TRON: The Cyber-Underdog Of 1982 Still Shines

The sum­mer of 1982 saw the release of many clas­sic genre films, sev­eral of which were shrugged off at the time but are revered as clas­sics today.  For instance, this brief period saw the release of John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing, Videodrome and Blade Runner: all three failed to hit big at the box office and received mixed reviews by both genre and main­stream crit­ics.  However, each film has risen in stature since then and all have achieved the level of respect they so richly deserve.

Another key film from that mag­i­cal sum­mer was Tron — and it’s still strug­gling to get the respect it deserves.  Too “pop” for the hard­core genre types yet too conceptually/visually heady for the main­stream crowd, it fell into the val­ley of cult cin­ema and has nur­tured a small but pas­sion­ate fan base since then.  Unfortunately, Tron never man­aged to stage the kind of ret­ro­spec­tive come­back that other films of that era have received.  It might get props for its proto-CGI visual achieve­ments or sheep­ish “guilty plea­sure” sta­tus acknowl­edge­ment from some fans but is mostly dis­missed as an intrigu­ing mis­fire.  In the wake of Tron: Legacy’s release, some are even reviv­ing the jeers that greeted its orig­i­nal release.

This state of affairs is a damn shame because Tron is oh so much bet­ter than it gets credit for being.  There’s more going on here than ground­break­ing visual effects (though those are a big part of the appeal).  Simply put, Tron is the rarest of event movies, the kind that presents its spec­ta­cle with the kind of gee-whiz charm and pure-hearted joy that has all but dis­ap­peared from mod­ern Hollywood filmmaking.

The plot of Tron revolves around the activ­i­ties of Encom, a com­puter tech com­pany run by the ruth­less, duplic­i­tous Dillinger (David Warner).  He uses his Master Control Program to run a tight ship and con­ceal his nefar­i­ous doings out­side of offi­cial Encom busi­ness.  Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is an ex-Encom employee who was ripped off by Dillinger dur­ing his rise up the cor­po­rate lad­der and longs to get revenge on his neme­sis.  With the help of frus­trated Encom employ­ees Alan (Bruce Boxleitner) and Lora (Cindy Morgan), Flynn sneaks into the build­ing to raid its main com­puter for evi­dence that will ruin Dillinger’s reputation.

Unfortunately for Flynn, the Master Control Program is watch­ing and it uses a laser that can restruc­ture liv­ing mat­ter into dig­i­tal form to trans­mit him into the cyber-world within Encom’s banks of com­put­ers, where “pro­grams” have the bod­ies and minds of peo­ple.  Flynn dis­cov­ers that Sark (also Warner), a cyber-doppelgänger of Dillinger’s, runs the world like an evil king­dom and ban­ishes any dis­sent­ing pro­grams into gladiator-style com­bat.  Flynn escapes this fate by team­ing up with Tron (also Boxleitner) — the dop­pel­gänger of Alan — and Ram (Dan Shor) to escape back to the human world before Sark can stop him.

The fin­ished film retains its charm thirty years after the fact.  Tron is often rejected for being too kiddie-friendly by crit­ics and genre types who expect a film with ground­breaker sta­tus to be a cere­bral work.  It instead goes the equally chal­leng­ing route of mak­ing mind-blowing visu­als and con­cepts acces­si­ble to a gen­eral audi­ence.  The use of a sim­ple sto­ry­line is a cal­cu­lated choice to allow the audi­ence to assim­i­late all the computing-derived jar­gon and alter­nate real­ity con­cepts being thrown at them.  The results are high on imag­i­na­tion but easy to com­pre­hend, a dual­ity that should be con­sid­ered a virtue.

The direct­ness of the plot­ting and action give the viewer max­i­mum lee­way to groove on the visu­als — and even the detrac­tors must admit that Tron deliv­ers hand­somely in that arena.  The com­bi­na­tion of black and white pho­tog­ra­phy, early com­puter ani­ma­tion and tra­di­tional opti­cal tech­niques is clev­erly applied to visual con­cepts designed by the likes of Syd Mead and Moebius to cre­ate a sin­gu­lar look.  Minimalistic yet care­fully designed, every­thing from the cos­tumes to the ships to the land­scapes have a ‘neon comic-book’ flair that has never really been cap­tured elsewhere.

