Question to people, why are people saying the story lacks substance?  I mean, I'm just a bit curious as to why people thought it was "meh"?  I personally loved it, saw the movie without any reviews.  It was kinda odd finding out after I watched the movie that people didn't like it, or reviewers for that matter.

For me, it was because the main character was another typical "renegade" young white dude who appears in about half of all Hollywood movies. The character was boooooooring, predictable, and Jeff Bridges' Hippie Yoda barely pulled the film from the brink.

The story of the original movie wasn't Pulitzer Prize worthy either. I love Tron (1982) and got the wonderful special edition (or whatever it's called) DVD, but one of the last reasons why I love this movie would be the story.

BTW: Jeff Bridges is on #2 and 3 of US boxoffice with True Grit and Tron at the moment. Not that chart positions really matter, but I just love this guy. Great career. The general consensus for his best movie is probably The Big Lebowski, but my Top 3 will always be The Last Picture Show, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot and the wonderful The Fabulous Baker Boys with Michelle and his big brother. True Grit sounds very promising and got great reviews afaik.

Question to people, why are people saying the story lacks substance?  I mean, I'm just a bit curious as to why people thought it was "meh"?  I personally loved it, saw the movie without any reviews.  It was kinda odd finding out after I watched the movie that people didn't like it, or reviewers for that matter.

Compare it to Inception.

In both movies, the majority of the action takes place in a virtual world where stuff isn't real.  You have digital programs and you have dream projections.  Nobody's real except for a few main characters.

The difference is that Inception connects the virtual world to the real world in several ways: the relationship problems with the wife, the legal problems with getting to America, the family troubles with the grandparents and the kids, assembling the team, finding the right drugs, and doing recon.  They even develop all the characters before they go into the dream world.  You have reasons to care about the characters before they go into magic land.

In TRON: Legacy, you have a boring motorcycle-riding doosh with no personality that could have been played by any schmuck in Hollywood without us noticing the difference.  All we know about him is that he is the primary shareholder and plays an annual prank, and then BLAM, an hour of awesome fights, races, music, and special effects before the actual plot gets started in the 3rd act with their discussion of the history of the grid and their escape attempt.  All they introduce about the real world is the first scene at the company, and then it never comes back up and isn't even important.  The first half and the second half of the movie almost have nothing to do with each other.  Because the main character doesn't matter, and has no family or goals in the real world, he could die and it wouldn't matter.  The stakes just aren't as high as they were in the first movie.  It just looks and sounds AMAZING the whole way through.

Compare it to Inception.

In both movies, the majority of the action takes place in a virtual world where stuff isn't real.  You have digital programs and you have dream projections.  Nobody's real except for a few main characters.

The difference is that Inception connects the virtual world to the real world in several ways: the relationship problems with the wife, the legal problems with getting to America, the family troubles with the grandparents and the kids, assembling the team, finding the right drugs, and doing recon.  They even develop all the characters before they go into the dream world.  You have reasons to care about the characters before they go into magic land.

In TRON: Legacy, you have a boring motorcycle-riding doosh with no personality that could have been played by any schmuck in Hollywood without us noticing the difference.  All we know about him is that he is the primary shareholder and plays an annual prank, and then BLAM, an hour of awesome fights, races, music, and special effects before the actual plot gets started in the 3rd act with their discussion of the history of the grid and their escape attempt.  All they introduce about the real world is the first scene at the company, and then it never comes back up and isn't even important.  The first half and the second half of the movie almost have nothing to do with each other.  Because the main character doesn't matter, and has no family or goals in the real world, he could die and it wouldn't matter.  The stakes just aren't as high as they were in the first movie.  It just looks and sounds AMAZING the whole way through.