= 3 stars

Starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxlietner, David Warner
Directed by Robert Lisberger

Amazon link

As a kid, I was obsessed with Tron. I remember absolutely having to see it, and my parents bought me the book Art of Tron. While other kids clamored for Rocky III I wanted to see computer nerds hacking into a corporate system populated by guys in spandex throwing Frisbees. Today, I live in the Bay Area.

To revisit Tron was a treat. The digital format of DVD does the digital graphics of the computer world justice. Plot-wise, it’s pleasant surprise to realize the real world has caught up to Tron. It’s no longer obscure to feature hackers, video games, and cubicle dwellers. Much of the computer terminology is mainstream: bits, power surges, RAM, disks, and users. Many plot points are more understandable to audiences post-1982: Star programmer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) has his “intellectual property” (video game programs) stolen by Dillinger (David Warner). Encom, the giant monolithic corporation, home of the MCP clamping down on a free network, parallels the now-destroyed Enron, trader of energy.

These two plot threads add a weight to Tron that went over my head as a kid, and likely much of the mainstream audience of the time. But the vision is still sound: the persistent struggle in the tech world between those who want to control everything centrally and those that believe in free, open paradigms. It’s a subject much too large to get into here, one with endless lists of companies (Microsoft, Linux) and acronyms (DRM, HTML). Some believe computing power should be used to control, to know everything that’s going on all the time, either for power or money. Others believe things should be free, Utopian, shared, and democratized, because the only way to keep power in check is to give it to everyone.

Thankfully, Tron doesn’t look terribly dated. The live action sequences are devoid of many trappings of early eighties, save one kid in a too tight tennis outfit. When Alan (Bruce Boxleitner) makes his first appearance in big, ovoid glasses, he may as well be in a Wes Anderson movie. Alo, 75% of Tron takes place in an expertly rendered electronic world, which is a tour de-force of computer graphics, animation, avant-garde film, and special effects. Many designs were by illustrator Syd Mead (Blade Runner, 2010) and Moebius, a European comic book artist. Their designs inspired the light cycles, recognizers, tanks, and general costumers of the various characters. Like logo design, each is distinctive yet simple enough to be animated by the primitive computer graphics of the time.

I found it interesting that the computer graphics sequences were ultimately easier to produce than the composited, live actors in the cyber world. Since computer graphics weren’t advanced enough to produce organic images, it was decided to let them be, and much more effort was spent making the live actors match the computer graphics. The actors wore white costumes covered with black lines which were then painstakingly isolated, back lit, and composited - cel-animation-style - into the computerized environments.

Still, Tron isn’t without flaws. The ridiculous plot element of Flynn being sucked into the computer could have been eliminated. Maybe it would be more logical to have Flynn write programs and seeing their equivalents (Jeff Bridges) in the electronic world. Perhaps I think this because Flynn doesn’t seem all that disturbed to be trapped within a computer. Bruce Boxleitner, who plays Tron, the savior of the computer world, never seems enthused by this role. Maybe he and Bridges should have traded places?

But all in all, Tron is still a hoot, if only a look at how far computer graphics and technology in general have come. Today, completely virtual worlds are now presented in films as reality, and computer animation has left traditional, hand drawn animation in the dust toward creating fantasy. Tron remains a great example of how technology can be used to render a world that only exists in one’s imagination. It was forward-reaching - in both art, and an audience to which computer technology was commonplace. While the latter didn’t exist at the time, it does now. End of line.

IMDB: Tron
Wikipedia: Tron
Rotten Tomatoes: Tron 75%

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