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DVD: Long before Shrek, there was Tron
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 17, 2002
New and noteworthy for digital players
Tron: 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition
[Photo: Disney Enterprises
Cindy Morgan and Bruce Boxleitner in Tron.
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Computer-generated images were just gimmicks 20 years ago, something to add pulsating flair to sci-fi action or, more commonly, a company's logo in advertisements. Creating an entire movie from those sharp angles, 3-D pans and glowing lights was a pipe dream. That is, until Tron.
A group of Boston animators led by Steven Lisberger tinkered with computer art, fishing for a studio to back such a revolutionary experiment. Disney took the bait, and, although Tron received a mixed reception from critics and audiences, the process of making movies was never the same again.
Tron is essentially a primitive example of the same techniques currently wowing moviegoers in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. You can trace the lineage of all computer animation, from The Little Mermaid to Shrek, back to the breakthroughs devised for Tron. Advanced technology makes Tron look like a game of Pong these days, but Pong also was a groundbreaker in its day.
Now a 2-disc DVD set clarifies this misunderstood film's historical importance with a fine array of bonus materials. Tron shouldn't be considered a punch line describing keyboard cartoons anymore.
The film's theme has been echoed in numerous films: Another world exists behind the computer screen, a microcivilization of "Programs" that were created by human "Users" and adopt some of their real-world characteristics. Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner play computer game programmers whose latest work has been stolen by Ed Dillinger (David Warner). Kevin Flynn (Bridges) hacks into the system to retrieve his program and gets sucked into the game.
That's when the fun begins, an impressive series of Lightcycle races, electrically charged flying discs and neon backgrounds. The heroes' cyber-alter egos Tron (Boxleitner) and Clu (Bridges) must proceed through the maze they developed from the inside before the evil Master Control Program (Warner) declares the game and their lives over.
The movie looks great, albeit dated, with DVD technology enabling perfect freeze-frames to appreciate the artistry. Wendy Carlos' electronic musical score is hypnotic in multichannel audio. An alternate audio track featuring Lisberger and several collaborators gets a bit too casually complex, a common trait among computer geeks.
The second disc is devoted to the bonuses, including a recently produced making-of-Tron documentary offering crash courses in techniques of backlight animation and digital imagery that isolated certain pieces of the frames and embellished them with techno-glows for the movie's signature look. We learn how the actors wore black and white costumes on sets that were pitch-black and later saturated with color through keystrokes. It sounds elementary compared with today's processes, but Tron is a key reason why the genre has become easier to accomplish.
Other extras include Lisberger recalling the humble origins of his idea, storyboards compared with final prints, deleted scenes, several photo galleries, preview trailers and poster art. Tron is an important addition to the collections of animation aficionados or anyone who thought the idea of creating worlds on computers started with Jurassic Park.
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