Greetings, programs! The time has finally come for us to reveal the winners of our ‘Tron’ haiku contest. Read on after the break to see who won.
The challenge this time was to write a ‘Tron’-themed haiku in the standard 5-7-5 format. This was a particularly difficult one to judge. As always, we got a lot of great entries. For whatever arbitrary and completely subjective reasons, these are the ones that struck my fancy.
Honorable Mentions
Robert wrote:
Tron made sci-fi love,
Precursor to The Matrix,
Lightcycles do rule.Disney took a chance
Thought out of the box for this
Ahead of its time!
Peter wrote:
My, oh my oh my
I wish I had a 3D
television, fuck.
HuskerGuy wrote:
Lebowski is back
And Clu refused to abide
So he had to die
Husker also gave us this one that’s so close to perfection, except that he overshot the syllable count in the last line.
Olivia Wilde
I helped you escape the grid
Now remove your clothing
“Now remove your clothes” would have worked. Sorry, Husker.
Alex wrote:
How sad to see one’s
Identity reduced to
A glowing frisbee…
Shayne wrote:
I would much rather
find myself within the world
of Bubble Bobble
Wes wrote:
Bridges has one eye
Tracking down James Brolin’s son
Oh wait wrong movie
Eric wrote:
3D, Daft Punk, yay
CG young Jeff Bridges, aargh
He will eat your soul
Larry wrote:
Flynn lives now on Blu
Fools paid tons for dvd
I laugh at them now
Austin wrote:
Flynn’s self-sacrifice?
I guess you could say that he…
High-death-die-Jeff’ed. HYYEEEAAHHHHH!
This pun is so awful it’s fantastic. How many syllables is “HYYEEEAAHHHHH,” I wonder?
Special Honorable Mention
Although the rules prohibit family members of employees from winning, Mrs. Z gets a special honorable mention for this little haiku:
Pre-order online
Just weeks before birthday time
Ruined wife’s surprise.
D’oh! My bad. Don’t worry, hon. You can borrow my copy.
The Winner!
When I set the rules for this contest, I said that each participant was allowed ten entries. Anthony here took that as a challenge and crafted this terrific recap of the ‘Tron: Legacy’ plot in exactly ten perfect haikus. Awesome job, Anthony!
CG Flynn tucks in
Tells grid stories to his son
“We’re on the same team”Forward twenty years
Serious ‘Daddy issues’
Sam: main stockholder“That is one BIG door!”
Shares ENCOMs software release
Makes Dillinger Mad!Alan waits for Sam
Laughs cuz “still rockin’ pager”
Take keys to arcadeTurn on arcade games
Scratches reveal hidden door
Laser zaps Sam’s backWhite leather women
mistake user for program
Send to arenaSam good at disc games
Natural at light-cycles
Quorra saves his buttOutlands hide old Dad
Find Castor; safe passage home
Betrayed once againRinzler, Tron: same guy
Tron: “I fight for the users!”
Sacrifices selfGet disc in light shaft
Flynn pwns Likeness Unit; Boom!
Quorra now real. Score!
Congratulations to Anthony for winning the ‘Tron’ and ‘Tron: Legacy’ 5-disc Blu-ray collection! I’ll email you soon with the details on how to claim your prize.
Thanks for participating, everyone!
Matt
Wow, so the contest wasn’t being judged based on volume, but all 10 of Anthony’s entries won rather than a single one.
At least one of the Honorable mentions seemed like it should have won.
“How sad to see one’s
Identity reduced to
A glowing frisbee…”
But having entries that reference True Grit and the Big Lebowski, among other “just a reference” entries is disappointing. “Now remove your clothes,” would have won?
Of course, “a creative ‘Tron’-themed haiku” is open for subjective judging, but at least with the photo caption contests the idea is to be funny.
Josh Zyber
AuthorAnthony did not win just for making 10 entries. He won for the creative way that he crafted a complete narrative recap of the movie’s story that spanned those 10 haikus. No one else attempted anything like that, and I thought it was clever.
EM
Those grapes would taste sour.
How did you sign your entries?
Chacun a son goût !
Shannon Nutt
I actually was going to say the same thing Matt did…but didn’t want it to seem like sour grapes. I liked Anthony’s entry, but the contest was to come up with ONE haiku, and it does appear that the contest creators didn’t play by the rules they established when picking the winner. Just something to think about for future contests!
That said, congrats Anthony!
Nate "the boss" Boss
i think it’s perfectly fair, Shannon. the rules did say limit 10 per person, and they didn’t say how you HAD to use them, or if you had to even do 10.
one person saw to stringing 10 together on a single topic. expect any future ones to have that as people try to force wins. so…yay, more long ones.
Ryan Megan
I always assume I don’t win out of sheer jealousy that I am the funniest person ever and all of my entries are pure gold.
I can’t blame them for being mad at me for being so awesome.
Shannon Nutt
Actually, no it isn’t fair, Nate. Your contest was laid out asking people to write ONE haiku – but you gave the prize to 10. You should have picked one of the ten as the “winner” and then (if you so chose) showed how that one fit in with the other nine the winner had entered.
However, I guarantee you 99% of the people that entered were trying to create ONE haiku. It’s the equivalent of entering a short-story contest and losing to a guy who writes a novel (or better yet, an anthology of stories).
Again, no ill will towards the winner, but the contest clearly said “best haiku” (limit of 10 entries) NOT the “best haikus out of a limit of 10 entries”.
EM
This line’s about Tron
This one’s about Avatar
Can just one line win?