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The Story of Tron
An anonymouse reader writes "Tom's Hardware has a feature up on the makings of Tron which may interest latent fans. Through interviews with the creators they explore the makings of Tron, from how it came to be picked up by Disney to how the effects were put together ('While the majority of the film takes place in the computer world, only 15 minutes worth of footage actually used CGI', because it would have taken years to make the film otherwise). They then explore why the film flopped at the box office. 'It was like we put LSD in the punch at the school prom and it was just way more than they can handle,' said Steven Lisberger."
honestly think about tron without the image of the tron guy coming to mind?
the box office flop is all the proof that I need that people really are idiots, I mean, did they even see the lightcycles?!
ptsch.
Special effects != Return Investment
May the wind be always at your back,
-Empyrealmortal
The rumours few around a few years back but with this years aquissition of Pixar by Disney it could be a huge blockbuster.
They started with a lousy script, and an implausibly silly plot that its very hard to look past. The market for movies that look pretty but don't engage on a human level is very, very small.See? That's dialogue bad enough to have come from one of the Matrix sequels.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I can handled some better grammar and/or editing
The movie is absolutely great. I saw it in the cinema twice. The DVD version I have contains a great making-of and I enjoyed the movie again since I bought it a couple of times. Actually I always wondered why this is a Disney film...
In Korea, all your base are Only For Old People
Slightly OT, but i'd like to read TFA, but I ran out of patience clicking "next" and "next" and then watching as some overlay pops every time i accidentally move my mouse over underlined words. Sheesh. No wonder nobody reads TFA
Lone Gunmen crew.
Who would have thought it was a bomb? I remember seeing it and loving it as a kid - and loving my toy lightcycle and some of the video game - and the movie seems to be so well known. If you ever mention it to someone, they know what you're talking about. It amazes me it was a flop.
I saw Tron, opening night, and its one of the things that made me really, really want to figure out how those nifty looking typewriters with screens could do so much. I didn't know what memory was, I didn't know what a processor did, I barely understood how a calculator worked and if you said Binary I'd say "Sure, I have a Huffy!".
:)
:)
We're always looking at value as something monetary. Tron made me go get my first trash-80 (Err Tandy TRS-80 heheh) and later my first Commie. I wanted to know how those things worked.
You all may remember the short lived series "Whiz Kids" , with the talking computer that looked like it was assembled from stereo components. That was another one way ahead of its time.
The value of the film wasn't how much it grossed , if you want to calculate that, then calculate the life time earnings of those who got into computers partly because of seeing it and you may be surprised
However only 15 minutes of CGI? I somehow (not sure why, because I know what was available then) thought most of it was CGI.. but yes, that would have been very very difficult at the time. My bubble sort of broke reading that article, never really thought about the making other than being fascinated as a child with the results.
Much like the show Whiz Kids, it was just a little too abstract for most people. Entertainment isn't entertainment to most if it requires too much thought.
Tron got to be the pavement others were able to ride in on. So wallet aside, I don't think the film was a flop. I was too young to remember any hoop-la coming from Disney about the film.. I wonder how it would have done if it had been underplayed before release.
Cool article, if you can wade through the advertisements
Because the script and the dialogs were dreadful.
Who's your user, program?
Hollywood reports indicate Richard Stallman currently in negotiations to star as Tron in the planned sequel to Tron 2. The current negotations with Stallman include advertising of the GNU/Linux operating system in the opening credits of the film.
Rumor has it that the upcoming plot will put Tron against a closed-source operating system developed by Bill Gates....
It was 22nd in the top grossing films of 1982. Blade Runner was 27th that year.
Maybe it wasn't the smash hit they were hoping for, but it looks like it did very well.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/
For Tron's special effects — The Super Foonly F-1. I bet it had a phat exhaust, blue downlighting, a killer sound system with a 16 inch subwoofer, and a stylish fibreglass skirt fitted to the front of the reel-to-reel cabinet.
...was a really great sequel to TRON.
Or at least that's what I think.
Is it just me, or does Tronguy look quite a lot like Ned Flanders at a fancy dress? "Yes indeed-e, tron-a-roony."
What were they going to call it? Troff?
