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TRON review
Right now at CINEMA SOUNDS.COM, you can listen via REAL AUDIO to the TRON soundtrack from the original LP! Check it out. I am.
Every now and again I realize that I really do have a
cool sister. I’m quite thankful for this, because... well
she could be one of them preppy BARBIE loving
teens that rebel against all the coolness that I hold
dear... BUT.... She isn’t.
This was a big weekend for her. We were throwing a
party to celebrate her Graduation from High School
as well as her 18th Birthday. I called her up and
asked her... What movies she wanted screened during
the party and she chose.... TRON and THE
ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD.
Too.... Cool...
You know, it made my heart warm. Here is a now
adult female that I helped raise who is so
completely... in the cool it’s not even funny. For
example... What did we buy her for her
Birthday/Graduation? A Volkswagon Bug (69 of
course), that cool new MacFarlane MEDUSA toy, a
ton of chick action figures, that Nightmare Before
Christmas Snowglobe, a Circus Freaks lunch pail
(which she’ll use as a purse) and a Basil Wolverton
ARTY sculpture. One friend got her a Skull bank,
another picked her up a book on the history of Female
Murderers (she’s into criminal psychology btw).
But... this isn’t a piece on my sister, but rather on
TRON. And I’ll also be writing up a separate review
of THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD.
I remember when I was a kid, before I bloated out
into my current form of existence, that I was
transformed by TRON.
The movie is simply one of those movies that... felt
like a religious experience for me. You see, I had
grown up with those old 1930’s Warner Bros and
Fleischer cartoons that often times took place at a
magazine stand or a toy shop or in a book store....
and all the characters would come to life after the
clock hit midnight, and they would have some sort of
adventure.
So as a kid, I had the thinnest grasp of reality
possible. I kept wanting to believe that all my toys
had personalities. That the characters in my
magazines came to life and interacted whilst I was
asleep.
At the same time, at my elementary school (ROBERT
E LEE ELEMENTARY here in Austin) we were just
beginning to have the first computers and computer
classes. We were busy writing BASIC programs.
Things like....
10 PRINT “Harry is God”
20 GOTO 10
And then the screen would be filled with HARRY IS
GOD.... or if you happened to be RYLAN or JOSH
or JEFF or NIGEL or KIELAH... well you too could
be GOD.
I remember thinking the computer was fun, but really
quite useless. It didn’t really do anything. You had
to program everything into it. But then I saw
TRON...
And suddenly I realized that the little 10 print and 20
goto program I wrote could live inside the computer
world. And that there was this little Harry with all
this cool neony designed armor and he could be in a
light cycle, or could have his little disc... and that he
was trying to fight to reach me... THE USER.
Ok, now that was only the first night’s worth of
thought about TRON. But the next day, I began
thinking about those Light Cycles, and that cool
Dragonfly ship that rode on that laser or whatever it
was. I’d never seen images like that before. And I
asked my father... What they were. He said it was
COMPUTER ANIMATION.
I thought I had a grasp on what animation was by that
point in my life. I was well familiar with how Stop
Motion and traditional Cel animation was done. I
knew the giants in the field. But.... what was this....
Computer Animation?
Dad picked me up the latest magazines on it. I began
relating it to Space Invaders and Gunfight and
PacMan. I picked up on it in STAR TREK II... and
ya know... It fascinated me.
I animated a stick figure. It took weeks to type in all
those damn POKE statements. And at the end of it
all.... Well... it just didn’t look like a light cycle. SO
it frustrated me. Of course that didn’t stop me. I
went from my TRS 80 to my SUPER PET to a
COMMODORE 64 all the way on up to the APPLE
2e in School.
Computers fascinated me. And it began with TRON.
So... Last night as I watched my print in 16mm and
marveled at the fantastic colors... I realized that these
effects were PERFECT for this movie. At no point
does it not seem perfect for this universe in this story.
Out back... we had a lot of folks, and during the reel
changes we would talk about the significance of
TRON.... A couple of people saying how this film is
much better than THE PHANTOM MENACE... and
then I said, “I love TRON as much, if not more than,
EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.”
You would have thought I had just confessed to
raping their mothers. But ya see. As utterly cool as
EMPIRE STRIKES BACK was for me. Sure it’s
narrative is stronger than TRON’s. Sure the beauty
of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and the emotion of it
being Star Warsy is awesome. BUT TRON
introduced me to computers. It made me fall in love
with this medium that I am now a part of.
It’s part film, part computer. It was about writing on
computers. And when I saw WARGAMES... well
that was the missing piece that doomed me to
computers for life.
Some smart ass started taking pot shots at BRUCE
BOXLEITNER... saying, “Boxleitner was robbed at
Oscar time!” Of course they were saying it with the
maximum sarcasm. I jumped to his defense. He’s
not playing a HUMAN, he’s playing a computer
program who has a singular purpose... TAKE DOWN
THE MCP... He struggles with his emotions and
desires beyond that, but nothing can distract him from
his task at hand. He has someone he loves, but...
when he gets separated from her... he doesn’t go after
her... he goes after the MCP. It’s simple and perfect.
And ya know... Jeff Bridges was AWESOME in this
film. I loved his character. It’s the reason why I’d
love to see him and Terry Gilliam team up on THE
DEFECTIVE DETECTIVE.... Similar role with a
harder edge. But his FLYNN.... well FLYNN really
is a wonderful computer hacker character.
