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Tron Special Edition On Sale January 15th 341

Muddie writes: "OnVideo.org reminded me that on January 15 , Disney is releasing the "Tron 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition" (1982) on DVD and VHS. Directed by Steven Lisberger, the film stars Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner and Barnard Hughes. The 2 disc DVD set contains the remastered film with commentary by Lisberger, producer Donald Kushner and visual effects supervisors Harrison Ellenshaw and Richard Taylor, a new 75-minute "making-of" documentary "The Making of Tron", deleted scenes, original soundtrack music deleted from the film and more all for $29.99. Check out all the happy details at Amazon's link"
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Tron Special Edition On Sale January 15th

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  • Cool Soundtrack (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lysander Luddite ( 64349 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:07PM (#2839388)
    Well if you like Wendy Carlos or Journey, it is a great nastalgia blast. I loved the former at that time, but loathed the latter.

    Sounds like a good buy. Wish all DVDs had a copy of the music soundtrack too.
    • by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:28PM (#2839501) Homepage
      I saw a special screening of this movie at the SF Museum of Modern Art. The director spoke afterwards. Here are my observations:

      1. It is visually stunning, even now, even with a crappy print. I noticed that comic artist Moebius was involved with the art direction - it struck me how much of a debt the work also owed to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Metropolis, and even a little bit to the samurai genre, as well as Spartacus.
      2. The script is still excrutiatingly bad, and the director didn't have a clue. He really had no idea. I wish we could have had, instead, the presence of the set designer (Roger Shook), the costumer designer (Eloise Jensson - who the director actually fired at one point) and the rest of the production design and art design teams. Some of the director's remarks were inadvertantly racist, his philosophical sensibilities were childlike, and his sense of his own importanceinflated. The fact that he hasn't done much else of note (see http://us.imdb.com/Name?Lisberger,+Steven) pretty much shows that he was definitely not the best factor behind Tron. But as far as he knew, he was all the director the world needs.
      3. I wondered about the geneology of the idea of cyberspace - specifically, the projection of a metaphor of inhabitable space onto networked computers. Tron preceded Neuromancer. Did Lisberger know about Vernor Vinge? Is Tron really the first to avail itself of the metaphor of computers as a navigable space.
      4. The directors made a comparison with The Matrix that was unfortunate, but interesting. In some ways, Tron is a traditional, evangalistic Protestant Christian film (our purpose is to understand the wishes of our User, and thus to fulfill our role in creation - the MCP is theologically comparable to Satan), while the Matrix is part of a tradition of Gnostic paranoia (the creator of our world is malicious and decieving - reality is something to be transcended) - sometimes with Messianic elements, sometimes without it - that sprung up in a lot of mid-90's films. (I usually think of trends in narrative structure as reflections of the anxieties and stresses of the times in which they occur.)
      • Actually, The concepts set forth in neuromancer (which, in the copy I have, shows the earliest publishing date as 1984) were first introduced in his short story works, notably "Johnny Mnemonic" and "Burning Chrome", of which at least one was published in 1978 or 79. I cant find my copy of that particular collection, unfortunately, but I'm fairly certain that is the case.

        Besides, the concepts set forth in Tron weren't exactly what we would call cyberspace...it was really just a personification of all those 0s and 1s (main character aside).
        • Johnny Mnemonic was published in 1981. New Rose Hotel was probably published between 1981 and 1983 (the book doesn't make it clear). Burning Chrome was published before Neuromancer, I think, which would put it before 1984 (Neuromancer's date of publication). That would put Johnny Mnemonic before Tron, but Tron before Burning Chrome (Gibson's first description of cyberspace) and Neuromancer (when he wrote more about the imagery, though the actual descriptions themselves were a little thin).

          Source: Burning Chrome, 1987 edition published by Ace.

