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TRON 20th Anniversary Edition DVD Reviewed 402

Posted by timothy from the insert-buzzing-mouth-noises dept.
gevmage (Craig Steffen) writes with the review below of the new DVD boxed set of Tron, which he says is a "must-have for any science fiction fan." So whether Tron brings back fond memories, or only serves to show you what movies before your birth, read on for his take on the set. If you're not familiar with Tron at this late stage, beware of a few spoilers within.

Review: TRON 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition, 2 Disc DVD set

January 15, 2002, issued a special edition DVD set of TRON. For those of you who have never seen the film, I mention some plot details revealed in the third of the film.

First, the film itself. It's a fantasy about a computer programmer who gets pulled inside the mainframe at the company where he used to work while trying to hack into the system to retrieve evidence that one of the execs stole programs from him. While inside the computer world (on the other side of the video game screen) he's forced to play the games that he's programmed, while trying to keep the computer world safe for democracy. It's an interesting plot premise, and who wouldn't want to go inside his computer and interact with programs as people?

The film is paced reasonably well, the script carries through but is kind of klunky in some places. The computer world scenes are visually stunning, and the DVD is an excellent transfer. If you have the means, I highly recommend watching it on a progressive-scan player. The original film was released in 6-track magnetic 70mm, and the sound track carries through very well. In addition to the back-lit animation for the "program" characters in the computer world, the film has 20 minutes plus of pure CG generated footage, unheard of at that time.

If you like the film at all, the special edition is definitely worth the extra money. Disney's standard DVDs are single-layer letter-box; this is two double-layer disks. The first disk has the film, on a THX certified "Enhanced for Widescreen TVs" presentation. The commentary track on the film is interesting and informative.

The second disc has all the extra material, and there's a huge amount of it. There's a 1 1/2 hour "making of" feature; also many hundreds of storyboards and photographs from the set for comparison. There are shorts talking about specific aspects of the production, and the usual previews, deleted scenes, publicity material, and lots of interviews with production and cast members.

An excellent presentation of an excellent film; a must-have for any science fiction fan.

Film Ratings:
Plot Originality: 8.5
Pacing: 7
Characterizations: 6.5
Dialog and Plot Coherence: 6
Visual Impression: 8.5
Geekness "Cool!" Factor: 8
Overall: 8

DVD Specific Ratings (Special Edition):
Film Transfer: 8.5
Sound Transfer: 7.5
Commentary Track: 7.5
Making Of Feature: 8
Other Additional Material: 8
Overall: 8

(All ratings are from 0 to 10 inclusive, 10 being better, with the ratings 2 through 8 encompassing 99% of all films.)
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TRON 20th Anniversary Edition DVD Reviewed More

TRON 20th Anniversary Edition DVD Reviewed

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  • And if you don't like the DVD.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by PopeAlien ( 164869 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:02PM (#3131456) Homepage Journal
    If you don't like the DVD, you can recreate your own deadly 'Discs of Tron' game in real life!
    • Better yet, get some Jai Alai equipment and re-enact the Jai Alai like scene from the movie.

      No challenge you say?


      Consider that you would still have to bounce the ball off the ceiling. AND that 99.999% of us have never touched and a piece of Jai Alai equipment and even coming close to someone should earn you a point like in horseshoes.

      I guess you could use those cheap plastic "scoops" to get a one-on-one game going

      Takes me back to when my friend had a "Thundertree" rigged up with tire swings and platforms that was inspired by Beyond Thunderdome...anyways, I'm rambling

      • I've partaken in both of these things. Somehow I managed not to kill myself? Then why do I need little plastic plugs in all of the outlets for kids these days?

        • Then why do I need little plastic plugs in all of the outlets for kids these days?

          OBVIOUSLY, to avoid having little 2 year old "lit-up" Tron re-enactors.

          Turn off the lights and the kids glow as they fly across the room


          ZZhhCK. "Mommy!"

      • Re: Real Life Tron scene (Score:4, Informative)

        by JWW ( 79176 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:34PM (#3131696)
        The really neat thing about the Jai Alai scene is that Flynn's competitor Pete Jurasick the same guy who would go on to play Londo Mollari in Babylon 5. It really hard to recognize him without Londo's trademark hair.

    • If you don't like the DVD, you can recreate your own deadly 'Discs of Tron' game in real life!

      Oh, great. See what you just made me do? I'm now having to waste my time playing Deadly Disks of Tron on MAME rather than work on writing the next game...

  • One of the only movies... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:04PM (#3131467) Homepage Journal
    So whether Tron brings back fond memories, or only serves to show you what movies before your birth,

    Back before you were born, computer movies were about real computer components with real terms; obviously, they had contracted computer technicians/scientists to ensure they were truely discussing computers so that the computer intelligent would not be offended... Unlike movies like "Hackers" or "The Net" where they didn't even ask a computer person anything, they just made stuff up...

