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'Tron: Legacy' Director Explains the Tron World

An anonymous reader writes "We only had to wait 28 years for the second installment of 'Tron' — the sequel, 'Tron: Legacy,' comes out on Friday. It is expected to have less awesomely bad '80s graphics and more awesomely awesome millennial CGI. In advance of the opening, Discover has an interview with director Joe Kosinski in which he talks about reinventing the light cycle, and explains that the Tron world resembles the Galapagos Islands, where everything evolved in isolation."

384 comments

  1. "awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Eunuchswear · · Score: 4, Insightful

    WTF!

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    1. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by spun · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The awesomely bad graphics are one reason you can not purchase the original Tron in advance of the sequel. The awesomely bad plot is another. Disney doesn't want people to remember how bad the movie really was. I mean, I loved it as a kid, don't get me wrong, but I also loved the Dukes of Hazzard, Benny Hill, and the A-Team. Kids have terrible taste in entertainment.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    2. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Marketing babble for late 90's lenses flare effects. If you thought startrek was bad, yikes for this.

    3. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Amorymeltzer · · Score: 1

      What part of that is confusing? With the exception of the Space Shuttle, pretty much everything born of the 80s is "awesomely bad."

      --
      I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
    4. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by gmac63 · · Score: 1

      No shit. That's what made the whole movie. In fact, I WISH they would have kept the graphics the way they were. Granted the names :RAM, MCP, CLU, TRON (yes the name is kinda hokey, but...) At least it gave you a whole 'you are truly in cyberspace' look and feel. From what I've seen, its 'lets remake reality as real as we can". Lost the cyber mystique totally.

      --

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    5. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by jdgeorge · · Score: 5, Funny

      Perhaps the submitter does not understand that Tron's graphics were cutting edge at the time. If he doesn't get off my lawn, I'll have to run him over in my awesomely bad 80s monster truck.

    6. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Talderas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Kids "terrible taste in entertainment" is a good thing. Even though we can look back on Tron and say. God, that is a horrible film, to a child it spurned his imagination. Imagination is unfortunately repressed in our education system. Inspire it where ever possible.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    7. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Talderas · · Score: 2

      That will teach me to his submit before rereading my post after having gone back and edited portions. Subtract "spurned" and replace it with "encouraged".

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    8. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by julesh · · Score: 1

      With the exception of the Space Shuttle, pretty much everything born of the 80s is "awesomely bad."

      Whereas the Space Shuttle, being born of the 70s (the funding was authorised in 69; most development took place in the 70s; by 1981 an orbiter had been built and the first flights conducted) is amazingly bad.

    9. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by eln · · Score: 1

      In general, a movie's quality is inversely correlated to how heavily it's marketed. Tron has been so heavily marketed, with almost all of the marketing concentrating on the eye candy special effects, that I would be absolutely shocked if it turned out to be a really good movie.

    10. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah I would describe this article's summary as 'awesomely bad'.

    11. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by 6031769 · · Score: 5, Funny

      That will teach me to his submit before rereading my post

      Want to bet?

      --
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      McAllister: Arrr. Give me 5 minutes.
    12. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by SpeedyGonz · · Score: 1

      Ditto, WTF is the submitter smoking?

      Back then it was cutting edge, and still today it looks beautiful in it's own kind of retro way

    13. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was tempted to say "HEY! I was born in the 80s!" But that only enhances you point.

      My best friend was also born in the 80s, and she's awesomely awesome, not awesomely bad.

    14. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I had the "wonderful kid movie, terrible adult movie" experience with "Escape to Witch Mountain".

      However, rewatching Tron did not produce that experience. It was okay and some parts were better than okay. The story about the people/characters was reasonably solid and a good story can overcome weak effects while awesome effects can't overcome weak characters and bad story.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    15. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      TRON is a command line program that turns tracing on.

    16. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      Exactly. Just take a look at some of the super computers from that time Tron was mind blowing at the time. The plot was a bit weak but at the time most people didn't even own a computer and 1200 baud modems where rare of not even available yet. I know I lusted after a 300 baud modem at that time.
      For the time it was unreal. Today many people have a "virtual self" or many virtual selfs on Facebook, WOW, and Slashdot for example.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    17. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Jees, these kids... I was about 30 when Tron came out. Tron's graphics were awesome for the time, better than any of the coin operated video games that were out then that the movie was portraying.

      As to the plot, aside from the necessary suspension of disbelief of a) a laser disassembling a human and storing him in a computer and b) true machine intelligence, it was as good or better than the average action flick, let alone one of the old westerns from the '40s.

      I was working at Disney when it came out, and got to see a pre-release screening with 72 mm film close to a large screen. The DVD (my copy of which has been stolen, sadly) really paled in comparison to seeing it in 72 mm in the theater.

      No, I had no part in making the movie; the pre-release was one of the many perks Disney employees got.

      The original Star Trek, on the other hand, DID often have cheesy effects, bad acting, and bad plots, even though a lot of the episodes were and still are awesome.

      I fear the new Tron will suck, but hope it doesn't.

    18. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Chelloveck · · Score: 3, Informative

      Those "awesomely bad 80s graphics" were awesomely good back in, you know, the 80s. I have no doubt that in another 30 years or so, the graphics in Tron Legacy will be just as laughable. And from everything I hear, the original Tron script will read like Shakespeare compared to the new one... Actually, I didn't find the original script too bad. It's certainly not great, but it held up a lot better than I expected it to when I saw it again a couple years ago.

      BTW, there's already been a Tron sequel, just in video game form. Tron 2.0 came out in 2003 and was created as being a direct sequel to the original. It even had much of the original cast doing voice work, and Wendy Carlos doing the soundtrack. Find a copy and play it. It's a decent FPS, and it's very much in the spirit of the original movie. I hope there's at least some mention of the events of Tron 2.0 in Tron Legacy.

      --
      Chelloveck
      I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
    19. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This. The original isn't Citizen Kane, but it does hold up better than many of the films that came out during that time. Same goes for the SFX in my opinion (as long as you don't consider ROTJ).

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    20. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Snarky, but +1 funny anyway :)

    21. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by vuke69 · · Score: 5, Funny

      The DVD (my copy of which has been stolen, sadly)

      Wow, Disney is more serious about suppressing the old version than I had initially suspected.

      --
      Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. ~ Douglas Adams
    22. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by raddan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Huh. Here I am thinking that the story is inspired (anthropomorphizing a computer's internal conflicts and merging them with the real world conflict... well before The Matrix did the same thing) and that the graphics are pretty cool given that most of them were not CGI. The frisbee-battle and the guy-jumps-into-MCP thing at the end are still visually unique to me. Good thing I have it on DVD so I don't have to listen when other people tell me what is "awesomely bad". It would be sufficient to say that Tron was a contributing factor in my decision to become a computer scientist :^)

    23. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 2, Interesting

      With the exception of the Space Shuttle, pretty much everything born of the 80s is "awesomely bad."

      Bullshit. Counting from 1978 to 1992

      • PCs
      • Cell phones
      • CDs
      • Affordable VCRs
      • Affordable microwave ovens
      • Infrared TV remotes
      • Continuation of good hard rock (which pretty much died in the '90s and is practically nonexistent today)
      • Budweiser frogs
      • My daughters!
      • Star Trek II
      • Widespread use of airbags
      • ABS
      • Die Hard
      • The Terminator
      • Total Recall
      • etc.

      Granted, there was a whole lot of bad stuff in the '80s, like Reagan, the War On (some) drugs (which launched a snowstorm of cocaine use, since it was really just a war on pot), the Challenger explosion, etc, but it was a hell of a lot better decade than the one now ending.

    24. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 5, Informative

      TRON (yes the name is kinda hokey

      TRON is a debugging command in the BASIC programming language. It is an abbreviation of TRace ON. It is used primarily for debugging line-numbered BASIC GOTO and GOSUB statements. In text-mode environments such as the TRS-80 or MS-DOS/IBM PC-DOS, it would print the current line number which was being executed, on-screen. In a windowed environment, when the TRON command had been executed, a window would indicate the line number being executed at that instant. This command's opposite is TROFF, or TRace OFF, used to turn off command tracing.[1]

    25. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Dalroth · · Score: 1

      Whatever.

      Tron is a product of its time. I can look back at the movie today, and you know what, despite some of the cheesy special effects and acting, I still think it's a pretty damn good movie. Is it the best move ever? No. But it's enjoyable, and fun, and that's all that matters.

    26. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Gotta disagree with ye.

      I find Tron more rewatchable than Star Wars A New Hope or Return of the Jedi (zzzzz). And I don't think the graphics are bad especially considering they are *supposed* to look like a computer world. If they looked like Gran Turismo 5 (i.e. real) then I wouldn't feel as if I was inside the circuitry.

      Of course I also like that "Would You Like to Play A Game?" movie so maybe my taste's just bad. (shrug) Reminds me of my youth.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    27. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Spurned."

      I do not think that word means what you think it means.

    28. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      better than any of the coin operated video games that were out then that the movie was portraying

      Graphics that take weeks to produce were better than ones that were rendered in realtime? Shocking!

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    29. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      MCP (which did stand for Master Control Program) was the operating system on Burroughs Large Systems machines, from the B5000 onwards. It was released in 1961, so predated TRON by some time. It was the first OS to support multiple CPUs, the first OS to be written in a high-level language, and the first commercial OS to support virtual memory.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    30. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Nadaka · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wargames. I re watched it recently. It actually has some of the most realistic representations of hacking and hackers in any movie ever.

    31. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by decoy256 · · Score: 1

      Or the word you were actually thinking of "spurred"... comes from riding spurs, which you would use to encourage a horse to go (or go faster).

    32. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Submitter sees "awesomely bad 80s graphics", I see computer art. Pacman is a more iconic image that the thousands of characters introduced in games for more powerful systems isn't he?

      I think the CG art in Tron is awesome -- better than current CGI. Hint: This was a film taking place inside a computer, it was never supposed to be photo(un)realistic like Avatar.

    33. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by RapmasterT · · Score: 1

      The awesomely bad graphics are one reason you can not purchase the original Tron in advance of the sequel. The awesomely bad plot is another. Disney doesn't want people to remember how bad the movie really was.

      I can't? Tron has been available on DVD since 2002.

    34. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No one cares about your daughters nor your awful taste in music.

    35. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Nadaka · · Score: 1

      With the exception of the Space Shuttle, pretty much everything born of the 80s is "awesomely bad."

      Bullshit. Counting from 1978 to 1992

      • ...
      • My daughters!

      • ...

      Granted, there was a whole lot of bad stuff in the '80s, like Reagan, the War On (some) drugs (which launched a snowstorm of cocaine use, since it was really just a war on pot), the Challenger explosion, etc, but it was a hell of a lot better decade than the one now ending.

      <joke> Oh, they are awesomely bad girls alright.</joke>

    36. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by RevWaldo · · Score: 1

      TRON came out during my "BASIC programming on the school's PETs and making regular runs to Radio Shack and the video arcade" days, so of course I loved it. The best part for me was when one of the characters says "Bring in the logic probe!" and being one of the smattering of people in the audience who laughed because we knew what a logic probe was.

      (Also had to love the available-ten-years-from-now graphics used in the fake arcade games. Still love how completely batshit the Comic Con audience went over the sneak preview trailer for "TR2N". )

      .

    37. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1

      Of course I also like that "Would You Like to Play A Game?" movie so maybe my taste's just bad. (shrug) Reminds me of my youth.

      I propose a new flame war: War Games vs. Hackers. I'm firmly in the War Games camp and find Hackers to be an unintentional comedy.

    38. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Talderas · · Score: 1

      You're lucky they were born in the 80's. Otherwise that could border on creepy as they could be underage.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    39. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by harrkev · · Score: 1

      You want computer realism in an 80's movie???

      Electric Dreams

      Good movie, but I remember the soundtrack begin great, with two great songs by Culture Club (cue the laughter at my expense now)...

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    40. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by harrkev · · Score: 1

      Sorry to reply to myself.

      IMDB link is HERE

      I was also EXTREMELY shocked that the region-1 DVD is going for over $100! (region-2 much more reasonably priced for some reason)

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    41. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Target+Practice · · Score: 1

      Have to disagree. Have you seen how Disney releases DVDs? Pinocchio is out in the 70th anniversary edition. Try to find another edition that's current and you'll be disappointed. They do this all the time. Tron will probably be available for purchase again after Tron Legacy comes out.

      --
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    42. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by harrkev · · Score: 1

      Perhaps, but Hackers has a **MUCH** better soundtrack. I still love that CD to this day...

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    43. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Many of the films of that time hold up way better than films of this time. The fast editing nowadays is horrible and will be looked down upon in the future.

    44. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by MightyMartian · · Score: 1

      Actually, the new cut of ST:TMP is pretty damned good. The story line is still a little slow for a franchise that was often seen as part of the action SF genre. But you know, I actually enjoyed TMP on the last few viewings, going at it from the angle that it was more like 2001 and less like Buck Rogers. The problems with the special effects in the original cut are well known, being largely to do with Roddenberry's mismanagement and with the fact that they were rushed. Being able to go back and clean things up has produced a film that has some pretty dazzlingly effects even for our jaded 21st century eyes, and not the muddy mess that the film was for so many years.

      I've only seen Tron once since I saw it in the theater as a kid. It struck me the same as my rewatching of Black Hole, another Disney big budget effects film from that era in that it was a tolerably decent story with some cool effects, but nothing as fantastic as the marketing would suggest it was. At least ST:TMP had enough of an influence to spawn a sequel within three years. Tron was a quarter century old before a sequel was greenlit.

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    45. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by baKanale · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you were meant to write "spurred"?

    46. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by simcop2387 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I believe that War Games vs Sneakers would be a far more interesting match up.

    47. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by ackthpt · · Score: 1

      The awesomely bad graphics are one reason you can not purchase the original Tron in advance of the sequel. The awesomely bad plot is another. Disney doesn't want people to remember how bad the movie really was. I mean, I loved it as a kid, don't get me wrong, but I also loved the Dukes of Hazzard, Benny Hill, and the A-Team. Kids have terrible taste in entertainment.

      How true. How true.

      I've been drenched by waves of nostalgia and purchased various old movies and TV shows on DVD and been shocked how poorly they age in reality vs. my memory.

      Thing about Tron, though, is some of those old graphics have a very beautiful look in their simplicity. Updated movies with better CGI *cough* Star Wars *cough* are not better for the extra CPU cycles expended.

      I'm certain someone could do a really bang up job on the Mona Lisa, in 3D even, but would it compare to the original?

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    48. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by spun · · Score: 1

      Try renting it. Try buying it. Go on, I'll wait. Oh, you can only get it on E-Bay, for over $100? Yeah, the Mouse took it off the market.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    49. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by gstoddart · · Score: 2, Funny

      It actually has some of the most realistic representations of hacking and hackers in any movie ever.

