The first major panel at this year’s Comic Con was, of course, the one for Tron Legacy. This was a really fun panel, alternating back and forth between film footage and questions for the actors and creators. There were two key points that they tried to put across here: that Tron Legacy is, at its core, a father/son story, and that one of the aims of the film is to create a new mythology. The visuals, naturally, are meant to enhance these elements, especially its mythological aspirations.

Both Jeff Bridges and director Joseph Kosinski emphasized the father/son aspect of Legacy. They did not, however, divulge any further details. While the trailer shown at the end of the panel made it clear that abandonment will be an important element, the actual relationship between Kevin Flynn and his son, Sam, was kept secret, likely because this will be the source of some twist. One audience member even asked Bridges directly about the father/son dynamic, and the actor responded simply that there wasn’t anything he could say about it without ruining the film.

It was mostly Bridges who pushed the idea of Tron Legacy turning the Tron franchise into a modern mythology. The major theme in that respect, according to him, is the progression of technology and the idea that it evolves so fast that we cannot keep up with it ethically. He used the analogy of bottled water. It's convenient and offers a great benefit to anyone who might need a sip of water while running around town, but their non-biodegradable nature ultimately causes more problems than it solves. This may not have been the most precise analogy, but his point was that we reach an advancement in technology, and we don’t consider the consequences. We just run with it. Tron Legacy takes that idea to the extreme.

The treat at this panel was a full eight-minute scene from the film, in full 3D. Granted, unless you were in the front third of the massive Hall H, the 3D effect was diminished and difficult at times to make out, but the visuals were great. It came off as a mix of the first TRON and the "scorched sky" world of The Matrix, with plenty of black and neon but with an overwhelmingly cloudy, lightning-filled atmosphere. The clip followed Sam as he enters into the computer world and is forced to prepare for combat. The surrounding characters, or computer programs, were decidedly robotic and sterile, which would kill most other films but which fits within the concept of this one. Overall, the feeling was one of prison-like order. Flynn is stuck in this place, and there’s nothing he can do to alter the course laid out for him.

There was also a trailer shown, which is available on Yahoo Trailers. This one focuses less on the visuals (though they’re still prominent) and more on setting up the story of young Sam Flynn’s father disappearing and later seemingly pulling him into the world of Tron. It gives us a feel for the setup and is really a good surrogate for the full clip that was screened.

Perhaps the most fun part of the panel came when Kosinski revealed that he had an idea to include the Comic Con audience in the film. Utilizing a “follow the bouncy ball”-style text visualization on the jumbo screens, he silently instructed everyone to yell various cheers and chants at different paces with the Legacy sound crew recording it all. A few false starts may have marred two or three of the chants, but overall the audience did well, even staying impressively quiet when the screen instructed silence. There are no guarantees that he will be able to use the audio from the session, if you can call it that, but Kosinski promised he would try.

Interestingly, during the Q&A, one audience member asked whether there would be any sort of conversion or special release of the original TRON to celebrate that film in the wake of this new one. The response was hedged yet somehow promising -- and for the life of me, I can’t remember whether this came from Kosinski or the producer, Sean Bailey -- that we will probably see the original film in “some exciting form pretty soon.” I don’t know if this is referring to a DVD/Blu-ray or theatrical release (though I would certainly be prone to assume the former), and I don’t know what “exciting form” means, but it’s definitely something to watch out for.

I’m sure there will be a lot of chatter about the Scott Pilgrim panel following this first day of Comic Con, but for sci-fi fans, Tron Legacy was the hard hitter. The cast and crew seemed seemed genuinely proud of what they have made, the footage was great, and the whole panel was just fun. As of right now, the hype for this movie has only risen higher.

Oh, and I'll leave you with the following still: