Tron 20th anniversary special edition DVD
Originally posted a long time ago on Paul’s Reviews Page
I’ll be rating movies on a three zone, 5-star scale. Each movie will be rated
on “Visual Appeal”, “Audio Appeal” and “Story Appeal”. Each of these three
zones can be rated up to 5 stars (or asterisks…. they load faster than
.GIFs)
Tron 20th anniversary special edition DVD
V: ****
A: ****
S: ****
Synopsis: A disgruntled former employee breaks into ENCOM’s computer system hoping to recover evidence which would prove his wrongful termintation, but is, instead, pulled into the computer, where elements of the games he’d written are used against him.
Thoughts: Tron is a niche movie. If you like it, you love it. If you don’t like it, you hate it. Tron’s dialoge has a sappy sort of quality, particulary Alan Bradley’s (Bruce Boxleitner) “real world” dialog. When you look at other “Pop” movies of that era, like Xanadu and Grease… they were pretty much all in the same boat with regard to dialoge and fashion.
In its day Tron was dazzling, not just because of the special effects, but because the story so deeply involved computers. In 1982, computers were still big scary things that took up entire rooms and required special climate controls and flooring. Now, 20 years later, computers have become far more pervasive in our society, but, strangely, people, in general, aren’t much more at ease around them. In that sense, Tron has not lost its visceral, base appeal. Where Tron has slipped over time is in its frame of reference. Nowadays, a “PocketPC” has more computing power than a VAX, which, 20 years ago, was a pretty hot computer. The common idea of computers has changed, and so Tron has lost some of its bite.
This edition of Tron is great. The movie, itself, has been cleaned up and restored immensely. Prior to this release, I’d only seen Tron on videotape, so the transfers I’m used to watching have been pretty bad. This one is stupefyingly good. In addition to the quality of the movie itself, the special features on the DVD are very engaging. When Tron was first released, I was 13 or 14. The special effects were amazing, but I had no idea how much work was involved. Now, in the documentaries included with this DVD edition, I’ve seen for the first time how much work went into making Tron. That was an insanely ambitious project…. and they pulled it off.