Check out the website of Wendy Carlos, who composed and performed the soundtrack...her website is: http://wendycarlos.com/
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
1982 it was not "cool" to be a geek. It was not cool to "live" inside the computer. 1982 was a time when computers (and even more consoles) were considered toys, not an essential part of our life.
Especially, the audience for such a movie was too small. And the studio was the wrong one. First of all, it's Disney. Back then, what did you get from Disney? Cute li'l films about cute fuzzy animals having some cute adventures. So people did not expect a "serious" science fiction movie.
Second, it was the wrong kind of science fiction for this time. Science fiction back then was either in a galaxy far, far away or equally far away in the future. But most certainly not NOW. How can you make science fiction in the NOW? Now is the real world. The movie was simply not credible for the audience of then.
Before someone quotes E.T.: E.T. was credible for the simple reason that it was a "real" drama movie with an alien element. Not a "real" science fiction movie. There were no laser beams and no robots.
Tron was also not the stereotypical science fiction movie, it didn't carter to the SciFi crowd of those times. No aliens, no space battles, no epic hero. Instead a very dramatic personal battle for Flynn and Tron, with a lot of abstraction that only someone who has at least a clue about computers can comprehend and appreciate.
In total, it is a movie for computer and game geeks. And those were rather scarce back then.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Cron of course.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
I suspect a lot of people saw Tron as kids. I saw it as an adult and didn't like it. From what I remember it was for much the same reasons Bladerunner works and Johnny mnemonic doesn't. Hence, Disney?
Chris Wedge was an animator on Tron and latter went on to co-found Blue Sky Studios and make Ice Age and Robots.
The _best_ 3D pr0n -> http://www.hookup3d.com
Time to "crack out" Goatse again, eh? ;)
Please don't! The Cowboy Neal is still in therapy after the last time you did that.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
An interesting side note: Bonnie MacBird wrote a couple of the drafts of the Tron script, calling on Alan Kay (then hailing from PARC) for technical consulting and inspiration. (One of the characters is named after him.) She seldom gets any recognition for her work on the project (I've only ever heard Lisberger acknowledge that Alan Kay was an "inspiring force" for the film, while totally ignoring her). But, at least she got something out of the deal... she and Kay got hitched some time thereafter. Anyway, just an iteresting aside...
I actually saw Tron when it came out in the theater, I thought it was great. I didn't care about any bad reviews, I enjoyed it because it was total fantasy. The effects were great (at the time) and the lightcycle bike scene was the best.
I am not sure if it would have ever been made today, but I think this exactly the kind of movie that needs to be made - sheer fantasy to escape from the realities of this world.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Please... saying Tron flopped at the box office is like saying Gigli is a thought provoking masterpiece. Box office sales may have been somewhat pale, but they're comparing it to Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., and Conan the Barbarian which were also released around the same time.
Very misleading summary. Tron was, and still is, a nice piece of movie history. The arcade game was also great, I could almost guarantee there is a Tron machine within 50 miles of wherever you're reading this from.
I'd love to see a movie sequel, but knowing Hollywood & the way they bastardize everything, it would star Lindsay Lohan, The Rock, and a monkey that solves crime.
This is just to waste karma or a modpoint.
Greetings programs!
"Has anyone here seen Tron?"
"No"
"No"
"No"
"Yes - I mean no."
I first saw Tron as a small kid. Didn't understand much, but I remember that I liked it, the looks, the heroes, the glowing fresbees, everything. During the years I watched it a couple of times and I always liked it. Now I have the latest DVD, and I just watched it recently, and guess what, I still like it :D Thing is, every time I watch it with a different perspective, when a kid, I took it seriously, good guy bad guy fighting whatever, this last time I thought it was real fun, I laughed on the lines a lot. It's a great movie. It is because more than 20 years have passed and people can still have good time watching it. I could list some 15-20+ years old movies that also are similarly good, but that's another story.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Some then young budding PHB or IP Lawyer to be, realizing, hey- this guy used company resources to make video games on the side, with the intent to spin-off a VERY PROFITABLE COMPANY...
We should make job contracts that say "all your base belong to us" iffen you make them at all whilst you are working for us...
Thanks TRON!
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
GLtron
Both free, for Windows/MacOSX/Linux.
Circumcision is child abuse.
consider that dialogue, which is NOT from a HUMAN BEING, is in fact very good, as it's a rather mechanical and acerbic line, of the type I'd consider possible as the output of a first gen AI.
