Disney's Tron, The videogames are better than the film! Options

[CaptGeorge]

I sometimes wonder about the cult followings that films and TV series develop. More to the point, WHY do some films and TV series develop cult followings?

Case in point: Tron.

I'm gonna raise my hand with Chief Wiggum and actually admit I saw this film in theaters in 1982. Tron is supposedly the first major feature-length Hollywood film with CGI graphics and also a fair amount of computer-synthesized sound. It's also a chore to sit through and hasn't aged that well even though it's still visually impressive. The acting is creakier and more wooden than Noah's Ark and there's almost as much technobabble in the film as an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The central plot and aspects of the film are also remarkably similar to The Matrix which was released nearly 20 years later.

I seriously do mean it that in this case I think the videogames based on the movie ARE better than the film itself. They have way more replay value than the film.

To close, Tron Trivia of the day...
John Lasseter has stated on numerous occasions that it was this film that convinced him that CG graphics had a future and at that point he switched his focus from hand-drawn animation to CG animation. I wonder what would have happened if one of the other films released in 1982 (ET, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Blade Runner among others) changed his mind to another direction?

[rkish]

I wonder what would have happened if one of the other films released in 1982 (ET, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, "Blade Runner" among others) changed his mind to another direction?

"Blade Runner" was a pioneering genre in films itself and became an icon for other movies, Television shows, and marketing.

It was "the movie that almost wasn't", due to the shortsightedness of the Warner Bros. brass and the severe restrictions placed upon the production financially.

To quote from a Blade Runner website...

http://www.brmovie.com/What_is_BR.htm

"Ahead of its time when released, this film has gradually become recognised as a classic and the forerunner of things to come. It has been classed as one of the most influential films of the 20th century by both the British Film Institute and the American Film Institute. Blade Runner has been added to the Library of Congress and is rated highly in most people surveys. (In the UK, it is usually ranked in surveys in the top ten favourite films ever.)"

The sad truth of late is, that Ridley Scott (director) has been in production on a (3) disc "20th Anniversary Collector's Edition" (with additional footage and extra material which was literally found in boxes in a WB storage vault, awaiting disposal), which not only is more than (2) years late, but due to "legal complications" may never get released.

[Ray Pointer]

Steve Lisberger, the director of TRON had done some animation projects before, including ANIMAL OLYMICS in 1980. He also was a finalist in the ACADEMY AWARD Student competition while he was a student at The School of the Museum of Art in Boston in 1973. His animated short was COSMIC CARTOON, and showed design elements that later resurfaced in TRON.

In that same year, I won the Midwest Regional Student Oscar for my one and a half minute short, GOLDNAVEL.

[mbaker]

The problem with "Tron" was that it was way ahead of it's time. So much so that it ultimately failed in it's initial release, and instead, became a cult classic with computer geeks. I'm sure if it were remade today, it probably would be a huge hit since more people have computers in their homes these days. Just my two cents.

[Jon Lyrik]

I find the movie to be enjoyable. It's cheese, very VERY strong cheese, but it's enjoyable, and the effects have aged fairly well.

[BigScaryMike]

The problem with "Tron" was that it was way ahead of it's time. So much so that it ultimately failed in it's initial release, and instead, became a cult classic with computer geeks. I'm sure if it were remade today, it probably would be a huge hit since more people have computers in their homes these days. Just my two cents.

I am among the computer geeks who worship at the altar of TRON, probably because the movie hit exactly when I was just getting involved with computers. To this day I find the effects nothing short of amazing, to the point that I manage to overlook the "cheese" aspects.

But years later, when I saw "The Lawnmower Man," I realized how much of a better movie TRON could have been if they had gone a bit darker in tone.

[CaptGeorge]

The problem with "Tron" was that it was way ahead of it's time. So much so that it ultimately failed in it's initial release, and instead, became a cult classic with computer geeks. I'm sure if it were remade today, it probably would be a huge hit since more people have computers in their homes these days. Just my two cents.

Uh, no. That's not the problem I have with the film. Plenty of people had computers back in the day... Most kids of my generation had Atari 2600s and a couple of us even had the earlier pre-Power Mac II's and Atari 400/800 computers. It wasn't a lack of familiarity with computers and video games that hurt the movie because we were in the middle of the first wave of popularity of videogames at the time.

The problems with Tron are that the acting is very weak in the movie and while it has an interesting premise it's not executed well. The film still looks nice and has aged well aesthetically, but it plays better as a videogame than it ever did as a movie.

I've gotta admit I haven't seen a film that deals with "digital kidnapping" very well for anything other than laughs and that includes the Matrix movies which I felt were highly overrated "Wire-Fu."

I like a film that looks good as much as anybody else, but I will take good acting and story any day over a film that's basically soulless and all flash.

[PastorSteve]

I'm with CaptGeorge on this one. I, too, saw the film in the theater when it was first released and, aside from some cool effects, I was underwhelmed. And it most definitely hasn't aged well, especially since more people are computer literate now.

The arcade game, though, is another story. I love it!!!

[Jiggs]

I saw this film also, as a kid, in '82. At the time I was a full fledged arcade dork (hey, it was the 80's) and I recall seeing the first images of the film in a video-game magazine called "Vidiot". I thought it was going to be a great video game. I was really dissapointed to find out it was a film.

If anything positive can be said of this film (and it ain't easy) it's that it's soundtrack and imagery were accidently unique. Much in the way that early synthesizer music, while trying to sound like a flute or a violin or what have you, ended up sounding totally unique. Then midi-boxes came along in the 80's and symphony orchestras were deemed "musically obsolete" because you could play the whole thing from your bitchin' keyboard guitar. Didn't happen. The same kind of hollowness that was aurally evident in sampled music seems visually evident to me in contemporary CG animation. Animated Disco.

[Ray Pointer]

I saw Tron in 1982. It was released the same day as THE SECRET OF NIHM. I saw that first. Next I saw TRON. Less than five minutes into the film, a mother leaned over to her son and said, "Don't you think you we should have seen THE SECRET OF NIHM?"
"Wouldn't you like to see THE SECRET OF NIHM?" "I think we should have seen THE SECRET OF NIHM."

I was trying of concentrate on the movie and mentally wanted to scream at the lady,
"Alright, go see THE SECRET OF NIHM so I can watch TRON.!" But I didn't do this, I only thought about it. TRON was a great idea, but it was also disappointing too. It also was to source of a lot of controversy in its production.