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Twenty Five Years of Tron

Posted by Zonk on Fri May 25, 2007 06:05 PM
from the it's-all-about-the-light-bikes dept.
Media Movies Sci-Fi Entertainment Games
the_quiet_angeleno writes "I have an article in today's Summer Film Preview issue of Los Angeles CityBeat on Disney's sci-fi classic Tron, which is celebrating it's 25th anniversary this year. The piece includes a discussion with Richard Taylor, one of Tron's visual effects supervisors on the film's groundbreaking effects, as well as director Steven Lisberger, on how the narrative incorporates the Jungian concept of individuation. Here's a sample: 'Visual Effects Society member Gene Kozicki, of the L.A.-based visual effects house Rhythm & Hues, believes Tron's legacy was in moving computer-generated visuals into the realm of storytelling. "Research into this type of imagery had been going on for over 15 years, but it was more scientific in nature," Kozicki says, "Once artists began to share their ideas and treat the computer as a tool, it moved away from strict research and towards an art form."
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[+] Technology: John Knoll on CGI, Tron And 25 Years of Change 194 comments
StonyandCher writes to tell us John Knoll, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic, is using the 25th anniversary of Tron as a platform to look back at the last 25 years of visual effects. "The type of imagery that was possible to create at the time was very clearly computer generated; it wasn't going to fool anybody into thinking it was live action. That was a limitation of the technology that worked very well within the story, that fit right in and made a lot of sense: if you're telling a story about events taking place inside a computer, inside a big virtual environment, what techniques should you use? Parts of the film were done by shooting live action then doing rotoscope and other optical techniques over the top of it, but the stuff that really looked cool and stood out was the stuff that was computer generated."
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  • Tron! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2007, @06:10PM (#19277415)
    That move changed my life! Up until then I wanted to be a stormtrooper. After seeing Tron I wanted to be a light cycle driver. I ended up being a shift manager at a flour mill. Wee. NoonooNOO noonooNOOnooNOO-nooo...

  • Storytelling? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tinrobot (314936) on Friday May 25 2007, @06:15PM (#19277453)
    Tron's legacy was in moving computer-generated visuals into the realm of storytelling.

    Sadly, there was not a lot of compelling storytelling in that movie. The script was pretty bad, as was much of the acting (my opinion of course)

    Tron opened against ET, and it bombed at the box office. Some people say that Tron's failure at the box office set back CG animation by 10 years. Most studios back then saw the technology as expensive and not worth the investment. Only after CG got it's feet wet in commercials and broadcast in the 80's did the movie studios embrace it again.
    • Not that Tron was CG.

      • Re:Storytelling? (Score:5, Informative)

        by MS-06FZ (832329) on Friday May 25 2007, @07:16PM (#19278121) Homepage Journal

        Not that Tron was CG.
        No, it wasn't CG. A lot of it was live-action, filmed on physical sets, with rotoscoping techniques for the "glow" on characters and objects.

        But it featured CG... The entire lightcycle sequence, for instance - well, not counting shots of the characters or the interiors of the vehicles...

    • Last Starfighter (Score:5, Informative)

      by Tony (765) * on Friday May 25 2007, @08:54PM (#19278899) Homepage Journal
      There were other movies with tons of CG not long after, like The Last Starfighter. Most of them had poor scripts as well. TRON didn't set the CG industry back 10 years; it was 10 years ahead of its time.

      And, it *was* expensive. Unless you were after the CG look of the time, there was no reason to use CG.

        • The Last Starfighter was a fucking terrible movie, plot-wise. One of the worst movies I've seen.
          Anonymous Coward go back to sleep or I'm telling mom about your Playboys

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Megane (129182)

          The Last Starfighter was a fucking terrible movie, plot-wise. One of the worst movies I've seen.

          The Last Starfighter was a remake of The Music Man, only in space and without the music.

      • Speaking of Hollywood reluctance, I wonder what ever happened to the Tron sequel? A few years ago, Disney was in a buzz about how the new Tron movie was coming out soon. They even made the Tron 2.0 game to ride the promotion wave. Yet nothing ever appeared, and the very idea of a sequel seems to have vanished into the ether.

        To be blunt: What happened?
            • Unfortunately the comic book was discontinued after just a few issues. You can still get them from Slave Labor Graphics, however. The artwork in the first two issues is absolutely terrible, but they changed artists in issue 3 and both the visuals and storyline had found their sweet spot when it was cancelled. *sigh*

              As the grandparent stated, the TRON 2.0 video game is absolutely the genuine sequel to TRON. The plot is solid, the gameplay is great, and the environment is oh-so-compelling- far superior even t

  • Honour it! (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 25 2007, @06:16PM (#19277471)
    With some ARMAGETRON! http://armagetronad.net/ [armagetronad.net] (linux pkgs and sourcecode incl)

  • Bring in the logic probe! (Score:5, Funny)

    by TripMaster Monkey (862126) on Friday May 25 2007, @06:16PM (#19277481)
    For a long time, I carried around a logic probe in my tool kit. I didn't need one for my work...I just liked grabbing it and shouting in my best David Warner voice, "Bring in the logic probe!". ^_^

    I also said "Greetings, programs!" way more often than I should have...