Having experience with a great many non-native english speakers, from eastern europe and islamic countries, some asian, I know that the best of them still use funny sentence construction at times...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
ehhh, not quite. Space War preceded Pong, and the table tennis game at Brookhaven preceded even Space War.
However, Pong was the first widely popular video game and the first home game.
The wonderful thing about creative endeavours - films, books, music, software, whatever - is that they are inherently unpredictable. I've lost track a number things I've seen that claim to be able to guarantee you a hit single or novel say. Tron probably deserved to be a hit but it wasn't. Another big special effects movie with equally laughable acting and awful dialog - Titanic, did alright.
In order to take Tron seriously, you have to not take it so seriously.
It is amazing how many people fail to understand that simple truth. Take for example 'The Mummy' and it's sequel 'The Mummy returns' It's always funny to read reviews of those movies talking about overacting, a bad plot, bad script, over reliance on special effects etc... It's fun to read those reviews because the snobby film critics who write them have completely missed the point which is: "For god's sake man it's a MUMMY MOVIE! The fact that it's full of cheesy clichés is exactly what makes it such fun to watch!". No matter how many times I watch hat scene in 'The Mummy Returns' where the Pygmy mummys run over the log with the one in the lead carrying a stick of dynamite like an Olympic torch it always makes me laugh. It's actually worth while to go down some 'worst movie ever' list and watch those sorry pieces of cinematic catastrophe just for laughs. Just make sure 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' is on the list. It's a well known classic and watching it at least once is mandatory.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
I suppose that people who never saw Tron missed the reference.
Family Guy riffed on Tron too - they had Peter driving one of those light cycles. I guess this just proves that plenty of Geeks go into animation!
I remember when Tron came out, well, it didn't last long enough in my podunk theatre for it to register. But when my parents plunked down 500 bucks for a VHS machine, it was my first rental. I loved the videogame(s), and liked it quite a bit at the age of 12 or whatever...but watching it in my early 20s, I couldn't even get through the whole thing for some reason! Must of been the drinking or something because I bought the super DVD when it came out a couple years ago and I just love it. From the first shot of the orange getting scanned, I just get hooked and can't leave until I watch the whole thing.
The article says Disney experimented with using comupters for animation in the seventies. I think the first thing they tried doing was to do in-betweening of hand-plotted vector graphics, animating the series of lines on a vector scope, then drawing the lines to cells using an XY plotter. This was done using an IBM Whirlwind vector terminal in 1959 or 1960.
One thing the article failed to mention was how ardous it was to make those "mere 15 minutes of cgi." Back then, no animation tools existed nor were there any GUI based rendering tools either. All of the CGI was hard coded by hand using a text system very similar to Pov-ray. There was no animation programming either. To animate something they had to calculate how far they wanted each object to move, then calculate and enter the cordinates by hand frame-by-frame.
Furthermore, the computers of the time didn't have enough memory to store entire movies, let alone any sort of device to output it to video tape or film like we have now. Instead, they had to render each individual frame, display the frame on a high-resolution monitor and then photograph the monitor onto regular 35mm film. Each frame would take several hours to render further complicating the process trying to keep the lighting uniform on each exposure.
Now, fifteen minutes * 60 seconds in a minute * 24 frames per second = roughly 21,600 frames. Just an insane amount of manual labor.
Obviously all the trails and glowing auras were meant for us trippies!
Mind | Body | Spirit | Cash
no mention of Yori in the skintight tron suit. The first and best screen geek chick.
Somehow I think bomb is the wrong word to use. I just read this paragraph in the article:
As it turns out, the summer of 1982 was the biggest in movie-going history at that time. E.T. was the box office juggernaut that stole America's heart, but the season also included Blade Runner, Conan the Barbarian, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Poltergeist, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Rocky III, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and a re-release of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which had grossed more than $200 million the previous year.
That's a lot of movies to contend with. I suppose its simular to recent years where there have been many summers with more than 3 "must-see" movies. But that doesn't mean that movies like Fantastic Four bombed. It just means they didn't do well commericially compared with other movies of the time. Tron still made a big profit (according to the imdb).
I think my favorite quote about Tron is one that was actually made on a newsgroup around that time. I've pasted it here for your enjoyment. From google groups
It's enough to make one leave applications programming and
go into graphics......
james blasius
Uh, yeah. I think that's what we would call an understatement.
