TRON (1982)

Director Steven Lisberger's and Walt Disney Production's ground-breaking sci-fi fantasy inside-a-computer-video-game action-adventure film was one of the first films to be derived from the video-game craze; the film's unique visual effects, soundtrack, costuming, art direction and set decoration were unique in its day. Its cutting-edge computer graphics were combined with live action (featuring human stars Jeff Bridges and David Warner) in a tale set within a gladiatorial computer game.

The visually-astonishing, state of the art (at its time) landmark film with Wendy (nee Walter) Carlos' unique score (that melded synthesized music with the London Philharmonic's orchestral music) was the first true CGI-animated film. It was released as both a feature film (with more state-of-the-art computer-generated animation than any other film) and an arcade video game.

With two Academy Award nominations for Best Sound and Best Costume Design, TRON was disqualified for a Best Visual Effects award because the Academy believed that it "cheated" by using a computer - the concept of using computers to craft environments, rather than drawing them by hand, was considered inauthentic in these early years. In reality, the process was an extremely arduous one for animators. Seven years later, James Cameron's The Abyss (1989) won the Best Visual Effects Oscar for the same kind of technology.

TRON was the first live-action film to extensively use 3D, computer-generated imagery (CGI) to any lengthy degree (about 20 minutes) - in this case, it created a full 3-D graphics world, in its most innovative sequence of the famed racing bike or Lightcycle sequence depicting computerized lightcycles in a high-speed race.

The film was budgeted at $17 million and grossed $33 million, and was considered a disappointment. It was praised for being visually spectacular, but criticized for its mostly incoherent and uninvolving plot. The film's failure at the box-office held up greater development of computer animation. A sequel followed, titled Tron: Legacy (2010), with Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner reprising their roles.

• Jeff Bridges was featured in a dual role as both a genius computer software engineer-hacker (Kevin Flynn) and a computer "program" (named "Clu" (Codified Likeness Utility)) within a video game
• [Note: Programs were electronic beings, created by users, that inhabited cyberspace.]
• Flynn had been fired from a computer software company named ENCOM, where he had worked with Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) and ex-girlfriend Lora Baines (Cindy Morgan) - who, like himself, would become characters in an alternate cyber-universe; he was desperate to prove that the hottest videogames from ENCOM were stolen ("annexed") from him by a malicious former co-worker named Ed Dillinger (David Warner), who had rapidly ascended and become a senior executive there
• to help his friends, Flynn successfully hacked into the ENCOM 511 mainframe but found himself personally propelled or literally transported into the digital world ("digitized) when zapped by a laser beam by the computer's controlling and malevolent Master Control Program (MCP) - he became trapped inside the electronic arena, a grid-lined, neon-glowing, 3-D pixelized world inside the evil corporation's mainframe where programs lived and worked

Recognizer

• when Kevin first took the arcade grip controls within the computer, he experimented with a Recognizer, a pursuit and attack vehicle; recognizers functioned as lethal enforcers of the MCP's tyrannical rule, which took care of renegade programs by capturing them, or by 'stomping' on them and crushing them with its pylon legs; literally, a Recognizer was a hovering, aerial security transport vehicle (with a central control cockpit for the crew and a passenger compartment) with two massive pylon legs, used by the MCP's army; with his user powers, Flynn accidentally reactivated a Recognizer craft, reassembled it (although one of its triangular pylon leg-foot supports fell off, causing navigation difficulties), and piloted it to another part of the system, where he crashed and destroyed it
• he also teamed up with computer-generated super-hero "video game warrior" and security program named "Tron" (Bruce Boxleitner) to defeat the MCP; in the process of destroying it, he also saved Tron, while establishing a close relationship with "Yori" (Cindy Morgan), Tron's romantic interest

The Lightcycle Race

• the film's most astounding scene was the light cycle sequence between curved racing pods - it was a breathtaking, gladiatorial competitive race in the arena
• in a duel, evil overlord Sark (David Warner) experienced a startling, brain-spewing death when killed by gladiator/hero Tron
• in the finale, Kevin made a resolution to jump suicidally and sacrificially into the energy beam of the Master Control Program to defeat it, and to save Tron; Yori reacted with aghast at Flynn's idea before the leap, but he was able to reassure the feminine computer programmer with a brief, but passionate and dramatic kiss; as they kissed, a brilliant, multicolored, mostly reddish shaft of light emanated from the MCP behind them.

  Kevin: "Steer us over by the beam, right next to it."
  Yori: "What good'll that do?"
  Kevin: "I'm gonna jump. The only way to help Tron."
  Yori: "Don't, you'll be de-rezzed!" (They kissed, and afterwards, he gazed into her eyes)
  Kevin: "Don't worry."

• after the kiss, Flynn meaningfully gazed into Yori's eyes one last time and then sacrificially jumped into the MCP beam; his leap allowed him to take control long enough to give Tron the chance he needed to destroy the malicious program; Yori was reunited with Tron and repeated the kiss taught to her by Flynn, while Flynn was successfully transported back to the real world
• the final liberation of the system caused landscapes to burst out in full luminous intensity and color