      Cue the "It's not hacking, it's cracking" lunacy in 5 ...4 ... 3 ...

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    50. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by tuffy · · Score: 1

      Graphics that take weeks to produce were better than ones that were rendered in realtime? Shocking!

      What he means is that the arcade games made for the movie, and played by characters in the movie, weren't possible at the time. Contrast with "the Last Starfighter" whose fictional arcade game was less complex than main visual effects CG.

      --

      Ita erat quando hic adveni.

    51. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Jees, these kids... I was about 30 when Tron came out.

      Jeebus, if any post needed to end with "now get off my lawn", that would be one.

      Sorry, I kid. Couldn't resist. =)

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    52. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      It would be sufficient to say that Tron was a contributing factor in my decision to become a computer scientist :^)

      *laugh* You had a choice? Someone toured me through a room full of mainframes in about 1981 and showed me a mini-computer.

      The rest was inevitable -- like a moth a flame. :-P

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    53. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would you have to suspend your disbelief?

      With a strong enough processor, I daresay you'd be able to simulate a human brain. =P

    54. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by asvravi · · Score: 1

      You might want to try "spurred".

    55. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      or spurred even.

    56. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by tuffy · · Score: 1

      At least ST:TMP had enough of an influence to spawn a sequel within three years. Tron was a quarter century old before a sequel was greenlit.

      It helped that ST:TMP made a lot of money, whereas Tron did not.

      I'm still rather fond of them both, but nostalgia may have a lot to do with it.

      --

      Ita erat quando hic adveni.

    57. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Granted, there was a whole lot of bad stuff in the '80s

      o Music

      o Fashion

      o Hair

      o TV

      o Those really weird dancing flowers

      o The "California Raisins" and most forms of Claymation at the time

      o Yuppies

      o Everybody was completely shallow and lame

      o AIDS

      As someone who spent his adolescent and teen years in the 80s, I cringe that everybody is still so damned nostalgic about it. There might be a few bright spots (you covered a few) -- but as a decade, it was crap. :-P

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    58. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was also EXTREMELY shocked that the region-1 DVD is going for over $100! (region-2 much more reasonably priced for some reason)

      Whew. Thankfully we all know how to work around region-locking and indeed how to download the thing for free. $100 ROFLMAO. Can you say price-gouging?

    59. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also the most popular operating system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRON_Project

      The movie's name comes from elecTRONic

    60. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by An+ominous+Cow+art · · Score: 1

      Those "awesomely bad 80s graphics" were awesomely good back in, you know, the 80s.

      Definitely. It's also worth remembering that Tron came out in mid-1982, and computer graphics improved at an increasing rate throughout the decade...

      I have the Tron 2.0 video game, but I recall that it always crashed on my machine. Very disappointing :-(.

    61. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Born after '92,
      Note to self,
      Do not do.

      Creepy poetry.

    62. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Gilmoure · · Score: 1

      YES!

      Mr. Gadget ROCKS!

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
    63. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by erroneus · · Score: 1

      I'm still a "hardcore fan" by the standards of many, but you should have added Star Wars to that list. Seriously. If it came out today, even with "cutting edge" whatever-effects, it was a pretty weak show. The story has depth but it wasn't presented in the movies particularly well. Looking at Episode 4, you begin to realize how much you don't know... or, didn't know, about what they were all talking about at different times. Talking about the senate and its dissolution in the earlier scenes? No one knew what it was about and no one asked because there were space ships and blasters and lightsabers.

    64. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      Yeah I agree about the graphics. The new Tron game and Tron: Legacy trailers make the world look more realistic. The lightcycles even look mechanically workable, complete with a hole under the wheel pod for rubber tires and air brakes.

      WTF? It's a computer world! It's supposed to look unrealistic! THAT'S THE POINT!

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    65. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by sootman · · Score: 1

      Too bad Disney didn't have the geeky balls to name the sequel TROFF. :-)

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    66. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by gknoy · · Score: 1

      War Games and Sneakers are indeed much more similar. Both are so awesome that I refuse to pit them in opposing corners, but rather team them together in a juggernaut of awesome.

    67. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tron
      The Black Hole
      Something Wicked This Way Comes

      are so not 'Disney' films

    68. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      I was referring to ST:TOS rather than TMP, which I thought was a good movie, even if most slashdotters don't.

      OTOH I liked Star Wars EPs 1, 2, &3, so you might take my opinion of science fiction movies with a grain of salt.

    69. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by shadowrat · · Score: 1

      yeah, agreed. tron was absolutely visionary. It touched on themes that are commonplace now, but unheard of back then. cyberspace, ip theft, evil ai, people in a computer. About the only thing that i find laughable now is the idea of an arcade as a popular hang out, but Flynn's does look more fun than Dave and Buster's

      also, i'm under the impression that light cycles, the jai-lai game with vanishing rings, etc were designed for the movie. maybe i'm wrong, but working on that assumption i find it astounding that these concepts actually play out as fun games when developed. I also spent many a summer of my youth playing tron in the yard. That game consisted of a bunch of kids throwing frisbees at each other. good times.

    70. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You've completely forgotten the '80's. Bad meant good.

    71. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      True that. I may change my sig to "GOML".

    72. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It actually has some of the most realistic representations of hacking and hackers in any movie ever.

      This is oddly true. What's even more odd is that this movie made me want to dive into computer systems a lot more than movies like Hackers ever did. Seeing someone connect to a remote computer by phone, even avoiding paying for phone calls using a whistle. It seemed like something I could actually learn to do, and it was all the more interesting because of it... ... of course, I've given up my dreams of starting nuclear war, but there is a time to put childish things away and all that.

    73. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      "Wargames. I re watched it recently. It actually has some of the most realistic representations of hacking and hackers in any movie ever."

      You've got to be kidding me. Isn't that the film that is the genesis of the all time bad film cliche phrase "We've got to hack into the mainframe and copy the database"? If not whenever I see that phrase I think of that film. At the risk of sounding "L33t" I think I can only remember one film I thought mimicked any kind of depiction of user/computer interaction with any realism between the 80s and 2000; I THINK that film was "True Lies", I thought the use of the Arabic version of Windows was pretty cool. Otherwise, a computer generated voice asking me if I want to play a game is pretty lame and not even close to reality. Come on.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    74. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by DragonWriter · · Score: 1

      Try renting it. Try buying it. Go on, I'll wait.

      Last I checked (which was probably 2-3 weeks ago), Netflix had it currently available on DVD, but not for streaming.

    75. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1

      I believe that War Games vs Sneakers would be a far more interesting match up.

      I don't often hear people call out Sneakers as being an inspiration. Wargames was for me and I've seen that I'm not alone in that. I was rather shocked to find out Hackers is for others.

      Sneakers was a good film, though. I'd put closer in my personal list to Wargames.

    76. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      "War-dialing" is the term you're looking for.

      And yeah I thought the *first* part of the movie was a realistic representation of early 80s online usage. A kid in his room staring at a glowing screen and trying to locate BBSes. Reminds me of myself..... the only part that made me cringe was the talking computer. Not until the 32 bit era (68000 Amiga, 80486 +SoundBlaster) did they have enough power to convert text to speech.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    77. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course. WarGames put the "war" in wardialing.

    78. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      Precisely.

      Look at the videogames of 1982 and earlier - the opposite of realistic. Which is why they were fun and the Original Tron tried to capture that feel, and I think it worked.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    79. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by SirMasterboy · · Score: 1

      Try renting it. Try buying it. Go on, I'll wait. Oh, you can only get it on E-Bay, for over $100? Yeah, the Mouse took it off the market.

      According to Blockbuster.com they have a copy available at my local store.

    80. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Nadaka · · Score: 1

      my c64 from the early 80's had a voice synthesizer.

    81. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      ALL old fashion sucks; fashion itself sucks IMO which is why I refuse to follow it; jeans and tee shirts, flannel when it's cold. I dress for comfort, not fashion. Rather than "music" I'd say empty-v. MTV killed rock and roll, but rock was at its height during the eighties.

      As to hair, um, aren't you the shaved head generation?

      TV has always sucked, but it didn't suck nearly as badly as it does now. Cable took off in the eighties, a plus for that decade. Cable channels didn't have commercials, didn't censor out "bad words", and you didn't have those goddamned logos at the bottom of the screen, let alone the moving adverts you see on the History channel during the goddamned show. And there were some good series -- the A Team, Battlestar Galactica (which turned to pure shit in its last season), Miami Vice (great music soundtrack in that show), Moonlighting to name a few.

      "Yuppies" and "Everybody was completely shallow and lame" were the same thing, and a direct consequence of Cocaine (Cocaine's main effect is to turn a person into a shallow, selfish asshole yuppie) which was caused by the war on pot -- everywhere I went to buy some bud, they'd say "no, man, it's dry. Want some coke?"

      I have to agree completely with you on AIDS. AIDS killed "free love". In the '70s (which is the decade I'm nostalgic for) birth control was cheap and easy, abortion had been legalized, there were no fatal STDs that a shot of antibiotic couldn't cure, and women would come up to you in a bar and say "wanna smoke a joint and fuck?"

      I don't have any nostalgia whetever for the '80s, I'm just saying it wasn't all bad. But most of this past decade has. To quote myself from an old journal,

      What a shitty century. My country was attacked; my President was a fucking moron hell-bent on making gasoline ten dollars a gallon and to hell with the country; my beloved uncle and grandmother died (not in the attack. My uncle died of lung cancer 25 years after he stopped smoking, and my grandmother fell and broke her hip at age 99); my wife left me and my teenaged daughters for another man; all of what they (not I) called "rock and roll" sucked ass; the record companies were suing their customers; the Democrats and Republicans seemed to become two arms of the same facist party; they passed the "Patriot" Act (which should have been called the "Cowardly Government Is Scared Shitless Act"), the DMCA and the Bono act; without my ex-wife's added income my van was repossessed and my house forclosed, and I declared bankrupcy. And I got another God damned eye infection!

      Shit!

      As someone who spent his adolescent and teen years in the 80s

      EVERBODY'S teen years suck. The world sucking is a direct effect of being a teenager.

    82. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 1

      Early 1999, at least; that's when I got a copy.

      --
      -- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
    83. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Nadaka · · Score: 1

      Hackers had Angelina Jolie, that makes it completely unbelievable.

    84. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by ajlitt · · Score: 1

      That is incorrect. Try again. Spell "Speak-n-Spell".

    85. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 1

      The "California Raisins" and most forms of Claymation at the time

      No way! I agree with you about everything else you mentioned sucking hard, but Will Vinton's claymation was hilarious and groundbreaking. I used to watch the Claymation Christmas we taped from TV over and over again. The Halloween and Easter specials were hilariously good as well.

      A couple other rare high-points of 80s culture I can think of are Max Headroom and Bloom County. And this current age features the deepest shallowness humanity has ever offered if reality TV is any indication.

      --
      Happy people make bad consumers.
    86. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With the exception of the Space Shuttle, pretty much everything born of the 80s is "awesomely bad."

      Bullshit. Counting from 1978 to 1992

      • My daughters!

      How much for the young ones?

    87. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Lectoid · · Score: 1

      I don't know if it's in the movie, but I played a few minutes of the new Tron video game and the corruption stuff is in there from the Tron 2.0 game.

      Every few years I dig that game out and play it on whatever newer hardware I have. I think the tron universe is to me what Pandora is to Avatar fans. Neat lights, no insects.

      --
      Is it just me, or do you hate it when people say "Is it just me..."?
    88. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My daughters!

      Tits or GTFO. ;)

    89. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In the 80's "bad" meant awesome. This has since evolved into "badass"

    90. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      ALL old fashion sucks

      Oh, some of the old rockabilly and pinup stuff was pretty cool. Some of the anti-fashion punk stuff is also kinda cool.

      As to hair, um, aren't you the shaved head generation?

      Lucky enough to still have my hair. Mostly I was thinking of the "big hair" the girls wore or some of the "Flock of Seagulls" kinda stuff -- though, the emo kids seem to still do that. And, I've had blue hair before, so I shouldn't talk.

      TV has always sucked, but it didn't suck nearly as badly as it does now.

      Agreed. It seems like the shows HBO is doing are the ones with actual characters and plots. The 80's ruined me for sitcoms -- now they all seem the same to me with the same bad setups, and only minor variations on themes.

      women would come up to you in a bar and say "wanna smoke a joint and fuck?

      That's my point ... you guys fucked everybody, so now we can't fuck anybody. Bastards!! ;-)

      The world sucking is a direct effect of being a teenager.

      Wait, teenagers actually cause the world to suck? What are they, some kind of anti-particle?

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    91. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Disney's only remaining ball is the giant golf ball at EPCOT.

    92. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      but Will Vinton's claymation was hilarious and groundbreaking

      It was for about a week or two ... and then it became over-saturated and annoying. It was everywhere.

      They also ruined a perfectly good song for me.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    93. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by owlstead · · Score: 1

      The young ones were pretty funny as well, but I would not put them in a list of things that were great in the 80's. Vice my soul?

    94. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Zumbs · · Score: 1

      On a nerd site? Seriously? In theory, if one really wanted a flamewar over that, an Angelina Jolie fansite would be a more likely candidate. I would not want to try it out in practice, though.

      --
      The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
    95. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

      but it was a hell of a lot better decade than the one now ending.

      I'll drink to that. Well, if not to it, then at least at it. Fuckin' A, it's hard to look back at the 'ought years. Good years for me personally, I guess, but damn depressing when I look around.

      Of course, the 80's had their fair share of issues as well.

    96. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Kittenman · · Score: 2

      MCP (which did stand for Master Control Program) was the operating system on Burroughs Large Systems machines, from the B5000 onwards. It was released in 1961, so predated TRON by some time. It was the first OS to support multiple CPUs, the first OS to be written in a high-level language, and the first commercial OS to support virtual memory.

      And is still around. I'm working on it now. Wonderful thing. It does try to suck me into the Unisys Clearpath mainframe every now and then, but all operating systems have their quirks.

      --
      "The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
    97. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      find the tron legacy technology demo trailer. the lightcycles were even better before they did a stupid all around fender on them.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    98. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by chimpo13 · · Score: 1

      He could've hacked into the mainframe to copy the database. I'm sure he had plenty of cassette tapes with him.

    99. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The DVD (my copy of which has been stolen, sadly)

      Wow, Disney is more serious about suppressing the old version than I had initially suspected.

      My copy of the DVD is missing also...

    100. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      "Look at the videogames of 1982 and earlier - the opposite of realistic. Which is why they were fun and the Original Tron tried to capture that feel, and I think it worked."

      Well, they didn't have the graphics or audio...so, they had to make up for that in gameplay. I think that is something largely lost today. I mean, once you've played a FPS (which was kind of new in the Doom days) you've pretty much played them all, just newer ones have better sound and graphics. But,where are the new and unique games?