Then people started in on the whole MATRIX is
better than TRON rap, and I started wanting to hurt
people. I love MATRIX... I’ve seen it... maybe 5
times thus far (seen Phantom Menace 4 so far), but
TRON kicks Matrix’s ass. Tron would have opened
up a bottle of whupass on Neo.
First off... That little disc of Tron’s is just so much
cooler than a buncha stupid guns (albeit the guns in
Matrix are very cool). See... I’ve seen guns in about
a bazillion action films. But I’ve only seen that
badass Disc of Tron in TRON! And ya know... I’ve
been waiting for some sort of badass superhero movie
with energy weapons coming out of hands, and bolts
of power.... ARGH.... Enough with the gun stuff....
Seen it... done it.... move on.
Ya see... It’s why Light Sabres are so damn cool. We
don’t got those in every movie. I mean.... when NEO
is going after Fishburne he’s supposed to like be able
to request whatever the hell he wants to go after
him... and he thinks up.... GUNS? I mean... they are
currently moving around in a universe with tenticled
sperm shaped machines dogging them everywhere...
and all Neo in his little world can think of is...
GUNS?
Give me any number of things I’ve read about in Sci
Fi magazines. I mean... hell bullets don’t exist,
neither does anything else, so if it’s all in a land of
make believe.... Make believe better than the bad
guys.... Right?
Not that this is a major fault with MATRIX. I still
love the movie, but not as much as I love TRON.
Meanwhile, the conversations quickly turned to the
rumored DISNEY exploration of a TRON sequel.
And we all agreed on a couple of things.
We don’t want to see the advancements of digital
effects in the TRON universe. Instead... What you
have to look at is.... In TRON, the programs have the
souls of the writer (singular) that created the program.
Well.... in the modern day... No one writer creates
hardly anything. Instead... you have entire teams of
people working on programs. So... you would have
schizophrenic programs... OR.... entire teams of
people that all serve a single purpose have to exist.
You wouldn’t have TRON the singular person...
instead you would have teams of people that would
have the shared goal. They wouldn’t have internal
strifes.... or disagreements... they are programed to
work together to do... whatever it is they do.
There’s a lot of conceptual fun that can be had in
TRON 2000 or 2001. But... the look and feel of the
universe established in the original film is still every
bit as effective today as it was back in the day it was
created in.
God I love this movie. Why the hell does the score
not exist on CD? I mean... that score is cool as hell,
where is it? I want it. I want to put it in my computer
and listen to it for HOURS... I mean.... I have the
main themes trapped in my head, but... I want them
guys at FILM SCORE MONTHLY to produce this
score. It’s a winner. Man.... Come on... Somebody
make this score a reality!
Sigh.... So... what do you people think of TRON?
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It is my all-time favorite movie. It's an experience, a dream, a ride. The sets and music are unmatched. The sound effects are haunting and the costumes are incredible. I love this film and it is better than Brazil, The Matrix, and all those other visual films that have substance and entertainment value.
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remember the one where there was like 6 mini games a car wall chase, tank battle, and something with spiders. I loved that game. I just recently rented the movie, and yeah it was good but a lot was missing. It was better than the Matrix. I loved the Tron theme music.
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Tron is a classic picture. Saw it in the theater when I was 6. Got the laserdisc box set a couple years ago. Very interesting supplemental material. But I must say, the movie itself was easily thwarted by the Balley game, Tron. Discs of Tron, particularly the standup was also great. Whenever I go to Pleasure Island, I take the opportunity to go into Disney Quest's Replay Station and pop a few credits into the Tron game. Still can't get past Fortran, though.
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I love TRON. This movie stands up so well with the movies of today it's not even funny. I saw a DVD copy of TRON at my video store, I need to rent that sucker. As for the MATRIX, the guns were cool, but man, I'd be shooting laser-beams out of my eyes, stopping time with a snap of fingers. I'd generally be kicking some ass. But I digress, TRON is a very cool movie and it will always be one.
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I love TRON. This movie stands up so well with the movies of today it's not even funny. I saw a DVD copy of TRON at my video store, I need to rent that sucker. As for the MATRIX, the guns were cool, but man, I'd be shooting laser-beams out of my eyes, stopping time with a snap of fingers. I'd generally be kicking some ass. But I digress, TRON is a very cool movie and it will always be one.
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...better than Empire? I think not. The Empire Strikes Back is maybe the only perfect action/adventure movie ever made (along with Raiders of the Lost Ark). Still, it's cool for sentimental reasons and every time I see it on TV I watch it so I guess it's really good after all.
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When I saw Tron as a kid, it scared the hell out of me!! What if those little dudes got out of my Vic 2o and stared flinging those discs at me while I slept? I still play my Atari 2600 version of Tron Deadly Discs. It's one of those shows you always remember with fondness.
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when it came out and I love TRON now. The movie was consider a flop, over the heads of most folk - it was just a head of it's time. It needs no remake. It needs no sequel - just a release. And watching the credits, I learned the music was by that great pioneer of electronic music, Wendy Carlos. Until I read the credits the first time, I had know her as Walter. What brave new world this, to have such wonders.
