I’ve been a huge fan of the bande dessinée style of Franco-Belgian comics since day one. “Day one” would be that afternoon in 1970 when I discovered a copy of Asterix in Britain in a public library, and eagerly took it out. Over the years, I’ve also discovered Tintin, Lucky Luke, Spirou and, yes, even The Smurfs. Most of you will know The Smurfs from an animated TV series made by Hanna-Barbera, and so will have developed an irrepressible gag reflex. In fact, the cartoon was not as bad as all that. Maybe not surprisingly, the original books by Peyo are even better. Hanna-Barbera were faithful to the original, on the whole. They were more “economical” with the back- ground and personalities, perhaps, and the result on the screen was inevitably more homogenized than the books by Peyo. Still, the studio can’t be faulted for what is, after all, material aimed at a younger audience than Asterix or even Tintin. I’ve written before about the peculiar attraction the comics have for me, and will spare the reader a re- run. The upshot of all this is that when I heard, last year, that a live-action, CGI assisted, full length feature movie was being made of The Smurfs, I was intrigued. Odds were high that it would be yet another disappointment. Look at films like Garfield, Underdog and Rocky & Bullwinkle, that translated cartoon characters into the real world. Better still, don’t look at them. They deflate the brain as quickly as a leaky football in a wine press. There was no good reason to expect better of this attempt. Yet... my eye wouldn’t ignore the images I saw online. The Smurfs in the promotional stills looked pretty slick, actually. They weren’t exactly as they looked on the comic page, but they did seem to be what a Smurf would look like if it were a living, breathing member of a little blue race of men who are only “three apples high.” (They are mostly men, too. All 99 of them.) How high is “three apples high,” anyway? Doesn’t it depend on whether we’re talking Macintoshes or Golden Delicious? Three of one might only be about 6 inches high, and three of the other more like 9 or 10... But I digress. Then there is Smurfette. Have I mentioned that I’m attracted to female cartoon characters? No doubt some readers right now are smirking to themselves, “Aha! Afraid of a real woman, huh?” I don’t know what their point is. I don’t seem to have met all that many “real” women, and those I do know are all spoken for. It’s not like I have a choice. Maybe my attitude is better summed up, “I can always dream, can’t I?” Not long ago, I obtained a previously viewed copy of The Smurfs movie. Hold on to your little white caps, but I actually enjoyed it. True, it’s about Smurfs – and many people are far too adult and therefore incapable of taking a movie about little blue people in the least bit seriously. This is hardy unexpected. A generation or two, ago most people regarded Vulcans, wizards and Hobbits as frivolous, and would have been incapable of seeing the merit of this generation’s Star Trek, Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Regardless of its origins in a kid’s comic book and TV cartoon show, The Smurfs is a decent 100 minutes’ worth of entertainment. It’s occasionally thought-provoking, sometimes a little over the top in sentimentally, but has enough comic moments to put a smile on the face of the most implacable realist. It demands only a little open-mindedness at the start, and then it seems quite natural to see Smurfette “high-four” her first human girl- friend. I went through many of the same mental gymnastics over being open-minded about Alvin and the Chip- munks a couple of years ago. It could easily have been a huge, steaming pile of... Eau d’Hollywood. Fortunately, it was not. Given the premise that chipmunks can sing, Alvin and the Chipmunks was, like The Smurfs, surprisingly entertaining and intelligently done. In fact, the movies are quite similar in broad outline. To begin with, the story of David Seville, down-on-his-luck songwriter, is an old one. The movie doesn’t give it much of a twist, but does at least show us a glimpse of lives of Alvin, Simon and Theodore before they become lost in Los Angeles. It begins in a forest in Northern California, where, naturally, they live in a tree. Their tree is cut down and they are transported to the unimaginable world of the big city. Eventually, they take refuge in Dave’s home... much to his disbelief and astonishment. After some resistance on the songwriter’s part, the three chipmunks slide seamlessly into his home and lifestyle. The seductive power of success, however, lures the six-inch-tall, newly minted pop stars away from Dave – and his homey sensibilities – into the clutches of