      I still take Robotron 2084 on my MAME machine over most new games out there today.

      Damned thing still gives me tennis elbow after playing too long a session on it...

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    101. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      thepiratebay.org has plenty of copies.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    102. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      "In general, a movie's quality is inversely correlated to how heavily it's marketed. Tron has been so heavily marketed, with almost all of the marketing concentrating on the eye candy special effects, that I would be absolutely shocked if it turned out to be a really good movie."

      Really?

      I've only recently started seeing any ads for Tron, and with it coming out Friday, I don't think that's all that bad.

      I've been seeing TONS more ads for the Johnny Depp/Angelina Jolie action movie coming out. They've been showing ads for that almost every hour on the hour here.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    103. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Kemanorel · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, I think they are considering Tron 2.0 to be non-canon. Kinda blows, as there were some good elements there. I think it might be that they don't want mention of the attempted takeover of Encom or the death of Lora. In the graphic novel, there's no mention of her dying, just taking a new job outside the company.

      --
      Mess not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
    104. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, what's wrong with Dukes of Hazzard?
      And how come you loved Benny Hill when you were a kid? I remember I thought it was only mildly entertaining, but my father was the one who loved it!

    105. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by hal2814 · · Score: 1

      Best soundtrack ever! I don't remember Culture Club being on there but I do remember the Giorgio Moroder instrumentals, the title track by Giorgio Moroder and Phil Oakey (of Human League fame), and at least one Jeff Lynne track.

    106. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by drafalski · · Score: 1

      I don't think you know what "spurned" means:
      1) Reject with disdain or contempt
      2) Strike, tread, or push away with the foot

    107. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Sprouticus · · Score: 1

      The main characters in Sneakers were adults, the main character in wargames was a mysanthropic teen male. Guess which one most people on slashdot identified with when they saw it (assuming the proper age range).

    108. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      The 80's ruined me for sitcoms -- now they all seem the same to me with the same bad setups, and only minor variations on themes.

      Two you should check out are My Name Is Earl (cancelled after 4 seasons, it's on DVD and hilarious. No laugh track, either!) and The Big Bang Theory, one episode of which had Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist George Smoot ("With all due respects, Dr. Cooper, are you on crack?") and Summer Glau (from the Terminator TV series) playing themselves.

      My daughter turned me on to The Big Bang Theory -- "You'll get all the jokes!" It's the nerdiest TV show I've ever seen, and nobody at slashdot should miss it.

      That's my point ... you guys fucked everybody, so now we can't fuck anybody.

      Um, no, everybody fucking didn't cause it, it was some guy in Africa killing and eating apes or monkeys or something that caught the first case. It was mostly spread by anal sex (it's actually hard to catch with vaginal sex) and IV drug use (sharing needles).

      Wait, teenagers actually cause the world to suck? What are they, some kind of anti-particle?
      You know what I mean -- all teenagers percieve everything about the world as sucking because a teenager's brain hasn't fully formed.

    109. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1

      Right. Sort of my point. Wargames compares closer to Hackers than it does Sneakers.

    110. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by spun · · Score: 1

      I was an early bloomer. I never went through a "girls are icky" phase. I knew I liked boobies from a young age.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    111. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 1

      Maybe you're just thinking of the commercials? Any commercial theme becomes annoying after a while. Those specials I was talking about are great no matter how many times I see them imho.

      --
      Happy people make bad consumers.
    112. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Graff · · Score: 1

      the only part that made me cringe was the talking computer. Not until the 32 bit era (68000 Amiga, 80486 +SoundBlaster) did they have enough power to convert text to speech.

      I had software speech synthesis on my Apple IIe in the early 80s. It wasn't very good but it sounded pretty close to what was in the movie.

      Votrax has produced text-to-speech hardware since the 70s.

    113. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Two you should check out are ... The Big Bang Theory

      Tried it ... still can't watch a sitcom of any form.

      Um, no, everybody fucking didn't cause it

      Oh, that was a joke -- I know where it came from and how it spreads. Hell, I remember when they gave it a name. I've known people who died from it ... I know all too much about it.

      all teenagers percieve everything about the world as sucking because a teenager's brain hasn't fully formed.

      Yeah, just wait until their brains are finished and they realize they were right and that they're caught up in the machine. Dead Head stickers on Cadillacs and all that. :-P

      But, anyway, we digress and should probably be telling some of the kids born in the 80's to get off of our lawns. ;-)

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    114. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Maybe you're just thinking of the commercials?

      The commercials. The figurines. The t-shirts. Just too much.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    115. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by anyGould · · Score: 1

      Wargames. I re watched it recently. It actually has some of the most realistic representations of hacking and hackers in any movie ever.

      I've always considered Sneakers to be the gold standard of "real life hacking". (Once you get past the McGuffin, of course).

    116. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by FrozenFrog · · Score: 1

      I just watched my 20th Anniversary Edition of the TRON DVD 2 nights ago (already got tickets for TRON Legacy this Friday!).

      On the second DVD they had special features, and said that the name TRON came to them because he was an ElecTRONic Man. Nothing in the special features said anything about it relating to the BASIC TRace ON command.

      FYI.

      Frog

    117. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by MrMadnutz · · Score: 1

      Yeah, sorry submitter, I've been watching this for a while (since its release) and it's really great. Period. This is one of those films that the words "awesomely bad 80s graphics" simply doesn't apply to.

    118. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Antidamage · · Score: 1

      I've seen the movie and enjoyed it. However there are STRONG elements of classical good guy/bad guy stuff in it. As a result, Bad Flynn is more enjoyable for his range of emotion than Good Flynn. In fact, literally every single one of the bad guys is more interesting than every single one of the good guys. So not so amazing character development, but the music and visual style goes a way to making up for it.

    119. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by anyGould · · Score: 1

      According to Blockbuster.com they have a copy available at my local store.

      My local library has fifteen copies of the 20th anniversary edition. I find it completely unsurprising that there's a 20+ long waiting list to get one right now.

    120. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      The best part for me was when one of the characters says "Bring in the logic probe!"

      You know, I think you were supposed to laugh at that. I took it as an intentional joke when I saw the movie.

      A lot of software guys wouldn't have gotten the joke, considering that a logic probe is a piece of test hardware. I used to have one, but I burned it up trying to test a guitar amp with it while I was drunk. Lucky I didn't electrocute myself.

    121. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Funny, the woes of the '80s and '00s were mostly caused but the same thing -- a shitty President everybody loved, and re-elected despite the fact that it was obvious he sucked.

      Illinois did the same thing with a Democrat Governor at the same time. Illinois is still reeling from the messes Blago made.

    122. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by ddillman · · Score: 1

      Indeed! The 80's graphics were state of the art at the time. Remember, there's been nearly 30 years of rapid advancement in computer graphics! Back then, there was nothing even close to Tron's CG effects. Kind of like saying awesomely bad 1920's automobiles...

      --
      Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -- L. Long
    123. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by fireylord · · Score: 1

      and i bet you have a Jar Jar Binks model too!

    124. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've seen it, and it certainly doesn't suck. There are a couple of plot points that I think were too cliche, but overall I was quite impressed. I'm pleased to report it still has the Big Door.

      I like the original, though that film was (obviously) effects-driven, so hasn't aged particularly well. Still watchable though.

    125. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by antdude · · Score: 1

      Agreed. I enjoyed the original graphics. :D

      For some reason, the sequel doesn't excite me. I will wait for reviews and probably will wait for the home release.

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    126. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by ddillman · · Score: 1

      For that matter, my Intellivision game console had the speech synth add-on and three games with synthesized speech. IIRC that had an early 16-bit CPU.

      --
      Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -- L. Long
    127. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Trogre · · Score: 1

      I don't know why people keep bagging ROTJ. So long as you remember to leave the room during the palace dance numbers and the Ewok scenes it's a fantastic movie. That and it features what is probably still the most awesome space battle of all time.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    128. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Idbar · · Score: 1

      The only bad thing I remember from the 80s greatest movies is replacing Roger Moore with Timothy Dalton.

    129. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by WastedMeat · · Score: 1

      Netflix had it available initially with a long wait, but last I checked it was listed as unavailable. I called the local blockbuster to see if they had one, and that location did not but they referred me to a location that did. I drove 15 miles, and no Tron. The computer said it was there but it wasn't. It's hard to feel guilty over a torrent at that point.

    130. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by operagost · · Score: 1

      If it wasn't for Reagan, most of the geeks on here would be in 50% tax brackets while the politicians and corporate giants would be using all those old loopholes to pay nothing. Oh yeah, and we'd probably have a permanently flat economy like Japan.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    131. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by operagost · · Score: 1

      They fixed it by replacing Dalton with Brosnan (who, to be fair, was their first choice).

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    132. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by metrix007 · · Score: 0

      Wow, you really must be retarded to see tron as a fairy-story. sci-fantasy has nothing to do with fairies.

      --
      If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
    133. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by operagost · · Score: 2

      The Votrax even worked on the 1 MHz, 8-bit, 5K RAM VIC-20. You could use it to read Scott Adams' adventure games to you. Tons of power was not needed for basic T2S.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    134. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No kidding. I remember that flick for its awesomely awesome awsomeness. I mean, at the time, I probably thought it was totally rad, but that is embarrassing language to me now.

    135. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by operagost · · Score: 1

      I guess he never saw "E.T.", which came out the same year as Tron.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    136. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by metrix007 · · Score: 1

      Two you should check out are My Name Is Earl (cancelled after 4 seasons, it's on DVD and hilarious. No laugh track, either!) and The Big Bang Theory, one episode of which had Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist George Smoot ("With all due respects, Dr. Cooper, are you on crack?") and Summer Glau (from the Terminator TV series) playing themselves.

      MNIE is pure awesome, but TBBT is just crap. If you find 80's nerd sterotypes and cliches funny in modern day, then I guess it's kind of funny....

      --
      If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
    137. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by SirMasterboy · · Score: 1

      Yeah, the blockbuster store I see online is probably a lie too then.

      Usenet has a 720p copy. Probably a torrent too. I think it must have been broadcasted on HDTV and recorded at once point.

      That copy looks and sounds great though.

    138. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Tetsujin · · Score: 1

      Ghostbusters was the first well-known C64 game that did speech natively.

      Not speech synthesis, though. It had a few pre-recorded bits of speech in it.

      Speech synth was definitely on the home computer scene in the early 80s though... SAM is one a lot of kids from that era will probably remember.

      --
      Bow-ties are cool.
    139. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by TexVex · · Score: 1

      Not until the 32 bit era (68000 Amiga, 80486 +SoundBlaster) did they have enough power to convert text to speech.

      I ran a program called "SAM" (short for "Software Automated Mouth" on my Atari 800 XL. That was an 1.8 MHz 8-bit 6502-based machine. It had 48K of ram, and shadowed part of its ROM. SAM would convert text to speech, and it also supported a markup language allowing you to specify intonation. For example, if you fed it "hello" you got Stephen Hawking saying "hello", but if you typed HE3HLOW4W you got something that sounded a little less robotic.

      Um, so there. :)

      --
      Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
    140. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most people even forget or never knew that "tron" was a debug command! tron=Trace On and troff=Trace Off
      Lord I suddenly feel old!

    141. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think he meant to type "spurred" - 1. Urge (a horse) forward by digging one's spurs into its sides. 2. Give an incentive or encouragement to (someone)

      .

    142. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Gizzmonic · · Score: 1

      Is that supposed to be an insult? Please, take the computers away and transport me to your eldritch fanfic world of magicks and vampyres and deliberately using archaic spellings!

      --
      (-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
    143. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by ajlitt · · Score: 1

      He should have taken the nick "packardbell486sx_love" instead.

    144. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Tetsujin · · Score: 1

      Wargames. I re watched it recently. It actually has some of the most realistic representations of hacking and hackers in any movie ever.

      I've always considered Sneakers to be the gold standard of "real life hacking". (Once you get past the McGuffin, of course).

      Really, I thought their McGuffin wasn't all that bad, either... They went a bit far in terms of what it was capable of, but I liked the basic idea of an algorithm+hardware system capable of cracking various current encryption systems.

      --
      Bow-ties are cool.
    145. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And yet the connection between Tron the movie and the TRON command is coincidental.

    146. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Tetsujin · · Score: 1

      Hackers had Angelina Jolie, that makes it completely unbelievable.

      Maybe, maybe not. In any case she's nice to look at.

      --
      Bow-ties are cool.
    147. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Macrat · · Score: 1

      With the exception of the Space Shuttle, pretty much everything born of the 80s is "awesomely bad."

      Bullshit. Counting from 1978 to 1992

      • My daughters!

      I'm sure the boys in your area have a different definition of "bad" when it comes to your daughters. :-)

    148. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Nadaka · · Score: 1

      I remember the movie well, I watched it this year. The speech was definitely synthetic, and sounded worse than a Steven Hawking lecture.

    149. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by morari · · Score: 1

      Hackers seemed to be going more for a cyberpunk vibe than anything. It pulled it off well enough.

      --
      "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
    150. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by RevWaldo · · Score: 1

      If TRON Legacy makes bank you can expect to see "TRON 1.1" or "TRON Special Edition", the 80s film revised with 2011 graphics, probably in 3D.

      The horror...the...horror...

      .

    151. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by coaxial · · Score: 1

      That's interesting that you said that it's effects held up well. I guess that's true in a sense. I remember when Tron came out, and I thought then, what I think now about it. It is a litterally an unwatchable movie. It's glowing blurs in pitch black. I always hated the faces in the movie. Blurry, and dark. Seriously. Look at this image of Tron.

    152. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by AragornSonOfArathorn · · Score: 1

      Not until the 32 bit era (68000 Amiga, 80486 +SoundBlaster) did they have enough power to convert text to speech.

      er... The TI/99 had speech synthesis in the very early 80s.

      --
      sudo eat my shorts
    153. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by naoursla · · Score: 1

      I remember how excited I got after I typed "TRON" onto the basic prompt of my TRS-80 and got back the response "OK".

    154. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Tetsujin · · Score: 2

      Good point. But commodore64_love was talking in terms of (what sounded like) recorded, not synthetic speech.

      He was talking about text-to-speech, which implies some kind of synth.

      As for the voice in Wargames: It wasn't a synth, but it was meant to represent one. Check it:

      Shall we play a game?
      It seems the only winning move is not to play

      It's a recorded voice but they added audio processing and editing to make it sound artificial.

      There was a piece of prop hardware that was supposed to be, I guess, an external text-to-speech module with its own speaker. David turns it on just before the remote machine gets chatty in this clip...

      --
      Bow-ties are cool.
    155. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait... in the 80's, bad meant good!

    156. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by uniquename72 · · Score: 1

      Agreed. Hackers was a great soundtrack in search of a movie. In that respect, it really was far ahead of its time.

