Special report: The Tron Legacy London screening event

Perhaps, to be fair, our expectations were raised by Avatar here. When a movie studio issues tickets to a cinema presentation well in advance of the release of a film now, we can’t help but suspect we’re going to get the nigh-on 20 minutes of preview footage that Fox screened in cinemas last summer.

So, when Disney announced that tickets were being released in select quantities for a Tron: Legacy event of sorts, were we wrong to expect a little bit more than we got? For here is our report of what actually happened…

“After signing up for updates for the Tron: Legacy viral campaign, 'Flynn Lives', I didn't expect that two days later I would find myself at the IMAX in London, waiting for some unknown Tron-related content. There were rumblings of some extended footage, even a couple of jokes that this would be the whole film. We waited at least half an hour in a surprisingly large queue before heading in. As we entered the cinema, we were given 3D glasses and a t-shirt that reads ‘FLYNN LIVES’ in a appropriately retro font. Shame I don't wear large size t-shirts.

A Disney representative (so I presume) announces that we are the first people in the world to see this footage... could it really be an Avatar Day-style 20 minutes?

Roughly two minutes later the cinema sat in stunned silence. Then a few people laughed, and another few were saying things like, "Was that it?!" and "We waited 40 minutes for a trailer?" But a trailer was all we were getting.

The problem was, while the footage looked nice in 3D, there wasn't an awful lot to get excited about. There were plenty of shots of a dusty Flynn's arcade, an interaction between main character Sam Flynn (played by Garrett Hedlund) and a shady type that may know a thing or two about the disappearance of Sam's father (the original Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges).

Brief glimpses of Olivia Wilde in Tron gear and the now much older Kevin Flynn were tasty teasers, leading up to two money shots: a peek at a disc fight, which looked great and, finally, the Tron light cycles in full force. The visuals, I'm sure, will be spectacular, but there wasn't really much to sink our teeth into.

All in all, it provided a nice first look at the trailer, and didn't detract from the anticipation in my mind. However, the awesome test footage released previously set the bar so high that, unfortunately, this event just didn't live up to expectations.”

And that was that. Just a couple of minutes of footage which, admittedly, was being screened ahead of everywhere else in the world, but not a jot more. Unless you were keen on the t-shirt.

Was it wrong to expect just a little bit more? An introduction from the director? A little bit of behind-the-scenes footage? Instead, it was a cinema presentation of a trailer. A good trailer, but not a special one.

Here's hoping that the next time Disney does something like this it offers up a bit more to reward a 40-minute wait...