a slimy record-company promoter. The movie comes to a satisfying end when the Chipmunks wise up and make good their escape from the villain. Henceforth they will be humble Chipmunks... who just happen to be the idols of millions and make seven-figure incomes. Okay, the movie has some unrealistic plot elements... How can it ever be possible to live a normal life- style in a modest four-room bungalow if you’re ‘N Sync? And would singing, dancing rodents ever be popular as anything but a novelty? Apart from that, Alvin and the Chipmunks has a small point to make, and makes it. The music is even good... mostly. While The Smurfs begins in the Smurf village – where we see them busy with day-to-day smurfing – in the Chipmunks movie we begin with Alvin, Simon, and Theodore storing nuts in a tree. In The Smurfs, disaster intervenes in the form of the wizard Gargamel finally discovering their village. Most of the Smurfs run to safety in the forest, but Clumsy – being Clumsy – goes the wrong way. He is followed by Papa Smurf, Grouchy, Brainy, Gutsy and the Smurfette. A vortex caused by “a blue moon” sucks all six into Central Park in New York City. Fearing the gigantic people around him, Clumsy hides in a cardboard box belonging to an advertising agency employee. The others arrive only in time to follow the box to the apartment home of Grace and Patrick. Understandably, their unwitting hosts are astonished and disbelieving... and, just as the Chipmunks settle into life in suburban bungalow after tussling with the kitchenware and Dave’s recording equipment, the Smurfs settle into a New York apartment only after they get the hang of the espresso maker and Patrick’s laptop. And is there music? Yes... Unfortunately. The movie itself pokes fun at the familiar Smurf theme song. To cheer Patrtick up, the Smurfs begin to sing, “La, la, la la la laaah,” and he barks “Stop that! It’s irritating!” There is also a scene where – in a less grouchy mood – Patrick introduces his guests to Guitar Hero. But at this point the Smurfs movie begins to veer off in a different direction from Alvin and the Chip- munks. There is a little music but it is only incidental. Also, instead of the obligatory villain being a venal and corrupt human the Smurfs are followed into our world by Gargamel, the evil wizard who troubles their other- wise carefree lives in the forest by chasing after them with spells and a butterfly net. Neither technique has ever been particularly successful, as Gargamel is rather a half-assed wizard. Gargamel is played by Hank Azaria with his head shaved and a putty nose. Azaria is known mainly for voicing rather broad roles in The Simpsons, so he is no stranger to thinking like a cartoon. Many of the movie’s funniest moments include Gargamel mistaking a street person for a fellow wizard, posing melodramatically in steam venting from a street grating and flying from a prison yard with the aid of a monstrous cloud of ordi- nary houseflies enlisted for the escape. There is also an underlying theme in The Smurfs that most of us are likely to have an easier time identi- fying with than “celebrity corrupts.” Grace is expect- ing, and Patrick is a nervous first-time father. He fears he won’t be up to the challenge of being a dad, and has doubts about keeping his new job as well. He discovers he isn’t alone in facing responsibility, though. In a rather heartfelt tête à tête with Papa Smurf on the apartment roof, Patrick learns that the bearded Smurf has been looking after his “family” for over 500 years! “How did you know you would be able to do it, how did you know you were ready?” Patrick asks. The answer isn’t so surprising. “You know in here,” says Papa Smurf, thumping his pancreas. (Sorry. Just kidding.) “You know it in here,” he says, indicating his heart. Most times, I would have ignored such an obvious – and anti-rational – statement. But I noticed that Patrick hadn’t shaved since leaving for work that morning, and was showing a significant stubble. It was black, of course. Not Papa Smurf’s full white beard by a long shot. But could this detail have been in the script to purposefully indicate that – in his own way – Patrick was becoming like Papa Smurf? I don’t know, but it made a potentially trite scene rather more interesting, I thought. You can sort of imagine someone rubbing his swollen elbows and wrists, and asking “Will it hurt to be- come a Protector?1” Alvin and the Chipmunks and The Smurfs were also alike in being panned by the critics, but making damn good box office! There is one other way in which I’m desperately hoping The Smurfs will remain different from Alvin and the Chipmunks. Sequels. The second Chipmunks movie ruined virtually all the good will