    • Re:One of the only movies... (Score:4, Funny)

      by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:19PM (#3131591)

      Yes, "WarGames" and its ilk were technically accurate to a much greater degree than more recent movies like "Mission: Impossible"...

      Uh-oh, the Sarcasm Alert has hit DEFCON 5!
    • "Hackers" was actually technically accurate in what could and could not be done with computers and technology. "The Net" was the movie where they made stuff up. So were "Swordfish" and "Sneakers".

      "Hackers" is usually criticized because it is a "teen exploitation film". Teenagers are oppressed by adults and authority figures and in the end they save the world from disaster and are finally appreciated. The graphical visual elements of the computing scenes are superfluous, but the capabilities of those systems do not go into the "supernatural" realm like they do in "Sneakers" or "The Net".

      Cryptnotic
      • Sneakers was a little bit of a stretch, but pretty accurate, if you suspend disbelief long enough to assume a device could be created that would do the instant decryption thing. I think Sneakers embraces more of the hacker spirit, in that they were creative, smart, and did a lot of homework before hacking their way into something.

        As far as most technologically correct, I'd have to say Antitrust is the most accurate. The first movie I know of to use valid IP addresses in it, and even smart enough to put them in 10.X.X.X, which is much like the well known 555 exchange for phones, for all intents and purposes. As far as whether his half-brained plans would have gotten them as far as they did, that is a different issue.
      • Hackers was accurate? So all those hackers could chat so graphically and browse 3d graphic high-end mainframes over their 14.4 (assumed, since they freaked out over a 28.8 modem on the notebook) modems?

        I like Hackers, heck I have the DVD, but I like watching it *because* it's so inaccurate.

  • Geekiness factor only gets an 8? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by vrmlguy ( 120854 ) <samwyse@NOSPAm.gmail.com> on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:04PM (#3131470) Homepage Journal
    This is TRON, for gawd's sake. It's a slam-dunk 10 on the geekiness scale.

  • Impressions from a kid (Score:3, Interesting)

    by crumbz ( 41803 ) <<remove_spam>jus ... o spam>gmail,com> on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:05PM (#3131477) Homepage
    I saw TRON at the theater when it cam out. I was 9 or 10 at the time. We got a Sincalir ZX-81 with 16k RAM about the same time. That movie got me into computers like nobody's business. Imagining the CPU and RAM and electrons flowing through them. WOW! It is a little bit dated now, but when you are 9 years old you absorb the images and ideas like a sponge.

  • Letterbox Being the Disney Standard (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:05PM (#3131479)
    I realise this is slightly off-topic, but is anybody else disgusted with Disney's habit of putting out letterboxed versions, rather than Widescreen"Enhanced for 16x9 Television" editions?

    I wanted to buy Hercules the other day - only letterboxed editions available. I have a 16x9 HD-Ready television, and it's either watch a terribly distorted picture, or watch it in 30% of the viewable area of the display.

    Thankfully, their "Collectors Editions" (when available) have the enhanced versions, but some are simply not available.

    Technology marches on, Disney! I won't buy them
    • Correct me if I'm wrong but letterboxed movies are the aspect ratio that the movie was ment to be.. That's why if you have a standard 3:4 TV and a few letterboxed movies made at different times by different studios the black bars could be larger or smaller.


      Enhanced for 16:9 versions are "modified" to fit correctly for a 16:9 TV, must like how they used to pan and scan for 3:4 TVs. It's not as bad as when they did this for 3:4 screens, but it's still not what the original intented aspect ratio.

      • Re:Letterbox Being the Disney Standard (Score:4, Informative)

        by Rob Parkhill ( 1444 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:23PM (#3131622)
        Actually, there is a BIG difference between "letterboxed" movies, and "anamorphic", or enhanced-for-widescreen-TV movies.

        I can't possibly explain the difference as well as these guys can [thedigitalbits.com], so I won't even try. Go there and read this, it's a great explination. It's true that both present a wide-screen picture, but you lose a lot of information in a letterboxed format.

      • Movie theater screens are 16:9 ratio, they didn't just draw a new ratio out of thin air, they wanted the TV to more closely match the movie standard.

        Now if they take a version that was pan and scanned to 4:3 and then modify it again to 16:9 without the original, then it is messed up.

        Letterboxing in general means to present 16:9 aspect ration in an assumed 4:3 screen geometry. When the actual screen is 16:9, then you get horrible horizontal strecthing. Switching TV to show 4:3 corrects ratio, but it means you have big black areas above, beneath, and on either side, when you could get proper aspect by simply filling the screen.
      • Erm what do you mean by "modified"?

        Most theatrical releases are either 1.85:1 or 2.35:1. IIRC a widescreen TV's aspect ratio is 1.77:1 (I could be a little off), so there are still black bars at the top and bottom -- they're just significantly smaller.