      • You know you're a scifi geek when you recall that the 1976 Doctor Who story "The Deadly Assasin" features a part in which the hero and villian enter into a virtual world that exists within the ultra-mega-super-duper computer that their people have and face off in deadly combat.
  • Hmmm... (Score:5, Funny)

    by alfredw ( 318652 ) <alf@freeREDHATalf.com minus distro> on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:08PM (#2839395) Homepage
    ... I wonder if the DVD disc leaves a bright trail of light behind it if you throw it...
  • by wo1verin3 ( 473094 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:12PM (#2839417) Homepage
    ...of me dreaming about what goes on inside my Vic 20.

    I wanted to know how to access the little tron bike game.

    I was upset.

    I was also like...8 or so.
  • Tron 2.0 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SevenTowers ( 525361 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:15PM (#2839428) Homepage
    Imdb also advertises the release of the sequel to Tron, Tron 2.0 [imdb.com]. Hope it's not a flop
    • by guttentag ( 313541 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:43PM (#2839566) Journal
      <SARCASM>
      An ambitious hacker (Tom Hanks) transports himself into his Windows XP Home Edition computer to pull off the ultimate hack: to free Internet Explorer from Windows. Along the way he becomes attached to a flighty email virus (Meg Ryan) and the two are chased by the Matrix's Agent Smith as they are shuttled from computer to computer around the world. Can he find his Passport home?

      Supposedly the DVD will contain deleted scenes of Hanks gaping at all the porn on people's computers and a 30 minute documentary about how difficult it was for him to lose his tan for the part.
      </SARCASM>

  • Main Theme (Score:2, Insightful)

    by hrieke ( 126185 )
    Wendy rocks.
    That was one of the coolest musical scores that I have heard in a long time.
    Very orginal, cross between eletronic and classical. Timeless.
  • by L-Train8 ( 70991 ) <Matthew_Hawk AT hotmail DOT com> on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:16PM (#2839434) Homepage Journal
    Is there really that much that they can put on here that beats out the plain edition? It's not like this is Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. Is there that big a fan market for this movie? I have the plain edition DVD, and that's enough.

    I can't imagine after all these years that there is a lot of extra material to add. The movie wasn't so popular that people sqirrelled away stuff from it for this eventuality. I don't see them coming up with much interesting footage, either "extra" or "making of".
    • well, according to the review at dvd.ign.com [ign.com], the original dvd release sucked. non-anamorphic transfer, compression artifacts in the video, and barely any special features.

      a friend of mine bought it and was very disappointed. if it wasn't for the many poor reviews of the original, i'd own it already.

      this is also why i didn't buy the original monty python and the holy grail dvd, and why i'm not buying the clockwork orange dvd until it gets a better release.
    • by acroyear ( 5882 ) <jws-slashdot@javaclientcookbook.net> on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:26PM (#2839489) Homepage Journal
      Uh...this is Disney we're talking about, not the BBC (infamous for ditching and wiping tons of Dr. Who footage over the years making "director's cuts" next to impossible for many stories that need one).

      Disney doesn't throw much of anything away. Given how much footage of the making of, say, Snow White and Fantasia is still around 60+ years later for their respective DVDs, I'm not surprised in the slightest that extra Tron footage exists. Whether or not its interesting is up to the viewer, of course...but I'd never be suprised @ Disney keeping things around.

      Walt kinda made it a policy not to throw anything away, as "all good ideas will eventually find a home". See the making-of for Toy Story 2 to see that attitude still in action...but it was around back in the 40s as well, when some of the footage drawn for Pinnochio and left out eventually ended up intact in Bambi, including much of the forest fire sequence.

    • You get to see the making of blacklights, the concepts behind such things as the MCP and I/O Tower, and the physics behind that scanner-laser thingie! and don't forget the touchpad desktop, still coming in the not-so-distant future. Also, see a light tank whup the hell out of an Talibani (?) battle light-donkey.

      As an added bonus, the case will come in a limited-edition blacklight-glo scheme. Removing the DVD will involve de-rezzing the case.
  • huh (Score:4, Funny)

    by Phexro ( 9814 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:17PM (#2839447)
    does anyone else find it funny that amazon has a "used price" for this movie directly above the paragraph explaining that the movie isn't even released yet?

    maybe it's just their patented one-click time-travel system.
    • Longish thread on RGVAC about people who already have copies. Seems some shipped early and the stores screwed up.
    • It's possible by the time you buy it used that the original owner will have received its new copy, watch it, tape it (if s/he owns a macrovision disabled player) and send it to you just after. I have seen that before.

      PPA, the girl next door.
  • I hope this "Special Edition" includes the French audio track that the regular edition from a couple years back included. This movie makes far more sense in French. It's too weird in English. Bit saying "oui" and "non" makes more sense, I think.

    Cryptnotic
  • by EchoMirage ( 29419 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:20PM (#2839459)
    I'll re-post an Anonymous Coward submission from yesterday. I'm not taking credit, but it applies again:

    Slashdot (to MPAA): You fucking fascists. We hate you.
    MPAA: But look at these shiny colors!
    Slashdot: Oooh! How much?
    • by philovivero ( 321158 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @10:39PM (#2839758) Homepage Journal
      You know, I was riding in the car today with two Malaysians, an African, and a New Zealander. We were talking about Zone X DVDs.

      Turns out, one of the Malaysians purchased a 100% bonified good DVD (Final Fantasy, I think) and couldn't play it in his DVD player. The reason? His DVD player is region-free.

      He commented that the pirated versions of the movies play just fine.

      Then I said, and this really surprised myself: "I would like to be a DVD/CD pirate. No, not to make lots of money, but it seems like the right thing to do."

      When I realised that I was serious, and that it really truly *IS* the right thing to do. Someone needs to ensure that when a guy buys a player and some media, that it will actually play.

      What sort of idiots would allow a situation where someone can buy a player legitimately, buy some media legitimately, and not be able to use it? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
      • by Obiwan Kenobi ( 32807 ) <(evan) (at) (misterorange.com)> on Tuesday January 15, 2002 @12:59AM (#2840292) Homepage
        Turns out, one of the Malaysians purchased a 100% bonified good DVD (Final Fantasy, I think) and couldn't play it in his DVD player. The reason? His DVD player is region-free.

        He commented that the pirated versions of the movies play just fine.

        Why? Because they're region free as well. I'd bet my bottom dollar that he probably has an early Apex player. Those (as well as a few others) had the ability to turn region coding on and off at will (you can change it in the Setup menu).

        The catch came when RCE (Region Coding Enhancement) became the norm a few years ago. I remember clearly that one of the first titles to utilize this feature was The Patriot (let's take note that Final Fantasy was released by the same company, Columbia TriStar). If you player didn't specifically state it was region 1 hardware-wise, it wouldn't play the DVD.

        You know what the real irony of this is? Is that if you change your Apex player (or whatever brand, mind you) back to Region 1, you could fix the problem and play the DVD.

        Then I said, and this really surprised myself: "I would like to be a DVD/CD pirate. No, not to make lots of money, but it seems like the right thing to do."

        Christ, what kind of ego-driven self-serving comment is that? Yeah, you wouldn't make money off of it, you'd just do it out of the kindness of your heart. It's comments like these that tell not only your age, but your maturity.

        Instead of paying the studios and filmmakers for their work you'd rather rip them off. If actors/directors/writers/etc don't sell units, don't sell tickets, don't move these products, they're out of jobs. So please excuse me if I don't jump on the soapbox and proclaim that stealing is somehow beneficial to the artist(s).

        What sort of idiots would allow a situation where someone can buy a player legitimately, buy some media legitimately, and not be able to use it? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

        Here's a question: what kinds of DVD idiots are

        a) too dumb to turn the player back to its proper region (which will fix the problem)

        b) buying pirated versions in the first place?

        You can yell from the mountaintops how great it is to steal from people but the fact remains: there are plenty of folks who live off those DVD dollars. Movies aren't released around the world simultaneously (albeit a few of the bigger blockbusters), so sometimes a Region 1 DVD will appear in the states before it's even in theaters across the Atlantic/Pacific.

        Example: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back won't be released in Australian theaters until March. The Region 1 DVD comes out in February. Now if all those Australians get pirated copies of that great (and hilarious) film, who gets paid and who gets the shaft? Kevin Smith and his cronies for their hard work and great talent, or a money-grubbing hack who wants to earn a buck and cry "Free speech!" everytime someone accuses him of stealing?