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The Matrix covered a million bases, but it didn't cover them all. I guess the people in the game didn't get a chance to think of stuff like that, or want to. Maybe the Matrix wasn't programmed with those things, since it needed to exist as a real world to dupe everyone. You can have guys running through NYC with lightsabers, can you? I think the sequels will offer a lot more oppurtunity for exploration, as will the Harlan Ellison novel. You can see my rather large review of the Matrix at www.thespotlight.cx, btw...but sans all it's cool pictures, unfortunetly. I think I still perfer that movie.
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Sure Tron is cool. However, i won't so far as to compare it's "cool" size to movies like Star Wars or The Matrix. I hated Flynn. His character was a big flaw to me. Tron himself was a total badass. Had the movie have had a better real world character then maybe I would have liked it better. However the movie is cool in a way that it cannot be touched: light frigging cycles!!! No motorcyle or personal vehicle in the history or fact or fiction can touch the coolness factor on these babies. So much so that the other vehicles in the film pale in comparison. No X-Wing, no Nebachanezzar, no KIT, no anything can touch how much I want a light cycle.
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I've always liked TRON.
There's no other movie
like it. I like movies
like that. Movies that
have there own feeling.
Like Star Wars, Grease.
Blade Runner, 2001.
The music the effects
unmistakably TRON.
TRON is magic. It brings
me back to 1982. It reminds
me of childhood. It's so
of it's time. It has that
early 80's video game
feeling. Like coming home
from school and staring at your Atari VCS on the table near your
TV. Putting it on and playing
combat. Then when you're done
you'd flip thru the TV and
the TRON preview would come on.
WOW! A guy gets trapped in
a video game! The music! Damn
i love that music! I have
the entire sountrack on MP3.
I'm gonna transfer it to
CDR. So i can hear it on
my stereo. The music is
like some left over Emerson
Lake and Palmer tracks.
I thought i was alone in
liking this film. I'm
glad you like it Harry.
You got good taste.
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You know, I'm one of those children of the eighties, and TRON happens to be one of those films I most closely associate with that decade. Despite the fact that I'm not a big fan of the movie--in fact I would even say that I really don't like it at all--I will say that it is one of those movies that you will never forget once you see it, simply because it is so visually different from anything else that has ever been made. Like Harry said, those blue disc things are only in TRON. The vision for this film is unprecedented. Too bad it doesn't have the substance to match it.
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TRON is a really cool movie!
Definitely better than MATRIX!
One question though; Wasn -
There's a pretty decent reason that The Matrix has guns rather than something more imaginative. The thinking behind it starts with trying to get all of the coolness of the action genre into one film. Anyone who's every played the game Shadowfist will know exactly what I'm talking about--the whole idea is to take the coolest things you've seen before, and put them all together. Certainly, there's reason to wish they had allowed more innovative weapons, but there's definitely something positive about retaining the forms of earlier cool action. It gives you more context to appreciate what people are doing. You're seeing familiar sorts of things, but taken well over the top allowed by credibility in a more 'real' universe. It's a very different thing from the totally alien world of computers in TRON. Which I also support--always loved TRON, but I get the sense that the new things in The Matrix were there simply so you could accept seeing all of the freaky kung fu and gunplay.
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I had the great opportunity to see Tron on the big screen last month at the Ebert film fest with both the writer/director and David Warner in attendance. One thing I found disenchanting about seeing this film again was the way a lot of people in the packed theater were kinda cracking on the film and the costumes. No one seems to get all the religious symbolism in the film (DavidvGoliath, good programs representing Jews and Christians and the evil programs representing Romans, etc.) To comment on the disc thing, the writer said that he wanted to make an action film that didn't have a single gun in it. Everything in the movie worked for me, in an odd way. Something about it rang true. But you have to be a certain age to like TRON, I suppose. I am 21 and I found the patrons who were younger than me seemed to crack a lot on the film. This might be also because a lot of the audience were the trendy UoI students who went as far as cracking on the fact the movie had a soundtrack available(?!Whadafuh?!). I noticed a lot of the people who are my age or even a few years older really dig the film. As a final note, the writer and director of the film "Steve Lindsberger"(sp?) had a nice anecdote on when they screen the movie for several different studio heads. As the story goes, at the end of the screening, a head of one of one of the studios approached him and said, "That Steven Spielburg is a genius!"... :)
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Just in case anyone wants to get as close as is humanly possible to being inside the world of TRON, the huge VIDEOTOPIA exhibit of videogame history is over at the Maryland Science Center in Baltimore and has over 130 fully restored and new arcade videogames... everything from the first ever, right on thru all the classics (including BOTH TRON games) to new stuff... amazing. You can see some of it at http://www.videotopia.com but you have to go to the exhibit to play them all!
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If Star Wars is my first love, TRON has to be my second. The fact that these guys put together a movie based around a computer universe, used the CG of the time that extensively, and filled in the rest with one of the biggest optical compositing jobs in history makes TRON one of the greatest technical feats in movie history. In fact, something that many of you may not know is that TRON was the last feature film to be shot in 70mm until Kenneth Branugh's HAMLET. Perhaps why I love TRON is because I can enjoy it without feeling guilty about it. That's what THE MATRIX misses for me. A movie like THE MATRIX doesn't touch TRON just as far as the level of pure enjoyment and fun. It's too busy trying to look cool. TRON DOES DESERVE A SEQUEL!!! If there ever was a right time for it, it is now. I think a summer we could all dream about is one that featured SW:Episode II and TRON 2.0!
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Saw that one when I was 13 the same summer that Wrath of Khan came out. Man that was a cool summer even though my dog died.