I had for the singing rodents of my youth by spinning off a dreadful “Squeakquel.” It served no Earthly purpose that I could see, other than an opportunity to re-use the software models and squeeze a bit more profit from the property. What set the “Squeakquel” apart from the original Chipmunks movie was the lack of any plot I was able to halfway care about. Entering high school, the three chipmunks seek acceptance by a clique of what seem to me as nothing but a lot of loutish smart asses and lamebrains they would be better off ignoring. The school’s budget is threatened, so to save the music department an utterly unbelievable scheme is hatched to raise the money with... a talent contest! Shades of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney! I had believed such ancient plot gimmicks were extinct in Hollywood, and had long since been banished to film studios working out of Mumbai. Apparently not. And, as if that weren’t improbably enough, the villainous record exec from the first movie tries for a comeback. He’s found a second trio of singing chipmunks! And, rather than immediately making a mint by producing a new record, he uses The Chipettes to compete against The Chipmunks in a high school talent con- test for the paltry $25,000 first prize! Being that stupid, it’s no wonder he loses his singing sensations a second time... Nothing is learned. No one has grown. And embarrassing questions about whether romantic interests can also be siblings are never asked. Needless to say, the “Squeakquel” panders to teenage tastes in humour and music, from one end of the film to the other. What is the appeal to younger audiences of groups of interchangeable ciphers singing and danc- ing in military formation, I wonder? And do farts only cease to be funny on your 21st birthday? To make matters worse, while writing this piece I learned that a second sequel has been made, Chip- wrecked. High-jinks on the high seas, followed by a shipwreck. No Gilligan, but from what I’ve read, the villain from the first two movies is aboard for the third as well. Naturally, he gotten over his previous failures. Gosh... Ya think? That guy never learns, does he? Fortunately, I do, so I’ve given this movie a wide berth. Let’s hope the people who made The Smurfs don’t make the same mistake and follow it up with a second film. But the sad fact is that sequels, no matter how bad, make money. Both Chipmunk “squeakquels” made a boat-load of filthy green lucre. The temptation to make the blue-chip investment in second movie about the Smurfs will be nearly irresistible. In the commentary there are broad hints dropped – and I mean, wall-to-wall broad. For me, whether I’m apt to have a positive response to a sequel might come down to how cute I find Smurfette. The Chipettes were cute... no question of it. But not quite the kind of “cute” that I would want to take out on a date. More of a pat-on-the-head, “here’s a dollar, go buy an ice-cream” sort of cute. While there would be undeniable obstacles to having an adult relationship with a little blue woman only three apples high, I can at least imagine sitting together to watch a movie and share a bowl of popcorn. Maybe she would even be understanding if she discovers my huge collection of other cute animated females. Anything that got me through the lonely nights, I’d explain to her... Endnote 1 - If you don’t twig on to that, read “Protector” by Larry Niven. It’s well worth the time. Quarry’s Ex by Max Allen Collins

I love Hard Case Crime, and more than any other single character, I associate it with Quarry, a killer for hire who killed his agent (The Broker) and gone his own way by hiring himself out to kill those who have been hired to have people killed and the people who hire them. It’s a fascinating concept, a little like Dexter, but it’s also some of the best, darkest, most powerful fiction in the world of crime writing. The first three HCC Quarry novels, Quarry’s Last, Quarry’s First and Quarry in the Middle, were all excellent, with Quarry’s Last being my fave. Up until I finished Quarry’s Ex. The story of Quarry’s Ex centers around Quarry (his nom de mort) and his ex-wife. After discovering a pair of his from Agent’s men planning out a hit on a film director, he sets in motion an investigation and protec- tion of the director of a Skinamax-level exploitation film. It’s a famously simple story, someone wants some else dead and Quarry’s out to find out who, but it goes further. It happens that the director who is up for murder is also married to Quarry’s ex-wife, who he caught in bed with another man he eventually killed. They hadn’t seen each other since and this leads to both the crux of the story as well as the tension that you’d fully expect. Collins writes cinematically. You can tell in the way things play out that he considers his books screenplays. He moves from scene to seen with a cinematographer’s grace and flow. There are scenes in Quarry’s Ex that feel completely like shots from movies, framed to give the illusion of a 24 frames-per-second flicker. The scene where Quarry watches his ex swim in a hotel pool feels as if it had come directly from any of a number of 1960s young starlet appearances, a wonderful scene of Quarry getting a former hitsquad partner drunk almost has the high- contrast grainy staging of a mid-50s Noir. The filmic in- fluences show all over the place, which makes sense as it’s a book about a film director, but it’s also a book that has all the flavor of the masters of crime fiction, especially the crew of McBain, McDonald/Eastlake. The story combines all the traditional Hard Boiled stuff with a main character who is almost Zen in his approach. He’s a thinker, though his thoughts are obviously educated, they’re also dark and heavy and fol- low a path that might fall somewhere between Samu- rai and Psychopath. When he is justifying what he does to his potential client, you can see the calculations all make sense, but at the same time, the sense they make assumes the worst in people. It’s great, but heavy. As a book in teh tradition of the great hitmen novels, it’s right up there. The inventive kills, the hard boiled talk and, especially, the sexy sleazy front man all play exactly as they should. The cover, a wonderful piece from Gregory Manchess, is just about the sexiest thing that HCC has ever put on the front of their books. It’s a part of the package that is supposed to throw you back to the good ol’ days of Mystery covers, but in this case, it feels so much stronger, as if Manchess had taken those days and thrown them in a blender with what’s going on today and come up with this sexy slice of mas- terpiece! The story plays out very smoothly, which is the only thing that I’d have liked to have seen differently. There’s enough sex, violence and comedy, but it wraps up a little smooth. These things happen. Letter Graded Mail Sent to [email protected] By our Loyal Readers

FIrst off, a couple of notes from John Hertz on issue 311 Dear Chris, Thanks for the kind words about me in Drink Tank 310, which I contrived to see. Perhaps you’re confusing Calder’s Flamingo, which may be called a stabile because it doesn’t move, with his Universe, which does. The Flamingo is outdoors in the Chicago Federal Plaza; Universe, which I mentioned, is in the “Sears” Tower (but how can fanziners complain it’s been renamed the Willis Tower? and imagine if we’d had Willis insurance in 1999!). Technically Universe is not a mobile (nor did I say it was) because its pieces are not moved by air currents. You give a picture of the Flamingo. There was a great exhibit of miniatures from Calder’s work at the San Jose Museum of Art that was pretty spectacular. One of his early supporters was based in Palo Alto and had concept models and miniatures from Calder, includign the one that was out front of Sears Tower. And We’ve got a Walt Willis in BArea fandom, which led to a load of confusion when I came back to fandom in the 2000 timeframe because I wasn’t aware it WASN’T that Walt Willis... “King Leer” for Typo of the Ish! Your fan, John Hertz And yet, it fits, no?

And, of course, we’ve got Mr. Eric Mayer! Chris Hardly a loc. Just a note. I loved Steve Stiles’ cover. I love getting Stiles’ covers! The man is a machine of quality art. I haven’t seen any more of his abstracts lately, which I really enjoy. Also, I’m sure you know more about this than I do but given your interest in films, you might sometime write about Kevin Brownlow’s faanish connection, if you haven’t already. Mary has often mentioned his film It Happened Here, which used fan extras, as being quite chilling. She swears that Pat Kearney “killed himself”, ap- pearing first as a German then as a dead partisan. SKYRACK number 71, dated 20th October 1964 (which was linked from the Wikipedia article) said: SNIPPETS: IT HAPPENED HERE, the “Had the Nazis won the war” film, from which scenes were shown at Pe- terborough last year and in which starred Bruce Burn, Pat Kearney, Jim Linwood and Pete Taylor is to be shown at the Cork Film Festival. The film will be later released in London and has already gained rave reviews, having been also featured in Bamber Gascoyne’s CINEMA programme on ITV 15th Sept. http://gostak.co.uk/skyrack/skyrack71.htm Best, Eric I have wanted to see that for years. I had no idea there was a fannish con- nection! I love when that sorta thing hapens to come to my eyes! Thanks, Eric!

