Tron (1982)

 

Off-List: Tron

The third off-List movie of 1982 is “Tron”. “Tron” is one of my son’s favorite movies, both the original and the sequel, and he has watched it countless times. Thus, he was invited for last night's rewatch, or was it him inviting me? hmmm…

Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), usually known just as Flynn, is a programmer who got expelled from the Encom corporation and now runs a gaming arcade. He is keen to access the Encom computers to find evidence that the CEO Ed Dillinger (David Warner) stole his software (some games) and used it to power his career. Flynn is visited by his friends and current Encom employees Lora Baines (Cindy Morgan) and Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) who warns Flynn that Ed is on to him, and that people are getting locked out of the system. They agree to let Flynn into the building so he can gain access.

It turns out that the Encom computer system has been taken over by a program called the Master Control Program (MCP). It has even locked out Ed and is now bent on world domination. When Flynn tries to access the system, MCP retaliates by using an experimental laser to dissolve and digitize Flynn and he thus becomes another program inside the strange computer world.

This is a really weird world built on vector graphics where programs are personified through avatars. Blue ones are free, red ones are controlled by the MCP. Flynn is the only “user” on the system and meet with Tron and Yori, avatars of Alan and Lora. Together they venture on an odyssey through the grid to fight the MCP.

The basic story of “Tron” is fairly simple. It is essentially “Star Wars” inside a computer world. Or “The Lord of the Rings” (The lord of the disks?). That story is classic and not super interesting. What is interesting is the world building going on here. In my youth cyberpunk was a big thing (not certain if it still is) where the idea was that inside the computer network, you can be an avatar venturing around to meet and fight programs personified as other avatars. “Neuromancer” comes to mind as a classic book in this genre. This entire concept comes from “Tron”. In this sort of world, you are not planting code or searching libraries, you are analoging it and fire guns and drive imaginary bikes. Today reality has sort of caught up and you can play games in virtual worlds and with a VR headset, pretty much get the “Tron” experience, but it is still different because the “Tron” world is not a program, it is more like a network operative system hosting programs. “Tron” is the internet before that was even a word. This is where it slowly dawns on you how far ahead of the time “Tron” was.

It is easy to forget though. As a twenty first century viewer, the visuals are clunky and primitive. Everything consists of straight lines and simple graphics. The avatars are filmed in black and white and then (hand) colored. The result is… weird. But then, again, go back to 1982 and we are ages before CGI. There was never any movie before “Tron” that used computer generated images to even close to the extent it was used in this movie. This is an age where the household computers would have been an Apple II or, if you were really ahead of the curve, the newly released Commodore 64. What “Tron” did, stretched processing capacity to the extreme and according to “Tron” lore set limitation on the actual design. To complicated designs simply could not render.

These two elements, the conceptualization of cyberspace and the pioneering work in CGI are the cornerstone contributions of “Tron” and reason enough to watch it. It does help that it also has that classic eighties vibe that feels so familiar for fans of eighties movies (like me). The optimism, the endless possibilities, the jargon. In many ways, this picks up on so many eighties themes that it is absolutely worth watching, also beyond the special contributions. Of course, there is no harm in having Jeff Bridges being the lead, he rarely does a poor job, and he does bring charm and humanity to something which could easily become too flat and mechanical.

“Tron” is a nostalgic trip back to the eighties, pleasant and easy, but also super important for its contribution to popular culture and CGI. That is really enough to recommend it. Lots of recommendations from my son too.

If you are in the wind industry MCP means something entirely different…