        People can complain about region coding all they want, but the solid evidence supporting the practice is right here.

    • Poll Suggestion: Is $29.99 good value for the Tron DVDs?

      My answer - not on your life! $10 maybe - but 30! Sheesh! I seriously want to know is anyone considers the price of these things - or are we all just looking in our wallets, seeing the money, and spending it... despite lack of value, because its 'disposable'?
  • by drachenfyre ( 550754 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:20PM (#2839461) Homepage
    Any computer geek who is bashing this movie obviously hasn't been around that long. Yes the movie was a financial flop as it was over the heads of 99.9% of the people who might have seen it when it was released in 1982, but the fact remains that a majority of its plot holds true to what the internet is today. Heck, I bet you could draw great parallels between Tron and the open source movement. Replace the MCP with Microsoft, attempting to squash all competition. Place the users and their programs seeking a free system, up against the evil MCP, and voila. Yes, the special effects are pitiful by todays standards, yes the acting isn't that great, but as a whole, the movie was and still is a great movie for computer geeks to watch.
    • by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:40PM (#2839550) Homepage
      Ha. In the talk given by the director after the screening a saw yesterday, he said that he viewed Flynn/Tron as Bill Gates and Microsoft, freeing the computer from the mainframe model of IBM, who was represented by the villain, and bringing the power of the PC to the end-user. Those of us in the audience were horrified.
      • Somewhere, Steve Jobs is screaming, "No, I'm Flynn/Tron!!!"
    • by TheMCP ( 121589 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:52PM (#2839599) Homepage
      the fact remains that a majority of its plot holds true to what the internet is today.
      Actually, I think it's probably more true to the Internet of today than to computing in 1982... at the time, the concept of so many computers around the country being connected together was vaguely absurd to the common viewer. Now it's commonplace.

      It's kinda funny, I picked this nickname for Slashdot in a moment of sillyness, and hadn't seen the movie in quite a few years, but I since bought the DVD and found that I actually like the movie much more as an adult than I did as a kid. I guess I'll have to get the new deluxe set and give my old DVD to my cousins.
    • Bonnie MacBird (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jamiefaye ( 44093 )
      who is the co-author of the screenplay, is Alan Kay's (Smalltalk, Xerox PARC, etc.) wife. There are a lot of obscure references to Alan and PARC in TRON. Alan even made a prototype "monitor in a desk" later on at Apple.

      Alan went on to work for Disney for a while, recently departing.
  • Annoying (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pete-classic ( 75983 ) <hutnick@gmail.com> on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:21PM (#2839467) Homepage Journal
    I'm I the only one who finds the practice of releasing a "vanilla" DVD, then releasing a "extra groovy" DVD six months or a year later totally annoying?

    One more reason to rent-rip-burn. Bastards.

    -Peter
    • by TheMCP ( 121589 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @10:10PM (#2839658) Homepage
      Yes, it drives me absolutely nuts.

      Disney's marketing practices thoroughly enrage me. When I first got a Disney DVD and it made me watch Disney home video ads before my movie, I was immediately pissed off.

      I buy a lot of DVDs. There are far more old movies that I want on video than I can afford to buy at any given time, and I have no particular order that I feel I need to buy them in. So, if a studio makes nice releases of their movies on DVD, I'm inclined to look for movies from them next time. If they make lousy releases, I'm inclined to look elsewhere.

      So Disney is pretty low on my purchase priority list. Every time I see a Disney DVD in the store, or on Amazon, that I'm interested in, I think "Hmm, I'd like to have that movie, but it'll have ads on it, and they'll probably come out with a deluxe edition in six months anyway. I'll get it some other time." And I buy two Warner Brothers DVDs instead because they're cheap.
    • I guess you never collected laser discs, did you? This was SOP, and it was nothing to have 2-3 copies of movies.

      Given the small userbase, I think it was the only way to make a profit:)
    • I bought the $100 special edition laserdisc [google.com] set a few years ago -- so I'm a bit peeved now.

