Tron **** (1982, Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner) – Classic Movie Review 2369

Co-producer/writer/director Steven Lisberger’s attractive and appealing 1982 surreal electronic-age Sci-Fi adventure from an unexpected Walt Disney Studios is smart, stylish, exciting and visually thrilling. It received nominations for Best Costume Design and Best Sound at the 55th Academy Awards and received the Academy Award for Technical Achievement 14 years later.

Jeff Bridges stars in a pleasing turn as Kevin Flynn, a computer hacker, software engineer and arcade bar owner who is digitally broken down into a data stream by villainous software pirate Master Control (David Warner). Abducted and reconstituted into the internal, 3D graphical world of an evil computer, he is forced to participate in gladiatorial games where his only chance of escape is a life-or-death battle with the help of a heroic security programme. He joins forces with Tron (Bruce Boxleitner) to outmanoeuvre the Master Control Program holding them captive in the gigantic, infinitely challenging computer game.

Dazzling, pioneering, blazingly colourful, state-of-the-art computer graphics and animation produce a spectacular looking movie helped by the strong performances by Bridges, Boxleitner as his video warrior buddy Tron and David Warner as the inevitable baddie. It’s only a shame that the imaginative premise is allowed to drift away in a weakly developed, none too coherent storyline. But otherwise there’s everything to recommend about this spectacular movie, with ground-breaking visuals that, astonishingly, still look mighty impressive.

Also in the cast are Barnard Hughes, Cindy Morgan, Dan Shor, Peter Jurasik and Tony Stephano.

Tron’s development began way back in 1976 when Lisberger became fascinated with the early video game Pong. He and producer Donald Kushner set up an animation studio to develop Tron to make it as an animated film. Lisberger decided to include live-action elements with both back-lit and computer animation for the movie, which the Walt Disney Studios agreed to finance and distribute.

At the time, Disney saw Tron as a disappointment, and had to write off a good chunk of its budget. It was costly ($17million) and only a moderate success ($33million) at the box office, but got good reviews, became a cult movie and eventually spawned a franchise of multiple video games, comic books and an animated TV series.

A belated sequel titled Tron: Legacy directed by Joseph Kosinski was released on December 17, 2010, with Bridges and Boxleitner reprising their roles, plus Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde starring, and Lisberger acting as producer. Tron 3 is in the works with Hedlund, Wilde and Boxleitner reprising their roles, and Kosinski again directing.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2369

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