However, a look would be noth­ing with­out an engag­ing nar­ra­tive to fill it — and writer/director Steven Lisberger has come up with a tight, orderly sto­ry­line that threads all the eye-candy together in an appeal­ing way.  The action and the plot hooks flow in an agree­ably quick style — each action setup is effec­tively milked for the spec­ta­cle and excite­ment it can offer -  and the dia­logue is often witty (par­tic­u­larly when Flynn is involved).  He also pop­u­lates this sto­ry­line with acces­si­ble arche­types that make it easy to get into this bizarre world: Tron is the stal­wart square-jawed hero of old, Sark is the impec­ca­bly cruel vil­lain­ous over­lord and Flynn gives the audi­ence some­one they can relate to.  Most impor­tantly, Lisberger under­stands brevity and never allows the plot to get out of con­trol, cap­tur­ing his full sto­ry­line in 96 minutes.

Lisberger also uses the rela­tion­ship between the film’s two worlds to make a like­ably human­is­tic com­men­tary on tech­nol­ogy.  As Flynn moves through the com­puter world and wit­nesses the nobil­ity his pro­gram com­pa­tri­ots are capa­ble of (as well as the evil of Sark), he — and by exten­sion, the audi­ence — come to real­ize that tech­nol­ogy is only as good or bad as the “users” who put it into action.  Thus, the film sug­gests we should all to look to our bet­ter qual­i­ties when explor­ing the cyber-realm because how we use it reflects who we are as peo­ple.  This open-minded, pos­i­tive approach to tech­nol­ogy is rare and one of Tron’s most spe­cial qualities.

In terms of direct­ing, Lisberger cap­tures the film’s world in a con­fi­dent man­ner.  His visual approach off­sets the color and design of the pro­duc­tion with action that is con­veyed in a straight­for­ward man­ner: for exam­ple, the light-cycle and disc-throwing fights are not only con­cep­tu­ally impres­sive but very well-staged and edited (direc­tors of mod­ern FX spec­tac­u­lars should study these scenes).  Capturing such a visu­ally ambi­tious world in a clear, spa­tially coher­ent man­ner is a real achievement.

As for the per­for­mances, the actors breathe life into the arche­types that Lisberger uses to give the film a human heart amidst all the tech­nol­ogy.  Bridges car­ries the day as Flynn, grow­ing from a manip­u­la­tive but charm­ing rogue into a team player who real­izes his for­saken qual­i­ties as a leader.  His abil­ity to play this fantasy-style mate­r­ial straight while bring­ing a wry humor to it is a key part of Tron’s appeal.  Warner excels with a regal turn in his dual-villain role.  Boxleitner and Morgan get less to do but bring a like­able pres­ence to their roles — Boxleitner in par­tic­u­lar has a con­vinc­ing “square-jawed hero” bear­ing that would serve him well in his sub­se­quent, pro­lific t.v. work.  Dan Shor deserves spe­cial notice for his per­for­mance as Ram, the most like­able of all the film’s com­puter characters.

Finally, and most impor­tantly, Tron is the rare ground­break­ing film that is lacks a self-conscious atti­tude about what it is doing.  There are no attempts to be self-consciously somber so the audi­ence will per­ceive it as “seri­ous” nor are there any pre­ten­sions in how it lays out its story.  It is fun, it is enthu­si­as­tic about its sto­ry­line and it pur­sues its course of action with a wide-eyed sense of won­der that is pos­i­tively con­ta­gious for those who are still open enough to feel such a thing.  In an era con­t­a­m­i­nated with irony and detach­ment, it does Your Humble Reviewer’s heart and soul good to see a film like this — and Tron will always be one of 1982’s genre clas­sics in his eyes.