      But in happier news, Wendy Carlos reports [wendycarlos.com] that the soundtrack is finally coming out on CD [go.com].
    • I'm I the only one who finds the practice of releasing a "vanilla" DVD, then releasing a "extra groovy" DVD six months or a year later totally annoying?
      Um, Tron was originally released on DVD in 1998 . It was the very first DVD I bought when I got my Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM drive for my PC. Seeing that it's 2002 now, that's almost four years between DVD releases. And remember, back in 1998, almost all DVDs sucked as far as features, and most of us who were getting into DVDs that early were just appreciative that these movies were out on DVD.

      I think the new DVD is warranted here. I own both copies now (I got my new Tron DVD today, a day before original release day, woohoo!).

      • Blockquoth the poster:

        Um, Tron was originally released on DVD in 1998 . It was the very first DVD I bought when I got my Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM drive for my PC

        I was even worse. I bought Tron about 2.5 years before I bought a DVD player. I wasn't sure if a Tron resurgence was in the works and was afraid it'd disappear never to be seen again.


        And yes, I'm enough of a geek to buy the new version and I'm enough of a person to feel somewhat sheepish about it.

  • Trn was a great movie for kids and the lame effects of that time. but it would have been better and even could have been a rival to many other movies at that time if it wasn't a Disney production... come on there was no guts, violence or any sex in it...that would have been cool seeing them getting bitwise... ok ok....

    the problem is that they watered the movie down and dumbed it down..

    although you want a bad disney sci-fi movie? rent The Black Hole.... oh man that one sucked.... and I had the Toys and action figures from that.... Maximillion was cool though...
    • Lisberger said that Disney didn't really mess with his film that much except to throw in a couple lame jokes. He had started producing it as an independent film but was relieved to be bailed out by Disney. The badness of the film rests on the original producer's shoulders, not Disney's.

      Some amusing tidbits include the fact that many of the people later involved in Toy Story wanted to work on Tron, but were kept from doing so by their bosses. Also, Tron was denied the AFI Special Effects Award because it was thought, at the time, that using a computer was "cheating!"

      • To me totally using computers still seems to be "cheating".

        I still much prefer the models, camera effects and computer fix-ups of the Enetrprise in Star Trek 2 or the Millenium Falcon in Star Was opposed to the cartoonish ships in Babylon 5 and The Phantom Menace.

        The Enterprise in ST2 was so damn cool and realistic-looking. I have yet to see any computer model sci-fi object to rival that yet!
        • Blockquoth the poster:

          To me totally using computers still seems to be "cheating".
          I still much prefer the models, camera effects and computer fix-ups of the Enetrprise in Star Trek 2 or the Millenium Falcon in Star Was opposed to the cartoonish ships in Babylon 5 and The Phantom Menace.

          Then you don't think CGI is "cheating" -- you think it's ineffective. The AFI thingy was because CGI made the process "too easy", not the mark of craftmanship or professionalism.



          I think it's bull. A good image is a good image and it doesn't matter how it's made. YMMV -- probably does, since you don't like the B5 ships and I felt them to be a breath of fresh air compared to canned Trek models.

  • A great DVD extra (Score:4, Interesting)

    by L-Train8 ( 70991 ) <Matthew_Hawk AT hotmail DOT com> on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:22PM (#2839478) Homepage Journal
    They should include the old arcade video game as a DVD-ROM extra! That'd make my buy it. Actually 4 mediocre games in 1, that became more than the sum of it's parts, it was kinda fun. There was a light cycle game, a game where you shot spiders (though I don't think they were internet spiders back then), a breakout-esque game where you had to break through the cylinder to the MCP, and one more that I can't remember right now. It had the movie soundtrack, and that was kind of cool for a video game back in the day.
    • "... and one more that I can't remember right now." That would be the LightTank game. God bless MAME, as I have them both on my pc now. Err... yeah I umm have the rights to the original ROM too... err.. yeah...
    • The spiders were "grid-bugs", from the beam-ship scene.
    • Greetings programs! the 4 games were:

      • light cycles
      • shoot the grid-bugs
      • enter the MCP cone
      • tanks!