There was a sequel? I'm an 80s buff and didn't even know that. Link, please?
Something the article doesn't mention is that Tron also had a futuristic soundtrack by Wendy Carlos, the same woman who composed (at least, she composed the song Timesteps) and performed the soundtrack for A Clockwork Orange.
Interesting article. The CGI is definately impressive for it's time. But there is no mention of audio fx? I seem to remember that Atari 800's were responsible for many of the digital audio effects in Tron?
That's why I post anonymously. :)
Now you make me want to find that movie on VHS, since I hadn't hit puberty when I last saw it back in the 80s.
I recall reading an article written by a Disney animator (sorry, don't remember who) in the 80's about the modelling and mathematics behind rubber hose animation. That is the type of animation used for early cartoon characters, like for Mickey Mouse's arms and legs. The article was basically about migrating from manual pen-and-ink animation to computer rendering. I don't know if Disney was actually in the process of doing that, but I suppose that they were considering it.
How's 'bout the possibility that most people just didn't think it was very good?
erm...surely by "flopped" they mean "didn't do well at the box office", so how exactly did people think it wasn't very good without seeing it? Perhaps they didn't go to see it because of bad reviews, maybe the few that did thoguth it was bad and *everybody else* belived them, but I don't think we can ssume that people didn't watch something (the first time) because they didn't like it - can we?
The Programs understanding of their world and the Users was wholly different then our understanding of the everyday world.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
I believe he has my stapler.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
maybe the few that did *thoguth* it was bad
:o)
maybe they could spell too - sorry about that!
There's a reason why Scorcese's "Raging Bull" doesn't center on the world frisbee champion, you know.
Obviously, because people wouldn't be able to stand the sheer thrill and excitement if it did.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I was a teenager and playing with home computers, and I didn't think much of it, beyond the lifecycle sequence.
I really hope that Disney remake it sometime. It's a movie that's got a great idea behind it, but was flabby and dull in execution and script. Keep the Wendy Carlos soundtrack, though ;)
I have, and I think all the computer nerds should have already seen it, but in a graduate operating systems class at North Carolina State University in 2001, I asked for a show of hands of those who had seen the movie. Out of 80 students, only 3 had seen it! Now that could be a testament to the cultural diversity at NCSU, or it could be a testament to my age vs. theirs (I'm a few years older than most grad students, and was old enough to see it in the theater when it came out), or it could be a testament to the lack of true nerds at NCSU (my experience has been that half of my teammates on group projects have no idea how to write a program). At any rate, people need to know a little bit of history. Kudos, for once ;-) to the editors for posting this story.
I hate call waitin`~+~~~
NO CARRIER
Because you generally need to make several times the cost of the movie at the box office to break even. Theaters take a cut, distributors take a cut, then there's the advertising costs to pay on top... which can be massive: in the extreme case of low-budget movies, they can be many times the cost of the movie itself.
Unless, of course, you're Uwe Boll, in which case you've already made enough money to pay for the movie before it even opens. Say what you will about the man's skills in making movies (and believe you me, I'm willing to spill quite a bit of invective in that area) but he's a near genius at raising money. Between the German tax loophole and merchandising rights, he had his Tomb Raider movie paid off before opening.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Say hello to my little sig.
...which means that the investors didn't make their money back.
The powers that be at the studio really resented the film with all these young conjurers, and Wilheit was looked down upon by the old Disney guard
Computer effects were being pitched to the major studios as far back as the 1970s, but no one was interested.
The people at Disney that were against Tron the entire making of the movie in the end stood up the week before it came out and 'said we're going to do more business than Star Wars
vs.
They thought it would be cool
I wonder just how many really great ideas have been lost to society because imaginationless people "resented" them? This is truly the most expensive problem society faces: the "it will never work" people. They cost society trillions in advancement 24 hours a day. It is wrong.
Solomon also pointed out that John Lasseter, who directed the Toy Story films, was inspired by Tron to move into computer animation.
Oh my gosh, that computer stuff, the film was a box office flop, we don't want anything to do with that, that's craziness
Tron became Finding Nemo, the Incredibles, Monsters Inc. and Toy Story. Hmm. Maybe they should have more box office flops?
