Tron (1982)
Tron (1982)
It is
sometimes a strange experience re-watching a film decades later. You realize missed
some vital point being made. I remembered “Tron” as being about a Video Game Designer
who was angered that his Intellectual Property was stolen by a Corporate Baddie,
and in his attempt to get his stolen work back, he accidentally gets trapped
inside the Game he designed. That’s not entirely inaccurate, but I forgot
several vital points. I’d argue that I missed the vital argument because the
film mostly did also.
The film
starts out boldly; the Filmmakers trusted the inventive spectacle would carry the
Audience along and were not afraid to create disorientation for the first
ten-minutes-or-so. Critic Roger Ebert observed, “‘Tron’ has been conceived and
written with a knowledge of computers that it mercifully assumes the audience
shares. That doesn’t mean we do share it, but that we’re bright enough to pick
it up, and don’t have to sit through long, boring explanations of it.”
We are
introduced to Computer Animations, and from them emerges a Real-World City that
looks a bit like the Computer Animations (Los Angeles), then we’re a VR-World where
the Programs appear to be Flesh-and-Blood Humans, then back to the Real-World
where some of the Flesh-and-Blood Humans look a lot like the Programs in VR.
The plot, and motivations of the Characters, are deliberately obscured for a
short while, and though we see the Hero, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), first,
we’re introduced to the motives and weaknesses of our Villian before those of
Kevin.
In a scene that
may be the first demonstration of a “Paperless Office” in cinema history, our
Villian, Senior Executive Vice President of ENCOM, Ed Dillinger (David Warner),
has a private conversation his company’s Master Control Program, or MCP (also
voiced by Warner). It instantly obvious that MCP has achieve Singularity,
having absorbed so many diverse programs it now self-teaching, self-programing,
personally evolving, and no longer truly under Human Control. The word “Singularity”
is not used in the film largely because it hadn’t been coined yet (that will
wait for working Scientist and SF Author Vernor Vinge Symposium paper "The Coming Technological Singularity:
How to Survive in the Post-Human Era" (1993)), but the idea that an AI Super-Intelligence would be reached via the Amplification of Interfacing, going
"off the map," is as old as SF stories concerning AI in the context
of the Internet. An early example of this would be Fredric Brown's
"Answer" (1954, so a decade before any form of the Internet existed,
and two decades before the term “Internet” was coined):
The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the
monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe --
ninety-six billion planets -- into the supercircuit that would connect them all
into one supercalculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the
knowledge of all the galaxies …
Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from
ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long
panel …
“The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn."
“Thank you,” said Dwar Reyn. “It shall be a question which no single
cybernetics machine has been able to answer.”
He turned to face the machine. “Is there a God?”
The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of a single
relay.
“Yes, now there is a God.”
Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab
the switch.
A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch
shut.
As I write
these words, there are two, not-unrelated, scandals in the Real-World this film
anticipated. The Privately-Owned AI Firm Anthropic and the President of the USA
are in public feud over Anthropic’s insistence on putting limits on what a
program named Claude could do regarding Mass Domestic Surveillance and Guidance
of Fully Autonomous Weapons. We’re also in a undeclared war with the Nation of
Iran, and it has been reported that AI systems are choosing the Targets of
Missiles; said Senior Lecturer in Political Geography at Newcastle University, Criag
Jones, “The AI machine is making recommendations for what to target, which is
actually much quicker in some ways than the speed of thought. So, you’ve got
scale and you’ve got speed, you’re [carrying out the] assassination-style
strikes at the same time as you’re decapitating the regime’s ability to respond
with all the aerial ballistic missiles. That might have taken days or weeks in
historic wars ... [Now] you’re doing everything at once.”
In this
film, MCP is rapidly expanding its reach, penetrating the Pentagon and thinking
about doing the same with the Kremlin, and is soon Blackmailing Ed not to
interfere with its plans for Global Domination. A bit of telling dialog early
in the film when Character Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) complains about Ed locking
him out of a project he was working on:
Alan: “I had
Tron [a security program to monitor the activities of MCP] almost ready, when
Dillinger cut everyone with Group-7 access out of the system. I tell you ever
since he got that Master Control Program, the system's got more bugs than a
bait store.”
Dr. Walter Gibbs (Bernard Hughes): “You've got to
expect some static. After all, computers are just machines; they can't think.”