    157. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but who says that IRF? I've never heard that cheesy crap in real life jargon.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    158. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Reteo+Varala · · Score: 1

      And considering purpose the original Tron character had (track down insecure activities in the master control program, an early reference to the anti-malware software of today), the name pretty well fit.

    159. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by The+Wild+Norseman · · Score: 1

      Perhaps the submitter does not understand that Tron's graphics were cutting edge at the time. If he doesn't get off my lawn, I'll have to run him over in my awesomely bad 80s monster truck.

      Or maybe invite over The Lawnmower Man?

      --
      "A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
    160. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      So when you unpacked it and set it up it was ready to serve up games by prompting you with a synthesized "Would you like to play a game?" Sure, synths were around. Never did I sit down and have one invite me to play games as a normal part of its operation. That stuff required some planning, some extra hardware, a knowledge of the API, some time to implement, etc. Wasn't a part of everyday experience. Which was my point, you goddamn hair splitter.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    161. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      Speak and spells used a recorded voice and each of its 12 (or whatever) phrases were activated by a glorified light switch. Hardly what I was thinking of.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    162. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My torrent plays just fine.

    163. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by interval1066 · · Score: 1

      Sure, you had it. Did you implement it as an integral hack to your apple's OS? No? I never said speech synthesis wasn't around. Read my post and stop mis characterizing me. Did you EVER sit down at a computer and have it prompt you with a synthesized voice to do anything? No? Why? Maybe because it was expensive, not commonly done by users (hobbyists, maybe), required some programming knowledge, etc. And even if you did go through all that crap, what kind of vocabulary would it have? You've have to add a prompt for every action and activity possible. Quite a lot of work; ergo, not common. And probably not going to be near a military IT setting in the 80s. Give me a fucking break with this NONSENSE.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    164. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by chimpo13 · · Score: 1

      Yeah, you're right. It's been a long time since I've heard IRL about cassette drives.

      Unless you actually meant IRF - Incident Report Forms. Those 120 minute cassette tapes are unreliable.

    165. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Follis · · Score: 1

      They could do speech synth a bit earlier than that. Dedicated hardware was required though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI99/4A

    166. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 1

      Like GPP said: go complain to Tolkien.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    167. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by zmollusc · · Score: 1

      I recall the TRace ON thing from the pre-publicity articles in the press at the time. (ie back in the day)

      --
      They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
    168. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Capt.DrumkenBum · · Score: 1

      I bought my first modem not long after watching Wargames. Side note Wargames was the first movie I ever went to without parents.

      --
      If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
    169. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Does it do that by shooting a laser at you back?

      brings it back around, booyay.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    170. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Graff · · Score: 1

      I never said speech synthesis wasn't around. Read my post and stop mis characterizing me.

      Ahem, you said this:

      Not until the 32 bit era (68000 Amiga, 80486 +SoundBlaster) did they have enough power to convert text to speech.

      I posted an example showing that, indeed, there was hardware around that could do text to speech far before the "32 bit era". It didn't need a vocabulary, it sounded out the words since written English is largely a phonetic language. Yes, some pronunciations were a bit off but it was still effective.

      Text to speech wasn't common at the time and it did require additional hardware/software but if you watch the movie that's EXACTLY what the protagonist was all about! In fact he doesn't get the computer to talk until he turns on a peripheral, they SHOW him doing it! As for the military also having text to speech, that's not so far-fetched and even if it is a bit odd there's this thing called creative license. It'd be a hell of a boring movie to have to read everything the computer said and once they had the computer speaking at the kids home you pretty much have to have it speak in other places too.

      In other words, there's at least a modicum of plausibility there and it's a movie. Get over it!

    171. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by RapmasterT · · Score: 1

      Try renting it. Try buying it. Go on, I'll wait. Oh, you can only get it on E-Bay, for over $100? Yeah, the Mouse took it off the market.

      Interestingly you are correct. I got it from netflix only a few months ago, watched and returned it. Now it's unavailable.

      I wouldn't subscribe motives any more sinister than "new remastered release coming" combined with "missed marketing boat of timing BEFORE new movies released" though.

      And yes, the original was AWESOMELY bad. bad effects and bad acting aside, the story is summed up as "guy sucked into computer, must walk to tower and insert disk to win".

    172. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by hardboiled.tequila · · Score: 1

      I don't know why people keep bagging Ewoks. When I was a kid, I didn't think the were out of place. Now, my kids love them - I'm pretty sure they view them they same way I did (as 'fact', and not as a merchandising opportunity).

    173. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I fear the new Tron will suck, but hope it doesn't.

      I know someone else answered below, but I thought I'd offer an alternative opinion. It doesn't suck. The environment is immersive, it's hard to pick flaws in the effects (I haven't noticed any), but the story is less than stunning. It's enjoyable, and probably would have been better if the stupid fat bitch beside me wasn't sending an SMS every two minutes.

    174. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I don't know why people keep bagging Ewoks. When I was a kid, I didn't think the were out of place.

      When you were a kid, you didn't notice that an entire LEGION of Imperial troops couldn't manage to blow every last one of those little fuckers to sticky balls of fur and blood??

    175. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I had it on the Apple IIe as well - "SAM: Software Automated Mouth" did text to speech on a 1MHz 6502.

      http://www.vectronicsappleworld.com/appleii/sam.html

      So do you want to retract your bullshit about needing 32-bit power?

    176. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

      Thats not the way I remember it. That's very muddy and low contrast.

      Sharp and High contrast. Skin color flattened to a grey blue.
      Evil denoted by thin red lines, good denoted by pinsharp blue lines, others denoted by green and yellow.

      These are more typical screen shots of what it looks like.

      http://www.inpapasbasement.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Evil_Guy_Tron.jpg

      http://vulcanstev.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/tron-flynn-ram.jpg

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    177. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The DVD (my copy of which has been stolen, sadly)

      Wow, Disney is more serious about suppressing the old version than I had initially suspected.

      Dude, it wasn't stolen... it was downloaded. When will people finally understand the difference!

    178. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Evil+Pete · · Score: 1

      Actually I thought the special effects were pretty ingenious, for the day. I rewatched it a few years ago and I still liked it. The main problem was that it had the Disney disease ... too much niceness, 2D characters, superficial. But fun. My major disappointment when I first saw it was that the movie didn't have the music that was in the trailer .. which was pretty cool. But this one should be better with Daft Punk at the music helm. Just hope they don't try to play the God card on this one like the last one.

      --
      Bitter and proud of it.
    179. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not hacking, kid was a phreak.

    180. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by ppanon · · Score: 1

      The Evil AI had been done before with Demon Seed (1977), and while HAL was redeemed in 2010 when his programming conflict was explained, at first glance he acted pretty rogue in 2001. But I totally agree on the other points. Vinge had only published True Names one year earlier in 1981, and Gibson wouldn't publish Neuromancer until 1984. Tron was ground-breaking in so many ways that it was mindblowing in 1982. The dialogue could be pretty weak though and the acting feels a little over the top at times (Jeff Bridges' character sometimes feels to me like a cubist caricature because he's like The Dude, but charismatic, manic, or suffering from Asperger's depending on the part of the movie).

      --
      Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
    181. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by ppanon · · Score: 1

      If you're going to mention Bloom County's awesomeness, you can't forget to include Calvin and Hobbes!

      --
      Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
    182. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by syousef · · Score: 1

      I believe that War Games vs Sneakers would be a far more interesting match up.

      Admit it! You wan to see War Games vs The Net, because you've got the hots for Sandra Bollocks.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    183. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While true, this is, however, a coincidence.

      http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084827/trivia

      states that:

      TRON is also a debugging command in the BASIC programming language, meaning "TRace ON." However, Steven Lisberger, has stated in interviews that he took the name from the word "electronic," and did not know about the BASIC command until later.

    184. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Trogre · · Score: 1

      Admittedly they've never really bothered me either, but I can see why they would annoy some people, particularly when the suggestion comes up that they might been a marketing ploy (which still seems unlikely to me).

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    185. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by sybreon · · Score: 1

      After actually watching Tron: Legacy on the big screen (it released here today), I have to say that the film touched me. I'd recommend catching it wherever you are, once it is out. ** SPOILER WARNING ** Other than that, the thing that caught my attention was the fact that the depiction of the unix command-line interface is real. They actually did a 'ps -ef | grep ....' and a 'kill -9 ....' and what nots. And the Tron universe runs on (presumably) SUN hardware under some sort of 'SolarOS'. Plus, the film paid a small tribute to FLOSS software - setting software free.

    186. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by grumbel · · Score: 1

      He never tried to hack into a mainframe and copy a database, he tried to hack into a game company and get a copy of their newest game, something that has happened quite a few times in reality.

    187. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by cyclomedia · · Score: 1

      If it was so bad why is the 21st century's biggest game franchise heavily inspired by it? http://cyclomedia.co.uk/blog/?Halo_is_Tron

      --
      If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
    188. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Okonomiyaki · · Score: 1

      Maybe you weren't alive in the 80's but that's just how we talked. We said stuff like:

      "I love Tron's graphics, they're so BAD."
      and
      "Tron's graphics are so BAD, they spun me right round, baby, right round. Like a record, baby, right round round round."
      and
      "Tron's colors are like my dream. Red, gold and green."
      and
      "Like totally to the max!"

    189. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      >>>That kinda predates 16-bit computers like the Amiga and Mac

      Bzzzz. These are 32 bit computers. The 68000 is a 32-bit CPU sitting on a 16-bit bus, similar to how the 386SX operates. That is why 68000 series did not have to undergo a 16-to-32 bit transition like the X86 did. Code written on the 68000 will work on 32-bit 68020s or 40s or 60s.

      As for 8-bit Apples/Commodores/Ataris plus 16-bit IBM PC:

      Note I said TEXT to speech. While these computers could "speak" none of them had the built-in power to convert Text to speech. (As far as I know.) 1 MHz was simply too slow.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    190. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe that War Games vs Sneakers would be a far more interesting match up.

      Neither one of those features a young and extremely hot Angelina Jolie, so I'm afraid you're going to have to turn in your geek card.

    191. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      I was alive in the '80s.

      I was just to old to talk like a kid.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    192. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Me too, which is why I looked up the wikipedia entry for "TRON command" to quote in my comment. Of course, that could have simply been the computer magazines we were reading at the time's interpretation. Wouldn't have been the first time the press was wrong.

    193. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Nyder · · Score: 2

      MCP (which did stand for Master Control Program) was the operating system on Burroughs Large Systems machines, from the B5000 onwards. It was released in 1961, so predated TRON by some time. It was the first OS to support multiple CPUs, the first OS to be written in a high-level language, and the first commercial OS to support virtual memory.

      They say in Tron that the MCP started out as a chess program, so it would seem that it actually stood for Master Chess Program, before it got promoted. =)

      --
      Be seeing you...
    194. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by metrix007 · · Score: 1

      You miss the point Kiddo. Tolkien has absolutely shit all to do with tron.

      --
      If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
    195. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Well, I stopped messing with models when I was about 12, but at any rate, Jar Jar does grate on my nerves.

      But consider this -- anything that provokes such a strong emotion in viewers, even an emotion of disgust -- is Art with a capital A. An art instructor I had in college was fond of saying "I don't know what I like, but I know what art is." One aspect of art is provoking an emotional response, which Jar Jar does very well.

    196. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by edumacator · · Score: 1

      As a school teacher, I try to get everyone to watch Ken Robinson's talk about schools killing creativity. This is something we desperately need to change. School boards make these decisions, and we elect them.

    197. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't you remember the 80's at all? "Bad" means good!

    198. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      The funny parts are the jokes normal people wouldn't get, often on Sheldon's whiteboard. They do have some things wrong, though, like only one of them wearing glasses and none of them being fat. Once in a part about Sheldon having no friends, when he said "I have 200 friends on FaceBook" he should have said "I have 200 friends on sashdot", but I'm glad they got that wrong -- there are already too many non-nerds here.

      Often I see all four of the nerds being extreme caricatures of myself. Sometimes that makes me cringe, but still... MMIE plays on stereotypes as well, just stereotyping a different segment of society.

      The one thing I don't like about it is the laugh track.

    199. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Well, she can probably kick all their asses in an FPS. She was playing Quake when she was 12, and now works at GameStop.

    200. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Gizzmonic · · Score: 1

      Yeah, Reagan was the first to tell America, "Deficit? Who cares? Someone else will pay for it later!" Now no one pays anything towards the deficit, and both parties conspire to throw us a couple of bones (tax cuts and unemployment benefits) which ultimately puts us deeper in the hole. Since I'm going to be the one working till he's 80 to pay it down, I'm not particularly happy about the current situation.

      --
      (-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
    201. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by the+real+darkskye · · Score: 1

      The BBC Micro used to have a separate speech processing module in the early 1990s.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8wyUsaDAyI
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro#Optional_extras

      --
      Music is everybody's possession.
      It's only publishers who think that people own it.
      Fuck Beta
      ~John Lenno
    202. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by kitgerrits · · Score: 1

      I thought it was about "a program that starts other programs", A.K.A. cron.
      I'm not sure if cron was already around in those days, though.
      (like the Rowlf/TomWaits argument)

      --
      "I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I am indebted to her for."
    203. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Note I said TEXT to speech. While these computers could "speak" none of them had the built-in power to convert Text to speech. (As far as I know.) 1 MHz was simply too slow.

      See the other replies. SAM on the Apple II did text-to-speech on a 1MHz CPU. It wasn't great quality, but it was understandable.

    204. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Wikipedia says cron was first implimented in Version 7 Unix, which came out in 1979, so they would be roughly the same age; Microsoft was writing BASIC interpreters then, although I don't know if the TRON command was included in the earlier ones. I've seen dialects of BASIC that didn't have TRON.

    205. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      For the era when ROTJ was filmed, it probably would have been a wee bit too much for the ratings goons if they had used Wookies instead of Ewoks.

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    206. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      For this discussion, you should have ended it with...

      End of line.

      --
      This space unintentionally left blank.
    207. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Kemanorel · · Score: 1

      I can recall typing in quite the variety of words into a Speak and Spell and have it say them back to me. It was far more than 12(-ish) phrases. Not an extensive dictionary by any means, although the add-on cartridges extended that a fair bit at times. I think you may be confusing an old orange, yellow, and blue Speak and Spell with something else entirely.

      --
      Mess not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
    208. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by tgd · · Score: 1

      Having re-watched Tron recently, the thing that struck me most is that the scenes that aged are the scenes where they tried to use sets to mimick the computer world. The rendered bits hold up fine.

    209. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 1

      Sneakers was, and continues to be, the most inspirational film in my life. The characters were the ultimate hackers; a collection of experts in several different forms of technology. Life hackers. It was inspirational in my teenage years, and I see the better aspects in good dev teams (and I try to foster that).