        Widescreen enhanced means that the image has higher vertical resolution because there's less black bar in the way. It doesn't imply that the movie was cropped or that the aspect ratio was adjusted in any way. Some 1.85:1 movies are opened up a little to fill the screen entirely, but that's usually because the movie itself was open matte, and they're just reducing the size of the matte (thus the aspect is slightly off from the theatrical presentation, but it's insignifantly small and you're not losing information and likely not screwing up the intended framing).

        Anyway, Disney -- from what I've heard -- isn't screwing the consumer out of 16:9 transfers anymore. They've found better way to screw consumers.
      • OK, you're wrong.

        All DVDs encode the material at a resolution of 720x480. A flag in an MPEG header indicates whether the bitmap represents a 4:3 image or a 16:9 image; either way the pixels aren't square.

        On a DVD box, "Enhanced for 16x9 televisions" means the bitmap represents a 16:9 image. When played on a 4:3 TV, vertical scaling is performed in the DVD player, producing a letterboxed image.

        For whatever reason, some DVD creators letterbox the film first, then encode the letterboxed image. So some of the 720x480 bitmap is wasted on the image of the black bars, resulting in lower picture quality.

        So if the Tron DVD is "enhanced for 16x9" then Disney did it right.

    • I may be off, but the first edition of TRON was released several years ago, long before 16x9 TVs were even available.

  • I want to see the whole movie. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Captoo ( 103399 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:06PM (#3131484)

    For those of you who have never seen the film, I mention some plot details revealed in the third of the film.

    Why are they only releasing a third of the film on DVD? :)

  • I was happy as a clam that only 6 years later, I was doing similar CG on my Amiga (minus the 'light trails' from the flying discs)
    • Yup, The Amiga was fully capable of Tron-eqsue graphics. Way back, before I was an Imagine Jockey, I re-created the flying two-legged ship thingys in DPaint III of all places. I would "render" each facet of the ship's body using DPaint's 'Move' command. It was tiring work! I was so happy to discover real 3D rendering! "You mean I don't have to render each polygon separetely! What will they think of next!!"

      I also remember the 8-player tron-motorcycle game that was released for the Amiga as freeware. Man, those were some fun times.
      • OK... getting off topic here, but in reply:

        Didn't Jim Sachs do most of his excellent animations in DPaint only? If you remember some of his work, you'll appreciate the patience he must have had in doing them.

        Then of course, Eric Schwartz did wonders with MovieSetter (I think)
        • I remember Leo Schwab (ewhac on /.) describing how Kim Sachs used to work; If Jim wanted to change the color of something, he would manually repaint each pixel. Then, if he wanted to change it back, he would repaint each pixel again. He wouldn't just do a simple palette change.

          Now that may sound foolish, but if you saw Jim's work you'd see that he was very adept at blending and texturing with colors, and using dithering techniques, and so by changing the color of a few pixels, he would then repaint the surrounding pixels so that it looked just right. A simple palette change would not have had the same effect, because each pixel color was predicated on its neighbor. In short, it took a LOT of patience and mouse clicks (in fact, he used to talk about how many mice he wore out from clicking)
        • A very talented artist. I was always amazed at what could be produced at 320x200x32. Note, that's 32 colours, not 32k!

          A portfolio of his work is here. [deltanet.com]

          The women in your life will love these gifts [blatent plug link]

          Nah, they'll like these [fastriver.com] better. :-)
      • the flying two-legged ship thingys
        are called Recognizers.

  • Look out -- grid bugs! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by quistas ( 137309 ) <robomilhous@hotmail.com> on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:08PM (#3131504)
    This has always been my favorite part of tron -- the 5s grid bug creation CG, which is commented on and then never mentioned again in the entire movie.


    I'm convinced it was done earlier as a proof-of-concept or something, but they thought it was so cool they had to work it in.


    Can someone who has the new edition comment on that -- were the grid bugs supposed to be important and then cut down, or are they just a funny aside tossed in?


    -- q

    • This scene was worked in because they developed the arcade game [klov.com] at the same time, which had a grid bug sequence in it...
      • More details, from that same URL:

        As every good Tron fan knows, the grid bugs were almost entirely edited out of the movie (what was left was about two seconds of an animation of a grid bug creating itself). Grid bugs appear in the game because of pressures to develop the arcade game in time for the release of the movie (all part of Disney's sales strategy for the movie's launch -- posters and trailers ended with a tagline along the lines of: "See the movie. Play the game.") So, game programmers had to use whatever script elements they could from the movie before the film itself was actually completed. Light cycles, tanks, recognizers, and the MCP, of course, all made the final cut -- the grid bugs did not.
    • I guess the "grid bugs" were just mentioned to explain why they couldn't afford to jump out of their simulation/ship when they got attacked a few minutes later. But yeah, it would've been nice to see them mentioned more than once.