Iremember my brother had the Tron action figure the one that came with a light cycle that you rev by pulling a cord through the rear wheel. That thing crashed so many times I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. -
As part of the movie going experience, hoarding Soundtracks is a hobby of mine. Some soundtracks aren't available commercially, but some appear as special releases, demo versions (released by the composer) or bootlegs. For instance, I have a cd-copy of the original Dark Crystal master recording and that of Dune. Anyway, though I don't own it, I can remember that someone had a copy of the music on cd. How he got it I don't know, but I do think it is out there.
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How can I ever forget the Masterpiece that was Tron.
I think Harry should start a campaign to the movie studio to re-release it in theatres. That would be awesome. Anyone know how we can get a revival campaign going ? -
There was a sequel to Tron! It was in one of the Simpson's "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween trilogies. Homer gets sucked into a computerized void! Hell, he even likens it to that movie "Tron" (which every other major character confesses to never seeing). But in all seriousness, I saw Tron in the movies when I was 10 and they played several of the reels out of order so it never quite made sense. But at least the see-thru plastic figures and ripcord lightcycles were badass!
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I didn't enjoy Tron as much as everyone else. I recall those Syd Mead designed cycles..and oh yeah, what ever happened to the girl in that movie? I had a crush on her for a few weeks.
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I vaguely remember seeing TRON back when I was still in short pants. I do remember being overwhelmed by it, which is probably why I'm such a geek now. Guess I'll have to rent it this weekend! Good Job Harry on focusing on such a classic! El Guapo Out!
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Hey Harry, what about Xanadu? Cool song, great acting and hey, Gene Kelly, too! Wait a minute...What am I saying, for Christ's sake? Nevermind.
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Alright good to see a TRON review. This is definetly one of my faves..I forgot about it for a long time then found a site of it by accident and went out and took a risk if I still would like if or if it was just one of those movies that I liked as a kid only. I bought the Laserdisc boxed set and ..brillant! Some of the visuals in it are better than any movie done even ones like the matrix. Which is the most unoriginal movie ever..though fun! Anyway you cant get the soundtrack on CD unless its pirate. I managed to get the soundtrack on LP at a record fair for $20 and im really happy with it..except for that crappy journey song! And it fits next to the A clockwork orange soundtrack VERY VERY well! (hmm I wonder why..)
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Amazingly enough, I've been doing my own searches for the TRON soundtrack myself. Couldn't find it anywhere. And the music is just plain haunting.
Somebody, PLEASE, release this soundtrack. You have at least two guaranteed sales! -
The Tron soundtrack did come out
on LP and cassette when the movie
was first released. I still have
the LP. The cassette tape used
was poor quality and so there are
not many playable original
cassettes in the world (I also
have a 2nd generation copy of an
original cassette that sounds much
better than the LP).
Currently, there are two tracks
from the soundtrack that are out
on CD. The ending credits theme
is on a CD that the Sci Fic
channel has just put out (can't think of the name right now, check their www site for it) and the
Journey song 'Only Solutions' is
on Journey's Time^3 3CD set.
Wendy Carlos has recently been able to restore the original tapes
of the soundtrack and is in the process of working out a deal to release the music on CD. How long
this woule take I have no idea.
You can watch her www site for
details and updates
(www.wendycarlos.com)
There are lots of Tron WWW sites,
chat groups etc. on the WWW and
sometimes you can find someone
willing to make you a copy of theirs for a small fee. Check
ebay too. -
I love the movie TRON. The first DVD I bought was DARK CITY, the second, TRON. I love the effects. The contrast of the perfect straight lines in the computer with the bumpiness, for lack of a better word, of the real world always worked for me. One thing I've also always loved is the children of TRON. Though TRON owes much to back sources, many things, from THE MATRIX, which is as thought-provoking for me in my twenties as TRON was when I was a kid, to the fabulous REBOOT TV series must pay proper respect to TRON. And oh yeah, sign me up as another buyer for the potential soundtrack CD. I've been wanting one of those for years.
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I have a very similar history to what Harry was explaining (computer growth) and I remember Tron looked mediocre to my young eyes back then.
When I tried to relive the experience on DVD, I had to struggle to get through it without sleeping.
I wish I could relive my youth like you guys do and look past what was Disney's obvious failed attempt to cash in on the video game craze at the time.
I laughed at all the bad references to "RAM" and whatnot.
I love "The Dude" but I'm afraid Neo would make short work of every 2D character in Tron.
I'm no Star Wars geek but better than Empire Strikes Back! Blasphemy!!!
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I think that this is an example of one's personal attachment to a movie's incidental effect on them bleeding into what was supposed to be an assessment of the film's inherent quality. Try as I might, I can't ignore the fact that Tron is a bad movie. It amounts to a few show-off scenes (light-cycles and the throwing disk games), and then very much walking around, talking contradictory computer-jargon metaphors. The "look" of the colorized characters and visually uninteresting tanks an computer landscape was garish beyond belief. Nope. It wasn't good. You can't argue that it was a flop, but critics liked it, because they didn't... and you can't argue that critics hated it, but a lot of people liked it and saw it, because that also didn't happen. Anyway, now that I've become that which I hate (someone who insists their opinion is the right one), Id better go.
