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When we first saw this film back in 1982 ( 96 minutes) it was a much different world and it's very important to remember that.Prior to the rise of both Windows and OSX operating systems,computers were very confusing and scary things.A DOS blue screen made you type line after line of text and numbers just to make a silly ball bounce.What ever TRON was,it also allowed the viewer to imagine a strange and wild world just beyond all that programming.Like any other fantasy,space flight,or underseas exploration,that which cannot been seen,can be fantasized,all you needed was a guide post.For computing,TRON was such a guide post.
To the movie,the story is fairly simple.A gaming company executive,Ed Dillinger (David Warner) has stolen the 5 games that made this company a giant in the industry,from a programmer named Flynn (Jeff Bridges).Another programmer,Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner)has developed a security program named TRON, and a third programmer, Lora (Cindy Morgan) along with another executive of the company,Dr. Walter Gibbs (Barnard Hughes)are working on a program that can,and here's the sci-fi of the story,DIGITIZE objects.Now Ed has begun to allow the Master Control Program (MCP)of the companies computer system to acquire and control any and all programs it can lay it's hands on,in or out of the company.Tell me this isn't the inspiration for later films War Games and Terminator,of which I will review at later dates.Ed is beginning to loose control over the MCP and Flynn is becoming a annoyance as he probes the system trying to find evidence of Ed's theft of his work using a program he created called Clu.The MCP has had enough of Flynn and using the digitizing program of Lora and Gibbs, brings Flynn onto the "Grid"or as we today would say today,cyberspace.The effects of those made back in 82 are as good as any CGI today,almost 30 years later.
The rest of the film is told as programs looking like the people who created them,fighting to stop the MCP and allow access back to the "users"which are human programmers that MCP has shut out of the system with the help of Ed.
The creation of a world of graphic designs and gaming gird obstacles and aids and humans as programs is almost beyond description.In todays world of more recognizable cyberspace,they are indeed a fantasy that was and is MUST SEE.The movie ends well and joins the list of 20+years after sequels such as Die Hard and Rocky that I also shall review at later dates with it's own sequel TRON Legacy that I shall review next.As always a trailer link follows the pix
To the movie,the story is fairly simple.A gaming company executive,Ed Dillinger (David Warner) has stolen the 5 games that made this company a giant in the industry,from a programmer named Flynn (Jeff Bridges).Another programmer,Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner)has developed a security program named TRON, and a third programmer, Lora (Cindy Morgan) along with another executive of the company,Dr. Walter Gibbs (Barnard Hughes)are working on a program that can,and here's the sci-fi of the story,DIGITIZE objects.Now Ed has begun to allow the Master Control Program (MCP)of the companies computer system to acquire and control any and all programs it can lay it's hands on,in or out of the company.Tell me this isn't the inspiration for later films War Games and Terminator,of which I will review at later dates.Ed is beginning to loose control over the MCP and Flynn is becoming a annoyance as he probes the system trying to find evidence of Ed's theft of his work using a program he created called Clu.The MCP has had enough of Flynn and using the digitizing program of Lora and Gibbs, brings Flynn onto the "Grid"or as we today would say today,cyberspace.The effects of those made back in 82 are as good as any CGI today,almost 30 years later.
The rest of the film is told as programs looking like the people who created them,fighting to stop the MCP and allow access back to the "users"which are human programmers that MCP has shut out of the system with the help of Ed.
The creation of a world of graphic designs and gaming gird obstacles and aids and humans as programs is almost beyond description.In todays world of more recognizable cyberspace,they are indeed a fantasy that was and is MUST SEE.The movie ends well and joins the list of 20+years after sequels such as Die Hard and Rocky that I also shall review at later dates with it's own sequel TRON Legacy that I shall review next.As always a trailer link follows the pix
http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3405709593/
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