Let's see..... *thinks back several years*

I first saw Tron sometime in '08.

My dad and I had gotten into a discussion about virtual reality - we had just watched The Matrix - and I made a comment about getting into the computer. Which, of course, bought Tron to mind for my dad. He went and found it online, sat me down in front of the computer, and had me watch it. I immediately became obsessed. The very next day, I ordered the DVD and the novelization from Amazon.com, checked the Tron section on FF.net, and started surfing the net for anything I could find on Tron. That's my story.

Gods, am I the old timer here? I saw it back in 1982, in the theatre, a double bill with the musical Annie. I went back to see it again 7 more times. I was enamoured of the world of the Grid, nothing like the new Grid of course. I liked Jeff B already and Bruce B was a new bit of eye candy. The soundtrack I loved so much I went out and bought it on a 33 album, yes vinyl! I played it so much for weeks, I think the family grew sick of it. I bought every book on it I could find, the VHS later.

Then of course, the interest faded over time. But Legacy came out, I was like meh....it was ok. But it made me look up Tron again and I was given back my program hero. That in return made me give Legacy another look, and now I'm hooked. Cannot wait for the next installment.where to buy abortion pill abortion types buy abortion pill online

typicaltronname Wrote: IluthraDanar Wrote:Gods, am I the old timer here? I saw it back in 1082 DAY-ANG!! You saw it way back when!

Sorry I changed it. Yeah, you didn't know they had film back then? ;-)

Well, I wasn't born prior to 1082. Actually, 1957, so I was 25 when I saw Tron for the first time.

IluthraDanar Wrote:Gods, am I the old timer here? I saw it back in 1982, in the theatre, a double bill wil the musical Annie. I went back to see it again 7 more times. I was enamoured of the world of the Grid, nothing like the new Grid of course. I liked Jeff B already and Bruce B was a new bit of eye candy. The soundtrack I oved so much I went out and bought it on a 33 album, yes vinyl! I played it so much for weeks, I think the family grew sick of it. I bought every book on it I could find, the VHS later. Then of course, the interest faded over time. But Legacy came out, I was like meh....it was ok. But it made me look up Tron again and I was given back my program hero. That in return made me give Legacy another look, and now I'm hooked. Cannot wait for the next installment.

Nope, I'm an old timer too...Saw TRON during first run showings the summer of 82', I was 12. Saw it first with a friend, we arrived a little late but still got their before Flynn was digitized and we all were blown away by the special effects. Needless to say I spent many hours with my friends zipping around on my bike like it was a lightcycle and engaging in frisbee wars ala TRON. Saw it a second time a week later with my dad during one of our monthly visits and was still blown away. THen in 84 when the second "V" mini-series began airing we got a curious device in our home. It was called a VCR and miracle of all things we could watch pre-recorded movies off a type of cassette tape. Well, a local friend of the family came over one night with this "Most amazing movie he had ever seen" and he couldn't "Believe it was from Disney". Well the movie was TRON, and my mom who had never seen it was intrigued but my Step-father was woefully jaded (an experience that would be common in his viewing of movies) and had nothing but derision for the computer and engineering sidelines of the story. Being he was an engineer, I didn't hold him accountable, but still, the lack of imagination astounded me. I of course knew everything about the film and captivated this family friend who brought the film, with many factoids about it's production and even let him see my TOMY Lightcycle and Tron figures at the time. So, it would be many years later, and in 1987 when I was a senior in High School, Disney began running their movies on syndicated channels during the holiday season. TRON came on, and next thing I knew it was the buzz of all my highschool friends who somehow had never seen or heard of the movie before. They all thought it was pretty cool, but weren't rabid about it. I was still a fan but alot of adult responsibilities had begun to creep into my life, the greatest one being getting into college. So it would be several more years before anything TRON popped up in my life again. While in college I got involved with a group of students who liked electronic music and only I and one other individual had the soundtrack to TRON of which everyone went gaga over because one of the Gods of Electronic music Wendy Carlos was of course on the label.

I was born in 1986 4 years after the movie came out. never heard a word of it until 2006 when it was in kingdom hearts 2 that a whopping 24 years since its release before i saw anything on it. why do i fill like i was living under a rock all you guys were lucky enough to grow up with it. but i guess there's a trade off because i am a much bigger movie fan overall now then when i was a kid so i can probably respect it more for what it did so well.

But the first time i saw it it was amazing how good it was especially at the time it was made. also it aged vary well imo largely do to how well they did on the special effects and some to do with the subject mater. Being a person whose first gaming console they played was the Atari 2600 that's exactly what you would expect to see in a computer world at the time.

SPOILERS




also the ending to tron legacy gets me teared up all the time especially when all those flash back with him and is son and he says goodbye kiddo. i guess it hits close to home because my own dad died not to long ago

In the same way that Parmesan cheese ages.

I saw it in '82 when it first came out something like five or six times that summer when I was 16. I spent most of my allowance at the arcades. We had a Bally's at the local mall.

I read Electronic Games magazine where they reviewed the latest Atari and Intellivision cartridges, and a few of the other consoles. Hard to remember that long ago. I do miss my 2600 from time to time.

