Tron

If there was no TRON then there might be no Pixar or no Toy Story. There have been films with CGI before but it was TRON that showed John Lasseter what was possible yet the film makes cunning use of CGI, there is less of it than people think.

The film underperformed on its release and did better as a crossover arcade game. The light cycle sequence certainly helped. 1982 was the year that home computing was taking off in the UK with the BBC computer, Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64 entering households in greater numbers. TRON was riding on that wave, even its film score was acclaimed.

The story is simple although it has to be noted Jeff Bridges is not Tron. Bridges is Kevin Flynn a programmer who has been cheated by a rival Dillinger (David Warner.) He has taken credit for Flynn's work such as the best selling arcade games and taken control of the Hi Tech company Encom.

Flynn breaks into the Master Control Program (MCP) which has gained its own AI and become a super computer. It takes Flynn inside a computer world in order to delete him.

Flynn is helped out by Tron a legendary warrior in this computer world and he also looks like Flynn's friend Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner). They along with others seek to destroy the MCP and get rid of Dillinger.

Critics at the time were not impressed by the story. They were by the film's graphical content. It's cutting edge for the time with the representation of a Matrix style world.

The use of synthesised music has made the film endure leading to a belated sequel almost 30 years later.

I saw this film upon its release in 1982 and thought it looked cool but wasn't much of a story. Having just seen the 70-millimeter re-release on the El Capitan's giant screen, I've a much greater appreciation for it. Certainly, the characterizations are paper-thin, the dialogue is nothing special, and the music is poorly used, but the writers were quite canny in their Christian allegory, which made the whole show much more than a mere exercise in special effects.

Jeff Bridges as Flynn is basically a scruffy Jesus figure who descends into the world of computer programs immaculately to find that his sort is worshipped as gods by the programs. He also finds that he has powers considered miraculous by programs, such as to heal, resurrect and divert the beam of a lightship (the video game equivalent of walking on water?).

Bruce Boxleitner, meanwhile, is a champion in the programs' Roman-style gladiatorial games, and though he lacks Spartacus' army, he compensates with Moses' heroic religious fervor and sense of rightness. As Moses went up the mountain, spoke with a burning bush, and returned with tablets inscribed with law, Tron goes into the Input/Output Tower, communicates with his User through a beam of light, and returns with his identity disc imprinted with the code necessary to defeat the Master Control Program.

And said MCP? The spirit of conquest and tyranny that informed the cultures of Rome and Egypt, with David Warner's Sark character a blend of Pharoah and Crassus.

As a teenager, I didn't appreciate the allegory, but now I have new respect for this film which many fans tend to dismiss. Science fiction used to try to be about something, but these days they've devolved to being ultra-violent, CGI-choked retreads. True, there's a cheese quality to it, but that's part of the fun. And I think I prefer a nice block of cheese with some character to it than the processed glop squeezing out of Hollywood's tube currently.

"Tron" is not for everyone.

This first sentence should make you think that "Tron" is a cult movie. Well, maybe it is. My parents abhor it. My sister detests it. But my friends, who were born in the early 70s (very early, actually) and me see it as an amazing piece of work.

Is it stunning? Yes, even though more than half of the film is colorized b&w. Is it computer animated? Yes, although I am betting your home PC might be able to render the images you will see there without any problem. Maybe not in real time, but almost. Is it special? You bet. Even though CGI had been tried before, Tron took it to the next logical step: creating whole CGI rendered scenes (e.g. tanks, cycles, Recognizers).

The film is confusing at times, and 18 years later you can safely say the script wasn't actually the best. On the light of the Internet, though, it all makes a lot more sense, and it plainly demonstrates that the writers really loved computers. In fact, they were so ahead of their times that I am betting too many people who saw it the first time didn't understand it. That was its failure: only computer geeks could get the whole picture (no pun intended).

Still, I guess Toy Story I and II are the direct development of Tron. And that cannot be bad in any way.

The first time I watched this film, I was around 9 years old. I rented it from a library and watched it at a friends house, and being honest, it's somehow exactly how I remembered it. It's quite surreal, having a plot take place inside a computer and it's clear there are places where it's being pulled out of nowhere, using computer buzz words like 'ram' and 'programs' to be cool and fit into the universe, which kinda adds to the weird charm of the film. I cannot tell whether it takes its self seriously or not at all because there are places where it tries to pull at your heart strings or create a serious moment but there are other moments where you just zone out from some of the imagery on screen. Major credit to Jeff bridges who just seems like he's having a whale of a time. He and the bad guy carry this film by fully embracing this idea and doing the best job they can, although it's clear they have no idea what's going on and that's just brilliant to me. The main thing I love about this film is the visuals. They are straight out of a tame impala album cover. I can't tell if it's matte paintings or early digital imaging but either way it looks like it was intedned to; it's so dated to the point where it's come back around and looks impressive. I need to see how they did all this stuff in the early 80s, must have blown people's minds. Although, they never really explain things though. I kinda could maybe tell what was going on because I've seen the film already but half the things they just don't explain, which did get confusing in places. But generally this films more a delightful time capsule for an era on the dawn of computer special effects, and for that I really liked it.

I hope some smart person from Disney is reading this: if ever there was a movie crying out to be re-released into movie-theaters, it's "Tron," the dazzling sci-fi film from Walt Disney Productions. If it were released into theaters today, "Tron" would be a smash hit, 'cause the movie-audiences of today would understand it a heckuva lot better than the movie-audiences of 1982.

"Tron" tells the story of a young computer programmer named Flynn (Jeff Bridges) who gets sucked INTO a computer, and must fight for his life playing life-or-death video games, run by the evil Master Control Program. With the aid of a good warrior program named Tron (Bruce Boxleitner), and Tron's significant-other Yori (Cindy Morgan), Flynn must put a stop to the MCP and set things right in the computer world once again before returning to his own world.

With breathtakingly beautiful computer-animation (and the very first film to use computer-animation extensively), and presenting an original, dazzling world where energy lives and breathes inside a computer, "Tron" was way ahead of it's time. This may explain why the film was greeted with incomprehension from critics and audience members alike back in 1982.

The problem was, back in 1982, there was no such thing as the Internet, and, apart from business types, most people didn't really know diddlysquat about computers yet. As a result, the computer jargon heard throughout "Tron" went sailing over most audience members' heads, and for many, the story was difficult to follow. Critics complained that "Tron" was all special effects and no story. And, for the final insult, "Tron" wasn't even NOMINATED for Best Visual Effects at Oscar time, presumably because the Academy in 1982 didn't recognize computer-animation as "genuine" visual effects, i.e. "it's animation, not visual effects," they thought to themselves. "The Abyss" changed all that in 1989, but that was a big seven years after "Tron." Obviously, everyone in 1982 had missed the film's point.

But the passing of time has been very kind to "Tron." Today, the film has a major cult following, and is recognized by many as the landmark sci-fi film that it truly is. Looking at "Tron" today, the movie has aged very well indeed, like a fine wine. Now that time--and people's knowledge of computers--has finally caught up with "Tron," now would be the PERFECT time for the world in general to take another look at this amazing film.

Message to Disney: put "Tron" back in theaters! Clean it up with a new remastered print & remastered sound, and let the world rediscover this sci-fi classic. It WILL be a smash hit! In 1982, people just didn't understand "Tron." Today, they will. Trust me. :-)