SOME INVESTMENTS DON'T SHOW UP IN THE QUARTERLY REPORTS. SOMETIMES IT ISN'T JUST ABOUT THE TALL DOLLARS.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
She's Yori, a sidekick added for the 15-34 demographic
l
He's nVidia-Tron pumped up and ready to kick the MPC
It's a CGI monkey that can crack any password in nanoseconds
THEY FIGHT CRIME!
http://home.epix.net/~mhryvnak/theyfightcrime.htm
Man, I hadn't remembered that those came out the same year. I biked maybe five miles to see Tron at the local theater that was showing it, at least a few times. I remember locking the chain around the bike rack and walking from the summer heat into that run down theater with its thinning carpet and whiff of warmed popcorn. That movie made frisbee extra fun that year. Later on the Intellivision games, with the Recognizer "bosses"...
"Blade Runner" we were too young for, it being an R, so my older brother took us to that for my birthday. That means it was late June. What the heck was anyone doing releasing that movie as a summer blockbuster? The theater was basically empty except for us.
Neither one of them got the box office that its studio was expecting. As investments, though? I'm not that keen on either one as a work of high art, but the ripple effect they had was really something, culturally.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
calculate the life time earnings of those who got into computers partly because of seeing it and you may be surprised :)
/>
I resemble that remark. (Even ended up working with a III system later in '82, though not doing anything nearly as interesting with it...)
Yeah, the dialogue is awful (though not as bad as The Black Hole), but the look and soundtrack are still inspiring. As another poster said, this film was ahead of its time - by at least a good twenty minutes...
<grrr
I was working (learning) in the biggest graphics lab in the world at the time _Tron_ was made, Summer 1982. The New York Institute of Technology had a DEC VAX/VMS datacenter, with DEC GIGI graphics terminals and other rendering HW. We were busy scanning 1970s progressive rock album covers and inserting our own adventures into the cover art. Then Disney opened their Tron lab, and we weren't the biggest anymore - just another little college computer room.
It was like our bong hits wore off, just as someone else at the school prom dosed us all with LSD, then they started flying around the dance hall.
--
make install -not war
Box office flop... what a bummer. I did my part. I saw Tron twice opening day. I went and saw it in the afternoon with my pals then went home and told my family all about it. So then back we went. What a great day.
During Flynn's "zap-in", you zoom past pixelated, digitized clouds on the way to the surface of the digital world. I was totally transported.
"Hey... don't be mean." --Buckaroo Banzai
From the article: "One of the things I'm most proud about in Tron is there are no guns in the movie -- it's a killer Frisbee!" he said. "I mean, try to make an action adventure movie without a gun. I dare you."
So, those aren't gun turrets on the tanks? I guess those are love turrets, and they fire love and happiness.
As implausible as the plot devices were, Tron actually captured something about how it felt working with computers in that era. You had a great deal of control, but programs had reached a point of complexity where different pieces of software almost had a mind of their own. And since the suits only had a vague idea of what you did, they tried to avoid you as much as possible, which meant on a day to day basis you really interacted with bits of software more than you did people. There were no ex-geek managers for the simple reason there were no ex-geeks.
Add to that, very few of us had computers in their home; the home computers that existed were for practical purposes not much more than toys.
The upshot was, when you sat down in front of that terminal at the start of the work day, it really felt like preparing to dive into an alternate universe, with its own population.
And furthermore, there was no Internet. Internet means you're handling emails, IM, blogging and interacting with real, flesh and blood people; or at least what those people are pretending to be. Having the Internet means that software flows in and out of your computer like electricity. In those days your computer was isolated, like one of the Galapagos Islands, and sparsely populated with humans. The real people were, in the cast of characters a distinct minority. When you chatted at the watercooler about one program or another idiosyncracies, it was gossipping.
Tron, while it may not be Citizen Kane, captured the feeling of an unique moment in computer history.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Whiz kids, mmmmmmmmmmmhmmmmmmmmmmm, Alice was nice, she made Richie computer sing, remember that?
Whatever happed to "Tron: Killer App" the sequel advertised on the Tron DVD? The world is ready and waiting for a Tron sequel. What's the deal?
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
From the website: What happens when Tron meets Depeche Mode? Surprisingly, a pretty stunning home-made edit by Justin Alt. http://www.transbuddha.com/index.php/buddha/suffer _well/
Seeing this made me appreciate the song much more, and rekindled my interest in Tron again.
