TRON Legacy Deluxe Figures - COOL AS HECK

Part of the allure of TRON is the focus on the future and technology more advanced than we know it. Lightcycles, Identity Discs, Recognizers; it’s all part of a video game world that’s way more futuristic than ours.

So naturally, Disney wanted to do something similar with the TRON toy line. Much like Avatar’s “augmented reality” toy cards, the TRON figures pack an impressive feature called “Impulse Projection”, and it’s probably the coolest thing I’ve seen in a toy so far.

Sure, from my terrible iPhone photos it just looks like it’s a light up face, but the face actually moves and speaks lines of dialogue from the film. The faces animate and their lips move, it’s really a sight to see (you can watch an annoying toy review with video here). To my eye, it looks like some sort of rear-projection, since the actual “face” is a curved, smooth white plastic base. There’s no space in the front, and it’s obviously not an LCD in there, so I’m guessing it has to be rear projected, which is really amazing to see in a $10-$15 figure.

I hope we see more of these unique kind of features in figures and toys in the future! I’ll take some better photos once all my equipment is accessible after the move.