Alan: “Some
programs will be thinking soon.”
Walter: “Won't
that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people
will stop.”
Soon after,
Walter confronts Ed:
Walter: “That
was uncalled for! You know, you can remove men like Alan and me from the
system, but we helped create it. And our spirit remains in every program we
design for this computer.”
Ed: “Walter,
it's getting late, I've got better things to do than to have religious
discussions with you. Don't worry about ENCOM anymore; it's out of your hands
now.”
That latter
exchange is strong foreshadowing, because in the VR-World, MCP rules as a God,
his main enforcer is the Program Sark (Actor Warner yet again), but there are other
Programs rebelling. Each Program is an Avatar of one or another Flesh-and-Blood
Character. This take on AI, not only that it would become wholly Independent of
Human Input but then the stand-alone Programs would squabble in its own
Universe, harkens back to Daniel F. Galouye’s novel “Simulacron-3” (1964). As
the novel was popular, maybe “Tron’s” Screenwriters Steven Lisberger (also Director
of the film) and Bonnie MacBird might’ve been aware of it, but likely didn’t
know of the earlier adaptation of the book, “World on a Wire” (German TV
miniseries 1973) which hadn’t been released in the USA. Without doubt, “Tron” influenced
later VR-related films by USA filmmakers, especially the second adaptation of
“Simulacron-3,” titled “The Thirteenth Floor,” and “The Matrix” (both 1999).
One point that argues against Lisberger’s & MacBird’s familiarity with the
novel is that I’m unaware of Lisberger ever mentioning it, and this film, to
its fault, never dug into the theme of Determinism, so inherent in its own plot
and prominent in the novel, “World on a Wire,” and the later films.
After being sucked
into the computer (a silly concept in SF, but appealing, this is a
Techo-Fantasy), Character Kevin finds he’s taken over his own Avatar, Clu
(Codified Likeness Utility, a Hacking program Kevin designed). Sark is ordered by
the MCP to train Kevin/Clu for Gladiatorial Games (which makes no sense,
killing Kevin would’ve been easier). It is at this point (roughly a half-hour
in) that the film fully embraces its visual magnificence but also sacrifices
all potential depth. Writer/Director Lisberger did have some bigger ideas in
mind, concerning how Computer Power was invisible but ubiquitous at the same
time, “I’m already in your system. So why is it I don’t have access to myself?
… It was a story of rebellion and revolution and founding a new frontier that
would enable a new civilization to take hold.” Unfortunately, he doesn’t really
deliver on those ideas.
Instead, we
get a really cool-looking “Star Wars” (1977) clone wherein Character Sark is Darth
Vader, MCP is the Emperor, Kevin/Clu is Han Solo, and Alan’s Avatar, Tron, is
Luke Skywalker. Faith in the idea that “Users” (meaning Flesh-and-Blood Humans)
is a Heresy that must be crushed by the equivalent of the Sith Lords, therefore
akin the faith in the Jedi Knights, and the final confrontation with the MCP has
a more than-passing resemblance to the Attack on the Death Star. One can’t be
but a little disappointed, but really, not too much, because dumbed-down
narrative proves to be a hell of a ride. Especially the Light Cycles, I loved
the Light cycles.
Still, for all
its pleasures, the film is deeply flawed. Not only did it fail to deliver
thoughtfully on the promise of its premise but also gave the Actors no
substantive Characters to work with. Only Bridges and Warner bring any
personality to their Roles, while Actor Boxleitner, who on TV repeatedly brought
charm to wooden scripts, is nothing but a piece of furniture here. The dialogue
is filled with clever puns drawn from the Techo-Slang of Computing, but there’s
also terrible lines that seem to have forgotten that the story is unfolding in in
a radically different Universe. Kevin/Clu, rising from a trauma-induced stupor,
jokes, “Are we almost there yet, Mommy?'' to two Characters who are Programs, so
by definition, can’t know what a “Mommy” is, yet they don’t seem confused.
But the
Critics were (mostly) kind, though calling attention to these flaws, because they
saw how ground-breaking the film was. It was loved by both Gene Siskel and
Roger Ebert on their shared TV Show, and both these Critics were often curmudgeonly
regarding Genre film. Critic Deborah Wise “It's exciting, it's fun, and it's
just what video-game fans and anyone with a spirit of adventure will
love—despite plot weaknesses." On the other hand, Jay Scott, who hated it,
also nailed it, “It’s got momentum and it's got marvels, but it's without
heart; it's a visionary technological achievement without vision.”
