Ah, you've hit on one of my favorite topics. Ted.

Mr. James is the largest assmonkey on the face of the planet.

Mr. Ebert's article says it all. He tanked TRON and Disney and I believe he did it with a purpose in mind.

I have scanned several hundred pages of articles into the digital archive I am building for Steven Lisberger, and in reading those articles one thread is clear as a bell. Until the Ted James article, everyone was high on TRON and fully supportive of it, and the day it hit, nearly everyone at Disney stepped in line behind him. TRON suffered for political reasons.

I have always been bothered by the fact that other films from the same period that have similar flaws and did similar business to TRON have been hailed while Steven and his film got kicked in the gut over and over again.

Ted James was the cause of that. TRON is certainly not without flaws, but it has it's own charms that many of us recognize and love to this day. The fact that Ted didn't get it and was too much of a backwards thinker to try should not have doomed TRON to being considered a failure.

I think time has proven that it is not a failure at all, it is in fact a significant milestone in film, but the industry still hasn't stepped up and given Steven his props in my view.

Perhaps I am biased in my views, but Steven and his team took a vision and made it a reality that stands up well 20 years later. I think that deserves far more respect than he was given in the past 20 years.

Just my little rant for today. Now bring me the head of Ted James! Just kidding on that last bit.

the guy is a null unit. 'nuff said.

mrdoopey Wrote: wow, thanks dave for that. I have to admit that i havent seen the film yet, but as I remember from when I was a kid, it certainly was cutting edge. Thanks for sticking up for Mr. Lisberger, and I totally agree with you!

Steven and I are good frieinds, so I am a little biased in his direction, but what I said is true.

Interview with Tom Wilhite

By Roger Ebert /

"Tron," the $19 million computer thriller from Walt Disney Productions, opened on July 9 around the country, and that was the day most of the nation's movie critics published their reviews. But the critics were beaten to the punch by an earlier reviewer, whose verdict on the movie appeared in July 8 editions, on financial pages. Ever since, the folks at Disney have been pounding their collective heads against the wall because of that advance review.

Many of the nation's movie critics admired "Tron," to one degree or another, with various reservations. But the early-bird critic was much less enthusiastic. He said that the film told a "seriously flawed, disjointed story," that its much-heralded computerized special effects were "distracting," and that the audience was so indifferent that "35 minutes into the film, the coughing started, and halfway through, people began to talk."

To rate new movies, many newspapers use a system of awarding one to four stars. In Chicago, both daily newspapers gave "Tron" four stars, the highest rating. But the reviewer on the Thursday financial pages rated "Tron" at only two stars, max.

The man the wire services were quoting in the Thursday story was Theodore James Jr., of the San Francisco financial firm Montgomery Securities. He is a stock-market analyst, and he was one of about 1,200 people who saw a press preview of "Tron" on Tuesday morning, July 6, in the plush Los Angeles theater of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. After seeing the film, James advised the stock traders working for his firm to sell Disney stock.

His "sell" order was picked up around the country by other brokers eager for advance word on the new Disney picture, and Disney stock was delayed in opening on the morning of July 7 by an avalanche of sell orders. It opened at 55 1/4, off 3 3/8, and has remained lower ever since, creeping up to 56 5/8 on July 9, the day "Tron" opened, and falling to 55 1/8 last Tuesday, after the results of "Tron's" first weekend in theaters were known.

It is not ordinarily the film critic's job to comment on the stock-market performance of a movie studio, but, then again, it's not usually a financial analyst's job to review a movie before the critics do. In recent years, however, as the major studios have been absorbed by conglomerates and the minor studios like Disney have diversified into allied fields like amusement parks, advance word on a major new film is a valuable piece of stock-market information. If investors had been able to anticipate, for example, the enormous success of "Star Wars" in 1977, they could have cleaned up with Twentieth Century-Fox stock.

In the case of Disney, the market is looking for a turnaround in management after years during which Walt Disney's magic touch was lost in a series of dreary children's movies aimed at an audience that no longer exists. If "Tron" is a blockbuster, the theory goes, Disney will be sending a message to investors that it's no longer committed to the G-rated hinterlands of Silly Putty, million-dollar ducks and flying four-posters.

Even within this context, however, Ted James' advance review of "Tron" was one of the more bizarre episodes in recent movie opening history.

Precisely because Disney stock was hanging in the balance while awaiting the opening of "Tron," the studio pursued a calculated strategy in opening the film. As long ago as the 1981 Cannes Film Festival, Disney was showing a four-minute reel of "Tron" highlights, featuring the visionary new computer animation technology that the whole movie would display. Since January, a 20-minute selection of "Tron's" most exciting scenes has been shown to opinion-makers around the country, and, indeed, Disney production chief Tom Wilhite was in Chicago June 7 to host a morning screening of the highlights at the Carnegie.

Although the 20-minute reel inspired interest in movie and investment circles, noborder abortion pill http://unclejohnsprojects.com/template/default.aspx?morning-after-pill-price where to buy abortion pill