Independent filmmaker Steven Lisberger, enchanted by recent advancements in computer imaging and the burgeoning video-game industry, sought to create a full-length animated feature utilizing a combination of light-on-black backlit animation and computer graphics. Setting up shop in California in 1977, his studio produced the popular 1980 television special Animalympics, the profits from which went toward the scripting and screenwriting of his work in progress, titled TRON. Meanwhile, following a failed attempt to jump on the Star Wars bandwagon with 1979’s The Black Hole, Walt Disney Productions’ adventurous president, Ron Miller, was looking for the next big thing to capture the imaginations of a young sci-fi-enamored audience. When Lisberger approached the studio in 1980, TRON’s mix of fantasy-adventure and arcade culture seemed like the perfect match.
The film tells the story of a young software engineering and arcade owner Kevin Flynn (a constantly bemused Jeff Bridges,) who seeks proof that some of his video game designs were stolen by a competing engineer at the ENCOM corporation, Ed Dillinger (ever-reliable bastard David Warner.) He’s aided by his ex-girlfriend, Dr. Lora Baines (Cindy Morgan) and her current beau, Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner,) who help him hack into ENCOM’s computer mainframe, a sinister artificial intelligence called the Master Control Program. The MCP, however, utilizes an experimental digitizing laser (which is oddly pointed straight at a computer terminal) to scan Flynn into a digital avatar, zapping him into a dangerous computer world known as The Grid. There, Flynn joins Alan’s security program, TRON (also played by Boxleitner, sans spectacles,) in his quest to free his fellow enslaved Programs from the MCP and bring peace and freedom back to the system.
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| There's so much early '80s going on here, my head may explode |
The film tells the story of a young software engineering and arcade owner Kevin Flynn (a constantly bemused Jeff Bridges,) who seeks proof that some of his video game designs were stolen by a competing engineer at the ENCOM corporation, Ed Dillinger (ever-reliable bastard David Warner.) He’s aided by his ex-girlfriend, Dr. Lora Baines (Cindy Morgan) and her current beau, Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner,) who help him hack into ENCOM’s computer mainframe, a sinister artificial intelligence called the Master Control Program. The MCP, however, utilizes an experimental digitizing laser (which is oddly pointed straight at a computer terminal) to scan Flynn into a digital avatar, zapping him into a dangerous computer world known as The Grid. There, Flynn joins Alan’s security program, TRON (also played by Boxleitner, sans spectacles,) in his quest to free his fellow enslaved Programs from the MCP and bring peace and freedom back to the system.
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| The MCP does not approve of the YMCA dance... |
Even for those familiar with the film, one thing becomes clear while watching: this is a truly strange movie. The entire concept of being sucked into a computer is weird enough, but then when you make the adventure inside the digital world a religious allegory, that’s a whole other level of bizarre. To the anthropomorphized Programs, the humans who wrote them (dubbed Users) are like Gods. The Master Control Program rules the Grid like a Roman emperor, enslaving those who believe in the Users and forcing them to participate in video games to survive, like the gladiators of antiquity. A fairly straight-forward parable is made difficult to follow, however, by characters who spout off technobabble instead of normal dialogue – some of it cute (“Who does he calculate he is?”), some of it confusing (“Vacate entry port, program! I said, move out!”). And when one is blinded by the special effects and strange look of the film, it’s easy to lose the thread of the plotline. TRON is odd for a science-fiction adventure in that the story starts to make a lot more sense after several viewings; unfortunately, not many seem to want to view the film more than once.
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| Praying at the altar of Wham-O |
Hey, their loss. I won’t lie about it - this movie’s ridiculous, and I love it. When I was a kid, even as special effects were becoming more and more realistic, I was mesmerized by the truly unique look of TRON’s world. There’s something strangely awe-inspiring about the purity of the now-primitive computer graphics; as if we’re being shown what a world as constructed by computers would actually look like, rather than a computer’s attempt to copy reality (which is what special effects do now.) The funny thing is that there are actually not a whole lot of computer-generated effects in TRON. The look of the computer world was achieved by shooting the actors (in their silly unitards) on all-black sets, with black-and-white film, and using photographic effects and manual mattes to combine the live-footage with hand done back-light animation. This unique (and extremely time-consuming) process guaranteed that TRON looked like no other film before - or since.