      I have a bigger problem with "Bit", personally. It hangs around Flynn's program at the start of the film. Then it hangs around Flynn. At no point does it offer useful advice to either one. And then it's gone, poof. Why was it even there? Probably just to make the movie look cooler or more "computer-like". *shrug*
      • Bit was there for two reasons:

        First, it was the logical personification of a computer concept: a "bit" that can only say yes or no. How can you NOT put that in a movie based in a computer world?

        Second, comedic value. You can argue if you like if it was funny, but no doubt it tried to be. I can still hear the little guy "NONONONONO" as Flynn crashes his way around

  • Raise your hand if you can close your eyes and make yourself "hear" the sound of the cycles warming up from the video-game... if you can make yourself "see" the guy ALMOST losing his balance from Disks Of Tron... if you can perfectly picture the exact shade bright blue that permeated the movie....

    Tron!

  • Sequelitis (Score:3, Informative)

    by Cinnibar CP ( 551376 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:12PM (#3131538)
    Yeah, and the review neglects to mention the overpowering hints on the DVD regarding "Tron 2.0".

    The sequel is coming.

  • ... did anyone see the movie 'Tron'? (Score:3, Funny)

    by merz ( 550238 ) <andy AT fribber DOT org> on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:12PM (#3131541) Homepage
    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.

  • What have I done? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Aaron_Pike ( 528044 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:13PM (#3131545) Homepage

    I just saw Tron for the first time and... *sob* WHAT HAVE I DONE? All those programs I've deleted over the years... Oh, the humanity...

  • Better reviews (Score:5, Informative)

    by cowboy junkie ( 35926 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:13PM (#3131547) Homepage
    If you'd like a review with some actual depth, check out DVDFile's [dvdfile.com], which goes into much greater detail as to the picture & sound quality as well as what the extras are all about. This thread [hometheaterforum.com] at Home Theater Forum also has more useful feedback about the disc.

    IMHO, it's a pretty nice disc. The picture quality is good, the sound is sweet and the extras really show you in great detail how it was all done.

  • Interacting with Personified Programs Stinks (Score:4, Funny)

    by guttentag ( 313541 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:13PM (#3131550) Journal
    and who wouldn't want to go inside his computer and interact with programs as people?
    Me: Where am I?
    Program: It looks like you're trying to go to MSN.
    Me: How do I get out of here?
    Program: It looks like you're trying to buy some data. Would you like to use your Passport account?
    Me: Do you ever shut up?
    Program: It looks like you're trying to access help on help. Please have your Windows activation code ready.
    • Oh, I don't know. That one might make a good test subject to find out just how many ways there are to delete a program. Hit with disc, falling from an erased platform, hit (or near miss) by tank projectile, stomped by recognizer, run into lightcycle wall at high speed...and let's not forget the wall of pain. ^_-

  • Tron and MS (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Derkec ( 463377 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:15PM (#3131559)
    Recently I heard an interview with one of the main guys at Disney who has been with Tron. He described it as being similar to the early "Bill Gates story." Bear with me. The MCP is the classic big iron central computer of the time. It was controlling and monolithic, like say.. IBM. It locks up programs and does mean things to users. In comes a rogue force which strikes back at the monolith. By going inside (like MS getting IBM's contract) it finds the weakness of the monolith and destroys it. This brings happiness to the programs and the users. While I don't think they really intended it to be the "Bill Gates story" (how could they at the time) the themes that made MS successful early on resonate soundly. Tron is a entertaining when you watch it with that perspective.
    • And now, the parallels are still there, is you cast:

      Bill Gates/Microsoft as Dillinger/MCP/SARK
      Linus Torvalds as Alan/TRON
      Tove as Lora/YORI
      Eric S Raymond as Popcorn Guy/RAM
      Alan Cox as Flynn/CLU
      and... RMS as Walter/Dumont
  • If you're a big fan of the movie, check out 'Armagetron' over on Freshmeat. Windows and X clients available, BE SURE to get the movie packs for images and sounds. The game is already well done, show some support and it can improve. (LAN play is fine, net play gets a little hairy.)

  • Time to get out more... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Spamhead ( 462189 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:15PM (#3131561) Homepage
    ...and who wouldn't want to go inside his computer and interact with programs as people?

    Uh, me for one. Time to get outside more, dude.

  • No Tron for me... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PeterClark ( 324270 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:15PM (#3131563) Journal
    I thought Disney was the bad guy? Undoubtably, someone is going to get on my case for expecting some standards here at /., but really, this is DISNEY, bringer of evil acronyms, like SSSCA, and part of evil four-letter acronyms, like MPAA. But look! Shiny lights!


    Bah. A pox on your house.


    :Peter

    • Completely agreed.