  • More than just movies (Score:5, Funny)

    by bobo mahoney (1098593) on Friday May 25 2007, @06:17PM (#19277497) Homepage
    Tron's special effects have influenced in more than just movies. Just take a look at case mods and riced out cars sporting neon to see just how much people liked Tron.
  • I remember seeing this [kuro5hin.org] at the /. firehose a while ago but it never made the front page.

    Was it a joke or something?

    • Um..yes. The story you mention was posted the day before April 1st and if you read the article you'll see the agent in question is named Lirpa Sloof.

    • Was it a joke or something?

      Thu Mar 29, 2007 at 11:29:57 AM EST

      Probably aiming for April 1 and missed.

  • It's telling when the DVD commentary focuses almost entirely on the special effects, and only rarely even mentions the acting or the story. Don't get me wrong, I love the movie, my kids love it, I loved the "Tron 2.0" game they made, but... well... Shakespeare it wasn't.

    The funny thing was it didn't win an Oscar for special effects that year because the Academy felt they had "cheated" by using computers. (Of course, the computers were so slow they had to plan every shot out in detail because 'rerendering' would have taken too much time. And they communicated the data over the phone... by reading the numbers out loud.) Interesting to see how attitudes have changed.

  • Tron's Real Legacy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LOTHAR, of the Hill (14645) on Friday May 25 2007, @06:43PM (#19277777)
    Is being the first movie to be ruined by relying on CGI special effects to carry a movie.

    The script was dull, and acting was horrible. That was the first time I ever walked out of a movie theater wanting my money back.

  • Did Jung suggest we kiss our code? (Score:5, Funny)

    by EWAdams (953502) on Friday May 25 2007, @06:47PM (#19277831) Homepage
    Tron included the first inter... inter... inter-I-can't-even-decide-what-to-call it kiss between a man and a computer program. OK, she looked like a woman in a goofy blue suit, and the man was Bruce Boxleitner, I believe, but I was stumped for a reason why HE should want to kiss software, and even more stumped for a reason why IT would want to kiss him back. In all my years programmer, I never once kissed my code, whether on-screen, printout, or punched cards. And if I had, I think Jung would have suggested I be locked up for failing to conform to any known archetype.

    As for which is the dumber movie about computers, I'd say it's a toss-up between Tron and The Matrix. At least Tron had attractive special effects and wasn't so goddamned pretentious.

    • Huh? The human in the computer is Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges. Bruce Boxleitner plays two different characters: Alan Bradley, a computer programmer, and Tron, a program he wrote. They're not the same; part of the idea of the movie is that programs bear a resemblance to their creators. Also I suppose it made it convenient in that they could get several of the actors (Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan, David Warner, Barnard Hughes) to double up on roles.
      • Well, Yori did put the moves on Tron at the end of the movie.
        • Then there's that love scene with Tron and Yori that was cut from the film but which is on the 20th Anniversary DVD. That took place slightly after Tron found her to begin with, though.
    • I often ponder deeply how the narrative incorporates the Jungian concept of individuation.

      I think it all stems from my secret desire for my motherboard.

  • Let us remember the TV Show: Automan (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Let us not forget the TV "spinoff" of Tron ... Automan [wikipedia.org].
    Where Glen A. Larson (what show didn't he make during the 70s/80s?) took the idea of Tron and ran with it for 12 episodes.
    Where every episode involved a car chase in which Automan eluded the bad guys because he could make 90* turns and they couldn't.

  • Twenty five years of Tron? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ScrewMaster (602015) on Friday May 25 2007, @07:39PM (#19278329)
    Twenty-five years? I'm a dyed-in-the-wool science-fiction fan, have a substantial collection of sci-fi-books, have watched thousands of science fiction movies ... but twenty-five minutes of Tron was too much. Not that Tron even vaguely resembled science-fiction, any more than Star Wars did.
  • It's ironic that for all that it was a milestone in the development of CGI in movies, the way things are getting more and more screwed up in America, years from now no-one will be able to watch it anymore.

