|
Tron
(1982)
Review by Earl
Green
Kevin Flynn, a former top-notch video game programmer, has
been hacking his way into the mainframes of his ex-employer, Encom, attempting
to unearth the evidence that Encom executive Ed Dillinger stole his code
and passed the games off as his own, leaving Flynn to eke out a meager
existence as owner of a video arcade. Dillinger begins locking every Encom
employee out of their projects at the behest of his artificially intelligent
management program, MCP. Programmer Alan Bradley is denied access to his
work in progress, a security program called Tron. Alan and his girlfriend
Lora, another Encom employee, decide to enlist Flynn's help. Lora sneaks
Flynn into Encom and into her lab - the home of a potentially hazardous
teleport experiment. The MCP detects Flynn's attempts to hack into it,
and activates the teleportation equipment, sucking Flynn into its circuitry.
Flynn finds himself in a world where people's bodies glow in circuitry patterns, and the people aren't people at all - they are programs, each of them bearing their creators' likeness. Flynn encounters Tron, Alan's security program, fighting its ways through numerous video games whose deadly opponents are controlled by the MCP. Tron, imbued with Alan's desire to override the MCP, is already planning its escape, and in the course of its resistance Tron has earned itself a formidable enemy - Sark, Dillinge
r's program which herds the rest of Encom's programs into the MCP's domain and keeps them there. Tron, Flynn and fellow program Ram escape during a light cycle tournament and begin working their way toward the MCP. Ram is killed en route, deleted from memory by the MCP's video game warriors, and Tron has to abandon Flynn at one point. Determined to follow and help Tron, Flynn could use a lot of help, but receives only a bit. Though Flynn is only a trespasser in the electronic realm, he discovers that what d
eletes programs will kill him too, and surviving his many challenges and defeating the MCP is the only way to work his way back into his own body in the real world.
This is a movie that people either loved or hated the moment they realized
what it was about. Early video game enthusiasts and computerphiles were
able to grasp its tenuous plot, and few others seemed interested. After
all, there were plenty of breakdancing and roller-skating movies on the
market around that time - why should anyone wish to see a film which seemed
to concern itself with something as ephemeral as video games? Truth be
told, this movie has gotten alarmingly better with age. So many of the
concepts in Tron which seemed unlikely in 1982 are easily explained
now with the advent of such things as the Internet, and even though the
movie is brimming with acoustic modems, Apple III computers, and video
games which seem primitive compared to today's overblown Nintendo and Sega
epics, the concept itself could perhaps be given better and more serious
treatment if this film were to be made today. However, the chances of a
film with a story like this being made today are...well, I think you see
where I'm going with this, and it isn't pretty. Still, while I may lavish
praise on Tron, it seems obvious from watching that there was a
lot of story which didn't make it onto film - the result of Disney asking
the director/writer to tone down the tech? Or was it never that well thought-out
in the first place? I've never been able to track down any articles on
the making of Tron, aside from very brief asides in interviews with Bruce
Boxleitner (later of Babylon 5 fame), so I have no idea.
Of course, I often comment on the music in movies, and Tron was
a true revelation for me way back when, and I still highly recommend its
musical score today. The Wendy Carlos score was an ambitious mix of very
1980s-ish synthesizers (appropriate enough, given the film's subject),
an orchestra, the UCLA choir, and even pipe organ (in the end credits).
Carlos composed many interesting and video-game-esque action cues, but
the music also dared to address something the script didn't tackle head-on:
the Godlike regard in which the "program" characters hold their
respective users. The sequence in which Tron receives new instructions
from his human alter ego is given a magical and spiritual underscore, and
in many other places the music makes this movie. Dear Disney, my fifteen-year-old
record of this soundtrack is scratched and worn from years of moving and
being stowed away...can't we have this on CD?
The ultimate verdict - is it good or bad? Both. But good or bad, Tron
was exceptionally and amazingly cool!
- screenplay by Steven Lisberger
- story by Steven Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird
- directed by Steven Lisberger
- music by Wendy Carlos
- Cast: Jeff Bridges (Kevin Flynn/Clu), Bruce Boxleitner (Alan
Bradley/Tron), David Warner (Ed Dillinger/Sark), Cindy Morgan (Lora/Yori),
Barnard Hughes (Dr. Walter Gibbs/Dumont), Dan Shor (Ram), Peter Jurasik
(Crom), Tony Stephano (Peter/Sark's Lieutenant), Craig Chudy (Warrior #1),
Vince Deadrick (Warrior #2), Sam Schatz (Expert Disc Warrior), Jackson
Bostwick (Head Guard), Dave Cass (Factory Guard), Gerald Berns (Guard #1),
Bob Neill (Guard #2), Ted White (Guard #3), Mark Stewart (Guard #4), Michael
Sax (Guard #5), Tony Brubaker (Guard #6), Charles Picerni (Tank Commander),
Pierre Vuilleumier (Tank Gunner #1), Erik Cord (Tank Gunner #2), Loyd Catlett
(Conscript #1), Michael J. Dudikoff II (Conscript #2), Richard Bruce Friedman
(Video Game Player), Loyd Catlett (Video Game Cowboy), Rick Feck (Boy in
video arcade), John Kenworthy (Boy in video arcade)
- Oops: Here's a little something from the "What the hell
was that about?" department. During Tron's solar sailer getaway,
there's a brief scene which warns of the dangers of "grid bugs,"
which are then shown to be somewhat cute computer-animated critters who,
it seems, could potentially endanger Tron and his friends. And naturally,
the grid bugs are never seen nor heard from again. Not even so much as
a tiny snippet of dialogue to explain how they might impede anyone's progress,
or whether or not they had anything to do with Sark. Actually, the grid
bug scene is a kind of reverse product placement. They don't have a thing
to do with the movie, but you will run into some grid bugs in the Tron
arcade game (which, by the way, was one of the coolest arcade games there
ever was). So there's no need to call Orkin - the grid bugs are meant to
be there. Really.
Here's an even more criminal mistake: Wendy Carlos' music from Tron has never been released on CD, languishing on vinyl and cassette since its 1982 release. If nothing else, I think a CD release could be justified because those who remember the music from the video game would be a large part of its target audience! The reason I concentrate so much attention on the music is that it was some of the first truly electronic music I had ever heard at the time, early 80s rock tunes notwithstanding - rather
than music written to sound traditional but played on synthesizers, this was music composed to take advantage of such innovations as sequencers and distinctly synthesized sounds. Speaking as a keyboardist myself, I can vouch for the fact that some of the music from Tron is extremely difficult to play - because some of it may never have been played by human hands in the first place! The chord structure, progressions and the uncanny combinations of electronics and acoustic instruments and voices make the
Tron
soundtrack a cornerstone of my own film-music consciousness. I guess you
had to be there.
There are no listings for this film in the U.K.
Related items on this site:
|