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... I love it dearly, just as I love The Black Hole and Something Wicked This Way Comes... Throw 'The Rocketeer' in there as well. Most folks denegrate the Disney live actioners, and while all the aforementioned are not perfect films, they are entertaining and well executed and, honestly, great pieces of work to anyone with the ability to suspend disbelief for awhile. Thanks, Harry, for giving this deluded putz hope that he isn't some solitary freak digging univerally hated flicks. "Mesa very scared!"
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I first saw Tron on a date with the person who would become my wife of fifteen years. I remember thinking when I left the theater that this movie was way ahead of its time. I watched it again just a week or so ago, and decided that I was right. This movie easily withstands the test of time. It holds up as well today as it did way back when. It is most certainly not a perfect movie (re: those horrid "grid walkers", done in traditional animation, put in after the fact for marketing purposes only), but it doesn't miss by far. The light cycles, the tanks, and the sound track, are all still very watchable. I think that time will continue to judge TRON quite favorably, and it will remain a classic for future generations.
P.S. Harry, as far as spinning disks, does "Xena" ring a bell??? -
I still sleep under my Tron bedspread. nuff said.
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May 31, 1999 10:44:02 AM CDT
re: Cuthbert. I think there was also a Disc of Tron arcade game
by spike lee
I barely remember it but in Disc of Tron it was like one of those walk in photo booths, like the one in Buffalo 66, you stood up in it and had a disc battle with an opponent. Kind of like tennis, in a way? There were some Tron games made for Intellivision and Atari 2600, but I don't really remember what they were about.
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You are correct sir! There were two arcade Tron games, one a combination of 4 games, the other, Disks Of Tron. A few still exist. There is a Disk Of Tron game at a game room nor far from where I live. I've tried to buy it, but unfortunately the owner knows what he's got and refuses to sell. As for Intellivision, there were two games. The first put you inside Tron's world, and your objective was to get to and destroy the MCP. The screen scrolled by from left to right. The second was more action oriented. You controlled a tiny Tron on a single screen, and were attacked by various versions of the bad guys. You threw your disk and tried to stay alive. I still have both of those and pull them out from time to time, just to remember life before Quake and Unreal.
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I, too, was at the Ebert film festival. I live in Grand rapids, Mi. and drove down there just for Tron (ok, so it's not that long a drive). I've seen this movie countless times and haven't seen it on the big screen since it was first released but when I saw it again, well, get this, I love it even more! Seeing with a packed house (I was in the last row of the balcony) was great. Though, I was a little disconcerted that so many people did laugh at things which I never found funny (though that whole "oh, my user" is kinda funny when you think about it). Also, didn't David Warner say something like the reason he wanted this part was becuase it was directed by "Steven Speilberg"? Great film, great festival.
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Too cool, a review of TRON. God this movie has some awesome imagery in it. It also has what alotof movies are missing these days... A bad-ass badguy. Last time I saw it was in '91 when I rented it. What I didn't know was that Wendy Carlos did the score. That is cool. I remember playing the arcade game in '84 I think. It was huge, sort of like a racing arcade, the ones where you sit down in. It had the words "TRON" painted all over the outside. It was all very sleek and cool. Too bad I sucked at it! It was the one where you three the discs.Does anybody remember an arcade game of the same era, where the game was like being inside a disney adventure(only cooler). I think it was called "Dragonslayer" or something... Now that was cool.
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Yeah, I have some *really* fond memories of Tron. Saw it 5 times in the first 6 days of it's release (I was getting married on one of those days)...
It was the first DVD I bought - over a month before I bought a player..
I look at it as revolutionary and setting the stage ahead of it's time.. -
Have any of you seen Reboot? That could easily pass as a continuation of the Tron story idea. I especially love the in-jokes on the show, that was perhaps the only thing that Tron was missing.
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I agree with Harry that one of the most powerful parts of the movie was about the programs having a life of their own. It's ironically similar to the other CGI pioneer 'Toy Story', seemingly lifeless things have a life of their own when you don't look at them. Only, in Tron, they're things you NEVER look at.
Jeff Daniels was in his element as a hyperkinetic loser, but no one else really supported the cast.
I'd say the real strength of the movie was on its visual concepts. The discs, the recognizers (the robots that were all legs), the bits, the light cycles. The power of these things shows because they took on a life far stronger than a movie. The movie defies the comparison Harry made with The Empire Strikes Back. The Star Wars movie were built on a tradition of action serials 50 years old.
Tron was made almost in a vacuum, with no bedrock of tradition to build on. It's almost better to compare Tron to "The Dark Crystal" or "Fantastic Planet". All were movies that created a world where the main characters and the backdrop were all completely alien to any tradition.
Unlike my two other examples, Tron became itself a basis for later movies. The computer worlds set up in "Johnny Mnemonic" and "Lawnmower Man" (my personal vote for Worst Movie Ever) borrowed heavily from the electric lighted landscape of Tron.
If a sequel were made, I'd be curious to see object oriented programming put in as a concept. It's OOP that made programs seem to take on their own life to me.
With objects, you have bits of data TAUGHT HOW TO MANIPULATE THEMSELVES. When I walked away from my first effort at OOP, I found myself trying to shake of a feeling of the willies.
