Tron

Here lately, fans of BBC America have been able to watch Tron (1982) as I have noticed it has come on numerous times on the cable network. I was fortunate to have one of those free preview weekends with a Showtime channel called flix that was showing it and decided this was the perfect ingredient for a rather nothing-going-on Saturday evening. I needed to cleanse myself of the awful Judge Dredd and what better way than Tron (1982). 

The plot itself is when you take computer tech jargon and give it form. Users built a program used by the Master Control (a major computer system created by David Warner that has evolved and developed a rebellious nature against its creator’s wishes). Jeff Bridges plays a computer and video game whiz who plans to challenge the Master Control and defeat it so he can prove that Warner stole credit for his work creating systems for video games that made a lot of money he has never profited from. Bruce Boxleitner is a designer of security programs and he has a program running called Tron (that carries his likeness within the game system of the Master Control) that could help Flynn’s mission to “clean up” the Master Control of all its corruptness. 

Bridges is a real treat as a vibrant, lively man with a child-like spirit, confidence, genius, and sense of humor, brave and assured that if anyone can help defeat and fix the Master Control it is him and Tron. At the beginning, a program named Ram (Dan Shor) was helping Flynn and Tron, but he would be seriously, mortally wounded and cease to exist while later Cindy Warner’s scientist Lori has a protective program named Yori that will come along to assist them. With the Master Control drunk with power, using a program in the likeness of its creator, Sark to help it rule over programs created by human users, Flynn and Tron will have to survive an onslaught of corrupt programs (in the form of humans once over them) in order to cleanse the system once and for all.

All of this is about Flynn getting credit for his genius and Warner’s Ed Dillinger being revealed as an idea thief. The bread and butter of the whole enterprise are the special effects and the unique world created for us in all Disney’s eyepopping neon glitz and glamor glory. Bridges is the right casting choice in the lead because his name carried weight in 1982 (and still does to this day), and his energy benefits the action and visual bling on display. Good sizeable part for Bruce Boxleitner as well, considering his character’s program is the title of this film.

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This film always has me waxing nostalgic for those old arcade days of my youth, and the rental of Tron on Video before this golden era of high definition and updated visual and audio for blu-ray releases. The release of “Tron 2.0” in 2010 only helped to bring attention back to its 1982 relative, and my attention was reinvested in seeing Tron again. I LOVED the early in scene in Tron Legacy where that old arcade of Flynn’s is shown in cobwebs and dust, a relic of the active, bright business flourishing in popularity as we are introduced to Bridges in 1982’s Tron. A nice reminder, as the Journey music plays on the ole jukebox, with Flynn’s son played by Garrett Hedlund walking about, inside the arcade sure made my heart smile. 

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Those who watched The Lost Boys as kids like me know old Barnard Hughes (and I won’t fail to mention a favorite Michael J Fox vehicle, Doc Hollywood, also starring him in a fun part), so seeing him as an elder scientist responsible for the beginning success of EMCOM, the corporate tech giant, and as a “guardian” program that helps Tron and Flynn is especially a pleasure.