Is this still happening? When I first heard about it, it struck me as a huge mistake, to do a reimagining rather than a sequel (that is, a sequel with Lisberger involved, and hopefully Wendy Carlos music.... something along the lines of the Tron 2.0 video game).
I'd still of course love to see what Pixar might do with the "Tron" style.
It was like we put LSD in the punch at the school prom and it was just way more than they can handle.
Holleee cow. The perfect image of the spurned geek, trying to make people understand and failing miserably.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I come from What, you insensitive clod!
When I was a kid, especially in '82 (age 9), I didn't really focus on the directing, writing, and point of a film.
After reading this article, many of you may be hit with nostalgia, and consider purchasing 'Tron' on DVD. It's loaded with extras, and of course looks much better than the VHS version.
But I just wanted to inform those of you who do not know: The 20th Anniversary DVD (2-disc version) of 'Tron' will not play properly on Sony PS2. The DVD plays fine on a standard DVD player. But on a PS2, it pixellates and locks up, on certain scenes.
Just trying to save some PS2 users a few trips to the store, in an attempt to exchange a 'faulty' DVD. If you get the 20th Anniversary DVD of 'Tron', be warned it likely will not play properly in your PS2. It will play properly on a regular DVD player.
VOTE!
I 100% agree. I'd love to see more movies of this type; the recent spate of Marvel/Superhero movies has been nice (though not all were well made). When I go to the movies, I'm hoping for something to entertain and amuse. I want to see Bruce Willis jump out of an exploding car traveling 60 mph and survive, or Brandon Fraiser fighting mummies, or Angelina Jolie swiming through Atlantis.
I don't want to see "real life" in my movies--I see that every day, thanks.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(hacker)
HEY, who the heck marked me a troll? Is what I am saying not a valid opinion? I'd like to hear a reason for that from the 30-something tinfoil hat wearing geeks that likely lives in hismom's basement. Come on now, seriously, the movie was horrendous, one can hardly argue that point...
dB Masters
Discs of Tron is still one of my favorite video games. It has good graphics, but the gameplay is a blast.
Anyone else remember that game?
I tried it on MAME a few years ago, but it wasn't the same as playing it in the arcade.
Family Guy riffed on Tron too - they had Peter driving one of those light cycles.
"Man, I haven't seen you since high school. What are you up to these days?"
"I'm the Red Guy. What about you?"
"Oh, I'm the Green Guy."
NO! you are forgetting The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes , some of the most advanced science fiction set in the NOW (the 1969 now that is), pitting Dexter Riley against the evil AJ Arno. Disney WAS a scifi powerhouse!!!
Great movie. Saw it in the theater when I was 6 or 7. I really can't defend the dialogue, though :)
The ethic of programs of little fighters within a sometimes incomprehensible system was very appealing. The idea of old crusty programs bearing the likeness of their users was cool. The idea of independently minded security programs running around like white blood cells was also pretty fabulous. In terms of what actual programs could do at the time, Tron was inspirational to real programmers. I mean every program in Tron could communicate to every other program. Strong programs could defeat weak programs by learning new games at the instruction of stronger still programs, all without user intervention. A super program that could heal other programs that had crashed...
There were realistic in-jokes, like the Bit, the PacMan graphic in Stark's domain, the endless infinty of cubicles, and the fantasy that (arcade) gamers could pull chicks by getting high scores.
Tron was true the spirit of the then-emerging hacker ethic in many ways that other movies haven't really ever captured. In fact, I can't think of any other that captures more truly on an emotional scale how programmers think about their programs. In fact there is probably only one movie that has ever been cooler to hackers and that is Swordfish.
fault-tolerant
The movie's most redeeming feature is that it gets across the idea that computers should be used for the free distribution of information. The evil MCP is the one that blocks off all access to the I/O towers, forcing our heroes to embark on their quest.
Your design to a real part online: Big Blue Saw
Tron provided a realistic main plot (theft of someones work), an interesting subplot (programs having a life of there own), a drama (the strugle for freedom), and a love story. The movie was more complex that you give it credit for. A story about computers doesn't have to be accurate to how computers are at the time of the story to be a good story. It's not fact after all it's fiction.
...in their punch.