So imagine Tron as a complete being, but under that he's just a thin skin over several elements, each with the potential for limited independance. The audience wouldn't have to understand it to think it was cool, just as they didn't have to understand the Bit from the first movie. -
God, how I love Tron. The LP of Wendy Carlos' sublime score can still be found, and sounds great. The Syd Mead visuals in this movie are still astounding and in their day were on another level entirely. The footage of the actors, matted in optically over the CGI and filmed in black and white with backlit gels, is wonderful in spite of it's crudeness. Some of the dialogue is a hoot: 'prepare the logic probe!' 'Oh, my User. The Users, the Users, the Users.... Are you a User?' David Warner had the coolest desk in this movie. And the shots of the city lights, laid out in glowing grids, seemed to suggest that our real world was becoming like that of the computer world. I love how at the end, the proof of the crimes against Flynn turns out to be a simple hard copy that says 'these ideas were stolen blah blah blah' as if that kind of printout was damning evidence on it's own... Remember the 'grid bugs', the only cel-animated creatures? how about the image of Mickey Mouse that the solar sailer flies over? Enough of my yakking. Watch Tron every year- preferably in widescreen. It's required viewing for a film geek. Ain't it cool?
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Okay kids, some of you probably know this, but here's a trivia question. There are TWO Babylon 5 alumni in Tron. The first one's easy. Who's the second?
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Thank you Harry, for posting the link, and cinemasounds.com for playing the Tron soundtrack on their program without commercial breaks, in it's entirety no less (too cool). I have been looking high and low for this LP for ages. I was excited when Disney released the Tron Special Edition laser-disc because you could pull a few clean songs from the soundtrack without dialogue and effects. Let's hope Wendy can find a distributor so we can get the Tron Soundtrack on CD once and for all.
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hmm. Bruce Boxleitner and Peter Jurassik make the B5 connection, as would David Warner for his role in "Grail". (At the Ebert fest, David make a remark about a tombstone reading "Here lies Tron and Babylon 5." :)) BTW, I was one row from the back of the balcony at the fest (middle section, about 3 seats from my right. So we were probably close to one another...) Tron was the only film I showed up for, but I only had to drive a measly 30 min. from Danville. Ebert made a comment about wanting to do the fest again, and I'd love to see another 'overlooked' film along the lines of TRON make an appearance, preferably non-musical and non-anime animation. If Warners could produce a print of one, I'd like to see either the animated Batman:MotP (very overlooked, IMO), or a (very doubtful) double bill of World's Finest and Bm:SubZero (which, correct me if I am wrong, was supposed to be a late summer '97 screen release anyway...) on the big screen. Hey, we can all dream, right? (Thanks Harry for tuning us into the RA of the Tron STrack. I'll have to put a tape in deck and record.)
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I didn't see TRON until last year, after buying the laserdisc set. Man, had I missed out! What a great movie (and great supplements with the LD set)! Too bad it's gotten a bad rap for being "boring". I was in awe of the visuals, only a tad dated by today's standards. And I agree about The Matrix... GUNS?!? Up to that point, I loved the movie; then it became a mediocre exercise in gun excess, like too many other boring movies.
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Go here -
http://www.moongates.com/Tron/
Once on the Tron site Click on Music. The quality of the MP3's
are awesome. -
I completely agree with the opinion that TRON rocks. I grew up in Livermore, CA where the movie was filmed and have actually been at some of the locations shown in the movie including the laser area and the giant door. That movie helped me get into computers also and I would love to see a sequel (especially if it was fimed in Livermore also). One thought for everyone here: Would people like to see the original actors back in the sequel or a new cast?
One last thing: I agree with Harry that not having the soundtrack on CD is a federal offense. We should all email Disney to get them to release it.
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I loved TRON I wish they would come out with a sequel. I would watch that movie hundreds of times... I remember when they would play it non stop on the Disney Channel..I had all the toys and went to the arcade all the time to play the TRON game!!.. (anybody remember that) TRON wasn't just a movie, it was an experience...I believe TRON started this whole toy, video game, movie thing that we see today..Maybe thats a bad thing but man were those toys and that video game fun as hell! What they need in TRON 2000 is just TRON '80 kicked up a notch...nothing special but lots of old TRON in it!!
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I had the great fortune of watching Tron at the El Capitan in LA just a few weeks ago. The audience was filled with video game programmers left over from the E3 convention. It was too cool. I hadn't seen Tron on the big screen since I was a kid. If you can make it to Hollywood anytime soon, I strongly suggest that you try to see it. I believe that it will be there until the opening of Tarzan later this month.
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I went to see Tron at the El Capitan for its short engagement (very short folks, sorry, when I walked out, they were already taking the sign down) Star Wars was just opening across the street at the Chinese. Seeing it on the screen for the first time was great. The print was beautiful- so sharp and everything really glowed. I can't help but wonder about Disney's marketing guys who must have been in the audience gaging reactions (El Capitan is owned by Disney). Everyone was very enthusiastic. The crowd showed me the humor in parts I hadn't noticed before- lots to do with Tron's naive vision and intentional or not references to drugs and sex. At any rate, the look of the movie is what does it for me. The flickery black and white faces and art deco style really makes me think of Metropolis. I can't imagine a sequel doing anything better- I think they would end up getting caught up in special effects and just lose the look. Simple is better. Leave it Disney.