      While I'd love to own this movie, especially on DVD, I refuse to give another cent to Disney. After what I read [lwn.net] about what Eisner had to say at the Senate hearing, I will NEVER purchase another Disney product, and I encourage others to do the same.

      Check out this quote from the above link:

      "Eisner confessed that the only reason he could think of for Michael Dell not to build in ubiquitous copyright-policing functions in his products was that Dell wants to sell his products to infringers."

      In the face of such blatent corporate doublethink, how can anyone who's at all concerned about Fair Use justify the future purchase of even a single Disney product?
    • Yes! Disney, RIAA and MPAA are all iredeemably wicked.

      They are symbols of corporate abuse of power and show complete contempt for us as consumers. They regularly use their lobbyists in Washington to try to influence lawmakers to further restrict our rights to what we pay for. They wish "fair use" would just go away.

      But they do make shiny things that CmdrTaco likes to buy.
    • Do you realized how hard it is to boycott Disney?

      They just dont sell old movies, and over packed theme parks.

      I lived for 2 years in Orlando, Fl... seat of the Disney/Eisner Kingdom...

      Let me tell you something... Disney owns EVERYTHING. They have a 10billion dollar a year general aquisition fund, for buy NON-Disney like companies...

      Though you may not like them the Cristian Coalition also tried to boycott Disney... they failed miserably..

      BTW: Disney is not all bad. They were one of the first major coroporations to offer benifits to same sex couples. (since this message will be archived for the next Gazillion years on Google, I should probably mention I'm not gay) And they do a heck of allot of charity. Just because they don't GET tech doesn't make them evil, just a little (or a lot) slow.
      • Disney may offer benefits to gay folks, but they have more than their share of employee abuses. For instance, this fall, thousands of Disney employees in the Orlando area had their workweek cut significantly short, and had their pay reduced to match. Middle management and the labor force have routinely been screwed over the years since Eisner took over, while the share price has gone through the roof, and Eisner has pulled hundreds of millions a year in bonuses and option compensation.

        Disney is one of the most piggish and corrupt corporations around these days, and like you said, they are EXTREMELY hard to boycott. To do so effectively, one would have to avoid all of its business outlets (including possibly all advertisers on its media outlets)

        For instance, In addition to the Disney-labeled media outlets, Disney owns over 19 TV networks including ESPN, A&E, the History Channel, Lifetime, E! and Fox Family; 6 magazines like US Weekly and Discover; 6 movie studios including Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax, Dimension and Buena Vista International; 50 Radio stations; 9 resorts; 5 book publishers, including Hyperion, Talk Miramax, and ABC Daytime Press; 2 sports teams (Anaheim Mighty Ducks and Anaheim Angels); and lots of other businesses, including 4 large theatrical productions, a Broadway theatre, 741 Disney Stores and the Disney catalogue, tons of licensing deals of characters for clothes, toys, teaching aides and videos/films for schools...as well as stakes in NFL.com and Movies.com and the 4900-acre town of Celebration, Florida.

        Oh, that's just it's media holdings. Who knows what else they've got investments in.

        Even if you successfully avoid exposure to Disney-sponsored entertainment (a herculean task), it's nearly impossible to get widespread success with this, and you'll still be buying products from companies that advertise through Disney.

        Basically, it goes like this:

        Disney: I OWN J00

        You: WHAT YOU SAY!

        Disney: T4KE 1T!

    • Re:No Tron for me... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually, I had a random thought about this whole copy protection thing the other day.

      Why is it we assume fair use for music (the ability to mix tracks, the right to get the information in a non-encrypted format) but not for video. I'd really like to be able to take my favorite scenes to The Matrix, The Fugitive, Tron, et. al, and mix em up for a treadmill DVD.

      I mean, if we have the right to do this with audio, why not video? I think we need to push for enshrining (ie., yes, legislation) guaranteeing certain "fair use" rights regardless of the type of product.

      This gets confusing and interesting when thinking about books and libraries, software and source code...

      :-)

    • Re:No Tron for me... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fleener ( 140714 )
      No Tron for me because I bought the DVD when it was first released. It's quite a racket to release a barebones edition, have all the diehard fans buy it up, then wait a few years and release a bigger version to sell to the same audience again.

      No thanks.
    • Why do you assume /. must cater to a specific agenda? They pst stories about thing for nerds. TRON qualifies. Wether or not you want to buy it, is up to you. I don't think anybody wants /. to tell us our opinions.
      so, who did you vote for in the last election?
      If you don't vote, you are being a huge hipocrite when you complain about problems like this. Thats far more important then anything on /. .
      if you do vote, thanks.
  • It'd be interesting to see what the computer program inside are like now. Would they have multiple personalities because of all the people involved? Would open source programs be transparent?

    Is the MCP still around, only he's calling himself Windows?

