LATE TO THE PARTY: TRON

Good stuff, David. I watched this back in February after seeing the first T:L trailer, and it holds up to me, at least... then again, I saw it on TV when I was nine, so nostalgia's in full effect.

In regards to Automan, the producers realized this and brought on one of Tron's producers to avoid said lawsuit.

The nostalgia factor still makes it work for me, warts and all.

Saw it a few days ago. Really admired the effort. And i'm sure the effects were top notch for the time. But the movie was dull and a star wars ripoff.

David Oliver, I...Love, the original Tron. I was also a regular watcher of...Automan as well. It would be cool if...Automan, Drove onto dvd. Automan, is another cool, Glen A Larson series.

You're among a select few - Disney pulled the DVD. Can't even get that shit on Netflix. So now I can't see the sequel because I'll have no idea what's happening!

Yep. We've been trying to get it on Netflix for months and it seems to be permanently unavailable.

Upon leaving the theater last night, a couple of kids wondered why the movie was named after the character "Tron".

Man, glad I bought Tron already a year or so ago. I still thoroughly enjoy this movie. Could be nostalgia, since this film a long with other childhood experiences really contributed to my love of computing.

The more I learn about how Tron's effects were done, the more I feel that they are so different they don't represent their time, or the state of the art, at all.

The most amazing thing is how much of it wasn't computer-generated. Any time you see live human beings onscreen, those shots were created from transparencies and frame enlargements which were rephotographed and combined in-camera through mattes, filters and multiple exposures on a backlit animation stand. Just an insane amount of work; Disney Studio's closed-shop culture at the time almost qualifies it as outsider art.

Can't say I see this, beyond Red=bad and Blue=good. What made it seem like that to you?

Just saw it for the first time. It's terrible! I don't see the Star Wars comparison, aside from the way it starts and just drops you into the world, with that zoom into the video game and the weirdly matter of fact "and here's David Warner inside the game racing a lightcycle. You'll figure it out as we go."

But the "outsider art" angle holds some merit. Nothing else looks like this movie. Really weird techniques - the backlit animation technique reminded me of the Flash Gordon cartoon from a couple years earlier. It's such fun to look at, but the layers of optical printing have some shots pulsating, lulling me to sleep.

The bridge of the "evil" ship and the communication between the bad dude and the MCP were very big Star Wars clones. It totally looks like Vader communicating with The Emperor.

Sark = Darth Vader, MCP = Emperor, Han (Bridges), Luke (Boxleitner), Leia (Cindy Morgan), old dude = Obi-Wan. Of course, it mixes some things up, as flynn is the one with mystic powers, but.

Fair enough, that's all there, but it felt like a Star Wars rip the way Flash Gordon or other post-Star Wars sci fi felt like a Star Wars rip. And sweet Christ, more boring than Dune. Turned the box over and over in my hands looking for DeLaurentiis' name.

It's a designer's film instead of a storyteller's and suffers greatly for it. It shows off everything the world of Tron has to offer in the game montage at the very beginning so that when Flynn does finally enter the Grid there's absolutely no sense of discovery.

It was, is and always will be a giant piece of crap.

I wouldn't say 'everything' or 'absolutely'. By the time Flynn enters the computer, we know something he doesn't: when you lose, you die. So we're following him and hoping he learns the rules we've seen in practice. And the effect he'll have as a User is an unknown quantity.

Anyway, it's good storytelling to establish the computer world at the top of the film (the sequel's first mistake is holding off on this), and I have no problem with "look, shiny, we'll explain it later."

I'm talking from a design sense. The beginning of the film pretty much shows you all the vehicles and landscapes and there's no real sense of turning a corner and discovering something new once Flynn is there. While Flynn might be seeing this stuff for the first time, the viewer already has.

Any of the ideas in the original TRON that seemed neat when the movie came out now seem totally quaint. It's all based on a very layman's idea of how a computer system works. Which is to say, the sequel that based a lot its ideas on the original now doesn't make much sense given how much more we know about computers. The science in TRON comes off like a classic TREK episode.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan has utterly ridiculous science throughout. Doesn't keep it from being a great film.