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| Sheer poetry... |
Even the film’s music sounds like it came from a realm of digital fantasy. Wendy Carlos, who brought classical music to keyboard enthusiasts with her popular 1968 album Switched-On Bach, creates electronic music that sounds like a pulpy 1930s action-serial processed through a synthesizer. Her “TRON Theme,” played in its entirety over the film’s end credits, is memorable for its seamless blend of synthesizer, pipe organ and chorus. Not only that, but we’re also treated to a pair of awesome songs by Journey! Well, we really only get the song “Only Solutions” repeated several times, as their guitar instrumental “1990’s Theme” is inaudible in a single scene (thankfully.)
I have to hand it to the cast of the film, who potentially could’ve disappeared completely into the visuals, but instead create fairly memorable characters. Jeff Bridges always plays variations on Jeff Bridges, and it’s put to good use here as the youthfully glib computer whiz. He plays well off of the steely seriousness of Boxleitner’s TRON, who comes alive when he is able to contact his messianic User, or when he’s battling other video-warriors with his power-disc skills (in other words, he’s rad with a Frisbee.) Cindy Williams (who naturally receives the tightest unitard in the cast) downplays her Program character, YORI, more than her human Dr. Baines; yet her big, expressive eyes make the character come across as ethereal, rather than mousy. Veteran character-actor Barnard Hughes, who plays both the human Dr. Walter Gibbs and the Program DUMONT, brings some much-needed warmth and humanity to both the real and computer worlds – though he gets the silliest costume of all as the guardian of a cathedral-like Input/output tower, where Programs commune with their Users.
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| Is your dance belt riding up too? |
I have to hand it to the cast of the film, who potentially could’ve disappeared completely into the visuals, but instead create fairly memorable characters. Jeff Bridges always plays variations on Jeff Bridges, and it’s put to good use here as the youthfully glib computer whiz. He plays well off of the steely seriousness of Boxleitner’s TRON, who comes alive when he is able to contact his messianic User, or when he’s battling other video-warriors with his power-disc skills (in other words, he’s rad with a Frisbee.) Cindy Williams (who naturally receives the tightest unitard in the cast) downplays her Program character, YORI, more than her human Dr. Baines; yet her big, expressive eyes make the character come across as ethereal, rather than mousy. Veteran character-actor Barnard Hughes, who plays both the human Dr. Walter Gibbs and the Program DUMONT, brings some much-needed warmth and humanity to both the real and computer worlds – though he gets the silliest costume of all as the guardian of a cathedral-like Input/output tower, where Programs commune with their Users.
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| Why do I have to act inside a giant toilet? I was in Midnight Cowboy, dammit! |
Released to so-so reviews and modest financial returns, TRON was not the blockbuster Disney hoped for, nor was it the box-office disaster some would later claim (or assume) it was. Most every critical appraisal agreed that the film was visually stunning, but the story uninspired. Yet as time passed, and other movies released around the same time were forgotten by the general public (including some that were more financially successful,) TRON simply refused to disappear completely from the pop-culture radar. Amongst young animators at Disney (and elsewhere,) including John Lasseter and others who would go on to form Pixar, it opened up new vistas of artistic expression through technology. More than a dated curio, the film slowly built up a large cult following amongst science-fiction fans, gamers, hackers and even a few impressionable young Disney fans. Watching the movie on TV during one of The Disney Channel’s week-long free previews, thrilling to the adventures of Flynn and TRON from my seat on the living room rug, the seven-year-old me knew he was experiencing something singular and unique. He also wouldn’t have believed that twenty years later something extraordinary would happen … a miracle.
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