    210. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Congratulations, you have just proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you don't know what you're talking about. Speak & Spells used a voice synthesizer chip and stored phoneme data in ROM, not recordings.

      There was nothing unrealistic about Wargames' text-to-speech in 1983. It would have taken some hacking on David's part, but it was definitely plausible.

      The last scene in the film is filled with classic Hollywood computer blunders that are much less believable, like the computer running simulations slowly at first and then speeding up as it proceeds, the progressive password guessing ("I have 9 of 10 password characters and it's taking forever to get the 10th"), screens and panels blowing up when the computer gets an unsolvable problem, etc. etc. That's the stuff that makes ME cringe.

    211. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by coaxial · · Score: 1

      Yes, those are appropriate screenshots, but I stand by my statement that the film is overly difficult to discern what is happening on the screen in any live action seen.

      It's pretty damn sad a 7 year old thinks, "They're just throwing around computer terms. This is lame." (Hey Bit! I'm looking right at you!)

    212. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure if I should feel happy for you, or sorry...
      (Actually, I remember those days, but the sentiment remains the same.)

    213. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Talderas · · Score: 1

      Combination.

      I had initially wrote that our current education system spurned creative development. Then I went back and wrote my current revision and left spurned when I wanted spurred. :(

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    214. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Jaxoreth · · Score: 1

      Pacman is a more iconic image that the thousands of characters introduced in games for more powerful systems isn't he?

      Indeed, Pac-Man even has a cameo in Tron. (And I'm not talking about Flynn's arcade.)

      --
      In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
    215. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're wasting your time. He doesn't get it. He's too immature to get it.

    216. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by Snorbert+Xangox · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you meant to write "perhaps you meant"?

      Or perhaps you were meant to write that by vast forces beyond your control, which acted through you to correct that misuse?

      Seriously, folks, it's best to read your posting carefully if the whole reason for your posting is to encourage correct English usage.

      Enough with the meta-pedantry, on with the nerdy reminiscences of old-school CGI... anyone who thinks that the original Tron graphics look cheesy should read more about what went into that film; when I saw that film in 1982, it was far ahead of anything else that had been done with computer animation in the mainstream media.

      When you understand how much traditional effects and animation handiwork went into fusing the CGI with the actors and animation, it's clear that the film effects were as good as you could make them with that technology at that time. With a bit better script, it could have been a much better film.

      --
      -Snorbert, somewhere in the antipodes
    217. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by baKanale · · Score: 1

      Crap. I succumbed to the same trap as the GP. You write something, then you revise it over and over, but these little bits get stuck between edits. I need to reread my tweaks more than once...

      Honestly, I wasn't trying to be pedantic so much as trying to come up with a plausible reason he put down "spurned". Given "spurred" and "spurned" are only one letter off I thought it was a more likely mistake to switch an "r" out for an "n" than to have intended a totally different word of opposite meaning. Not that I've never been a grammar and spelling pedant in the past...

      But anyway, I agree with you. The technical work on Tron was definitely ahead of its time. It's too bad the story wasn't quite up to the same standard. Kinda like if Avatar hadn't been as successful. Of course I've heard Tron didn't do as well as it could because Disney screwed up on the marketing. On the other hand, right before it came out you could barely walk two feet without bumping into an ad for Avatar.

    218. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mgabrys · · Score: 0

      Pacing mostly. The only complain I can lob (apart from some flatter-than flat acting), is the pacing is sloooooowwww in the first. And wow - the ADD generation would never sit still for it today. In fact, there's a quite good fan-made trailer for Tron that shows what modern pacing applied to it (in trailer form) would look like :

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp2gGqgn3Fw

    219. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mgabrys · · Score: 0

      Yes he war dialed, but he also changed his grades, and got into a military computer. Not phreaking.

    220. Re:"awesomely bad 80s graphics" by mfnickster · · Score: 1

      > Yes he war dialed, but he also changed his grades, and got into a military computer. Not phreaking

      Remember he also recorded the DTMF trigger for the door lock at NORAD, and shorted the mouthpiece wiring on the pay phone to call home.

      --
      "Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
  2. Soundtrack by Talderas · · Score: 1

    On the other hand. I've heard the soundtrack is fantastic as well. They made a very good pick, I feel, in asking Daft Punk to compose the soundtrack.

    --
    "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    1. Re:Soundtrack by RyuuzakiTetsuya · · Score: 1

      I wish that Wendy Carlos had done some work on the sound track. Seeing as how she's 71 now though, I don't think that was possible.

      --
      Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
    2. Re:Soundtrack by raddan · · Score: 1

      I think I'll reserve judgement until I see the movie. A lot of good ingredients went into The Hitchhiker's Guide, like Mos Def as Ford (risky, but possible great choice) and Sam Rockwell as Zaphod (inspired!), but what came out was total crap. Too many special effects, Ford mumbling through his lines, and Arthur's character actually being more annoying than funny. At least they kept the original Guide narrator from the radio series.

      I loved the original Tron movie. I love Daft Punk. Here's to hoping this installment makes the story better, not worse.

    3. Re:Soundtrack by nomadic · · Score: 1

      71 year olds can't compose music?

    4. Re:Soundtrack by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      Some of the music was in the Tron Evolution game, it's OK but not great, not in the same league as anything on the Discovery album. I hope they're saving the good stuff for the movie.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    5. Re:Soundtrack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      least they kept the original Guide narrator from the radio series

      Actually they didn't, probably because he was dead at the time (permanently, not just for tax reasons).

  3. Gah. by FatSean · · Score: 1

    Tron was a simple movie. This thing looks like they're throwing in the kitchen sink WRT plot devices. Can't say I really care to see a re-make of Tron. The original was silly enough. I'd bet money the characters will have smartphones inside the computer world...

    --
    Blar.
    1. Re:Gah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It isn't a re-make. Please stop your useless uninformed conjecture.

    2. Re:Gah. by FatSean · · Score: 1

      Then why call it Tron again, why not come up with a new name? Reboot? Recycle? It's re-something.

      --
      Blar.
    3. Re:Gah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is a continuation of a storyline set in the same world, otherwise known as a sequel. This is inherently different than a re-make or reboot.

    4. Re:Gah. by gmac63 · · Score: 1

      It isn't a re-make. Please stop your useless uninformed conjecture.

      We know its not a remake. Its an evolution of what Flynn's character after the first movie. We understand that. I have to tell ya tho, It is one of my 4 favorite movies and just plain fun. It's Disney so that tells you something too.

      Take the original TRON for what its worth.

      --

      INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
    5. Re:Gah. by whovian · · Score: 1

      In fact, ReBoot is already taken. It had great CGI animation at the time -- sort of rigid movements and not a whole lot of textures.

      --
      To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
    6. Re:Gah. by arb+phd+slp · · Score: 1

      ...and the TV show Reboot was obviously heavily influenced by TRON itself. It was a cartoon about anthropomorphic programs running around inside a computer where they had to play life-or-death games. No, you definitely wouldn't want to call a TRON movie Reboot.

      --
      There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
    7. Re:Gah. by Thud457 · · Score: 1

      it's a remake of the freakin' Bible -- creator of the universe's right-hand man wants to be in charge and needs to be taken down

      --

      the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    8. Re:Gah. by dreamchaser · · Score: 1

      Then why call it Tron again, why not come up with a new name? Reboot? Recycle? It's re-something.

      They didn't call it 'Tron' again. They called it 'Tron: Legacy' which clearly indicates, as does all the trailers, that it is a sequal. Comprehension fail on your part, or maybe just a horribly failed attempt at trolling.

    9. Re:Gah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tron was a simple movie. This thing looks like they're throwing in the kitchen sink WRT plot devices. Can't say I really care to see a re-make of Tron. The original was silly enough. I'd bet money the characters will have smartphones inside the computer world...

      It's not a remake, it's a sequel. Why comment on something when you obviously don't know enough about it to notice that it's called TRON : LEGACY?

    10. Re:Gah. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then why call it Tron again, why not come up with a new name? Reboot? Recycle? It's re-something.

      It's a SEQUEL. It's not a REMAKE, RETREAD, REHASH, REGURGITATION, or any other RE, except maybe RE: , referencing the original movie. The name of the movie is TRON: LEGACY. Not 'TRON'.

      Bunch'a fucking idiots trolling the Slashdot these days, I swear.

  4. From the director's commentary on the DVD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    A tremendous amount of the original Tron "graphics" were actually done the old-fashioned way: multiple passes with filters on the cameras, hand-drawn art, and fancy non-computer special-effects tricks.

    There were also a lot of computer graphics in the movie, but not nearly as much as modern viewers seem to think.

    This is probably because we are so accustomed to everything being done by computer enhancements, especially things that look computer-y, that we just assume anything similar was done on a computer.

    In the case of Tron, much of it was not.

    Fun fact: the name "Tron" was not derived from the old "Trace On" command, but from the word "electron."

    1. Re:From the director's commentary on the DVD by Eunuchswear · · Score: 1

      Yes, I know that. But "graphics" != CGI. The graphics in TRON are not "awesomely bad", they're great.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    2. Re:From the director's commentary on the DVD by ppanon · · Score: 1

      The world design concepts (sets, costumes, etc) were done by Moebius (Jean Giraud), the author of The Incal, The Airtight Garage, and many other groundbreaking graphic novel series. Over a decade later, his classmate from the Institut des Arts Appliqués, J.C. Mezieres (artist for Valerian & Laureline) did similar concept artwork for The 5th Element. You can definitely see design element reuse by each artist between the movies and the comic books (for instance costume sleeves in TRON vs. Incal & Airtight, or the taxicabs and vehicular traffic in 5th Element vs Cercles du Pouvoir).

      --
      Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
  5. 80s graphics were state of the art by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Those 80s graphics were state of the art in 1980 when the movie started production. It sounds like AC has no idea what the fuck he is talking about. See the "Making of Tron" to understand all the complex work involved.

    1. Re:80s graphics were state of the art by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      indeed, what BS summary is this?

    2. Re:80s graphics were state of the art by Jonner · · Score: 1

      More importantly, the small amount of CGI in Tron was not intended to look photo-realistic, so it doesn't look dated. Yes, it's very simple by the standard of what can be done today, but the entire look of the world (most of which was not CGI) was intentionally minimalist.

  6. Don't dis the 80s by jewens · · Score: 1

    At least the 80 special effects had folks saying "how did they do that?"

    Now you see the same quality of effects as the current movie in everything from video games to commercials for everyday (boring) products.

    --
    That group of bovine standing over there appears quite portentous. That's right it's an ominous cow herd.
    1. Re:Don't dis the 80s by Talderas · · Score: 1

      Damn you George Lucas! Damn you and your ILM!

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    2. Re:Don't dis the 80s by ppanon · · Score: 1

      I think you mean "Damn you John Lasseter! Damn you and your Pixar!"

      --
      Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
  7. 80s vs 2010 light-cycles by jewens · · Score: 1

    In all fainess to the 80's light cycles, they were only limited to 90 degree turns on the game grid. Once they escaped the grid they turned much like an ordinary two-wheeled machine.

    --
    That group of bovine standing over there appears quite portentous. That's right it's an ominous cow herd.
    1. Re:80s vs 2010 light-cycles by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 2

      Actually, they were making sharp turns along progressively smaller triangles.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    2. Re:80s vs 2010 light-cycles by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      Just like the 2010 light cycles.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  8. What? Finches? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

    The movie is going to have 17 species of finches? And ground dwelling sea going lizards?

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  9. Where did you go to school? by FatSean · · Score: 1

    We had art and music classes through to High School in my town. My experience with the education system must have been very different than yours. Did you go to school in a poorer locality? The schools with less money tend to focus (to a fault) on metrics in order to secure enough funding from state/federal in order to keep the place running. Even then they have art and music...

    --
    Blar.
    1. Re:Where did you go to school? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Art and music can be taught without inspiring imagination (unfortunately). And art and music are only one part of imagination. Rote memorization does little good for anyone, but it is what what schools focus on. And much of it is lost so quickly after school ends that it really serves no use. Teach a man to fish... should be our schools motto. So much of what we think we know turns out to be wrong anyway, once we have more information. "Nerves don't ever regrow on their own. Oh wait, they can in the tongue. Oh wait, they can in other areas, too, our brain just aren't wired to remap pathways after childhood..." For just one example. And correcting rote memorization (for those times it does stick) after the fact is really hard.

    2. Re:Where did you go to school? by Gilmoure · · Score: 1

      Yup, art college drop out here. I had a GI Bill burning a hole in my pocket and there didn't seem to be many math classes listed in program. 2 years later, I had decent drawing/painting/sculpting skills (technique is easy to learn) but really had nothing to say. Cool thing was, I also learned I had some skills at figuring out computer problems and am now doing ok in tech support. I don't consider my time/money wasted, though. Is nice to have some idea of what art is about, how it's developed, etc. Makes it easy to make small talk with some customers, too.

      --
      I drank what? -- Socrates
    3. Re:Where did you go to school? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      His experience appears to be more the norm than yours. There's a great YouTube video on education that mentions studies that support his point. Pay particular attention to the section on divergent thinking. Also interesting is the discussion of how our current obsession with over-diagnosing ADHD and medicating children is stifling their creativity.

  10. Good job, by daid303 · · Score: 1

    Now go and make Tron Guy proud!

  11. oh we can't have teh interwebs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    so this tron server wasn't connected to the internet? pretty sure the MCP was pulling programs from other networks in the first film.

    1. Re:oh we can't have teh interwebs by GaryOlson · · Score: 1

      TRON was an intelligent computer. After a few tastes of ILOVEYOU, Melissa, and the Slammer worm, TRON closed all the ports again.

      --
      Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
    2. Re:oh we can't have teh interwebs by wcrowe · · Score: 1

      Nope. The internet did not exist until Al Gore invented it in 1992. Before that, all computers were autonomous and did not communicate with each other at all.

      --
      Proverbs 21:19
    3. Re:oh we can't have teh interwebs by element-o.p. · · Score: 1

      TRON was an intelligent computer

      Technically, Tron was a program, not a computer. But I'm just being pedantic :)

      --
      MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
    4. Re:oh we can't have teh interwebs by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      It was connected to other programs, but with the MCP down presumably all the backchannel comms would have been cut off - also this new movie could be in a totally isolated system that was never connected to any other.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  12. Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    I (luckily) bought the 20th anniversary DVD when it came out, and just recently watched it for a refresher to catch references in the new movie...

    I had not seen it for a while, but the graphics were not too bad. The suits they wore looked pretty good, most of the computer world had a minimalistic stark look it is true but not really poor in the way the graphics from, say, "The Last Starfighter" looked - in part because much of Tron avoided gradient shading, which is when stuff starts to look dated. The worst part by far was the throwaway "grid bugs" scene that made no sense but was probably there for the video games.

