#steven lisberger

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Tron production photographs (1982)

[creepynostalgy]

Cindy Morgan in Tron (1982)

[coupleofdays]

The TRON first script draft

Last year, the wonderful @greetingsprogram1982 managed to acquire a copy of the first script draft for the film TRON, scanned it, an uploaded the pages as jpgs here on Tumblr. I have now taken the liberty to convert these scanned pages into a pdf file and upload it to The Internet Archive, in order to hopefully preserve this important historical artifact a little better (many of you are probably aware that Tumblr isn't exactly the ideal place to archive things long-term for various reasons):

I can highly recommend that any fan of the original TRON movie check out this script draft, if you haven't already done so. It's a fascinating read, containing scenes and concepts that didn't make it into the final film (and missing some parts that would be added later), and versions of the movie characters who are very different from what they eventually ended up being.

Again, huge thanks to @greetingsprogram1982 for scanning the script in the first place!

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[menthealoh-shots]

Tron (1982)

[movie-titlecards]

Slipstream (1989)

My rating: 5/10

One of those movies that, for whatever reason, seemed rather impressive when I watched them as a kid, but don't hold up terribly well. Don't get me wrong, it's far from terrible, but it does drag on a bit and pretty much everything in it has been done better elsewhere.

[80smovies]

[ulrichgebert]

In Computern leben Programme, die wie die Menschen draussen aussehen, nur mit schwarzweißen Gesichtern und farbenfrohen raumanzugsähnlichen Rüstungen (ein bisschen wie die Leute in Morodors nachcoloriertem Metropolis). Das besonders fesche Sicherheitsprogramm Tron unterstützt den jungen Computerspielprogrammierer Jeff Bridges darin, den üblen Machenschaften des trotz richtungsweisender* innovativer Computerbilderzeugung wie gewohnt den Schurken spielenden David Warner ein Ende zu setzen, so daß -obwohl ich nicht ganz verstanden habe, warum- am Ende wieder Ordnung und Gerechtigkeit einkehren. Es ist Disney.

* Wir sind manchmal nicht total glücklich mit der Richtung, in die es wies, erfreuen uns aber am Score der legendären Switched-on-Bach-Synthezizer-Pionierin Wendy Carlos.

[byneddiedingo]

Tron (Steven Lisberger, 1982)

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan, Barnard Hughes, Dan Shor, Peter Jurasik. Screenplay: Steven Lisberger, Bonnie McBird, Charles S. Haas. Cinematography: Bruce Logan. Production design: Dean Edward Mitzner. Film editing: Jeff Gourson. Music: Wendy Carlos.

Epochal, visionary, pioneering, confusing, migraine-inducing, and occasionally inept. Tron is all those things and more. It would be almost 20 years before movies like The Matrix (Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski, 1999) would begin to make full cinematic sense of some of Tron's key ideas about the relationship between humans and computers, and we are just now beginning to get seriously antsy about the promise and threat of artificial intelligence. At the time of its release, Tron was mostly discussed as an artifact of the Atari age: the growing popularity of computer games. Not many of us owned personal computers, and the internet was something only techies (and the military) knew anything about. So Steven Lisberger, the creative force behind the movie, has to be hailed as something of a prophet. And Disney has to be praised for a taking a risk (and suffering a loss when the film underperformed at the box office) on a movie as odd as Tron. Even Lisberger wasn't entirely sure that the visual effects he was playing with would work in a feature-length movie. Lisberger also has to be commended for not over-explaining in his film just what he's up to; instead, he plunged his audiences right into the strange world he created. That said, Tron is still sometimes a movie with one foot in chaos, and a lot of it seems to be just the filmmakers "trying stuff out." The acting is sometimes wooden, as if the performers, especially Bruce Boxleitner and Cindy Morgan, weren't sure what they were doing. The exceptions are David Warner, who could draw on a long career of playing villains on stage and screen, and Jeff Bridges, who seems incapable of giving a bad performance. As for the visuals, not everything works or even makes sense. There are moments of weird beauty, but too often what's meant to be dazzling is merely garish, and a lack of reference points sometimes makes the action incomprehensible. Boxleitner and Bridges have much the same build, so when they're suited up as Tron and Clu it's sometimes hard to tell which is which. (Lisberger originally planned to have them be distinctly different body types, but was unable to follow through in the casting.) Still, time has been kind to Tron, allowing its prophetic essence to prevail over its flaws.

