Movie Details
| Title: | TRON | |
| Director: | Steven Lisberger | |
| Year: | 1982 | |
| Genre: | Science Fiction | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 08.25.07 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 08.25.07 | Paramount | I don't remember the first time I saw Tron. According to IMDb, if my mom took me to see it when it first came out in 1982, I would have been just turning 4. Since her memory serves that Empire Strikes Back (80) was the first movie she took me so, this would definitely be possible... but since the first memory I have of being in a theater is Temple of Doom (84), I can't really be sure. I am sure that I had some of the awesome TRON toys that were out at the time (the figures were clear with red/blue coloring and each had a little disc that stuck onto their backs until the first time you take them off and they get lost forever, and the light cycles looked exactly like in the movie and moved via plastic ripcord) and when I was playing with them I already knew how awesome the light cycle sequence was in the movie because I was disappointed the toys didn't make the solid barriers trailing behind them. Who knows. What I do know is that I loved it back then, still like it a lot, and am a bit embarassed for it when I see it with an audience and hear people laugh at its timliness. Sure it hasn't aged as well as... well I would say any other movie ever made but let's be honest, what 80s movie has? But hey! Jeff Bridge's little sneaky walk... actually all the live-action stuff is pretty great. I love the coltish kid at the arcade who points out where to find Flynn; a total dead ringer for the kid who played young Richie Tenenbaum. I loved that Flynn gets super sweaty playing the video game. Even though the game... OK it makes no sense. He rounds a corner, fires like 3 times at the Recogniser, blows it up, and gets the high score and people cheer? So ok that part doesn't really make sense but I love that it made him all sweaty! And I love that the thought of programming 5 successfull video games turns you into a senior VP in charge of defense contracts and stuff... getting to fly around in a neon helicopter. I guess I'm listing off a bunch of reasons to laugh at this movie but I am completely not. OK maybe kind-hearted chuckle, but not HA HA YOU'RE DUMB guffaws. Whatever. Anyway. I love it. I love the shifted point of view to see things from a program's level. It makes me drift off into geeky daydreams about apps on my modern-day machine act when they all go to the commissary for lunch. I bet it's just like my highschool. Each table belonged to a clique, so you'd have all my Adobe programs hanging out like art geeks, all hip and trendy like they sort of want to be iTunes but they can't hide the fact that they're myopic with bad skin so they end up with faux-hawks and expensive sneakers and pre-worn jeans and $90 t-shirts. Then there's the Microsoft Office table full of full-on nerds but they all know the lunch staff so well that they eat steaks while others get meatloaf. You can hear all my mp3s eating lunch down the hall in the band room so they can jam out, and my games... they all eat in the special exclusive "Senior cafeteria" where even still there's some strata. Freecell and Spider Solitaire have bag lunches while Far Cry and Bioshock laugh loudly like cool kids. Then there's GTA San Andreas making out in the corner and somehow not caring that people can plainly see he's made it to third base. All is well until Yahoo Messenger walks around to every table with flyers or the class prankster slash principal's son Internet Explorer invites some hobos in for ice cream sandwhiches and the hall monitor Kaspersky Anti-Virus has to boot them out. Yep. I bet the innards of my computer are a lot like that. But seriously. I do love the whole religious aspect of TRON, where the users are totally faith-based. The analogy kiiiiind of wears thin if you think about it too closely (it might hold up for some maintenance program or resident filter type thing but most programs need user input don't they? so wouldn't they have pretty hands-on interaction like TRON does when he gets instructions to take down the MCP all the time? Anyway, I like the thought of it. I will say that the movie seems very long to me. I like it. Don't get me wrong. But every time I watch it I swear it's like 140 minutes instead of 96 or however long it actually is. The whole sequences where they're on their way to the IO tower and they're on that cool sailship-looking thing with hyperdrive to get away from the star destroyer and all that... it's soooo long. I like it. but long. So seeing this on 70mm... I have to say it wasn't a religious experience BUT it was very very nice. You could see a TON of detail and all the little bleeps and bloops sounded great and... you could really tell when the camera wasn't 100% in focus. But I have to say... the transfer on the DVD is so great... I'm kind of used to this movie looking really pretty. I mean, it can't be that hard a task since most of the graphics are little more than wireframe. But I did appreciate the chance to see it in its intended format. It was a very good time. |
