It’s been several days since this was unveiled to the world, but I needed some time to gather my thoughts. If you saw Alice in Wonderland this past weekend, you got to see the breathtaking new trailer for Disney’s other upcoming 3-D baby, Tron Legacy. The first footage we saw of Tron Legacy was way back this past summer when Disney premiered those three minutes of footage at Comic-Con. That clip didn’t show much, but was just supposed to get people talking, which it did. But man, this new trailer has got people SCREAMING for December to hurry the hell up already.

The trailer hit the web on Monday and boy does it look amazing! The visuals look absolutely brilliant; crisp, eye-popping imagery. We also get a little more into the story of the film. It’s obviously over 25 years later since the first Tron left off, however it should be noted, in an interview Jeff Bridges did state that you wouldn’t need to have seen the first film in order to grasp the plot of Legacy. That is obviously a good move since most movie-goers aren’t going to Netflix TRON, a movie that came out in 1982, in order to understand it’s sequel that comes out in 2010. Not gonna happen. Before I continue, first watch the awesome official trailer for Tron Legacy.

From this trailer we see Kevin Flynn’s (Bridges) 27 year-old son Sam (Garrett Hedlund), returning to his father’s arcade where he spent his cyber-racing days. At the end of the trailer with the “Dad it’s been a long time”/”You have no idea” dialogue exchange, I think it would be safe to assume that Kevin Flynn has been stuck in this cyber-world for 27 years and his son is going to suit up, grab his cyber-bike and try to save his father; thus carrying on his “LEGACY.” Just guessing of course. Oh, and the smokin’ hot Olivia Wilde makes a nice little cameo in the trailer, sprawled out on a neon glow couch. She plays a veteran cyber-racer (for the bad guys) who is given the task of getting close to Sam to get to turn him/kill him, but in the process she falls in love and then has to decide whether to follow her heart or follow orders. Again, just guessing.

A few more things I find intriguing about Tron Legacy:

1) This is director Joseph Kosinski’s directorial debut. You heard me right, this is his first time directing a movie. EVER! And somehow he’s come out of the furthest part of left field and put together a seemingly ground-breaking, visually stunning, 3-D blockbuster. It’s just really impressive and also very unusual. Which is also why those recent rumors of Chris Nolan’s co-writer/brother Jonah Nolan making his directorial debut with a Superman reboot for Warner Bros., not so far-fetched. Shit! Stay focused Barrett.

2) I mentioned this when I posted the Comic-Con footage in July, but when was this film completed and why is Disney taking so long to release it? They showed over three minutes of footage that looked amazing in July of 2009, and now they have a full-length trailer, which also looks amazing, in March of 2010. But Tron Legacy isn’t coming out until December 17, 2010? Man the technology involved must be extremely difficult to edit in post-production. Perhaps Tron Legacy is Disney’s Avatar, technologically speaking, and they want to make sure all the wrinkles are ironed out before unleashing it upon the world? That seems about right.

3) Boy Disney is getting darker and more serious aren’t they? I mean, Tim Burton doing Alice in Wonderland isn’t going raise comparisons to Seven, but it’s certainly a very creepy/gothic take on a classic children’s tale. And did you see that trailer for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice a few months back with Nic Cage? That seemed like it had a lot of dark, dangerous, deadly, supernatural elements to it. Although, IT IS set to go toe-to-toe with Inception on July 16th, so maybe Disney is trying to up their street cred and appeal to the badass junkies. And then we have Tron Legacy, which is a film, by all accounts, about cyber-racing TO THE DEATH. Man they’ve come a long way since Bambi.

Ah well. All I know is that I’m going to be at the Minnesota Zoo IMAX theater on Thursday, December 16 at 8 p.m. to get in line for the midnight showing of Tron Legacy.

What Do You Think? Discuss.