And what about John Pur- cell? Well, here he is! Hey, Chris. Here are some quick comments on your latest mini-issue. E.T.: the Extraterres- trial is an okay film; I like it - sort of - but of all of Spiel- berg’s science fiction related movies, his best, in my hum- ble opinion, is Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But E.T. struck a nerve in the public conscience that made it one of the highest grossing movies of all time. I think the basic idea behind this particular movie that makes it worth watching is how we humans would react to an alien encounter that is essentially benign. Thus, the true bad guys in this movie were the human adults, especially from the government agencies. Because of that basic idea - and that the movie viewing public likes a happy ending - E.T. became a huge hit. I certainly won’t fault Spielberg for that. After all, he’s in it for the money. Making serious “statement” or art movies usually don’t become monster money generators. Of course, saying that, only Spielberg can do it: witness Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List. What can I say? The guy’s good at what he does. I did love Schindler’s, and I think that Amazing Stories was a great series and his work on it, the episodes that he directed, were awesome. The book Fair Coin sounds interesting, so next time I’m at the public library here I shall see if it’s available. I could do that online, of course, but I’m feeling lazy right now. Plus the current book I’m reading from the library is The White Wolf’s Son by Michael Moorcock (2006). It’s an Elric of Melnibone novel, and I just started reading it last night. Premise is cool - Elric’s son is involved in a multiverse-saving quest, naturally - and so far it’s fun. I felt like reading something recent of Moorcock’s, and found this on the library shelves. Why the heck not? I don’t think I’ve read any Elric novels. I might have to fix that. Glad you had a great time at Minicon 47 as the fan Guest of Honor, roomie. Valerie and I would love to go to the 48th edition next Easter, so if you go again - and you’re sounding like you’d like to - we’ll see you there. Minicon 48 will also be the 40th anniversary of the first sf con I ever attended: Minicon 7 back in 1973. Lots of my Minneapolis-St. Paul friends are still up there, and it would be so much fun to see them all again. Here’s hoping. I can’t say how much I enjoyed the con! It was amazing how well they treat their guests and it’s just a good con overall! I loved the good folks I got to meet, and I am now adicted to the game Zar. I hope I get back next year, but it might be Eastercon instead. And finally, congratulations on all the Hugo nominations for you and James Bacon. Four fan nominations for the same year is a rarity. Enjoy riding the crest of this fame wave while it lasts; soon enough, somebody else will come along and capture everyone’s attention, rendering you the equivalent of yesterday’s meatloaf dinner: still edible, in fact tasty, just not as fresh anymore. There. I did it. I have compared you to leftover meatloaf. Let’s see if anybody else can top that analogy. All the best, John Purcell And now I want Meatloaf... And FInally, Mr. LoC himself: Lloyd Penney!!!!!

Dear Chris:

Welcome back home from your Fan GoH gig at Minicon, and our congrats for totally rocking the Hugos. Four nominations this year! Amazing stuff. This loc will be an anti-climax to the whole weekend, but here are com- ments on issues 311 and 312. Absolutely Amazingly good time! Gettign to announce the names of so many friends at the Hugo an- nouncements was awesome too! 311...Great cover. Is this the first recorded sighting of flying (cups and) saucers? Just not cricket, chums... A sinking Rambler? The closest we every got to that was our family owned an AMC Gremlin. Tiny little thing, nothing like a Smart car or anything, but still a family of five fit in it...just. My family always did trucks and Minivans until the recentish times. Save for Gramma’s legendary 1962 Impala. I loved that thing! The article on the Nebulas reminded me that Jo Walton got both a Hugo and a Nebula nomination this year. Sounds like I should see if I can grab a copy some- where...Jo is living in Ottawa these days. Among Others is amazing and I really think that it should win. It’s a beautiful book I’m writing more about for Handicapping the Hugos. I’d like to go to the MOMA in NYC. In our living room is the poster from MOMA with van Gogh’s Starry Night on it. Nothing with Salvadore Dalek, I suppose... Not that I saw. I love the MOMA and only wish that it weren’t in NYC. 312...Taral’s been down at Fraggle Rock, I see. Fanfic used to come in literal reams of paper, full of the worst Mary Sue stuff, and Cerlox-bound, too. Now, the Web is big enough to hold it all, and reveal it only if you ask for it. That’s not going to happen... I have some of those. There were a bunch on sale at Minicon that I almos bought that would have weighed my bags down! Still not going to Chicago for Worldcon, but now you have so many reasons to go! I hope there will be a Ustream feed I can enjoy, to watch you collect rockets. Good luck, and you’ll have our votes. I hope there’ll be a UStream feed, but I also hope they produce a DVD or somethign more permanent as people are saying that they’re having trouble access- ing the Ustream video. Hey, I am done already...going to the doctor’s this afternoon for a little work under the hood, and I will fold this up to get it to you. Have a great day, and see you in an issue or two. Yours, Lloyd Penney. Always good to hear from ya, Lloyd! 52 Weeks to Science Fiction FIlm Literacy - TRON

