Tron (1982)

Wonderful character development!

The Age of Commercialism

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

I first saw this movie when I was twelve years old. I just recently saw it again and fell in love all over again. The special effects were state of the art back in the 80s. Still holds up in my opinion.

An extremely ambitious film, too much for the time, there was the willingness to do something really new, but without the proper tools to do it willingness isn't helpful. Too bad because the ideas are there, there is a huge amount of ideas many are interesting and original, some even brilliant, while some could avoid because unnecessary, confusing or senseless but the main problem is that most of it is badly developed, so much to be, especially at the beginning, almost incomprehensible, especially for a spectator who has not lived in that historical period and therefore already understands with difficulty the type of computer science, now archaic, of the 80s, and so he will finds it really difficult to identify with it. All this because of an immature and superficial script with various holes, in which the feelings and emotions are missing and that is lost in the great quantity of present ideas and ends up being too confusing and flat as original and at times interesting it may be; not to mention the bad dialogues and really forgettable interpretations, in some points almost terrible, even that of Jeff Bridges. The film also suffers from a very strong aging too palpable that makes really difficult, at the beginning, the vision of the film itself, because of really bad special effects even for the time (five years before it was released "Star Wars" and the same year "Blade Runner"!), which you get used to only after the first half hour. The same applies to the unconvincing direction, especially in the staging, in the sets and costumes where it does the worst of itself, even there the ideas are not enough if they are misdirected. Fortunately, after a while, you begin to appreciate the trashy aftertaste that spreads with great force throughout the duration, so that you get to appreciate it. This also allows you to better immerse yourself in the extremely special atmosphere of the film so that in the end it can also involve, a bit 'for the plot and a bit' for the unintentional comedy of many scenes that in any case provide a bit 'of genuine entertainment. In short, a failed project but that manages in many places to entertain despite the many problems, which however have not prevented it to become, over the years, a small cult of science fiction with a large and strong fanbase and on this I can not say, so much of a hat. In any case I think it is a film that strongly needed a sequel / reboot that could exploit the great potential that went here wasted, so the following of 2010 (which by the way I saw a lot before this thinking it was stand alone ) I found it rather discreet.

"TRON" may not exactly be a truly great film, but it is interesting, and incredibly stimulating on a visual level. It's also obviously historically important as one of the earliest films to take advantage of computers in creating amazing, digitally designed environments. It really does take you into a different world of sorts. But it's fortunately also not an empty experience, as it does make one think about the nature of artificial intelligence, and even touches upon philosophical / religious themes as well.Jeff Bridges stars as Kevin Flynn, a former program designer for a leading software corporation whose ideas for games were stolen by the devious Ed Dillinger (David Warner). Flynn now spends part of his time trying to hack into the Encom system to find the proof that Dillinger screwed him over. Assisted by his friends Lora (Cindy Morgan) and Alan (Bruce Boxleitner), he infiltrates the big company building, and ends up beamed inside the system by the omnipotent Master Control Program. Here he must participate in "games" and evade deadly tanks and persistent "Recognizers".The innovation in this project, scripted and directed by Steven Lisberger, is impressive. The ideas in this narrative are still relevant 34 years later, and the animation is still quite effective. More tech savvy viewers may maintain that the film does show its age, but all this viewer can say is that he enjoyed the ride on which he was taken. After a while, the wonder of the images does start to fade a bit, but at least "TRON" has the charisma of Bridges, and the abilities of his supporting cast (also including Barnard Hughes ("The Lost Boys") and Dan Shor ("Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure")) to fall back on. Fine electronic music by Wendy Carlos and two songs by rock band Journey also help to make this enjoyable.Followed decades later by a sequel.Seven out of 10.

Remember the iconic speed bike scene when Jeff Bridges manages to box the enemy in and defeats him? What do you think goes on in his mind when he looks back and laughs?! Onto the review."Tron", probably remains one of Disney's favourite movies for males. It's very self aware, yet its visuals are out of this world. Largely considered the first movie to ever include a CGI world, it is actually minimalist computer imagery and very well back lit animation. Considering the earlier days of computing software and how it has advanced over the years, I feel Tron's visuals are perfect for its time and still has moments to dazzle. Wendy Carlos's music is also wonderfully immersive, ever cascading highs and dizzying lows. Jeff Bridges is as wonderful as ever, and how memorable was Bruce Boxleitner as TRON?"Tron" is a film that is also extremely important to the history of the sci-fi genre, but sadly no one really ever talks about it that much seeing that the movie had spawned video game adaptations and many comic books. Sadly, a lot of younger generations will now deem it bad and be put off, but I love "Tron" as much as I love the camp-ness of "Barbarella" (1968), and "Flash Gordon" (1980).Final verdict: Great "vector" graphics, highly imaginative & Jeff Bridges (Can't get enough of him). 9/10.