TRON

(July 1982, U.S.)

Let me start with a personal story...

TRON was the first time I went anywhere near a Disney movie since THE BLACK HOLE in 1979. It was also a time when I committed an act of movie-selection stupidity. By July 1982, I was away at sleep away camp as a CIT (counselor-in-training), and one of the privileges of such a position was that once in a while, we were taken to the movies by members of the senior staff. I recall a quad theater somewhere in town near the camp. While I can’t recall all four movies playing at the time, I know one of them was TRON, and two others were Clint Eastwood’s FIREFOX and John Carpenter’s remake of THE THING. The group consisted of maybe twelve-to-fifteen boys and girls total, and a few counselors chaperoning us. Most of us were evenly split between FIREFOX and THE THING, while only a couple of us chose TRON. All three choices had awesome visual and special effects to offer, though TRON was considered the more childish of the lot simply because it was a Disney movie. Well, if it isn’t obvious to you by now, I chose to go with the minority and see TRON. While I don’t totally regret that decision, because it was a pretty awesome movie, I do regret blowing my opportunity to see a gory horror show like THE THING with not only the absence of my parents to try and stop me, but also perhaps seeing it with one of the girls sitting next to me in a frightful state.

Even before the movie began, I was confused because I’d previously heard of the TRON video game already in arcades. So like the egg and the chicken, which came first, TRON the movie or TRON the video game? Was the game based on the movie or vice-versa? Turns out both of them were created together; the movie concept developed first and the game adapted from it. The story proposes the idea of life inside the video game and the computer in general, as well as those in the real world who created these games. The opening scene is simple enough when a boy puts his quarter into the video game at Flynn’s arcade and then takes us inside the game to show what is the life-like situation behind the game. Back in '82, this was some of the most incredible animation and live action effects I’d ever seen on screen before; a different class of effects which defined alternate movie-making effects having little to do with the effects of movies like STAR WARS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND or BLADE RUNNER.

In the part of the story that takes place in the real world, Flynn’s arcade was owned and operated by Kevin Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges). Flynn is like a big kid himself, just as good at the games as his customers are, especially a game called Space Paranoids. According to his claims, he's the true inventor of that particularly successful game, as well as a few others, but his ideas were stolen by another man at his company named Ed Dillinger (played by David Warner), who's also the big boss. No longer employed there, Flynn spends his free time trying to get into the company’s computer system to locate evidence that will prove Dillinger has stolen his video game ideas and passed them off as his own. As Flynn performs his extensive computer tricks, we watch what happens inside the system with Flynn’s alternate computerized counterpart (also played by Bridges who looks like a blue and white robotic version of himself). When Flynn hits a snag that crashes the computer, we watch the computer version of himself called Clu crash into a wall and disintegrate into oblivion.

The company called ENCOM is controlled by what's called a Master Control Program (MCP, for short). This program talks to its human users and can even control their lives and actions by blackmailing them with information they don't want leaked to the public, as is the case with Dillinger. One of ENCOM's designs is a laser that can take apart an object and put it back together again. With the help of two friends, Flynn gains access into the system again, but he's sitting in front of the laser, not knowing what it will do or what's about to happen to him. When the laser strikes his back, his body freezes and disappears. He doesn't die, but is rather transported into the world of the computer, though once inside, he's still Kevin Flynn the user and not the computerized version of himself. Once inside the computer, Flynn is a prisoner of the MCP who not only has to figure a way out, but also has to play an assortment of combat games in order to survive. Eventually, he encounters computer versions of his two friends from ENCOM, Alan and Lora, or Tron and Yori, as they're called inside the computer world. They form an alliance to not only escape the prison of the MCP and its guards, but to also free and liberate other computer programs held as slaves to the system.