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Umm, people, you kinda missed the reason why Neo brought the guns into the Matrix and not something "fancier": It isn't easy "making" things happen, even when you know the truth about the Matrix. That was kinda the whole point, as far as I could tell. I mean, yes, he could at some level manipulate the matrix, but he couldn't manipulate it perfectly. Also consider what kind of a precedent it would set ... I mean, the baddies couldn't very well walk through the town with unfamiliar weapons; the subjected citizenry would flip. But, if Neo had already run through the center of town whipping a light sabre around, what would stop the matrix's henchmen from doing the same? ......... Ugh, anyways, if you really think that Neo bringing guns into the Matrix is a flaw, you should go watch the movie again; you probably missed a *lot*!
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TRON was like a Rosetta stone for me...suddenly I understood more about my own Commodore 64 and wanted to know more. Anyone who thinks TRON does not rock can step up and be de-rezzed by me in the Games. DOWN WITH THE MPC! End Transmission.
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Yeah, imagine Neo standing in the middle of nowhere, talking to the operator. "Whatta ya need?" "Frisbees. Lots of frisbees."
Ah, the memories. Does anyone else feel like a flashback? No! Tron was a killer movie, no doubt, but leave it as that. We don't need a sequel, because knowing Hollywood, any script they get will be turned into a crappy film. I don't care who writes it. The EP sees it and you can predict his reaction "We need more effects in every scene. Make it as expensive as you can. But you only get $45million to spend on it. Talking? Why are they talking? Add more pointless fighting, and plot twists."
Leave Tron as is. Don't mess with it, and certainly don't upgrade the F/x in a lame ass special edition. Sequels ... does every good movie need to be beaten to death with a lame sequel? Next they'll talk merchandising. Once they realize the potential for glow in the dark "tron frisbees" ... oy. -
My brother convinced me to see Tron in a limited engagement at the El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Blvd, and wow! am I glad I saw it. To see a cleaned up 70mlm print on the big screen, with modern sound...damm too cool. Tron loses alot of its wow factor when you can only see it on video, it should be seen on the big screen folks. Cool tidbit, there is a scene when the villian is looking at a screen trying to figure out where the characters in the movie are and you see a glimpse of Pac-Man opening and closing its mouth, a little something the animators threw in there that you miss on tape (and neat because this was before people discovered all sorts of hidden images in animated films by freezing the images of the laserdisc versions of the films). The whole audience laughed when we saw the pac-man.
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If you thought dropping a tab at the beginning of 2001 so you tripped out during the end sequence was the coolest think again! NOTHING compares to watching Tron on acid. If you make it out the other side your brain will never be the same again. You hippies were born 20 years to early, man.
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I'm afraid I can't resist speaking up. You are all talking about the same Tron that I saw as a kid, right?...The one with clunky dialogue and uninspired frisbee action...the one with, like, nothing interesting going on at all...a movie so destined to be dated that it looked like yesterday's news by the time it made it to its second weekend (did it even have a second weekend?). My indiscriminate ten-year-old eyes had no problems fingering this as a turd, and I would, several years later Love it for the costumes, love it for the kitsch appeal, love it because it's kinda' cute that Disney was so eager to introduce us to the wonders of computer animation that they shot their wad about 10 years too early. But- please, don't try to convince me that its a misunderstood classic. It is a fun afternoon novelty movie- like Howard the Duck (and that even, is a stretch). Some movies are bombs for a reason...I think its cute that you want a sequel though.
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I was at the Roger Ebert film festival and I saked Steven Spielberg (or whatever his name was) is there would be a sequel. He said that just the other dya he had read on the internet that he had had a meeting with studio exectuvies about it. He said it never happened and a sequel won't be made.
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What can I say? TRON definitely influenced my life. As I sit here with oen computer business, I look back at how TRON inspired me. I remember writing a TRON light cycle game for my TRS-80. I loved that game (and so did everyone else who played it). The arcade games were fantastics, I spent many an afternoon dropping quarters in the TRON game. And the Discs of Tron game was fantastic, but hard. I've seen the MAME version, but it doesn't work well without the proper 3D controls. What I hated is that they never came out with the arcade game that they show in the movie.
As for the CG, I had a friend who worked at the place where they built the Graphic Terminals used. She gave me a photographic print of a 'cel' from the movie. Too cool. I also have the movie poster, and used TRON as my 'cyber-handle' in college (before the internet was a big-thing).
Yes, I'd love to see a sequel, but only if they put someone like Harry in charge. Someone who 'gets' it, and who would be true to that. Its about duty, honor, and loyalty of PROGRAMS to USERS, where their own lives are meant as one of service.
As for Matrix, best movie I have seen in 15 years. I agree about the guns tho. But I saw the guns as an extension of the computer metephor. The entire gun toting sequence hit me squarely in the face as a LIVE ACTION 'DOOM' (or more precisely Wolf3D). Computer games today USE guns, not discs, laser charges, etc. I'm not sure we are better off for it. Personally, give me a light cycle and a disc, (and maybe a personal Recognizer), and I'd be a force to recon with. *YES*YES*YES* -
Christ-The divine made flesh. A god who became a man.
Flynn-A user (god/creator) who became a program (the created).
Christ-Lived as a human at a time when the Hebrews were persecuted for their monotheistic beliefs in Yaweh.
Flynn- Existed as a program when all programs were being persecuted for their beliefs in the Users.
Christ-Performed miracles. Turned water into wine, rocks into fishies. Healed the sick and blind and ressurected Lazarus from the dead.
Flynn-Performed similar miracles. Created an interceptor from rubble, brought Yuri back from the dead, redirected the path of the light sailer with his hand.