Quite frankly, "Tron" was a lousy movie. The story sucked and the computerised effects were lame. A real disappointment. Why should anyone be surprised it flopped at the box office? Now to garner some more revenue, the movie is periodically resurrected on /. as some kind of major event in computerized motion picture magic, when only 15% was CGI. I'm not at all surprised by the 15% figure. My buddies and I left the theater all with the opinion the movie was strongly overhyped for being computer generated. Tron is trash and its poor box office stands in testimony to the intelligence of the public.
No, it was like a completely stupid premise. Nowadays the general audience is prepared for senseless techno-premises, and the tech-savvy audience is resigned to them.
"But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
The Dexter's Lab. episode "Game Over" is essentially a remake of Tron.
I'm surprised nobody's made a clone of "Space Paranoids".
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I'll bet all the kids making fun of you feel bad now.
Man, you really need that seminar!
for runing what was my all time favorite movie!! heh
Anyone else think that guy looks like Milton? "I like the red Swingline because it doesn't bind up as much.." "Ok, but now I have to burn the building..."
When Moses appeared in that episode I was so amazed that I probably drooled all over myself. Suddenly I was 12 again. I couldn't believe that they'd slip in such an (I thought) obscure reference.
For months afterwards, my wife and I would say "No cake for the impurator!" to each other at random times. It's still kind of a running joke with us.
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
Macaroni Pictures.
When Moses appeared in that episode I was so amazed that I probably drooled all over myself. Suddenly I was 12 again. I couldn't believe that they'd slip in such an (I thought) obscure reference.
I agree about it being great (both because of the Tron reference and the context), but South Park is all about the obscure references. I haven't watched it in years, but I remember seeing the film at a theatre and being the only person who laughed at the "I... have had... enough of... YOU!" take-off on Star Trek III.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
Am I the only person on the planet who played TRON 2.0?
:-)
Lemme tell 'ya, the game is fantastic! There's simply nothing about it that isn't great. I rank it as the 2nd best video game I've ever played (after Deus Ex). It is by far the most visually appealing game I've played, hands down. So much so that I suspect that my very concept of aesthetic beauty was probably largely derived from Tron. Some of the environments are so beautiful that I'd have to stop actually playing the game for a minute and just look around.
I've played both Armagetron and GLtron, and love them. When I found out that TRON 2.0 was coming out, and that it includes a light cycles component, I was dubious. How could it improve on what was already available out there for free? Trust me, it does.
As far as the plot of the game goes, I think it's a worthy sequel to the original movie. The story is engaging, and they effectively update the Tron universe to the present day, staying true to the original movie while also explaining how it is that, if the technology to "digitize" people existed in 1982, we aren't zapping people back and forth all the time. I've seen an early draft script that was written for a film sequel to Tron. The TRON 2.0 game is actually better.
The multiplayer modes are fantastic, with 3 distinct types- light cycles, team arena combat (similar to the various game grid battles in the movie, only more playable), and deathmatch (which requires a patch on the PC version).
Obviously I'm more than a bit of a Tron nut. I wrote a light cycle game for the IBM PS/2 as my final project in a high school BASIC programming class back in `88. For the sake of completeness regarding light cycles games, does anyone else remember or have the handheld electronic game that came out? It used an LED display and had three minigames in it, including a light cycle game. Not great by any means, but nifty for the time period. I've got one.
Boundless Expansion, Self-Transformation, Dynamic Optimism, Intelligent Technology, Spontaneous Order- BEST DO IT SO!
Flynn, who initially started out as an innovative programmer of videogames, presides over Encom as it becomes the main provider of operating systems for personal computers. Flynn grows more and more out of touch the more money he makes, and his lust for more and more domination of the field becomes more and more intense.
It is now 1995. Two things have emerged that he cannot control:
1.) Arpanet becomes the Internet, and is opened to the Great Unwashed. It begins to take shape as its own cybernetic landscape, much like the interior of the Mainframe but infinitely more vast.
2.) A Flynn-like programmer in Europe, Karl Svenson, has created an operating system which, while still rough around the edges, has the potential of blowing Encom's "Portals" system out of the water. And he's giving it away. The thought galls Flynn.