  • Problem with the first disc (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lord Javac ( 108765 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:16PM (#3131572)
    I was really excited about this edition and bought it shortly after its release. Unfortunately, there is a flaw in the disc which makes it unplayable on a PS2. In the eighth scene, during a conversation in the holding cell, there as a graphic error that causes a PS2 to totally flip out. Fortunately for everyone with a real DVD player, this is a small enough glitch to go unnoticed on all but the PS2. I did try returning the disc, but the replacement had the exact same flaw and when I took it back again, they guy at the store said there had been complaints at other stores.

    The movie is great, if you can get it to play, and the special features are nice. My favorite part of the disc is the menus. I will try purchasing this edition again when either Sony updates their DVD drivers to address issues like this or Disney re-issues the disc with a new master (to remove the flaw).
    • Did you try this with both the original PS2 DVD drivers and the "updated" ones that came with the official Sony remote, or did you not have both available?
    • Unfortunately, there is a flaw in the disc which makes it unplayable on a PS2.

      The top-level menu is widescreen (16x9) formatted, but plays in 4x3 on my DVD player, so you only see part of the picture. Of course, the highlight graphics when you select items are in 4x3, so they don't line up with the images behind them. Shows up on my Samsung 7something, but plays fine on the cheapo Apex player we got my parents for Xmas.

      The second disc is fine, though...

      • Really? I have an original Apex AD600A player, and the goldurned thing won't recognize the anamorphic flag on this movie - I end up with tall-skinny-Boxleitneritis. If I want to watch it in the correct aspect ratio, I have to use my computer because there's no way to override it on the Apex. It's probably time to replace the thing anyway. It was a good deal when it was new, but it really is cheap - it overheats, it won't handle seamless branching correctly, and various other problems as well.

        Certain DVDs incorporate widescreen menus - _Tron_ is one, _Gladiator_ is another. It uses the pan-and-scan flag to tell the player to zoom in on the menu image when playing on a 4:3 display. These menus usually don't have actual selectable menu items on the sides which would get cut off, just extra background image. It sounds like your Samsung isn't getting the pan-and-scan flag right. (This flag was supposed to enable anamorphic DVDs to act like cropped discs so that both crowds could be pleased by the same disc, but a lot of players don't seem to get this right.)

        My favourite part of the extras on this disc is when someone describes generating animation frames by hand. He actually had to write down the camera coordinates on paper - six spatial and angle coordinates each for hundreds of consecutive frames - to be manually input into the system that rendered the images, because apparently there was no mutually compatible storage medium (floppy discs, etc) between the system they used and the rendering system! Compare that to, say, _Monsters Inc._ - talk about stone knives and bearskins...

  • Tron2k - Tron Killer App (Score:3, Informative)

    by Flamesplash ( 469287 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:16PM (#3131575) Homepage Journal
    Keep an eye out for the new tron movie.

    http://us.imdb.com/Title?0208650 [imdb.com]

    I don't see how this can't be a total flop, given historical sequals/remakes of classics, but we can hope.
    • Unfortunately, when Steven wrote the first Tron, he was a young(ish) man writing about himself and his own fascination with computer graphics and their potentiol in the real world and in movie making. The characters were all about his age, young(ish) adults, but (as the other posts attest to) the movie was readily acessable to kids as well as adults (He made the movie FOR adults).

      Now Steve is an old man and is helping to write the new one which stars young kids. I'm very afraid that it'll be nothing more than a typical kids disney film with virtually zero adult interest. and ironicly probably even less kid interest than the old one.

  • I want this, but I won't buy it. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:20PM (#3131599)
    Man, I loved TRON so much when I was a kid. Besides seeing the movie and renting the VHS cassette over and over again, I pumped dozens of dollars into TRON and DISCS of TRON game machines.

    When I first heard that TRON was going to get a SE DVD I was ecstatic. Then I remembered who produced TRON. I remembered the fight in congress to introduce the SSSCA, which has been largely fueled by that same company.

    So, thank you, Disney, for giving me a wonderful experience in my youth. Thanks, but no thanks, for the TRON SE DVD. I won't spend my money to help a company that wants to surgically remove my rights to do what I want to with my computer or any media I buy.

    If you have any feeling at all about the SSSCA don't spend your money on the TRON SE DVD.
    • I actually broke down and bought the DVD at Costco. My wife and kids never seen it, so I had to buy it.

      Then I ripped it, and encoded it with Divx5 and the AC3 audio stream, just a couple CDs, very nice. Humm, lucky I don't have broadband, I might put it on gnutella. (-;
      -
      quote removed by RIAA copyright control via .net architecture

  • Please buy (Score:5, Funny)

    by r_j_prahad ( 309298 ) <r_j_prahad@NOSpAM.hotmail.com> on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:21PM (#3131610)
    Everybody must buy this DVD, even if it won't play in your region. Michael Eisner and Jack Valenti need all the money they can get to combat evil movie pirates.