    The plot is Tron is also not too bad even for a modern film. Going back to Last Startfighter, there was a film where the graphics looked really dated and the plot was way too simplistic for a modern movie.

    The graphics in the new Tron film look pretty good but one thing that bothers me is that the Recognizers have thrusters in the feet and realistic looking momentum, I'd feel a lot more like you were in a computer realm where the means of lift was not so apparent or varied and movement was more smooth and, well, binary. For some reason the light cycle changes do not bother me at all.

    The real reason you can't buy it now has nothing to do with plot or graphics, it has to do with getting you to buy the two disc set with the old and the new movie later on.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by spun · · Score: 1, Funny

      They could sell you the old movie, and THEN sell you the two disc set. No, I think they really don't want too many people remembering how bad the original was.

      You are comparing it favorably to "The Last Starfighter." Talk about damning with faint praise.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    2. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by Low+Ranked+Craig · · Score: 1

      I had it in my Netflix queue a few months ago and they moved it to the saved queue, "availability unknown" and added Tron Legacy.

      --
      I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
    3. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by element-o.p. · · Score: 2

      Enough, already! All of this arguing over whether "Wargames", the original "Tron" and "The Last Starfighter" are really as bad as everyone says, or if it's just elitist snobbery ("I really liked them, but I'm too cool to admit it") is making me want to go watch all three movies to find out if I only enjoyed them because I was in junior high school at the time. In any case, I really don't have the time or money to watch a bunch of old movies, so can we PUH-LEASE end the list with just those three? :D

      --
      MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
    4. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by Beyond_GoodandEvil · · Score: 1

      The plot is Tron is also not too bad even for a modern film. Going back to Last Startfighter, there was a film where the graphics looked really dated and the plot was way too simplistic for a modern movie.
      Simple plot, you mean like Avatar? Or perhaps anyone of those boy meets girl, boy loses girl, hijnks, boy get girl, romantic comedies?

      --
      I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
    5. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by GameboyRMH · · Score: 0

      For some reason the light cycle changes do not bother me at all.

      Well then you didn't catch the rubber tires (they have wheel pods with holes in the bottom, look closely) or aircraft-like air brakes on the light cycles.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    6. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      After reading the interview I'm willing to give him some leeway is making this all more realistic, but the aspects you brought up do concern me...

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    7. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      Wow, makes you wonder if Disney was able to make them pull it, or if (far more likely) people just kept and re-sold the discs when the price for new and used copies headed north of $60....

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    8. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      I really liked them, but I'm too cool to admit it

      Hey, I liked ALL of the Star Wars episodes (Except EP6), and I even liked all of the Matrix movies
      =P

    9. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      TANK GIRL ROCKED!

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    10. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
      "Wow, makes you wonder if Disney was able to make them pull it, or if (far more likely) people just kept and re-sold the discs when the price for new and used copies headed north of $60...."

      God, let's hope Disney isn't "redoing" the original movie, leading to us all soon to be arguing that Tron shot first?!?!?!

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    11. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

      Actually about the "grid bugs" I remember seeing an interview back in the 80s with one of the special effects guys where he explained that there was supposed to be an entire grid bugs sequence where the bugs were to come climbing up the sides of the surrounding hills and attack the solar sail, but the suits balked at the cost of the CGI for it and thought the movie was long enough as is but the special effects guys got it thrown in because they thought the bugs were cool and didn't want to waste them.

      And while I agree that having the devices look a little too realistic may hurt for fans of the original, lets not forget there are plenty of kids out there now that grew up on CGI and if you don't bump things up a bit they yell "fake!" and tune out. Kids today don't seem to be able to suspend disbelief as easily as we could pre CGI. Just look at how there are those on the net that think EVERYTHING is shopped.

      But from what I've seen having Clu II as the bad guy will probably make things a little darker than the first. in the first you could almost feel sorry for Dillinger and Sark because their creation had gotten so far out of control and looked down upon them as primitive. The way Dillinger is told to STFU by the MCP who informs him "no single user wrote me" for example. But as someone who loved both the Tron movie and the later Tron 2.0 PC game I'll go and see it no matter what, if for nothing else the cycles and the discs.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    12. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      That's interesting about the bugs, I assumed it was there because they had the video games planned out to use them and so they wanted them inserted into the movies for a tie in. A grid bug swarm attacking solar sails sounds interesting...

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    13. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by element-o.p. · · Score: 1

      You just HAD to do that, didn't you? :)

      --
      MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
    14. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by hairyfeet · · Score: 1

      Yeah, from what I remember (this was 27 years ago) according to the SFX guy the entire floor of the grid that the sail was going over was gonna pop up grid bugs, which would then climb the hills and attack the solar sail. While they hadn't finished the writing for the sequence the consensus was that Tron would have to fight off the grid bugs using his disc with a bunch of cool trick shots, ramping up the action. Then when they thought they were finally safe Flynn would see Sark's command ship about to hit and that is where the movie would have returned to its original plot. The SFX guys didn't want to toss the footage they had already made of the grid bugs so they threw a few seconds of them in hoping there would be a sequel made soon after and they could use them then. Damned shame as it did sound like a cool action sequence, but according to the SFX guy the insane cost of CGI back then just made it too costly.

      Damn, all this talk of Tron and now I'm gonna have to go try to find my Tron 2.0 disc and see if it will run in Windows 7 X64. I gotta give MSFT credit, even my No One Lives Forever runs just fine on Win 7 X64, even though I had to "install" it by dragging the contents to the drive (due to 16 bit installer) but after that even this 1997 game runs great! Gotta love that backwards compatibility! So I'm gonna go install Tron and start throwing some discs of my own! Peace.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    15. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by geekoid · · Score: 1

      My son is 12. His movie experience is full of the most modern CGI.
      We watch Tron last weekend, and he loved it. The idea of Tron is awesome in the literal sense of the word. That is why it captures people. I expect the sequel to be a fun ride, but that's it.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    16. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by basotl · · Score: 1

      Wargames and The Last Starfighter are available on Netflix via DVD. Go and put them in your queue now...
      IMHO Tron was better and has held up better over time visually.

      --
      HTC EVO 4G LTE w/ CM 10.2 | NookColor w/ CM 10.2 | Samsung Epic 4G w/ CM 10.1
    17. Re:Not so, rewatched and thought it was decent by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 1

      If you like an early 80's retro-gaming/home computer/analogue synthesiser aesthetic, and watching something genuinely unique, then TRON is a true gem. If you like the original Star Wars / 80's Star Trek movies as well, the Last Starfighter is a film packed with character, that for some mystifying reason gets a giant slating like TRON often does. If you get them on DVD the commentaries / documentaries about the trailblazing CGI techniques will be fascinating to any computer geek.

      I've only seen Wargames once in the mid-90's and I can't remember if it's crap or not. It didn't seem so at the time.

      --
      (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
  13. One mistake they did NOT make by beetle496 · · Score: 1

    I'd bet money the characters will have smartphones inside the computer world...

    From TFA:

    If you want to send a message to someone, you can’t just beam it across cyberspace. You have to get on your light cycle and deliver it in person.

    --
    I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
  14. Don't Diss the 80s by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Hey, don't diss the 80s. Those effects were state of the art for their time and deserve better than being said that with 10000X more computer power that we can do better now.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
    1. Re:Don't Diss the 80s by avandesande · · Score: 1

      Funny how computers and CGI are taken for granted... as a young person in the 80s stuff like the first Macintosh and laser printer were mind blowing when they came out. For some perspective in 8th grade I learned to type on IBM Selectric.

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
    2. Re:Don't Diss the 80s by DrCode · · Score: 1

      I agree. And I also thought the idea behind the plot - that a computer program takes on the personality of the person who wrote it - was really cool.

    3. Re:Don't Diss the 80s by Evil+Pete · · Score: 1

      Yeah I liked that aspect too. It did seem very much like the hacker belief that software writing was a creative act like art. So the software would reflect the personality or character of the writer. Of course in Tron it is take to an extreme but gees ... something doesn't have to be literally true to be enjoyable and interesting. Plenty of movies have been based on more flimsy ideas.

      --
      Bitter and proud of it.
  15. New versus Original by theamarand · · Score: 1

    I have to say, the new Tron movie has certainly reminded me that I should go back and re-watch the original Tron movie. There's another article on Slashdot talking about how special effects just don't have the same impact now.

    http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/10/12/14/1853200/Why-Special-Effects-No-Longer-Impress

    Before CGI was the standard, you actually had to build models, use actual smoke and pyrotechnics. I have respect for vintage movies that had to work for it and that didn't have the same tools we had today. When a 10-year old girl today has a better processor and more memory in her cellphone than any of the computers used during the creation of Star Wars, that turns the tables a bit.

    My problem is that special effects should enhance a story-line or visual, not be the story-line or visual itself. As has been proven by many excellent movies in the past, you don't need to render a 3-D space scene to make the audience believe that our actor is in space. Science fiction stories have also proven for decades that you don't need a visual or even much detail about the technology itself, to build a compelling world that people will visit and revisit again and again. In the end, our minds will always have a greater capacity for creativity than anything that can be generated by a computer, and sometimes leaving out details (Hitchcock? Asimov?) can make a piece have greater significance and longevity than one that pulls out all the stops and ends up leaving the audience feeling empty. Storytelling is becoming a lost art, sadly.

    1. Re:New versus Original by cyclomedia · · Score: 1

      Having rewatched it recently in anticipation of seeing Legacy tomorrow night one thing that stood out for me (apart from how much Halo looked like it, see: http://cyclomedia.co.uk/blog/?Halo_is_Tron ) were some of the mirror shots. Shots in the real world that reflected the computer world, bridging the gap to it from our side. One was in the office with cubicles spreading off to infinity in a grid pattern, another was a tall building, which looked like a large server. Clever.

      --
      If you don't risk failure you don't risk success.
  16. Tron. Yawn. by wcrowe · · Score: 1

    ...more awesomely awesome millennial CGI...

    That's too bad. I was hoping it might have an awesomely awesome plot.

    --
    Proverbs 21:19
  17. Is this going to be like Wallstreet 2? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously, from the previews I have seen this looks like it's going to have the same problems Wallstreet 2 did compared to the original.

    It's a bunch of bullshit pop culture stuff crammed into a plotline similar to the old one then hyped up with the advertising machinery. It's probably going suck.

    1. Re:Is this going to be like Wallstreet 2? by arb+phd+slp · · Score: 1

      Wall Street 2 didn't have a Daft Punk score, however.

      --
      There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
  18. Tron's Original Message by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Everyone I'm sure is fully aware that the Master Control Program in the first Tron movie basically protrayed an operating system, and applications complained about not being able to compute freely. So the user essentially needed to save the applications from the evil operating system.

    So what's the underlying message for Tron: Legacy? Will the MCP portray Microsoft Windows and the overall message is "oh shit, we were completely right!"?

    * Note: Its been over 15 years since the last time I watched Tron, so hopefully I remembered the general plot correctly.

    1. Re:Tron's Original Message by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm thinking the MCP is more along the lines of iTunes/App Store...

      Tron jailbreaks the system

      cydia for all.

      end of line.

  19. Better than you think by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    You are comparing it favorably to "The Last Starfighter." Talk about damning with faint praise.

    Not really, I am saying it's way better than that was. It holds up MUCH better than other movies from that era, visually and plot wise - as other people noted many of the graphics were not even done on a computer which is why that is true. In fact because so much of the game is set in the computer world you have very little dating of clothing and hairstyles!

    Since you scoff at the Last Starfighter comparison, I'll add a more modern one - Mirrormask. I just saw that, I disliked the plot in that movie and thought Tron was a better movie overall, even with the older computer graphics.

    It is a shame you can't even rent Tron (at least not on Netflix) to see for yourself. But I think the original is a classic that really deserves that term.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Better than you think by Carnildo · · Score: 1

      It is a shame you can't even rent Tron (at least not on Netflix) to see for yourself.

      Has something changed recently? My records show that I got Tron from Netflix in May of last year.

      --
      "They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
    2. Re:Better than you think by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I find it strange people are comparing the quality of the graphics in Tron to other films. To me it was never about quality, it was about that unique look. People seem to assume that computers are all clean and sharply defined, but back in the 80s that was not the case. Anyone with an oscilloscope can tell you that voltages don't switch cleanly. In the 80s people loaded data off analogue tape decks and you could hear it bubbling away. Man I miss the 80s sometimes.

      Just like how Star Wars separated itself by having ships and bases that looked used, dirty and worn Tron make computers seem more real and tangible to me. That look will forever be associated with it.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  20. Exactly by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Tron has a decent plot to it and special effects that are not dated in the same way full-on CGI from that era generally is (except for the Grid Bug part which was full-on CGI).

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Exactly by mfnickster · · Score: 1

      Tron has a decent plot to it and special effects that are not dated in the same way full-on CGI from that era generally is (except for the Grid Bug part which was full-on CGI).

      Not sure what you mean by "full-on" CGI, but pretty much any shot with a vehicle in Tron was entirely CGI.

      (The Grid Bugs, IIRC, were cel-animated by hand)

      --
      "Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
    2. Re:Exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tron has a decent plot to it and special effects that are not dated in the same way full-on CGI from that era generally is (except for the Grid Bug part which was full-on CGI).

      I literally just rewatched Tron last night, and I can assure you that the Grid Bugs were 100% hand-drawn. Funny that so many here seem to think that they were CGI, when they were one of the standouts that clearly wasn't CGI.

    3. Re:Exactly by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      Weird because they were the part that looked most like poorly done old CGI (and were totally meaningless to the plot).

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  21. Has anyone found the original Tron on TV? by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

    Seems obvious that someone would show it. I've been looking for a few months with no luck.

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    1. Re:Has anyone found the original Tron on TV? by Teese · · Score: 1

      HDNet showed it a lot recently, but they show movies in cycles.

      --
      "I'm a Genius!"*


      *Not an actual Genius
    2. Re:Has anyone found the original Tron on TV? by dzfoo · · Score: 1

      Are those... light-cycles?

              -dZ.

      --
      Carol vs. Ghost
      ...Can you save Christmas?
  22. "There's a 68.71% chance you're right." by mrnick · · Score: 3, Funny

    End of line.

    --

    Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
    1. Re:"There's a 68.71% chance you're right." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cute.

    2. Re:"There's a 68.71% chance you're right." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who do you Calculate you are?

  23. Joe Kosinski? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm not sure that the director of this film matters so much, since it has likely been designed by committee, but I'm wondering who Joe Kosinski is.

    Tron Legacy cost somewheres around 200 million to make and market yet they put a rookie director in charge of it? His last credit before this was doing a morning show in the UK. I wish I had the number for his agent.

    Too bad no one seems to give Chris Cunningham the same chance.