“Tron’s” CGI
Technologies are inevitably primitive today, but the film remains visually
stunning all these years later, I believe it achieved this because the
Filmmakers realized it was beyond-cutting edge and used beautiful design to
fill in the gaps where the Technology couldn’t go. More of it is practical
effects than most audiences realize. The live Actors were in real sets (though
those sets were augmented in post-production with “Backlit Animation”, not CGI,
and reportedly required 200 people in Taiwan working 12 hours a day, 7 days a
week, for four months, inking the cels) which simulated the Computer Games
effectively with a striking color scheme -- soft, steel-blue lighting, accented
by glowing primaries defining spaces in linear, geometric, abstractions. These
abstractions that define both the real sets and the CGI-created ones; it was
minimalist, angular, black-and-neon like a ‘80s nightclub, and luckily for this
film, a look that is still embraced as Retro-Chic today.
One must
also remember that this film was so early in the development of CGI that the
Filmmakers considered using hand-drawn Animation to simulate all computer-imagery,
and though they didn’t, using hand-drawn to simulate computer imagery would
remain the industry norm for several more years. The Video Games that inspired
it, mostly “Space Invaders” (1978), were played on refrigerator-sized boxes and
largely restricted to Arcades. Personal Home Computers were on the market, but
the most popular was the Sinclair ZX81, difficult to operate and only
marginally more sophisticated than a calculator. In “Tron” the wholly CGI sequences
were a then-unheard-of fifteen-minutes of the running time. Writer/Director
Lisberger observed, “We were the bridge from analogue to digital, and that is a
unique thing … It was unlike any other movie that had been made, and no movie
will ever be made like this again.” Decades later, John Lasseter, Chief of the
CGI Production Company Pixar, would be affirm what a landmark it was, “Without
Tron there would be no ‘Toy Story’ [1995].”
The idea
for “Tron” grew out of Lisberger’s passion for Arcade Computer
Games, and for this film he did create some great games, but ironically, he
didn’t own his own computer. His background was in non-CGI Animation and he and
Producer Donald Kushner spent two years researching the Technology to make the
film, which was Lisberger’s first feature, and so far, his most successful. The
timing of it proved uncanny.
In 1979, with
“Tron’s” script still in development, Lisberger and his co-Writer, MacBird,
visited the Palo Alto Research Centre (better known as Xerox Parc), and were introduced
to the Graphical User Interface (GUI) which simplified Human-Computer
interaction with Desktop Icons and the point-and-click Mouse. There they met Scientist
Alan Kay, who would inspire the Character of Alan/Tron, he became a Consultant
on the film and later, in 1983, married MacBird.
That same month
in 1979, Xerox Parc was visited by Steve Jobs of the brand-new company Apple
Computing. Jobs was similarly impressed by the GUI. “I thought it was the best
thing I’d ever seen in my life … Within, you know, 10 minutes, it was obvious
to me that all computers would work like this someday.” Jobs poached both ideas
and the staff from Xerox Parc and created the Macintosh Home Computer, which
hit market in 1981, the year before this film was released. Like “Star Wars,” “Tron”
far more Fantasy than SF proper, but suddenly there was this Real Machine, unrelated
to the film, that made the Fantasy that much more tangible.
The film was
going to be expensive, and the only Production Company willing to risk money on
a concept so outlandish brought to them by someone so inexperienced, was
Disney. Disney’s feature films, both Live Action an Animated, had been losing
ground since about 1966, but they were still quite wealthy based on other
endeavors and continued revenues from past achievements. Tired of being
eclipsed by the likes of “Star Wars” they were actively looking for something
new. Lisberger again, “It was like the castle in Sleeping Beauty … It was a
sleeping giant waiting to be woken up.”
