Twenty Five Years of Tron

the_quiet_angeleno writes "I have an article in today's Summer Film Preview issue of Los Angeles CityBeat on Disney's sci-fi classic Tron, which is celebrating it's 25th anniversary this year. The piece includes a discussion with Richard Taylor, one of Tron's visual effects supervisors on the film's groundbreaking effects, as well as director Steven Lisberger, on how the narrative incorporates the Jungian concept of individuation. Here's a sample: 'Visual Effects Society member Gene Kozicki, of the L.A.-based visual effects house Rhythm & Hues, believes Tron's legacy was in moving computer-generated visuals into the realm of storytelling. "Research into this type of imagery had been going on for over 15 years, but it was more scientific in nature," Kozicki says, "Once artists began to share their ideas and treat the computer as a tool, it moved away from strict research and towards an art form."

Comments

Re:Storytelling?

[MS-06FZ]

Not that Tron was CG. No, it wasn't CG. A lot of it was live-action, filmed on physical sets, with rotoscoping techniques for the "glow" on characters and objects.

But it featured CG... The entire lightcycle sequence, for instance - well, not counting shots of the characters or the interiors of the vehicles...

Last Starfighter

[Tony]

There were other movies with tons of CG not long after, like The Last Starfighter. Most of them had poor scripts as well. TRON didn't set the CG industry back 10 years; it was 10 years ahead of its time.

And, it *was* expensive. Unless you were after the CG look of the time, there was no reason to use CG.