© 2006 William Ahearn

Time declared the computer “Man of the Year” in 1982 even though personal computers were just beginning to make inroads into homes in the US. Apple Computer was having its greatest success with the Apple II line (the Macintosh was two years down the road), and IBM had released the IBM PC the year before with MS-DOS (developed by Bill Gates for IBM – Microsoft Windows was years away) as the operating system. Numerous other small computer companies were shipping various models (Atari, Amiga, Radio Shack) and the best selling personal computer of all time – the Commodore 64 – had been released in 1981. Pac Man was the rage and video arcades were sprouting up all over the US.

Miss or missed those games? Go here.

It was an auspicious time to release a computer movie. This was the dawning of the age of the fourth generation of computers. Microprocessors and smaller chips with more power had replaced the older integrated circuits that replaced the transistors that had replaced the vacuum tubes. Computers could now sit on a desktop and were emerging from the geeky computer clubs and air-conditioned glass rooms of big business and government agencies. In the case of “Tron,” one must give credit where credit is due: The concept of a personal computer film was so far ahead of its time that I’m surprised anyone made it, let alone Disney.

“Tron” is barely watchable these days. Created by Disney in response to the success of George Lucas’ “Star Wars” and to make up for the embarrassment of Disney’s previous geek effort, “Black Hole,” “Tron” attempts to personify the internal workings of a computer. The gist is one that is as old as the fairy tales that Disney has relied on since its inception. An innocent is manipulated by evil and that innocent must travel and suffer various adventures before returning to their old world a better person. Or mouse. Or duck. Or whatever.

All of that is besides the point. "Tron" is significant for having being made at all. Think of it as the geek "Rocky Horror Picture Show" or "Pink Flamingoes," a cultural signpost that resonated with young computer users on do-it-yourself kits bought at home brew shops. The film -- like the Time cover story -- became a validation of sorts for a generation of budding computer enthusiasts.

In the case of “Tron,” we have a computer programmer whose work has been stolen by an evil president of a computer corporation who is making gazillions of dollars on the programmer’s game. Since computers can’t be seen as evil incarnate, it must be the people who control the computers who are evil and this will be the basis for many other computer flicks.

The programmer gets sucked into the computer (don’t ask) and is forced to perform in various computer games against elements of the computer architecture that are all dressed in some quasi-ancient Greek costumes. How come all the advanced entities in bad science fiction all have big brows, dumb helmets and Grecian (or is it Hellenic) robes? Beats me, but you get the picture.

(An interesting double feature would be “Tron” and David Croenberg’s “eXisTenZ.” In “eXisTenZ,” instead of the player being sucked into the computer game, the computer game is inserted into the player via a flesh port.)

At the time, a lot was made of the graphics in “Tron.” Much of it was computer generated and it shows since computer-generated imaging – or CGI as it would become known – weren’t yet up to snuff. If anything, “Tron” serves as a signpost in the history of computers in film and it points backward instead of forward. Within a year or two the entire personality of computers would evolve, computer games would become much more sophisticated, and with the introduction of the graphical users’ interface introduced to the home market by Apple Computer’s Lisa, the state-of-the-art graphics used in “Tron” now seem as ancient as the Greek robes worn in the film.

While the notion of using computer games as the basis for a movie was ingenious, it really didn’t capture the drama that the games could produce under the right circumstances.

 

Many thanks to Michael Day for the film.