Christ-Directed by a guide who had a staunch right/wrong, yes/no ideology.
Flynn-Guided by Bit, who only communicated with yes/no answers
Christ-Sacrificed himself on the cross to liberate the souls of mankind from sin, delivering redemption. Afterwards he once again ascends into divinity.
Flynn-Sacrificed himself to the MCP, liberating the programs from MCP. Afterwards he ascends back to "userhood".
Moses-Communicates with God on a mountain in the form of lightning. Recieves Ten Commandments from "G".
Tron-Communicates with Alan the User from Dumont's Communication Tower, recieved commands from Alan in the form of light.
MCP=Roman Empire
Sark=Satan's pissboy -
I saw TRON when I was 12 and no other movie (other than STII:TWOK) stuck in my brain more that year.
Last year I bought the letterbox collectors edition on LD and have watched it 5 times since. It's such a cool movie. I used to play all those video games in Flynn's Arcade (except for Space Paranoids of course). It stirs feelings of nostalgia. -
TRON, along with THE BLACK HOLE, are right up there with my memories of STAR WARS. I feel that even by today's standards the visuals rock.
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is... Nort.
Now think about that one! -
OK ppls,
I liked TRON just as much as the next guy, in fact, maybe a little more coz I'm also one of it's converts now writing computer programs of his own...
Anyhow, just wanted to clarify - now correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know this film didn't have any CGI - there was NO SUCH THING back then. MOST, if not all, of the effects were hand painted cells in the traditional Disney way of doing things. Those computer terminals previously mentioned were Apple IIIs - testimony to the state of the art in computing at the time.
SO GET OVER THE WHOLE "I LOVED THE CG" THING - you're dreamin!!
While I'm on this ticket, most (not all) of you seem to have missed the point of the guns in The Matrix. YES ABSOLUTELY they're a poor choice of weapon for what he is about to attempt - THAT'S THE POINT.
Someone mentioned before about Neo not really quite having gotten the hang of it by that point. This is important. What is also VERY important, even tho MOST people - INCLUDING ROGER EBERT - seem to have conveniently missed, is that in the end the guns don't do a damned thing for him! He shoots the shit out of an agent and the agent just leaves that body and appears somewhere else. AM I WRONG??
THAT is the point - it takes the action genre that small step further by completely exhausting the potential of the gunfight-as-climax - basically thumbing it's nose at it really - and working toward a different, much better climax. One that really works well, I think - you know a bad guy has been well developed when you REALLY hate him and LOVE watching him get beaten by the protagonist. Few movies do this for me, I dunno about anyone else...
Anyway enough about that - just to reiterate, I LOVED TRON (still do) but don't fool yourself about the use of computers in this movie.
As for TRON 2.0 I think I'd watch it and Disney are probably starting to realise there's a market for it, but it would be A CRYING SHAME if it followed that Hollywood tradition of the sequel ruining the original film with a pisspoor script that puts holes in the first one that weren't there before... -
I had almost all the Tron Games for intellivision. There were two I can remember. One was where you would use the flying discs on a variety of boards, which has teleportation doors to get from one side of the room to the other. You could use the disc to block and redirect the enemy's discs. Then there was TRON for Intelivoice (!) which was one of the first games to include talking. You had to ride the Dragofly down the beam to get to the I/O and type in a code. The best was the code was spoken and not typed out on the screen. And the things with the two legs which fly down on the beam would try to trash you. It was very cool. I get laughed at for my love for TRON, but I still think when Jeff Bridges gets "scanned" is one of the coolest things ever put on film!
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Tron? One of the biggest cinematic disappointments of all time? A film directed by a special effects wizard that has no pacing whatsoever? A production team that forgot to hire a cinematographer? The basic idea of the story is great...but served poorly by this half-assed attempt at filmaking. Yeah, the disks and the bikes were cool. But the complete boredom in-between was not. Holy shit! You people really ARE dorks, aren't you?
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Sep 28, 1999 8:56:07 PM CDT
- TRON - Flat polygons rule ! Let TRON be an example for game de
by deadly_cookie
TRON is definitely one of the best movies ever made. It had a great impact on me, those flat polygons, that huge 3D world. When are they gonna make a TRON 3d game?! With todays games it's all focussed on textured polygons. I would like to see a game with flat untextured polygons (maybe some textured/gouroud shading here and there) and a HUGE 3d world I could lose my mind in...
Now imagine a maze like world just like tron, real time rendered, where people all over the world can login through internet and drive a tank, light cycle or fly a recognizer or just wonder around, do certain missions and finally destroy MCP, wouldnt that be great? I certainly think so! LARGE 3D WORLD, FLAT UNTEXTURED POLYGONS (!) instead of textured polygons and small levels.
Too many movies today are too commercial; too many explosions, special effects, same popular actors, and too many humor. I like movies more serious (My favorites: Aliens, The Thing, Tron, Die hard + some others).
If disney would do a TRON 2 (I hope so!) it'll probably have those state of the art 3d graphics (duh), which is good, but as long as it looks as simple as at was in the original TRON - flat...
TRON is a classic but easilly kicks 'The Matrix' or 'Phantom Menace's booty! I still run it late at night sometimes, when I'm working at my puter =o) ...
~over & out~ -
Dec 05, 2003 1:36:21 AM CST
TRON is absolutely one of the most boring movies of all time.
by ronnie_dobbs
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