    Just trying to burn off karma.

  • And is the video anamorphic? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Dimensio ( 311070 ) <[darkstar] [at] [iglou.com]> on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:23PM (#3131630)
    I'll avoid the natural comments about Disney and the MPAA and SSSCA and all that crap and address the review.

    This is kind of a minor nitpick for a rant, but someone has to bring it up.

    One of the common elements in DVD reviews that I read is whether or not the video is anamorphic. For some viewers -- especially those with TVs that can take advantage of the enhanced resolution -- that is an issue. Whenever a widescreen DVD is reviewed it should be noted whether or not the video is anamorphic, I've refused to purchase discs because of that issue.

    BTW, the video, from what I've read, is anamorphic -- though Disney in the past was notorious about only releasing "letterbox" movies in 4:3, not 16:9.

  • Soundtrack is out too (Score:2, Informative)

    by NetRanger ( 5584 )
    Admit it -- you like the music. The soundtrack is now on CD for the first time too, to coincide with the 20th Anniversary release. The composer [wendycarlos.com] has some really interesting notes on how it was nearly lost forever until it was baked. Yes, baked, as in an oven.

    It makes for a fascinating story, especially considering the future of classic works -- will they be lost forever when the media disintegrates?

  • TRON memories (Score:5, Interesting)

    by vrmlguy ( 120854 ) <samwyse@NOSPAm.gmail.com> on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:35PM (#3131703) Homepage Journal
    I saw TORN in the theaters when it came out in '82, and I still recall how for weeks afterward my geeky friends and I would say "Greetings, program!" when we saw each other on the street.

    I bought the 20th anniversary edition the day it cam out, and watched it that night with my 17 year-old son and a buddy of mine. I've got a 36" screen (non-projection) TV, and normally like to watch with some lights on in the room, but I made an exception for this viewing, and it was well worth it. The TRON universe, for those out of the loop, is *black*, with the only light being provided by the inhabitants. It was visually stunning in a dark theater 20 years ago, and it was equally so in my dark living room.

    As for the CGI, I was a regular attendee at SIGGRAPH in the early '80s, and I think I recall seeing some previews of the movie's special effects. Of course, as is pointed out in the "making of ..." feature, this was before it was called "CGI". I was doing a far amount of computer modeling back then (which is why I was at all those SIGGRAPH's), so several other parts of the "making of ..." feature resonated with me. At one point they talk about running a program to calculate a trajectory, getting a printout, and then reading it over the phone to someone on the other side of the country who was entering the numbers into a computer at their end. Speaking as someone who once or twice did something similar, that doesn't just make you appreciate the Internet, it makes you appreciate modems!

    BTW, there is one complaint that I have with the "making of ..." feature. There aren't any chapters! The show is divided into three sections, but there's no way to skip directly to any of them.

    The review doesn't mention it, but the 2nd DVD also has a couple of deleted scenes. While just about everyone interviewed says that, in retrospect, they wish the scenes had stayed in, I have to say that I agree with the decision that was made at the time. The "love scene" doesn't add anything to the plot, and in fact undercuts the later scene where Flynn kisses Yori.

    Finally, there's one other surprise on the DVD. These days, most DVD's start with a "Coming Attractions" bit that you have to skip over. This one starts with something that looks and sounds at first glance like the standard Disney previews, except that it says "Coming soon from the scret lab". What follows strongly hints that TRON 2.0 is in productions. I can hardly wait!

  • I liked this movie when it first came out because of the (then) high-tech graphics. The problem was, being only 12 at the time, and having just bought my first computer (a 16K TRS-80 color computer), I couldn't yet understand some of the concepts being presented in the movie. (What the hell was an I/O port?) Imagine what other, non-geek type people must have felt about the movie.

    Now, after having used computers for 20 years, earning a living through computers, and after being exposed to the current 3D games and movie SFX, I realize just how dated the graphics seem now but which probably cost a lot to render back then.

    The pacing of the movie is a little slow and will bore people especially if they don't have an affinity for computers. I like computers but I just couldn't wait to see the next scene. They could have sped it up a bit instead of dwelling on one particular area in order to present, fully, the computer world.

    I like the girl in the movie though and I can now understand the concepts fully. I love this movie very much because it brings me back to those days of yesteryear when computing was so much simpler. and there still was so much to discover and to explore. This ranks up there with War Games (with Matthew Broderick).

    There was an old BASIC command that I used to type just to get the feeling that I was bringing TRON to life. The command was TRON (TRacer ON). TROFF did the opposite which was to turn the TRacer OFF. This basically just listed the number of the program line that was being executed at that moment.

    I'll recommend to my rich brother to buy the DVD so I can watch it too.