  24. Inside Tron? Really? Digital Gay Porn? by erroneus · · Score: 1

    I remember Tron. It was a movie named after a program that was represented in this digital world that HAD NO NAME. Tron was a program created by "a user" (and I forget his name) for the purpose of infiltrating the mainframe computer's operating system to discover what the MCP (Master Control Program) was doing.

    So as I read the interview and they keep saying "Inside Tron" I have to wonder if they really knew what they were saying. Tron was the name of a character, not the world. It would be okay to say "the world of Tron" to identify the world, but not "inside Tron"... that's just kinda... ihhhh

  25. Backlit film by Dachannien · · Score: 1

    The irony of the new film being awash in CGI is that the original film actually had very little CGI. The tank exteriors, Bit, grid bugs, lightcycles, and maybe a couple other elements were, iirc, the only computer-generated elements in the original Tron, amounting to about 20 minutes of footage. Most of the rest of the "effects" were done with matte paintings and backlighting.

  26. Re: If you ignore Star Wars/etc by drhamad · · Score: 1

    They're only state of the art if you ignore the fact that Star Wars came out FIVE YEARS before it.

    --
    -Daniel
  27. Saw a screening last night, not impressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Some people say there are no new ideas. Maybe so. There are certainly very few in "Tron: Legacy".

    I was disappointed to find that "Tron: Legacy" doesn't really expound on the world portrayed in 1982. Rather than taking advantage of 28 years of progress in CGI to present an even more fantastical universe, great pains are taken to make things look more solid and physical. In areas that the earlier film threw out the rules of a physical world, the sequel seems very much bound by Newtonian physics. It's as if the producers were worried that their film about being laser-zapped into a computer and playing gladiatorial games to please your dad's computerized evil twin just wasn't realistic enough.

    I had no problem suspending my disbelief. When movies like "Blade Runner" or "Strange Days" (that present possible near-future scenarios in our own universe) push the envelope of disbelief much further than the inside-the-computer alternate reality of "Tron: Legacy", you know you're in trouble.

    Still, I enjoyed the presentation. The visuals were generally stunning in IMAX 3D and the Daft Punk soundtrack seemed to drive the action. Jeff Bridges' Zen version of "The Dude" from "The Big Lebowski" works well enough, though, again, breaks no new ground. 3D effects didn't always evoke the same wow-factor that I experienced with "Avatar" in IMAX 3D, but they were still quite effective.

    Overall, I have no hesitation in recommending the film, even though I would heavily chide the producers for not taking full advantage of the intervening advances in technology to portray a less-recognizable universe. I guess "accessibility" is the watchword when you're producing a $200 million Disney behemoth. Give me a $10 million film that shows me something new ("Equilibrium", anyone) any day of the week. "Tron: Legacy" is an experience (especially in IMAX 3D), but not one that will stick with you, unfortunately.

    1. Re:Saw a screening last night, not impressed by RapmasterT · · Score: 1

      Give me a $10 million film that shows me something new ("Equilibrium", anyone) any day of the week. .

      Ok, I was with you right up until you called Equilibrium "new".

      Unless by "new" you mean instead of plagiarizing a previous movie, they produced a montage of plagerism on a scale never before seen in a motion picture. They managed to rip off: 1984, Farenheit 451, The Matrix, A Brave New World, and Logans Run...all in one movie.

      That's not to say it was a bad movie, I liked it a LOT...but it was as far from original as you can get.

    2. Re:Saw a screening last night, not impressed by JockTroll · · Score: 1

      Can there ever be an original story these times? Equilibrium was derivative, but fun. So is The Terminator, which is exceedingly cool (time travel, cyborgs and rebellious computers have been around a long tim). What about Doomsday then? And it's still a cool movie. Or Forbidden Planet? It's not just the story, it's the execution.

      --
      Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
    3. Re:Saw a screening last night, not impressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fair enough. I suppose what I should say is that "Equilibrium" was more memorable. "Tron: Legacy" is flashy, but forgettable in terms of story/characters.

    4. Re:Saw a screening last night, not impressed by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      Plus every anime that ever had unrealistic shooting action scenes.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    5. Re:Saw a screening last night, not impressed by Beyond_GoodandEvil · · Score: 1

      What about Doomsday then?
      It sucked, and don't even get me started on what happens to the battery or the fluid in a Bentley's engine when it sits unused for 15 yrs.

      --
      I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
    6. Re:Saw a screening last night, not impressed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Posting AC to preserve the GP mod point because an actual review is interesting, but yeah...Equilibrium??? The movie with "gun fu", where you take a fucking gun and instead of shooting the guy with it your best option is to flip it over and start clubbing people in the head? Really? What, did they run out of bullets in the future? I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for things like "guy gets sucked into a computer" - but when it comes to sheer idiocy and illogical thinking by supposedly rational people, you gotta draw the line.

    7. Re:Saw a screening last night, not impressed by RapmasterT · · Score: 1

      hah! gun-fu...I'm stealing that.

    8. Re:Saw a screening last night, not impressed by JockTroll · · Score: 1

      You fail at B-movie logic, loserboy. Must have been that giant bug that sucked out your huntingdtoned brains.

      --
      Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
    9. Re:Saw a screening last night, not impressed by kitgerrits · · Score: 1

      Equilibrium felt like someone decided to redo the matrix with the storyline of 1984.
      And "that odd fight style" deserves no further mention.

      --
      "I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I am indebted to her for."
    10. Re:Saw a screening last night, not impressed by Jaxoreth · · Score: 1

      Equilibrium??? The movie with "gun fu", where you take a fucking gun and instead of shooting the guy with it your best option is to flip it over and start clubbing people in the head? Really? What, did they run out of bullets in the future? I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for things like "guy gets sucked into a computer" - but when it comes to sheer idiocy and illogical thinking by supposedly rational people, you gotta draw the line.

      Maybe because, unlike bullets, use of guns as blunt instruments can't be traced? Maybe next time you can try puzzling it out for yourself or asking for the answer instead of assuming everyone is stupid and going ballistic.

      --
      In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
  28. Re: If you ignore Star Wars/etc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Except that the effects in the original SW were not computer-generated, whereas a lot of the FX in the TRONworld are completely CG.

    (posting anomymously as I work at one of the companies that did CG work on the original TRON but do not wish to speak for them).

  29. you have to be kidding...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "less awesomely bad 80s graphics and more awesomely awesome millennial CGI."

    Truly there is no accounting for taste - nothing new here. But motherf****** this is meant to be a site for nerds... this really is a new low for slashdot.

    If you're not just trying to get attention mr taco then this is the most fucking incredible thing i've seen in a long time.

    A new fucking low.

  30. Re:Inside Tron? Really? Digital Gay Porn? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Stop being so pedantic! The name of the movie is 'Tron'...

  31. Really Tron 3? by Stregano · · Score: 1

    I guess I am way too big of a nerd, but I always took Tron: Legacy as Tron 3. Tron 2.0 was released on PC, X-Box, and GBA Tron 2.0 and this follow's Alan's son. Tron: Legacy follows Flynn's son. The game is even called Tron 2.0, which would mean it is the direct sequel. I guess with movie sequels and not counting other media this is Tron 2, but come on, this is Tron we are talking about here, it makes sense that one of its sequels is a video game.

    --
    The world is how you make it
  32. art and music are the first things to cut then sho by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 1

    art and music are the first things to cut then shop!

  33. Re:Inside Tron? Really? Digital Gay Porn? by camperdave · · Score: 1

    So this new movie is a cross between Tron and Inner Space?

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  34. Re: If you ignore Star Wars/etc by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Star Wars is only relevant as a comparison if you completely ignore the scenes being rendered and the way they were rendered.

    The makers of Tron could have the backgrounds rendered differently -- as more traditional solid forms like the tanks and other objects -- and I think they'd get much more respect now, but I always thought that looked great and created a different kind of world I hadn't seen before. I much prefer the CGI in Tron to that in most recent movies, with the real-yet-fake-and-oddly-blurry effects that are both conspicuous and pretty unimaginative. A funny thing about you mentioning Star Wars is that I remember the old video game where everything was completely wireframe, which somehow worked well even when avoiding the catwalks on the death star.

  35. Common misconception by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    According to the directors of the original Tron movie, the name came from the word "electron."

    The similarity to a computer term was pure coincidence.

    You get this info from the special features of the TRON aniversary edition DVD.

  36. Re:Tron. Yawn. by dzfoo · · Score: 1

    Or awesomely 80s retro CGI.

              -dZ.

    --
    Carol vs. Ghost
    ...Can you save Christmas?
  37. "awesomely bad 80's graphics..." by JockTroll · · Score: 1

    FAIL. The CGI in TRON was cutting-edge, it was new tech and Lisberger & Co broke bold new ground. There's some good extras on the 2-disc set that explain it all. Only loserboys who cannot fathom the reaches those athletes of the digital art managed to achieve would deride them, because they know they could never come anywhere near their results. I remember the feeling of novelty seeing TRON at the movies back then. I know I won't have the same feeling now because CGI is ubiquitous now, but I still hope for a good ride. It's a pop flick, folks. It's not Blade Runner. Enjoy it for the sheer digital funkyness of it. Otherwise, get off my allocated disk space before I de-rezz you, sink your heads into a wiper and take a core dump on your faces, loserbytes.

    --
    Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
  38. I must agree by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

    In anticipation of the game, I watched the original Tron movie, and played the new Tron Evolution game (it's a decent game, but uses DLC, Windows Live Gaming or whatever it's called, and it takes only about 4 hours to get through the single player story mode...).

    Now I want to see the movie less. The original Tron was an OK movie at best, and the game makes me think Tron suffers from the same cyclic storyline problem as Star Wars. In the game you play a character who looks like Master Chief and talks like Gordon Freeman, who generally goes around slaughtering tons of digital bad guys with his digital death-frisbee and various light-vehicles while working through obstacle-course levels. All good fun.

    But its storyline has the same formula as the original Tron movie.

    WARNING, "SPOILERS" AHEAD.

    $bad_guy_ruler and $assistant want to commit $genocidal_act against $certain_digital_people and do $bad_things from his big floating spaceship thingy, you must save $female_lead and $male_friend (who dies helping you out) and defeat $bad_guy_ruler and $assistant.

    END "SPOILERS"

    And like Star Wars, once you've seen this storyline go around twice you feel like you've had enough.

    I'll probably watch Tron Legacy for the same reason I watched Avatar, for the eye candy and asplosions.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    1. Re:I must agree by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      In anticipation of the new movie, I watched the original Tron movie, and played the new Tron Evolution game

      D'oh let me fix that for myself...

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  39. Re:Tron. Yawn. by TheCycoONE · · Score: 1

    It can't have an awesome plot or characters, it's TRON.

    3/4 of the movie should look awesome but contribute nothing at all with scenes that could appear in pretty much any order. Also all the proof we need that someone stole code is a print out saying they did, Priority 1, END OF LINE

  40. Re: If you ignore Star Wars/etc by cpt+kangarooski · · Score: 1

    There was at least one CG effect in Star Wars: the wireframe at the pilot briefing. Of course, the state of the art progressed a lot between Star Wars and Tron.

    --
    -- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
  41. Disney missed the anthropomorphizing theme by NuShrike · · Score: 1

    I think, as usual, Disney and the creators have completely missed cyberpunk and the Internet revolution.

    I think the original TRON was really in the vein of Ghost in the Shell, The Matrix and the rest where computer concepts and actions are anthropomorphized in a Lawnmower Man/Avatar way.

    Flynn ended up being a superuser avatar who didn't know he was until he started using his capabilities, and TRON was a specific, unattended, program designed to dive for information while fighting off security "guards".

    Even South Park had a modernized view of the Tron world from the viewpoint of Facebook and the power of accounts. Disney's view is more like a poor, unnetworked version of WoW. Believably, they missed the MMO angle too.

    For a better, up to date, more cyberpunk movie, check out Summer Wars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_Wars . It shows how Second Life the Internet is in a heavily networked world while incorporating the importance of gaming (in a Street Fighter-ish way) and the power of p0wning accounts.

    Too bad my anniversary TRON dvd still duplicates the mastering errors (at the layer flip) from the LD version.

  42. Tron media timeline? by dazedNconfuzed · · Score: 1

    Between Tron, Tron: Legacy, Tron: Ghost in the Machine, Tron: Derezzed, Tron 2.0, etc. ... does anyone have a coherent map of Tron media storyline/chronology? Poking around, it's starting to look like the Ender's Game graph. Thanks.

    --
    Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
  43. Not everyone by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

    We only had to wait 28 years for the second installment of "Tron"
     
    Well, if you consider spending the last 28 years more or less forgetting that such a forgettable movie even existed... yeah.
     
    Seriously, Tron was more-or-less the prototype for the modern "wow 'em with state-of-the-art eye candy and hope they don't notice the other defects" movie. If I hadn't had the duty (and thus been required to stay on base) and hadn't been bored enough that the $1.00 matinee showing of any movie was the best entertainment available on base that Saturday... I'd probably never have seen it.

  44. I could never manage the suspension of disbelief by jollyreaper · · Score: 1

    I can accept a pure fantasy explanation like an dimensional portal in the back of a wardrobe or "a wizard did it" or "the dead have come back to life, we don't know why but you'd better run!" Trying to understand something like Tron is... it's like trying to explain zombies with a virus. No, there's all sorts of reasons why zombies can't work scientifically. If you leave in the realm of "we have no idea why it's happening" then I'm fine. Their being flatly impossible is part of the reason why they're so scary. You start trying to explain and I'll start poking holes.

    Alice falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, I'm fine with it. You tell me a guy gets digitized into a 1980's computer that's gotten a mind of its own? It just doesn't work! Now someone might say "What about the Matrix?" Well what about it? It's like two hundred years from now and hyper-intelligent AI's have taken over so the technology's damn well gonna look like magic to us. I can completely buy the Matrix and the battery bit was just the studios intervening and dumbing it down for the masses. But I'd have problems with the Matrix if the war went down in 1980. Do I have problems with the Terminator timeline? Obviously we're not going to be building anything like skynet in time for Judgement Day, whenever it happens according to whichever continuity you prefer. But at least when Cameron made the first one, it was far enough in the future for advanced AI to seem plausible. It's not like his Skynet was already built and operating in the early 80's.

    I could maybe, MAYBE buy the premise of Tron if the guy "sucked into the machine" was a hacker who'd been on a week-long coding binge mixing coffee and hallucinogenics and suffered a nervous breakdown and all of the running around in glowing costumes part was his fevered imagination at work.

    And yeah, you're all going to say I'm comic book guying this a whole bunch. *stands up, wheezes from effort* "Whatever."

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  45. "I built as many sets as I could." by spacefiddle · · Score: 1

    From TFO. Gives me hope that this will be a movie containing people acting with one another, as opposed to certain other long-awaited sequels filled with monologues in bluescreen chambers...