      one of my favorite arcade games, ranks right up there with galaga. Unfortunately, I'm not terribly good once the tank ranks jump up to 5:1

      End of Line

    • Go here [klov.com] for info on the Tron video game and here [klov.com] for Discs of Tron, a game I much prefer. The second link has a picture of the enviro-cabinet. Definately a cool touch, and the only way to play. I believe that these five games were originally supposed to be on one machine, but the fifth got spun off.
  • Deleted Scenes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by halo8 ( 445515 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:22PM (#2839479)
    I just bought Natural Born Killers , and it advertised "Deleted Scenes" but thoes scenes wernt in the movie, they were in a seperate menu, and some of them would have helped the movie. in Gladiator same thing.. the Delted out takes cant be made part of the viewing experiance yet add to the movie. Snatch on the other hand allowed me to add the scenes into the movie. So what will Tron allow me to do?
  • That's like remastering the output a Nintendo NES or a TRS-80. The CGI was lame by any recent standards, to go with the acting.

    Note also that there were funky TRON toys [toyarchive.com] and a TRON video game. [yesterdayland.com]

    • Go make some 3D animation at film quality on a bunch of 286's and we'll see if it turns out 'Lame'. The people who worked on tron were some of the pioneers of the CGI industry and are the same people that are producing the things you have seen that makes their own old work seem lame. You need a lesson in history.
  • by Orangedog_on_crack ( 544931 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:40PM (#2839551)
    A little OT, but then it isn't everyday that I get to post a reply on /. about Tron.

    Everytime I hear anything about this movie I remember what Dennis Miller said about Al Gore... "This man is the Vice President?! His favorite movie is 'Tron' for fucks-sake!"

    Oh that will cost me some karma.

    • Yeah, it's late in teh discussion and no one would see this if I didn't attach it to a highly moderated comment... so sue me...

      GLTRON [gltron.org]

      With Linux, Win32, MacOS and OSX versions available... woohoo!
  • by Logic Bomb ( 122875 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:52PM (#2839602)
    I submitted this article [sfgate.com] from the San Francisco Chronicle about the anniversary last week (rejected, naturally). It has a nice discussion about the film's creation and influence.
  • by thesolo ( 131008 ) <slap@fighttheriaa.org> on Monday January 14, 2002 @09:57PM (#2839613) Homepage
    You know, you'd think with Disney's constant backing of DRM, as well as basically funding the SSSCA, that /. would encourage a boycott of them, and not encourage supporting them, regardless of what products they have to offer.

    I would love Tron on a collectors DVD as much as the next geek, but until Disney starts respecting our rights, I won't be buying it. Mod me down if you want, but I feel that /. can and should be a place where actions start. If anyone else feels the same way, please make your voices heard, or at least contact me.
  • by RenHoek ( 101570 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @10:03PM (#2839635) Homepage
    :) That's what inquiring minds would like to know!

    See deleted scenes [tronfan.com]
  • Well this is nice, the MPAA is a bunch of bastards with the DMCA, and Amazon is evil for their patent on 1-click....


    So lets have a story promoting not only the MPAA and the advancement of DVDs, but link to the sale of it on Amazon!


    You could have at least linked to 800.com or something.. GO SLASHDOT!

    • Interestingly enough, the people complaining that slashdot is indirectly aiding the evil MPAA and dastardly amazon.com -- saying that the editors should have taken a principled stand -- include a large number of people who complain that slashdot has lost its journalistic integrity if it ever takes a stand...
  • One scene you may expect to see on the new DVD is shown here: http://www.tronfan.com/deleted/ds1.html Also, this answers the "no sex" complaint posted earlier...
  • by Nelson ( 1275 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @10:25PM (#2839707)
    It can only be a matter of months before the Wargames Special Edition DVD comes out.


    I can't wait!

  • Irony? (Score:5, Funny)

    by mwalker ( 66677 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @10:58PM (#2839803) Homepage
    The irony here is thick. Tron, the only movie where the bad guy was ICE, an intrusion countermeasures routine written by a huge evil corporation, is now released on a video format protected by... intrusion countermeasures... developed by a huge evil corporation.