As the virtual battles continue, Flynn and Tron get closer to their freedom. In a final battle between Tron and Dillinger’s computerized version called Sark, the two try to destroy each other with flying discs. Even by today's standards, this is still an awesome light show of color and visual effects as they not only hurl the discs at each other, but block them with those same discs, as well. In the end, Tron disables Sark and then throes his disc into a gap inside the machine, thus destroying the MCP’s rule over its computer slaves. As victory is at hand, all the computer programs communicate with their users in the real world and create a free society inside the computer. This not only sends Flynn back to the real world, but also reconstructs his body with the same laser that took it apart. Still seated where he was before disappearing, Flynn now has the printed evidence he’s been searching for to prove Dillinger’s guilt. As a result of this, Flynn becomes the boss of ENCOM and all is "happily ever after" in the real world.

Well, look how far we’ve come in the world of video games and computers since 1982. By that perspective, TRON may be considered one of the most dated movies to represent another era. It's for that reason above all, that makes the film such a treasure today, in my opinion. When we watch TRON, we're witnessing several things here - not just the bygone era of the 1980s, which signified the golden age of video games with classics like Space Invaders and Pac-Man, but also the quick rise of the personal computer and machines in our society, both in everyday functions and our popular culture. Months before the film opened, Steve Jobs of Apple Computers made the February 15, 1982 cover of Time Magazine as one of "America’s Risk Takers". Later, the January 3, 1983 issue of the same magazine declared the personal computer as "Machine of the Year". On February 11, 1983, rock band Styx released their single "Mr. Roboto" from their forthcoming album Kilroy Was Here, declaring these immortal words,

The problem's plain to see
Too much technology
Machines to save our lives
Machines dehumanize

My point is that years before James Cameron depicted the rise of the machines over mankind in THE TERMINATOR, TRON already suggested a consequential world in which human beings would think less and computers and machines would think more. Because the film was considered a disappointment at the box office, it's easy to overlook such an achievement in story concept and technical moviemaking over the years. By its own right, TRON represents a milestone in the world of filmmaking due to its use of animation featuring digital patterns of such vehicles as motorcycles, ships and tanks. The technology to combine computer animation and live action was still experimental in the early ‘80s, despite the rotoscoping effects in films like Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP (1981) or even the dancing sequence between Gene Kelly and Jerry the mouse in the movie musical ANCHORS AWEIGH (1945). The computer used in TRON was limited in how it delivered background detail on film, thus such visual effects were created using a more traditional technique of the time called "backlit animation", incorporating black and white filming for the sequences inside the computer and then later colored with more sophisticated photographic methods to give the action on the screen a greater appearance of technology.

As a kid, I never would’ve understood what any of that stuff meant. Hell, I was still trying to understand just how stop motion animation, blue screens, and matte paintings really worked in films like STAR WARS. TRON is an example of what it means to create pure fantasy. The computer in our world of the 1980s was a simple, mundane tool that rested atop our desks. The film suggests a dramatic, glamorous and even romantic world inside the great machine, though we can’t be expected to take such a suggested world too seriously. We’re simply here to witness a dazzling technological show of light, sound, and fluorescent color, perhaps not too unlike watching a planetarium laser light show accompanied by the classic rock music of Pink Floyd or Led-Zeppelin.

Gifted actors like Jeff Bridges and David Warner who provide the equal sides of good and evil are a welcomed plus, even for a plot that's considered weak by some. Nonetheless, it reminds us all of just how much fun and exciting video games were for my generation at a time when they were still enjoying their rise to fame and glory. Those games brought about our spirit of the fun and adventure a few hard-earned quarters out of our weekly allowance money would bring us. Today, don’t even attempt to ask me about the modern video games of the world. I don't pretend to understand them and frankly, I don’t want to try. In a world where we have games requiring a rating for violence and gore, it’s time for me to get off the ride...permanently!

Favorite line or dialogue:

Dr. Walter Gibbs: "You've got to expect some static. After all, computers are just machines, they can't think."
Alan Bradley: "Some programs will be thinking soon."
Dr. Gibbs: "Won't that be grand? All the computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop."

(The people have stopped thinking!)