So Flynn goes back to a wheel of paper punch tape and resurrects the MCP. The MCP's new mission: to conquer the Internet and to eliminate Svenson. The MCP gets out of Flynn's control, and Flynn and Svenson are eventually forced to work together to prevent the MCP from putting them both out of business.
If you work at Pixar, go right ahead and take this. You're welcome.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I desire... I desire... paper plate bean shakers!
Comment of the year
Tron 1: People go into the game.
Tron 2: The game invades reality.
Will they figure out how cool a tank crushing a bunch of cars as it warps in is? Probably not.
God spoke to me.
but which movie wins the Googlefight?
From the last page of the article:
Lisberger made two more movies after Tron: Hot Pursuit, a comedy starring John Cusack...
Now there's a movie I would pay to see!!!!
Just thought it was odd that they failed to mention Tron's "unofficial" sequel, which covered a lot of similar premises (almost every all of them). Since the series came out just barely 12 years after Tron, it's about as good as an homage as any.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Moses also in the episode "Super Best Friends". In this episode, we learn that Jesus, Muhammad, Budda, Krishna, Moses, Lao Tsu, and Joseph Smith are a team, fighting evildoers around the world. Oh, and Sea Man - whose name is frequently misprounced.
Spelling, grammar, punctuation? We need something that checks logic.
My dad was a programmer at the time when this came out. And I remember him telling me we were going to see a movie about a guy that gets sucked into a computer. That was the coolest thing I had heard. That movie got me hooked on computers. There were only 3 computer books in my school library and I was the only one that ever checked them out.
ah the memories.
I hope there can be great movies such as this to inspire my children
I saw Tron as a kid and I still like it today (though not as much, but still do)... A new Tron comic is set to come out this spring... And as another poster mentioned, I really loved Reboot...
I have a friend who was Steve Lisberger's son's room-mate. Thought you might enjoy this link to a music video that he made for Daft Punk's song "Short Circuit". http://moneydick.com/videos/kitaro_-_shortcircuit_ daft_punk.mov
http://www.news24.com/News24/Entertainment/Abroad/ 0,,2-1225-1243_1896256,00.html
Los Angeles - The independent co-producer of Crash, last week's surprise winner of the Oscar for best film, said that she was broke, a Hollywood journal reported on Friday.
Cathy Schulman mounted the stage at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre last Sunday alongside Crash director Paul Haggis to accept the golden statuette for best film, beating out the favoured Brokeback Mountain.
But the film community's honour for her work has not translated into financial compensation.
"I have the interesting distinction of having made five movies in a row without being paid. I can't pay my bills," Schulman said, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Schulman is battling Crash co-producer and former business partner Bob Yari over two million dollars in expenses and bonuses related to making films.
Yari insisted that she go without salary for the five years she worked with him, she said.
Yari himself is contesting in court the decision of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars, and the Producers Guild to not credit him as a Crash producer.
Both organisations define "producer" as someone who works actively on a film, and not just finances it.
Crash, produced for just $6.5m, had earned $83m worldwide before it won the Oscar, according to reports.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
it was called "The Matrix".
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Funny seeing how the scientology dude was missed, because its not really a real religeon, unless
he can make his alien friends visit.
Funny how the CHEF is leaving because they finaly dissed scientology.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I am confused as to why the author of this article is using the word latent to describe the fans that may be interested in this particular story. Why would fans of Tron be hiding? -Adam
It would be good if the firms have released the source code for the effects from the film! I know it is not very likely to happen, at least in the near future, but how amazing it would be, even and incentive to learn PDP-10 assembly?!!!
I think that effects are amazing; it is not the polygon that counts, but the the artistic vision, the excellence of creators' work; and tho think that most of it has been hardcoded, makes it even more appealing; think 18th century mechanical watch comparing to modern quartz wristwatch.
This story comes right after the release of Armagetron Advanced 0.2.8.0. They have rpm (x86), autopackage (x86), autopackage (x86_64), dmg (ppc-OSX), and Windows binary versions (and source code, of course). I easily installed the Autopackage on my Debian Sid (I wish more project released autopackages). Play it for a while, IMO it's the best lightcycle game around.
/. post linked to this http://tinyurl.com/8g6pz picture from Kingdom Hearts 2 featuring a Tron character next to Donald Duck. Hey, Tron's Disney after all ;-) )
http://www.armagetronad.net/downloads.php
(BTW, an old
Andûr