TRON (1982)

TRON (1982)

Tagline: Trapped inside an electronic arena, where love, and escape, do not compute!

(Action, Adventure, Nerds) [PG]

Hey look, if this is about those parking tickets, I can explain everything. 

In this one arcade owner and part-time hacker Kevin Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges), has his code stolen by a software pirate called Master Control. Master Control runs 3D world and uses other programs for its purposes convinced it can run the world better than humans. Once inside the Master Controls world, he is forced to compete in video games to avoid annihilation. Inside this world is a program named TRON who fights for the “users” developed by an associate and rival of Flynn’s in the real world. Can Flynn expose a man named Ed Dillinger who developed Master Control for being both a thief and a fraud? Is there any way out of the Master Control’s domain?

First off, because the computer graphics at the time couldn’t keep up, the movie utilizes computer graphics and animation to get the desired effects. Because animators were worried they would ultimately be replaced by computers a lot of them refused to work on the movie. 22 years after TRON came out, Disney actually did shut down its animation studios, however now any company doing computer animation still needs to hire computer animators. 

I guess all of the computer storage for the movie's digital animation only took up 0.33 GB of storage. At the time that was just a ton. Now almost 40 years on, I am writing this on a computer with 8 GB of memory. Because of this by today’s standards, a lot of the animation is just really goofy looking, but it doesn’t make it any less effective. The suits the characters are wearing are all lit up and look pretty cool. Some of the sets look pretty great, while others are just really bland art that looks like something that would end up on an 80’s Trapper Keeper. Most of the effects are very 2D while others have more definition giving them an almost paper cut-out look. 

Even though I worked in IT for 7 years and even still worth the IT team coding to this day the language in this movie isn’t really “wide-audience” which probably explains why it bombed at the box office. We do get some cool designs and the storyline is fine, but having at least 1 person that isn’t tech-savvy in your cast is smart. That way he can ask questions or clarify what the more techy characters are conveying. It could have been something simple in just a few scenes. 

There is also a part here where Kevin overreacts to one of Alan’s questions. I can understand a passionate performance, but that is the only scene where this happens and there are far more serious events in the movie itself after this point. It just made me not even really care if Kevin Flynn succeeded or not. I did however really like TRON played by Bruce Boxleitner. I also thought it was cool that both Jeff Bridges and Boxleitner reprised their roles in TRON: LEGACY. 

For me, this misses the mark in a lot of areas and gets pretty boring at times. I have to give this one a 4 out of 7 just for the ambitious undertaking that it must have been, but it’s probably closer to a 3. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF WALT DISNEY PICTURES AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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