Book Review: The Art of Tron: Legacy

The Art of Tron: Legacy

The Art of Tron: Legacy is more of a visual companion than an art book. Whenever there's "art of" somewhere in the book title, it sets people up with certain expectations. This title definitely sets up the wrong type of expectation, at least to me.

About half the book is concept art and the other half is just film stills, and even if it's not exactly half, it feels that way.

Much of the concept art are actually the finalized designs. You won't see much iterations. It's like they nailed the design of the Light Cycle bike with the first try. Same applies for characters and environments. And the Light Jets are missing.

The selection of films stills included is also questionable, but I'm glad for the most part they look stunning visually, especially the ones that are showing more of the Tron world.

This book should still appeal to Tron fans. I'm not so hot about the book, but I've two colleages (fans of the film) raves about it.

As an art book, I'll give it 3 stars. As a visual companion or picture book, 4 out of 5 stars.

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The Art of Tron: Legacy is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | JP | CN)

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Comments

Not a single page devoted to the Light Jets?

Thats utterly absurd...

Pretty Dissappointing.

I was anticipating a solid book of art. Instead i got a book with mostly still images from the film and the teaser trailers. Disney should have put more art work and iterations of the different designs. Also they didn't put any drawing of the light jets or how they got to particular designs.

I know they could have done better, but they choose to give us a lackluster art book.

Very dissappointing on their part.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed-

I think I'll give this book a miss. Money's tight with me a the mo and I could do without an "art book" that has more still images than concept art. I think i'll use my money and buy the tangeled art book!

I bought this for my hubby as a Christmas prezzie and he wasn't disappointed. I suppose, I got it when I read somewhere there would be lightcycle concepts and whatnot, but even though there weren't as much as I thought there'd be, he still loved the book. It's good for fans, regardless.

I have to agree with Parka, this is far from what we've come to expect as a
"art of" book.
For the price of $40.00 US dollars I expect to see a lot more than stills
from the film,It makes me feel cheated.

I expect to see various iterations and such because we all know that the design process is a very long road to cross.
And as a designer myself I think that even discarded designs are important to include, what were they thinking?(Probably just about making a fast buck like most publishers.)

Lots of flash with not much substance.

I wanted this book, and the photos of the book on this blog are gorgeous. Then I looked at it in the store, and wasn't very impressed. The type size is very large too - that means there isn't a lot of content in the book. Most art and making of books have smaller font size. With all the stills from the film, it feels very light on serious behind the scenes and art content. It's more of a picture book. I wanted more pages, more art, less stills, not every picture should fill the entire page, and more behind the scenes writing. Disappointing and not worthy of being called an "art" book. As was also said, it feels more like a visual companion. I haven't bought it yet, although I still do want it for the content that it does have. I just wish it was a lot better.

The first art book of Avatar was very slim also. I hope they issue a real book soon...Maybe with a third movie arriving soon, they want all unused design kept under raps...what a bummer man!