Tron

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.

When this came out, about 25 years ago, the special-effects were eye-popping. I was stunned and saw this twice at the theater, something I rarely did. Nowadays, it looks primitive. It's like when video games first came out, compared to what they are now.

However, a few years ago when the DVD came out with the widescreen and 5.1surround sound, it made it somewhat-respectable again in parts and made it still fun to watch.

The story was never that great. There was too much technical talk and the characters were the kind you really couldn't get involved over.

It's nothing super, but if you've never seen it, I still recommend it. I don't recall any other movie quite like it.

I saw Tron on release and at the time was in the process of setting up my own PC company - we were still struggling with Basic, 120K floppy drives and "undocumented errors".

The graphics were, at the time stunning, the story was vapid and some of the dialogue embarrassing...

" I think I am jus' a coupla nanoseconds away..." Seems paradoxical that Dsiney were at the cutting edge and have had to take Jobs on board with Pixar to retain their leadership.

Of course it sucked at the Box office and I guess the Disney head honchos saw no future in it. After all it doesn't compare with the Muppets Treasure Island.

TRON for those who may wonder, was a very primitive trouble shooting utility in early BASIC language. It stood for Trace ON and this was switched off with Trace OFF.

This enabled the programmer to watch as each numbered line of code was executed so that you could check the execution of each line and examine the way variables changed. Far away from inline syntax checking etc., Happy days when we struggled with 64 K RAM and the first Hard disks were a long way off.

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.

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. :-)