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Tron 2.0
Disney announces sequel to its '82 groundbreaking film
In case it hasn't been absolutely clear what a geek I am, let me admit that I'm excited about the news that Disney is making a sequel to Tron. For those not as geeky, or old, as I, Tron is a 1982 Disney movie about a programmer, played by Jeff Bridges, sent inside a computer and forced to compete for his life in video games of his own design. The movie wasn't exactly good, but it changed the world — really.
Let us count the ways: The idea that a person could get digitized and sent inside a computer by means of a laser is pure Disney, but it also predicted the idea of cyberspace, after a fashion. Tron was one of the first movies to use computer graphics, which revolutionized the filmmaking process. It tied into one of the biggest video games of the time – which made more than the film. And its distinctive aesthetic, dated as it is, influenced generations of game designers. The property proved so enduring that Disney released a computer game called Tron 2.0 in 2003.
Ironically, the movie flopped in theaters, grossing only twice its production budget, according to Wikipedia. Some of the computer animators who worked on the film have said that Disney didn't give it enough support, in part because executives there didn't understand the computer animation technology it used. The film was scheduled to appear on the cover of Time, which had incalculable publicity value in a pre-Internet, three-network world, until Alexander Haig resigned. Perhaps most importantly, it was almost immediately eclipsed in both theaters and the public imagination by E.T. To add insult to injury, Tron didn't even win an Oscar for special effects, since some Academy voters believed that using computers was vaguely akin to cheating.
How times change. According to The Hollywood Reporter, special-effects wizards are eager to work on a test reel for the new film, since so many of them were influenced by the old one. Personally, I can't picture how the public would receive a movie about a person being stuck inside a computer. But that's probably what people said about the first film.
Robert Levine is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Technology.
Let us count the ways: The idea that a person could get digitized and sent inside a computer by means of a laser is pure Disney, but it also predicted the idea of cyberspace, after a fashion. Tron was one of the first movies to use computer graphics, which revolutionized the filmmaking process. It tied into one of the biggest video games of the time – which made more than the film. And its distinctive aesthetic, dated as it is, influenced generations of game designers. The property proved so enduring that Disney released a computer game called Tron 2.0 in 2003.
Ironically, the movie flopped in theaters, grossing only twice its production budget, according to Wikipedia. Some of the computer animators who worked on the film have said that Disney didn't give it enough support, in part because executives there didn't understand the computer animation technology it used. The film was scheduled to appear on the cover of Time, which had incalculable publicity value in a pre-Internet, three-network world, until Alexander Haig resigned. Perhaps most importantly, it was almost immediately eclipsed in both theaters and the public imagination by E.T. To add insult to injury, Tron didn't even win an Oscar for special effects, since some Academy voters believed that using computers was vaguely akin to cheating.
How times change. According to The Hollywood Reporter, special-effects wizards are eager to work on a test reel for the new film, since so many of them were influenced by the old one. Personally, I can't picture how the public would receive a movie about a person being stuck inside a computer. But that's probably what people said about the first film.
Robert Levine is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Technology.
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