Guest Posted July 31, 2003 Share Posted July 31, 2003 Ok, the first word of the RotK thread got me thinking: we've never really talked about Tron here.Save the acting, every part of the film is a masterpiece, even if it is old. It's signature 80s. Back when it was hip to be square and not just mainstream. Back when everyone had printing calculators instead of computers, which were the ultimate getaway machines that could do everything in less than one room, finally. Tron, despite its quiet voice, exposed the world to the world inside computers and video games. That was. Radical, dude!Nothing's ever come close to making such a neat and interesting world as Tron. The way Steven Lisberger shot it was amazing. The game world was made to look like a blend of Lang's Metropolis (an old vision of the future) and something that should be the future, but not. Wal-ndy Carlos came up with one heck of a score, even if more than 50% of it isn't orchestral. For a virtual unknown s/he did a darn good job of making an ear-pleasing score, compositionally (how can you not like "Break-In" or the "Tron Scherzo"?). Sound design did a pretty wicked awesome job, too. The light cycle startup is so...refreshing and technologically-smooth. At the right volume, you could sleep by it. Even with the audio and visual arts at their peak condition for Tron, the dramatic side weighs it down from being a truly excellent film. Sure, Jeff Bridges is fine, as is David Warner, but Bruce Boxleitner and Cindy Morgan were written for each other in the movie. Hanging out with old Barnard Hughes for so long either made his acting rub off on them or theirs rubbed off on him. They brought no emotion to the movie whatsoever. If they did, it was incredibly off-balance. But who cares? They're easy enough to tune out with the score, sound effects, and visuals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker 5 Posted July 31, 2003 Share Posted July 31, 2003 I saw a 70mm print of this in March. On the big screen it seemed apparent to me that TRON was shot and edited in such a way that any sort of excitement was not put into the final film. It seems the movie was made for minimum impact. It's a startling dull 2 hours.I have the deluxe laser disc of it and some of the extras are nice, but man this movie really let me down. I was really looking forward to seeing this beautiful new 70mm print.Neil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FossMan 1 Posted July 31, 2003 Share Posted July 31, 2003 Well, remember that when Tron was produced, Disney was experimenting with live-action flicks and hadn't really gotten them down pat (e.g. Black Hole). Also, a lot of the excitement let-down about the movie might also have been because dominant blue-screen work was also being experiemented with. It was a time when directors were used to the camera picking up all the filmable details--they weren't used to keepng in mind all the special effect overlays atop the live action. I still think tron was a good movie, but I also think that a remake of it would be great with today's familiarity with special effects and the like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lurker 5 Posted July 31, 2003 Share Posted July 31, 2003 Disney had been making live action movies for years. At least since the 50's.Neil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 31, 2003 Share Posted July 31, 2003 As for a remake, I think there's a sequel in the works. I know there's a new video game coming out next month (which has an awesome demo, BTW). They're both called Tron 2.0. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CYPHER 1 Posted August 2, 2003 Share Posted August 2, 2003 I finally watched Tron for the first time earlier this year on DVD. I'd seen bits of it on several occasions when I was a kid, but I was always too confounded by it or flat out bored to actually watch more than ten or twenty minutes. This time around though I was very impressed. The visuals were amazing and far superior to the dodgy effects I was anticipating. It was such a fun, imaginative, innovative and thrilling movie. And Wendy Carlos' score was a rip-snorter as well.CYPHER Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hale-Bopp 0 Posted August 2, 2003 Share Posted August 2, 2003 yeah, Guy Whitmore (an awesome interactive score writer, see No One Lives Forever) has created a few music tracks for Tron 2.0. I'm dying with anticipation to hear this new score. I'm thinking and hoping that it will set another new standard in the level of audio excellence for game composers everywhere. My understanding is that is stays true to the Tron sound mixing electronica w/orchestra. Can't wait!As for the movie, I've been a long time fan ever since I saw it in the theatres when I was 8. I've also enjoyed the arcade games. In fact, so much that I sequenced the music to MIDI which can be found at my website. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eplicon 53 Posted August 8, 2003 Share Posted August 8, 2003 I have fond memories of TRON, having seen it during its opening weekend back in the summer of 1982. While everyone else was watching E.T. for the umpteenth time, I felt more at home with TRON. The movie came out at a pivotal moment: when arcade games were the biggest thing since slied bread and also, it was during the dawn of the home computer age and at a time when most people didn't have computers, so all that technical jargon didn't make much sense. While that didn't pertain to me, parts of the story still weren't that comprehensible. But I was more amazed by the f/x (quite groundbreaking for the day), in particular the light cycle sequence. Carlos' score really complemented the action sequences.The movie is dated in retrospect, but for a 1982 film, everything in it made perfect sense. To me, anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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