I like that Tron establishes its premise confidently and clearly. We don't meet anyone in the real world who won't be a factor in the computer world. And there's a shabby authenticity to Flynn, Alan and Lora as programmers from that era-- the way they dress, the details of Flynn's apartment, the Day the Earth Stood Still banner in Alan's cubicle. A far cry from Sam's only-in-the-movies garage-conversion with-a-view in the sequel.

Tron is straight up fantasy masquerading as sci-fi. It's science actually reminded me of something closer to Dr. Praetorius in Bride of Frankenstein. There's a society of little people living in "the computer world." And they race motorcycles and play Sci-Fi Jai alai. Some of them sound like schlubby accountants, while others have British accents, while "Clu" is just this side of Bleep Bloop Robot Voice. Whoever mentioned Barnard Hughes' setup looking like the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland might have been onto something. (I like all these things about it, if I'm not being clear.)

But it fails narratively because there's no sense of drama or even fun to the proceedings. You spend the movie trying to orient yourself to the world rather than get caught up in the adventure of it, and that's probably by design, because the narrative is by turns rote and formless. Hero's journey and all that, but they never weld the real world bookends to the story in any compelling way.

I always like how, at the very end, the time lapse photography makes it look like the 'real world' is turning into the computer world. It's a neat visual moment.

Eh, I thought it was a little obvious, except for the split second I thought that shot was going to dovetail the film into To Live and Die in LA, or some such similar steamy William Petersen cop thriller. But then it cut to end credits instead of William Petersen having sex with an 80s gal, so that moment passed.

It's obvious and a bit cliche NOW, but it was kinda a neat effect at the time.

The hero's journey aspect just adds to the distancing effect of the narrative since the title character, who must take up the call, isn't the main character.

Surely this is a bigger problem in the sequel, where Tron is barely a character at all.

There are visual clues to 'reality' just being a more sophisticated construct throughout the film. Note how grid patterns and sequential lights dominate nearly every shot set in the real world.

It's a problem nonetheless for both films. And not because I think every film needs to adhere to some sort of stringent narrative rules, but not only does the original film lack any dramatic drive, it also has no clear cut character focus. It's just really, really bad storytelling on every level.

I apologize in advance, but I'm having a bad reaction to this use of absolute terms. Tron is not by a long shot the worst a movie can be. It's simple and uncomplicated, sure, but by design. The plot is linear, but it has a clear destination: Flynn's motivation is to escape the computer world; Tron's motivation is to stop the MCP from cutting off free access to the real world. Their paths naturally coincide. And I love how Sark (like Dillinger) starts to realize how much he's getting screwed by the MCP but is too weak to resist.

As for who the protagonist is supposed to be, I find the film original here. Tron's the hero; Flynn's the messiah. There's no shortage of stories in which the protagonist triumphs over a strange new world simply by exemplifying the values of his own culture (there's often an Imperialist vibe to this but that's a whole 'nother discussion), but I can't think of another that's told from the 'celestial' point-of-view.

ETA to elaborate: Flynn doesn't think of himself or his fellow programmers as gods. They barely consider the unknown qualities of their creations:

"You're a User? Then everything you do is according to some great plan?"
"No, you know what it's like. You just keep doing whatever it looks like you're supposed to be doing."

That's basically God telling Man not to worry about God's will. Heady stuff for the Saturday matinee.

I'll actually offer up my own apologies for my hyperbolic stance on the quality of the film's storytelling. I actually own Tron on DVD, but that's because I wanted the making of doc. I admire the design work of the film so much that I find the lackluster storytelling to be far more disappointing than it may actually be.

..but it's a terrible bore. I mean, c'mon. It really is.

I've never found it boring myself. Mileage may vary, etc.

Out of curiosity, what would make it less boring? Perhaps a visit to some sort of flashy nightclub, where popular musicians of the day could spin a few tunes? Oh wait.

I think even with the script, which IMO is poorly constructed, a better director could have infused more immediacy and excitement into it.

Yeah, yeah, that shot of the cubicles, etc. I GET IT!

Compelling characters, better pacing/hitting the right narrative beats. I wonder if the filmmakers felt overwhelmed by the amount of effects work and lost sense of some of the basics of storytelling in the confusion.