Yes, I am fully aware that my Top Girl Image on this page is from the sequel, TRON Legacy, but with an image like that, am I going ot care? The fact is, this one will deal with both films largely because one is the cause and the other is the proof of influence. TRON represents the entry of video gams into the sphere of influence of film. It represented the direction film was going to be going, and it has proven very prescient in what it pointed towards. In other words, everything that is wrong with blockbuster movies. TRON’s basic story is so simple that it could have been the tale of one of the Atari video games that were so popular at the time. Flynn, played by America’s current Greatest Living Actor Jeff Bridges, has written a series of games that Dillenger, his boss, steals and presents as his own to gain status in ENCOM, the company they work for. Flynn tries to hack into the mainframe to get the evidence of the dicketry perpetrated by Dillenger. He ends up getting zapped into the machine. That leads into adventures in the Mainframe, including making the trip into the MCP - the Master Control Programme. He ends up jumping into the MCP, finding a flaw and then he’s blipped out and then returned to the real world where the printer was dishing out the evidence and then sending it all over through the network. It was a simple, simple, story, but it wasn’t about the story: it was about the combination of film and computer imagery and video game concepts. And more than the video and filmic aspects, the video game is the important introduction that TRON gave us. TRON’s ultimate story is that you can be brought into a game. Traditionally, in the world of film, you are not to be brought in, you are to be hold away from the scene. This was perfectly shown in the first films that were done by the Lumiere Brothers. When they shown The Train Pulling Into the Station, the audience was affraid that the train was coming right at them. That was an important moment in the development of film. As film developed, filmmakers started to put up a wall where the communication was one way. There were films like Sherlock, Jr. where Buster Keaton jumped in and out of the picture. But he wasn’t in control. The filmmakers were in control. BUster wasn’t controlling the scenes: he was being pulled along. That’s hugely important in the change of the technology. Film and television are presentation forms. It’s not so with video games. While there had been films where people were sucked into the screen, these were in an era where consumers had no interaction with their media. This was no longer the case by 1981. Well, not in the 1970s either. The first video games were developed in the early 1960s, though there had been games for computers as early as the 1950s. The first video games to get any real attention were the ones out of MIT that Digital Equipment Corporation sent out with their machines. By far, the most famous of these was SpaceWar!, cover in Rolling Stone and various other magazines. The first video arcade games came about in the early 1970s, Galaxy Game and Computer Space were both versions of SpaceWar! that also failed ot make their inventors much money. The designer of Computer Space, Nolan Bushnell, went on to start Atari and got Al Alcorn to do PONG, which changed the way kids spent their time. And about ten years later, how movies communicated to their audience. The story of TRON is the story of the User usurping the right to control. Yes, that might be dragging it out a bit further, but it’s also the best part of it. Flynn goes in and becomes the law, fights his way through the hoops that have been presented by the company and his nemesis, and ends up bringing the entire house of cards down. It’s basically the mating call of Anonymous! It’s a story of siezing control and makign teh world in his image. This comes out even more in the sequel, but the idea is there. This is a world that the character is not control, but one in which be fights to become control, which is as powerful a statement as you can make about TRON. The way TRON was made was revolutionary. The main system used for the computer effects in TRON was called the Super Foonly System. It was basically the most powerful DEC PDP-10 ever built. There were ac- tually three teams (perhaps four, though it seems one merely did polishing) that did not collaborate. This gave TRON a slightly disjointed feeling, like some of the images were from a different movie. Or a different level. At that point in the history of gaming, there was no game that had graphics nearly as good as what TRON was presenting. The attempts made to recreate the Light Cycle race in arcade or home computer form took ages, really not coming close until the late 1990s. That added not only to teh awe, but to the promise. TRON, more than anything, is saying that this is where we’re going. No matter what could happen, it was the world of TRON that would be the future, and it has turned out to be so. TRON: Legacy proves that. TRON: Legacy isn’t a great film, but it is the ULTIMATE visual and Audio feast. Where Wendy Carlos gave us a score that was rawly electronic for the original, Daft Punk spins it completely differently and make the en- tire score resonate with thirty years of electronic music evolution. The effects are incredible and the gaming industry won’t be able to catch up with them for another few years. It lacks a story, for the most part, but it wraps you up, pulls you in deep as it can. That’s what video games are supposed to be the best at, and why folks like Jane McGonigal believe that video games are the way to reach out to this generation. It makes sense, and it all goes back to TRON proving that you have to push the state of the art in every possible dimension, even if it means pushing teh story out of the main vi- sion. In the late 1990s, Roger Ebert had an Un- der-appreciated Film Festival, and he had to name a single film to sum up the point of his festival for the Closig Night film. He chose TRON, which made total sense as he has always believed that TRON was one of the most important films of all-time, and I can’t argue.