Lisberger was
also blessed with an exceptional Production & FX Design team, including Industrial
Designer Syd Mead, Comic Book Artist Jean “Moebius” Giraud, and Illustrator Peter
Lloyd. Computer Animation that simulated 3D objects goes back to the 1960s
Aerospace and other Scientific Research but only appeared in cinema with “Star
Wars,” and there only briefly. There were only a handful of Firms capable of creating
what Lisberger demanded, and he employed several, but the bulk of the work was
done Mathematic Applications Group Inc. (MAGI). The CGI in “Star Wars” was
enormously time-consuming and expensive (though a fraction of the film’s
over-all budget), but MAGI created better Peer-to-Peer processing which cut the
manhours for a scene by more-than one-half, a huge saving in a film that would
still be enormously expensive (the whole of “Star Wars” which had better sets,
filmed on location in multiple countries, bigger cast, and leaned mostly on
other kinds of expensive FX, was $11 million to make; “Tron” cost $17 million).
“Tron” got a
generous shooting schedule for its Principal Photography, 50 days, but they
lacked a Second Unit because so much of it was Set-Bound, and ran ten-days
over, and was by then under extreme time pressure. Lisberger recalls, “I had to
finish before the supposed directors strike, so we worked Saturdays and Sundays
very often as well as we worked 14 or 16 hours a day. And then the strike never
happened. The pace was pretty awesome. I would get up at 5:30, I was on the set
about 7:00, and I rarely got home before 11:00 or 11:30. And I can remember
going 14 days in a row and then getting one Sunday off and then going another
14 days in a row. All this on my first feature. If anybody ever tries to do a
movie again in 70mm, have them give me a call before they start.”
“Tron” was nominated for Academy Awards for
Sound (Michael, Bob, Lee Minkler and Jim La Rue) and for Costume Design (Elois
Jenssen and Rosanna Norton) but ignored for Best FX which was the film’s most
revolutionary aspect. Why? According to Lisberger, "We used
computer-generated imagery as an actual environment, which hadn't been done at
that point … We did all those effects in about seven months, which included
inventing the techniques. The Academy thought we cheated by using computers."
The film is remembered
as a flop, but it wasn’t. The rule-of-thumb for a Hollywood success is that the
film brings in 2 ½ times its budget. Big-budget films are almost-always the
ones that bring in the greatest profits but do so at the greatest risk (Producer/Director
Roger Corman loves to brag about almost none of his low-budget films losing
money, but he never made as much money on any film like “Star Wars” did). “Tron”
was $17 million to make, and brought in $50 million, which was more-than-respectable
and was Disney's highest-grossing live-action film for 5-years. But Disney
expected more (or maybe, for some obscure reason, needed more). It was also
embarrassing was that the Video Games based on “Tron” made more money than the
movie itself, and that “Tron’s” most direct cinematic competitors, “E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial,” “Poltergeist” and “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” (two
of which cost less than “Tron”) all brought in much more money.
“Tron’s”
closing image is striking, echoing the opening one. In the beginning, the CGI
morphed into a Real City. In the end, as the sun goes down on the Real City,
and it appears to become an illuminated Circuit Board, obviously suggesting
that Kevin, Alan, Ed and all others are themselves the Avatars of Users in
another Reality, just one-more-step up. This promised a sequel, likely closer
to story of “Simulacron-3,” but Disney’s disappointment delayed that idea, Liserger
got fired not very long after (and was quickly snatched up by Lucas Films). By
the time a new Production finally happened, all the CGI companies “Tron”
employed had passed into history.
“Tron’s”
Francise potential was realized decades later with the film “TRON: Legacy”
(2010), the Animated TV series “TRON: Uprising” (first aired 2012), roller-coaster
rides in multiple Disney Amusement Parks (first one 2016), and film “TRON: Ares”
(2025). Lisberger’s involvement in these was limited, and I have not experienced
any of them.
Disney
bought Lucas Film in 2012, so Lisberger went back to work for the company that
tossed him aside. He hasn’t directed a film since 1989 (“Slipstream” which I
adore, but everyone else seems to hate) and looks back on his biggest hit wistfully,
“Tron is so idealistic: ‘If we just get the tools into the hands of people,
then democracy is assured for all time … The irony is that the computer has
been used to just damn-near overthrow democracy! If someone had said: ‘If we
put these tools into the hands of the public, it’s going to result in endless
conspiracy theories, misinformation, lack of civility, endless rivers of porn,
and the most violent video games you could ever imagine,’ we would have said:
‘Oh, no way. It’s going to be wonderful!’ It turns out we can predict the tools
of the future, but we can’t really predict the philosophies or the ethics of
the future.”
Trailer:
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