    I read an article recently at http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2007/3/28/132751/380 [kuro5hin.org] - the department of Homeland Security has classified Tron as "sensitive" because some locations were filmed at a nuclear research facility, and they're worried about 25 year old nuclear secrets being revealed. They're appare
  • Tron is my favourite movie of all time. It is mistakingly labeled sci-fi, but really it's total fantasy. Sure the actors are stiff, the plot is by the numbers and downright silly, but the world created by Steven Lisburger and company really has not been equaled in 25 years. Tron is by far the most labor intensive special effects movie EVER made (pre-digital). Every frame in the computer world had to be processed at least five separate times, with all of the elements. Tron did not set back computer anim

  • "Since Tron", not "Of Tron" (Score:4, Funny)

    by PhotoGuy (189467) on Friday May 25 2007, @09:41PM (#19279173) Homepage
    25 years "Of" Tron? No, "since" Tron.

    It's not like Tron has been in your face, except for the odd past-pop-cultural reference over the decades.

    OB Simpsons Ref:

    Homer: Uh... it's like... did anyone see the movie 'Tron'?

    Hibbert: No.

    Lisa: No.

    Marge: No.

    Wiggum: No.

    Bart: No.

    Patty: No.

    Wiggum: No.

    Ned: No.

    Selma: No.

    Frink: No.

    Lovejoy: No.

    Wiggum: Yes. I mean... um, I mean, no. No, heh.

  • Tron did not suck... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by awfar (211405) on Friday May 25 2007, @09:53PM (#19279227)
    So many here say so, but I cannot see their point, as well as how anyone can compare it with anything else at the time; what has Star Wars to do with it, at all?

    As many, I was there and it was clearly groundbreaking. I distinctly remember that I had not been moved by imagery like that since I was little and saw my first Harryhausen or later 2001. Not from the script, which was Disney, but the imagery and immense scale, especially the light cycle race and the tank chase.

    Sitting in a theater on opening weekend, huge screen and high quality audio, its few minutes of CGI and music, it was clearly a demonstration of things to come.
  • If you compare Tron's computer graphics with the computer graphics we have in movies today, they seem crude, yes, but surely if the designers back then had wanted to, they could have made all the shots as complex and slick as what you can do today.

    The problem is that if they had tried that with the hardware they had then, the movie would still be rendering today and would probably not appear in cinemas until all of its actors were retired.

    See, software HASN'T changed that much in the intervening time; you s

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by mshurpik (198339)
      Tron was layered about 20 times per shot; it wasn't so much digital as the ultimate analog movie.
  • I was watching Caddy Shack in HDDVD, and found out that Cindy Morgan, the hot babe, was also the girl in TRON. And she's a regular geek!

    "I wanted to go to Illinois Institute of Technology and become an Engineer, but when I went to open house it was all guys. I kind of got scared. I was a little freaked out. I got over that obviously. I was a geek."
    http://www.retrocrush.com/archive2005/cindymorgan/ [retrocrush.com]

    *sigh* :)

  • One of my favorite bad movies of all time (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Torodung (31985) on Saturday May 26 2007, @12:11AM (#19280175) Journal
    Tron was not a good movie. Not even close. But man was it groundbreaking. It's up there on my list of favorites with "Dark Star," John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon's collaboration that is a clear precursor to O'Bannon's "Alien."

    I heartily recommend that all Slashdot nerds get copies of *both* (VCI released Dark Star on DVD, both original and theatrical versions). They're both like watching a long, slow inside shaggy dog joke.

    What memories. "Computers are for USERS." Was that concept prophetic or what?

    --
    Toro
    • If Tron was The Matrix's beta, then Matrix Revolutions was like SWG's NGE.
      • Craptastic. Honestly, Automan was just barely better than Manimal.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by naoursla (99850)
          Ah... Manimal and Automan... brings back memories of my terribly misspent youth.

          I think that was around the same time as "Otherworld" and "V: The Series".
        • I have been trying to think of that shows name for months, but the few times I tried looking it up online, I didn't find anything. "Cursor" just brings up too many hits.
    • the premise behind Tron was no more believable (less, to me) than a mysterious "force" that permeates the universe that can be bent to human will with enough effort and skill -- and definitely not as cool.

      Two words: Midichlorians.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by vrmlguy (120854)
      Unfortunately, Star Wars didn't use any computer generated effects. The original version was done the old fashioned way, with models and latex. A few years later, Lucas decided that CGI was the way of the future, so he took a hunk of his profits and started a little company to design and manufacture CGI hardware. They did a lot of the effects for Wrath of Khan, among other things, but they never did as well as Lucas had hoped so he sold them to a recently fired billionaire looking for a new business to r

    • .... It's like Al Gore, just give it a rest, we heard your story now move on. Same thing goes to you Lucas... Great sci-fi, like Tron, is totally underappreciated in favor of mass-marketed starwars'ish puke.
      Your post has given me a rare opportunity to quote Dennis Miller, something I never realized I'd be doing when I woke up this morning.

      "Al Gore... This guys a real visionary. His favorite movie is Tron for Christsake!" -- Dennis Miller

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