "Rectifier" and "C.L.U." Encompassing the past, present, and future of sci-fi scores, Tron: Legacy feels like it grew and mutated from its origins the same way the film's world did. Without a doubt, it's a game-changer for Daft Punk.
© Heather Phares /TiVo