  • Of course, as a youth I really enjoyed Switched on Bach (I even have the double CD set of Switched on Brandenburgs in my car right now). It's amazing that she was a personal friend of the Moog family.

    However, when I consider her later work (Digital Moonscapes, Beauty in the Beast, and even the Tron soundtrack), I see unrealized potential. I think that the recent "Switched on Bach 2000" is really sad from this perspective. My favorite piece that she actually composed herself was "Country Lane" from her Clockwork Orange soundtrack (I love the Dies Irea theme; I wish that she'd had more time to work on this score).

    I don't know much about her decision to get a sex change, but sometimes I wonder what sort of an effect that had upon her musical output.

    Still, AFAIK, Switched on Bach was the hottest-selling classical music album of all time...

  • Fun as it is to watch President Sheridan as a young geek who 'invented' Space Paranoids...

    The poll I'd like to see: Considering the MPAA continued attacks on freedom, and the region coding/Macrovision issues, would you like slashdot to cover American DVD releases or not?

  • Tron 2.0 Scoop! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by indole ( 177514 ) <fluxistNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday March 08, 2002 @02:47PM (#3131771) Homepage
    From the Coming Attractions [corona.bc.ca]page:

    "At the start of the Tron 20th anniversary menu screen, a cryptic promo is seen. After several moments of watching 80's computer graphics and designs (looking as if they're straight out of the original Tron movie) flash over a rolling timeline, the promo ends on the year 2003 and a web address flashes on the screen: www.tronkillerapp.com. [tronkillerapp.com]

    When you go visit that website you're given the impression that you have entered a restricted site by accident. A multiple answer question prompts you for your "Level 6" security clearance. Regardless of the answer you select, you are then taken to a screen where you appear to receive a communique from somebody trapped in the system:

    Please...I need your help

    System wide failure imminent
    Must destroy system corruption Will continue contact shortly
    Do not believe their lies

    We've checked the WHOIS registration for www.tronkillerapp.com and it's owned by Buena Vista. If that doesn't convince you this is some kind of viral marketing idea for Tron 2.0, nothing will."

  • ...hated this film. It's almost as bad as Last Starfighter - but at least that had real CG.
  • I read the whole (short) review, but where exactly are there spoilers in here, especially from the 3rd act of the movie? The review devotes only a few short sentences to the plot itself, and in most generic of terms. Almost everyone knows the basic premise of this movie, so this does not give anything away. Usually I appreciate the warning about spoilers, but here it's hardly necessary, as no details about the outcome are revealed, or any successes/failures of any of the characters.
    • The review devotes only a few short sentences to the plot itself, and in most generic of terms.

      Hell, the commentary audio track on the DVD barely mentions the plot! It's the producers and directors chatting about how they did this or that effect, the problems they had with the film, or the management, or the locations, etc.

      This is probably because the plot is barely there to begin with... the movie is a showpiece, driven by the technology (backlit animation and computer graphics), not because the story needed to be told.

  • The Gospel According to Tron (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Tin Weasil ( 246885 ) on Friday March 08, 2002 @03:02PM (#3131851) Homepage Journal
    Flynn=Jesus Christ

    According to the New Testament, Jesus was God... then he became Human so that through his sacrifice, all mankind would be saved.

    According to Tron, Flynn was a User... then he became a Program, and by his sacrifice, all the user-created Programs were "saved".

    Was this parallel on deliberate, or simply coincidental?
    • It's even deeper than that, but it's a mishmash of some other religions too. For example, it is panthiestic, and there are many users, both good and bad, who are equal in the higher world.

      TRON is sort of a John the Baptist predicting the coming of Flynn, but he has his own user, and provides a key tool in the defeat of the evil one.

      Also particularly telling is the scene where Flynn "dies" after performing a miracle and then comes back to life.

      But the theme of the gods, who created the world, incarnating and acting in it, performing miracles etc., is certainly a deliberate religious theme. Not that the writers were trying to push a religion, I think, it's just a classic story.

  • Deleted Scenes (Score:2, Interesting)

    by freakinPsycho ( 23459 )
    Damnit, the one thing that bothers me about DVDs including deleted scenes is that you are seeing them completely out of context.

    DVDs need the option of viewing the deleted scenes as part of the movie. I've seen it done (once, I think) and it was a lot of fun.

    Take your favorite movie DVD and picture the option of viewing the extra scenes as part of the movie so it's seamless.

    Maybe I just ask for too much...

  • "ratings 2-8 encompass 99% of films."

    So in Plot Originality, Visual Impression, and Film Transfer, the DVD is better than 995 out of 1000 other DVDs (at least, I suppose his scale must be logarithmic or exponential?)

    Sounds a little high.
  • ... Do your part for Disney's political contributions for SSSCA and for the MPAA by running right out and buying this.

    Sometimes I think the geek worldview would depress me if it weren't so f*cking pathetic I had to laugh...

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