    If Bill Gate's house bluescreens tomorrow pinning him under the refrigerator till he asphyxiates, I don't think the irony would get any thicker.
  • by bbum ( 28021 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @11:04PM (#2839827) Homepage
    Was anyone else incredibly pissed that Tron lost an Oscar to Gandhi for *BEST COSTUME*???!?!!

    I was. That was the turning point. From then on, I knew the oscars were a complete sham.

    Come on; a bunch of freakin' sheets beat out the most yummy high tech other worldly costume design to have ever graced the big screen?
  • Making of...??? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SomeoneYouDontKnow ( 267893 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @11:12PM (#2839854)

    I seem to recall a "making of" special that aired on TV about the time the film was released. Is that the one that's included, or is this a new one?

    And how many folks here remember "Automan"? A TRON ripoff, if there ever was one, at least for SFX.

    Oh yeah, if you have the original DVD, check out the plot summary on the back cover. Read closely, and you should get a chuckle out of the error you find there. Wait..., maybe it isn't an error. :)

  • Why not? Technology has advanced a lot since it was made, why are the editors the only ones who get to have fun? Re-render the whole thing, and replace that old tech with new stuff. I mean, for pity's sake, we have texture-mapping now!
  • by corebreech ( 469871 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @11:22PM (#2839887) Journal
    No credit for David Warner? He was the Master Control Program for goodness sakes!

    If Star Trek wasn't around to give us the Borg, Slashdot would instead be depicting Gates as the MCP.
  • by Ellen Spertus ( 31819 ) on Monday January 14, 2002 @11:51PM (#2840029) Homepage

    The DVD includes the cut love scene [tronfan.com].

    The video game [www.mame.dk] is available for MAME [mame.net].

  • Pretty much all the sci-fi that I swore was cool at age 8-13 is hideous when I revisit it at 30. Sometimes it's better not to reexamine too closely things you are nostalgic about...

    Oddly, this does not seem to hold true for 80's era video games, many of which still have very compelling gameplay despite the now-dated graphics. It's a pity that by the time those legally hit the public domain, there won't be anything left of them.

  • Anti-IBM (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cgleba ( 521624 ) on Tuesday January 15, 2002 @12:54AM (#2840275)
    Being very young in the "IBM" era and only realizing what was going on then now that I am older I am absolutely amazed at the atnti-IBM undertones of sci-fi in the era. A few examples:

    MCP = IBM in Tron
    HAL + 1 letter is IBM; 2001 A Space Odessy
    BladeRunner's director Ridley Scott also did the 1984 Apple commercial -- a blatant anti-IBM theme

    What other examples are there? Why don't we see such anti-MS undertones in scifi today? Is MS PR that much better then IBM PR at the time? The only example that I can think of was that not-so-popular movie "Anti-Trust" which was a MS satire complete with cameos from Scott McNeay and Miguel de Icaza.
  • I had every reason to love Tron:

    I was a geek

    I was working for a video game company

    The whole company took the afternoon off to see the premier of the film.

    I didn't yet hate Disney


    But even then, back in the summer of '82, I thought it was a lame movie. Why would I want to spend thirty bucks on it now?


    I guess it's like every Star Trek cover picture on TV Guide -- if it's got geek appeal, it sells. Sad.

  • what about buffy? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Suppafly ( 179830 )
    What no mention on /. about the release of the Buffy the Vampire Season 1 dvd's coming out on Jan. 15?
  • First, I loved Tron in the theatres. Yes, I'm that old. But this is like the second time in 2 days that /. has gone completely giddy about a classic motion picture industry release onto DVD. The problem? We're all whipped up into a happy frenzy about the very same industry which the vastly-prevailing attitude here hates for disrespecting basic fair use rights. If I recall correctly, Disney was behind Tron. Now, isn't Disney one of the worst offenders when it comes to denying fair use? All I'm saying is if you go out waving the Disney flag and buy this DVD, think twice before poo-poo'ing the rest of the MPAA and rights-management(/denial) industry.

Stellar rays prove fibbing never pays. Embezzlement is another matter.

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