[gameofthunder66]

-watched 6/22/2024- 3 stars- on Plex (free)

43% Rotten Tomatoes

Trailer - Slipstream (1989)

In this film the robot has a dream. :-)

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Mark Hamill - Slipstream (1989)

[bearpillowmonster]

Tron 3 starts in a cabin in the woods "My name is Sam Flynn." and we'll see him and his new beard looking out the window drinking his tea. It'll show how he's distanced himself from technology using analog stuff. The one thing he still keeps is his dad's disc in the shape of that harddrive at the end of Legacy. OFF THE GRID. This is 15 years from Legacy.

He created an executor program codenamed Ares that became a sort of virus too smart for his own good. Maybe all Sam has to do is log back into a computer and Ares will be right there, just needs the access code.

I imagine Quorra would either be right there with him or the complete opposite and working at Encom.

After some hesitation and convincing, Sam goes through with it, trying to use the drive to bring his dad back because "he'd know what to do." but with his disc came the special ability to move gates. Ares can bring himself to the real world, hoping to bring his army with him and conquer.

Ares arrives with a few stragglers but soon realizes that he doesn't want to control this world and becomes a secondary protagonist, turning against his own kind. Sam will be Blue (which is really a white but he's still more aligned with blue). Ares will be Red. But both will be on the same team fighting the ones passing through the gate. So who's the main next villain? Not a program, but a human. This would be where the Quorra side kicks in and the meaning of ISO actually starts to mean something.

[coupleofdays]

From Wikipedia, regarding the problems with the backlit animation in the original Tron (emphais by me):

"The Kodalith was specially produced as large sheets by Kodak for the film and came in numbered boxes so that each batch of the film could be used in order of manufacture for a consistent image. However, this was not understood by the filmmakers and, as a result, glowing outlines and circuit traces occasionally flicker as the film speed varied between batches. After the reason was discovered, this was no longer a problem as the batches were used in order and "zinger" sounds were used during the flickering parts to represent the computer world malfunctioning as Lisberger described it. Lisberger later had these flickers and sounds digitally corrected for the 2011 restored Blu-ray release as they were not included in his original vision of the film."

To me, this feels a little like when George Lucas went back to "correct" things in the Special Editions of the Star Wars films. Even if it was originally the result of a mistake, I think it's unnecessary to "fix" it when they had already figured out a clever way to make it a part of the film. It also makes me wonder if there are any other subtle "fixes" on the Blu-ray release that we're not aware of (I haven't watched it, I'm happy with my DVD version).

[miralyk]

I went ahead and watched Oblivion (2013) recently. I think it really explains alot about Legacy and just how unsuited Joseph Kosinski was to helm a Tron project.

i should check that out when i'm able to (currently on a crunch for short film animation and juggling my gen ed classes, still waiting on charm shipment updates too!), thank you for the recommendation! from what i see from some quick googling, it's very dull with the color grading, plus, joseph kosinski's films are very,, Serious™ in general tbh

tron 1982, both in promotional material and behind the scenes, at that time was very specifically and constantly described as fantasy and alien, "making up new rules/reality", artist input, and so on through the lens/medium of technology, so it's definitely a shame that specific intent at its core is completely dropped and only focusing on sci-fi. will check it out when i can along with joseph kosinski's history/experience

[cosmic-navel-gazin]

@graedari  I DESPERATELY NEED YOU TO KNOW THAT THIS CURSED PIECE OF ART IS YOUR FAULT

“Don’t worry, Low Poly T-posing Early Eighties Jeff Bridges isn’t real.”

Low Ploy T-posing Early Eighties Jeff Bridges:

(To be continued...)