  46. TRON: Legacy by mlauzon · · Score: 2

    I went to the advance screening that Disney held here in Toronto on Monday night; loved the movie. The one thing I would've liked to see, when Flynn did his flashback, it would've been cool to see TRON in his original look.

  47. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  48. Even simpler by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Simple plot, you mean like Avatar? Or perhaps anyone of those boy meets girl, boy loses girl, hijnks, boy get girl

    Didn't see Avatar (hated Pocahontas so much that anything too similar plot wise I will not watch).

    But the plot you describe "boy meets girl, loses girl, hijinks, gets girl" has a lot more going on than Starfighter. He starts with the girl, he never loses the girl. In the first few minutes he's beaten the starfighter game. The most complex part is when he briefly decides to back out of being a starfighter but he's only off base long enough to get a big mac and head right back in.

    It really is a simplistic movie...

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  49. US centered date by stm2 · · Score: 1

    This site has an international readership, so ./ should state that it comes out Friday in the US. In Argentina, I will watch it tomorrow :)

    --
    DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
  50. Spoiler Free Comment by Sinesurfer · · Score: 1

    Sow this last night (New Zealand time or Wed 1100 hrs GMT).

    Lot's of eye candy, sagerine backstory to justify the 'quest/journey' but worth your time.

    --
    Regards Sinesurfer A Nerd is someone who lives for technology, A Geek is someone who lives for technology and loves it
  51. Tron girl was a great sequel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This sequel is awesome, at least that little dance scene is

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MP_G6arpVI

  52. Can he please explain the lame change? by Lumpy · · Score: 1

    The light cycles in the first technology demo trailer were all tires and looked awesome... then the latest ones show the lightcycles having a giant shroud over the wheels and can no longer turn tight like they should be able to.

    Why did you compromise the movie just so marketing could be happy and the in movie stuff matches the fricking lame toys?

    What else did Disney make you change to further take the movie away from what it could have been?

    Yeah, I know.... but it is a stupid change that ruins the immersion of the movie.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:Can he please explain the lame change? by Sprouticus · · Score: 1

      ever since Star Wars, ALL movie which may appeal to children are about merchandising. The money involved is insane, and its all profit for the rights owners. No paying any silly actors for their work.

    2. Re:Can he please explain the lame change? by bakes · · Score: 1

      ... and can no longer turn tight like they should be able to.

      In the original movie the light cycles only made the right-angle turns whilst on the game-grid. As soon as Flynn, Tron and Ram escaped the grid their cycles behaved with 'real world' physics.

      --
      Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
    3. Re:Can he please explain the lame change? by geekoid · · Score: 1

      Don't apply physics to the digital world.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    4. Re:Can he please explain the lame change? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but they do which is another problem watch all 3 trailers, trailer 1 from last year and the next two. They redesigned the light cycles to match the toys they are selling. the tech preview from last year had them look far cooler and much more believe-able.

  53. Re:Inside Tron? Really? Digital Gay Porn? by element-o.p. · · Score: 1

    Tron was a program created by "a user" (and I forget his name)...

    Alan, IIRC.

    --
    MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
  54. F ALL YOU HATERS! by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    I really don't see why so many people are crapping on "The Last Starfighter". Sure, its plot was formulaic, but at least, unlike Tron, it had a plot. It's a damn fine B movie, and fun to boot. Granted, the at the time groundbreaking use of CGI now looks klunky as hell.

    They could easily re-release Starfighter with updated effects, like they did with ST:TOS. The only way to fix Tron is to turn off the sound a burn a J. (But then you miss out on Wendy Carlos' score).


    "Teriffic. I'm about to get killed a million miles from nowhere with a gung-ho iguana who tells me to relax. "

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    1. Re:F ALL YOU HATERS! by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      Sorry man but I just saw both within the span of a week and Tron has way more plot than Starfighter. There's not even any tension in Starfighter, once he's in the ship it's kicking ass the whole time (quite literally in the case of the command ship) and there's never really a point where the supposed hero figure is in any danger of anything except briefly back at the trailer park!

      It was an OK movie for the time, I don't hate it at all, but the plot was REALLY simple with pretty much zero character development and a lot of cliches. Tron was a lot more interesting.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  55. TRON was art by Puzzles · · Score: 1

    In 30 years will this new movie be looked at as corny 2010 graphics movie? And if it does, will it be worth making another sequel? If Legacy doesn't touch upon some of the philosophical ideas as the original or something similar, I will most likely be disappointed. I look at the original movie as being art. The style is almost black and white--a very classic feel. Just like black and white movies evoke a sort of classic feeling, I think games from old 16 color computers should have the same effect. I guess these days they don't call that 'classic' as much as '8-bit' or 'retro'. TRON is my favorite movie of all time and is a must see for all software/computer developers. I have a general apprehension of sequels that feature offspring of the original characters (see Indiana Jones 4). Also, Daft Punk got nothing on Wendy Carlos.

    --
    "So don't get programmed by anybody but yourself" --Bill S. Preston, Esquire
  56. Re:art and music are the first things to cut then by yotto · · Score: 1

    And then history, science, math, literacy...

    And finally, the very last thing to go will be organized sports.

  57. Hate to disagree but... by __aapspi39 · · Score: 1

    I quite liked the computer graphics and the look they achieved on the first Tron movie really - apart from Sin City I don't really think that any of the modern cgi looks that good - but that's just me.

    Ken Perlin (http://mrl.nyu.edu/~perlin/) did some fantastic work on the code behind Tron - very clever guy.

  58. I'm going for the music by St.Creed · · Score: 1

    ... what I said. YouTube is already buzzing with the new Daft Punk soundtrack. It's great and fits the mood to a T. If I didn't plan on going already, I certainly made up my mind after seeing the trailer and listening to the soundtrack. It's awesome.

    It's so hot, there were about a dozen excellent remixes of it on youtube even before the release of the tunes :)

    (And Slashdot please FIX THE BRAINDEAD NO-COPY-PASTE THING in the textboxes! It's annoying!)

    --
    Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
    1. Re:I'm going for the music by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (And Slashdot please FIX THE BRAINDEAD NO-COPY-PASTE THING in the textboxes! It's annoying!)

      That's a bug in Chrome. (I copy-pasted the above comment into the textbox using Firefox.)

  59. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  60. great, now you've done it by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    Now I've got a itch to write a fanfic expanding on Heinlien's "All You Zombies" where every single character is himself in each and every one of the seven classic plotlines. I wonder if I can get John Malkovich to star in the movie version.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  61. How is the music in the new film? by Pinback · · Score: 1

    The scenes in Tron showing Flynn's with Journey playing, and the general Wendy Carlos soundtrack are both memorable, poignant, and enjoyable.

    I'm really hoping that the music in the new film is as effective.

    1. Re:How is the music in the new film? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amazing. Though it doesn't stand on it's own as a great DP album, it did a great job of creating an epic atmostphere with some callbacks to NES, even pre NES, era music.

  62. Re:Text to speech by ddillman · · Score: 1

    Not until the 32 bit era (68000 Amiga, 80486 +SoundBlaster) did they have enough power to convert text to speech.

    Sure they did. I attended a demo of the technology in 1978 or so. Sounded much like the Wargames computer, but it definitely was not a small personal computer doing the work.

    --
    Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -- L. Long
  63. TIT by Anomalyst · · Score: 1

    Liked the original, looking forward to the new one.
    The memorable thing about the originat is that BIT (BInary digiT) was really TIT (TrInary digiT). It had a YES state a NO state and a REST state.

    --
    There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
    1. Re:TIT by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      Except the binary aspect was only due to the answers BIT could give, not its state.

      It could only answer yes or no, which makes it binary. If it could also answer Maybe So, then it could be called TIT.

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  64. {h,cr}acking by Tetsujin · · Score: 1

    It actually has some of the most realistic representations of hacking and hackers in any movie ever.

    Cue the "It's not hacking, it's cracking" lunacy in 5 ...4 ... 3 ...

    Well, admittedly that's a battle that was decisively lost decades ago - but I do think it's a legitimate complaint. A very good bit of terminology for describing what computer hobbyists do has been effectively redefined...

    --
    Bow-ties are cool.
  65. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

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  66. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

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  67. Hackers: The Motion Picture by Tetsujin · · Score: 1

    Of course I also like that "Would You Like to Play A Game?" movie so maybe my taste's just bad. (shrug) Reminds me of my youth.

    I propose a new flame war: War Games vs. Hackers. I'm firmly in the War Games camp and find Hackers to be an unintentional comedy.

    I just watched Hackers the other day, actually... It was hard to look past some of the more dated elements of the movie, along with the more retarded characterizations of the "hacker" cliche... But it was fun.

    The description of Kate's computer is pure comedy these days, of course. Active matrix screen capable of a million colors, a 28.8 BPS modem (yes, not kbps, just "bps". I had to rewind to make sure I heard 'em right)... Oh, and she has the Pentium.

    Of all the unrealistic things in that film, I think the most unrealistic is the fact that the protagonists are apparently in the clear at the end of the movie. They were hacking into some corporate server to steal data... And it did turn out that this data was crucially important in catching "the real bad guy" - but even so, Ellingson's not just going to let it go, right? Or what about the facilities Cereal used to broadcast that message? Or the traffic accidents caused by the traffic signal hack that they used to stay ahead of the cops? Even if they caught the bad guy and saved the environment, what they were doing was vigilantism, and since it was known they were mucking around in that server would also tend to call into question the validity of any data retrieved from the machine by forensics afterward... Just one more aspect of the film that doesn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny. :)

    --
    Bow-ties are cool.
  68. Awesomely Great Graphics by NEW22 · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I have no idea how someone can say the graphics in TRON were bad by any measure. To me, the graphics were totally innovative, and we'll never see a movie that looks like that again. Why go to all of the trouble to do it that way when you can use all of modern CGI much easier now? By no means am I an "older is better" person, but there is some cool magic that gets lost here and there (and magic gained elsewhere as we develop new techniques). For example, no skeletons have ever looked cooler to me than those in movies like The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, or Jason and the Argonauts. The Jim Henson style puppet creatures in movies like "The Dark Crystal" have a certain charm for me as well. I even have a slight preference for the grittier look of original trilogy Star Wars props. That's not to say that I dislike modern CGI though, a lot of cool things have been done with it.

  69. Price by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Either Netflix pulled them or had all the discs stolen. Used copies are now $79 on Amazon, new copies are $183 (that's almost double what it was when I checked a week or two ago). So you can see why even if Netflix used to have copies, they would not any longer...

    Even if you assumed everyone was honest since you cannot buy new copies Netflix has no means to replace truly lost or damaged discs.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Price by Thing+1 · · Score: 1

      Boy, is Disney stupid: the torrents have it. If that's the only way people can get it, then Disney doesn't get any money. But, they get lawsuit targets, so perhaps they're smarter.

      --
      I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
  70. Re:I could never manage the suspension of disbelie by yurtinus · · Score: 1

    ...and yet your sig references a future world with genetic memory, clairvoyance - and we won't even start on the bene gesserit. Oddly enough, Tron really didn't try to describe much of the computer world, it was just there and the users really had no clue about it. It absolutely has it's faults and in my opinion is by no means a great (maybe not even good?) movie, but over-explaining was not a problem.

    I think if your suspension of disbelief is that challenging, may be best to stick with documentaries? With your caveats about The Matrix and Terminator, it sounds like you're trying to make any movie that takes place in "reality" into a potential documentary...

    --
    +1 Disagree
  71. I have the original, by donberryman · · Score: 1

    on Beta!

  72. Old Tron game by zAPPzAPP · · Score: 1

    Alright, we're on the Tron topic now, so maybe someone can help me out.
    I had this awesome Tron game back in the days on my Amiga500. You and an A.I. player are facing each other off in a box shaped arena made out of big plates on both the walls behind each player and the ground. In between the players there's a gap in the ground. You fight your opponents by throwing a discus over to there side and try to hit a plate behind them. If you do, you can destroy that plate and with it, a plate in the ground will disappear too.
    The goal is to get your opponent drop down, by destroying the floor under his feet.
    You have to use the force of the discus flying towards you and let it bounce back in a good angle, so it would gain speed and power. The faster it goes, the more it pushes you back when deflecting it, so you can get pushed into a hole behind you if you are not careful.
    Overall a very nice and fast paced game. There was a tournament mode and the A.I. was pretty challenging.

    But I don't know the original title of that game and I can't seem to find it nowadays. Anyone knows the name?

    1. Re:Old Tron game by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

      I suspect this game was simply called Disc.

      End of line...

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  73. Re:Inside Tron? Really? Digital Gay Porn? by geekoid · · Score: 1

    close. It was designed to check all IOs, including the MCP.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  74. must agree by hardboiled.tequila · · Score: 1

    I absolutely love 80s-era Cray-level CGI - TRON, Last Starfighter etc. Like you say, it takes me back.

    Perhaps it's because the graphics are nowhere near the uncanny valley? And because of that, they can be viewed as art, instead of ultra-realism?

  75. TRON rule(d) by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 1

    I haven't seen TRON since 1983, but I recall that awesome 'yellow landscape' with that 'hovering/monorail' craft. I got goosebumps at the time,,, Hmmmm. I gues that I will have to wait to see the re-mastered copy which will come out in March. Apparently, the studio didn't want to re-release TRON just before TRON2 because they where afraid people would realize their memories would serve them better than seing the film again. I know I have only fabulous graphics in my head, albeit from 1983.

    Can youth today understand that some believed that the Pixxar lamps (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA-gQcy9JKU) were made by real lamps. In the seventies, computer graphics was like xxx, hard to get but very interesting. A book I have, "Procedural Elements for Computer Graphics" from 1985 contains several photorealistic computer images, but they are images not feature films. They must have had an awful trade-off in photorealistism and CPU time available.

    TRON rule(d)

  76. awesomely good ideas by freeze128 · · Score: 1

    Wouldn't it be great if Jet Bradley from Tron 2.0 and Sam Flynn from Tron Legacy got together in a video game sequel to Tron 2.0?

  77. metrix007 got PLAYED. He played himself. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    metrix007 is pissed about this http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1888084&cid=34462614 where he blundered on hosts files. metrix007 got played. He played himself.

  78. metrix007 got PLAYED. He played himself. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    metrix007 is pissed about this http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1888084&cid=34462614 where he blundered on hosts files. metrix007 got played. He played himself badly due to his skimming.

  79. metrix007 got PLAYED. He played himself by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    metrix007 is pissed about this http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1888084&cid=34462614 where he blundered on hosts files. metrix007 got played. He played himself badly due to his skimming. Still calling others names too I see metrix007.

  80. Re:Inside Tron? Really? Digital Gay Porn? by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

    According to Tron, his user was Alan1 (most likely because some smug fucker in Accounting managed to get the user name Alan before he could grab it. Granted, that never gets revealed or even hinted at, but it is a logical deduction.)

    End of line...

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  81. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

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