The Tron Legacy countdown is on, and it may just be the coolest damn countdown you’ve ever seen.
In 1982, Tron launched a nerd revolution. It was one of the first films to make heavy use of CGI and it inspired numerous arcade and home videogames, but even more importantly it spoke to a generation that knew there was something special to be found inside all those bits and bytes, even if people couldn’t quite put their fingers on what it was. But critical reaction was all over the place and at the box office it was a moderate success at best, ensuring that nearly 30 years would pass before a sequel would surface.
That sequel is now in sight: Tron Legacy is coming and although it won’t be released until the end of the year, Disney has launched a viral marketing campaign to build up interest among the geek cognoscenti. The latest step in that effort is a countdown hidden at Flynn Lives, a website uncovered during the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con that follows the life, times and disappearance of Kevin Flynn, the hero of the original movie.
What makes this interesting? The fact that there’s no clue as to where the countdown is leading is typical; that it’s done in a very flashy, Tron-like binary is most definitely not. I can’t read binary so I’m taking the word of commenters at cominsoon.net on that angle, but I do know that this is the dead sexiest countdown I’ve ever seen. The url is appropriately ominous too: flynnlives.com/zerohour. What happens at zero hour? Stay tuned: According to those who can read binary, the big revelation comes in just over eight days!