My mom was a huge fan of Tron so she bought the DVD so we could watch it. although I was too busy playing on my Nintendo DS, and at the end of the movie I was complaining because I did get it. When I actually sat down and watched it I liked it. order abortion pill morning after pill price where to buy abortion pill

The fondness of remembering a childhood thrill can sometimes blur a focus that we have spent years honing as emerging adults. At other times our recollections are less sharp, leaving us hopelessly lost in an attempt to recapture what we felt in those heady, wonder swept times as children. Over the years I, as well as many of you, have come to understand that the strangest things can momentarily draw us back to some of those fleeting moments of innocence. A wisp of a scent can recall a time when a friend and I invaded an abandoned building, pretending we were soldiers on a secret mission. Certain phrases can trigger memories making us certain we not only have heard that exact statement before but that we have lived in that exact moment, be it real or from some fragmented recollection of a dream.


For me the most accessible medium that I have been able to utilize to help me relive some of these experiences is cinema. And my personal favorite film has always been TRON.


I had just turned 7 and had already been ruined by my parents who unwittingly had hooked me on watching films. Just that year we had gone as a family to see Wrath of Khan at the local 70mm cinema, (an utterly lost art form that IMAX has attempted to replicate with some degree of success). My young fertile imagination ran rampant, fueled by Star Wars, Empire, Raiders of the Lost Ark, I couldn’t get enough. But at that age I was lucky to be able to tag along for some of these films, right up until my birthday. That week a Disney film was being released. A PG film that was custom tailored to me! I had learned nothing more about it other than an amazing looking black poster I’d seen earlier in the year, with glowing figures standing in the middle of some giant circle proclaiming TRON was coming (right next to a poster of a RESTRICTED film called Blade Runner, that my parents gave me a scowl for even mentioning).



I knew that my Mom wasn’t interested in it and my chances of getting my dad to go weren’t good because he saw it as a kids film. But it being my birthday my mom acquiesced and allowed me to invite one friend. I made sure that we went to the 70mm showing at Century 21, a massive domed theater in town where we had seen nearly all of the previously mentioned films above. We went to the noon show, sat right in the middle of the theater and when those massive 40 foot tall curtains drew open and the film began I was absolutely speechless, which those who know me is really something! As a matter of fact I don’t think I uttered an intelligible word the entire length of the film, and then even sat stunned through the credits, letting that groundbreaking score wash over me until the Journey song, “Only Solutions” kick into gear. At that time I looked over at my friend and we exploded! I loved that movie. Everything about it. Without qualm or question my favorite film from that time to now has been TRON.



As a matter of fact I believe that it wouldn’t be incorrect to surmise that my current adoration for films in general, the way I get emotionally involved, the focus I have on the story, characters, action, what have you, can trace their roots to that summer birthday present that I received when I turned 7. That day I changed from a kid who liked movies to a cinephile. A movie-a-holic. I got something out of TRON that was new. My emotions had been wrung during Wrath of Khan which I had seen only a few months prior, but it didn’t connect with me in the same way. As a kid I never followed films the way I do now. Not only because we didn’t have the net back then, though I would have used it, but because I was so tremendously active as a child. This also made the act of seeing a new film that much more of an adventure. I didn’t slow down to read about movies, what was coming out and when, even when I could. My parents usually just took us to what “looked” good or if a big sequel was coming out and then I absorbed them en total. Marrow and all. I took the experiences home imagining myself as characters from those films and enacted my own variations of them with my friends, as most all kids do.



But why TRON? Looking back at the “critic’s” reception to TRON at that time I realize what must have been part of the equation to answer that. The critics paned TRON, calling it derivative and ridiculous, a childrens fantasy film with silly characters and a dumb plot. Reading over their reviews now it’s clear that most people that saw TRON back-in-the-day just didn’t get it. It looked cool, but since it wasn’t something they could conceptually grasp they shrugged it off as corny. Of the critics at the time I found only one, Roger Ebert, who understood what TRON was trying to say and achieve and applauded it for what it said and who it was reaching. Most adults of the time were not acquainted with computers, whether on a home level or a business level, and were quite ignorant of not only how they worked but what they were capable of at the time and in the future. This was in my opinion the main reason so many people disregarded it. And the very factor that it made such an impact with me.



I have my father to thank for exposing me not only to film, but in keeping up with current electronic gaming culture of the time allowing me access to numerous gaming experiences. My family and friends were quite enthralled by video games. Enough to regularly spend all-nighters playing Atari football, Pac-Man, soccer, baseball, anything to compete with each other to see who was king of that particular game. In playing these games I constantly pondered how they must have been made and wondered if when I grew up I would make games too. Then comes TRON, speaking to a niche culture of burgeoning gamers and computer programmers of the time, giving us a science fictional microscope to explore a vividly imaginative world inside of the computer.



Everyone that has seen TRON always gets stuck on the visuals. I personally think that they were critical in capturing my young imagination, but it was really the story, the people that seduced me. Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), a rogue computer programmer/hacker who after having his game programs stolen by corporate stooge Ed Dillinger ( David Warner ) is attempting to clear his name and take back what is rightfully his. He then is approached by Allan , an employee of Dillinger, and his ex-girlfriend Laura with a proposition to infiltrate ENCOM, the company that Dillinger now runs and extract the evidence Flynn needs to bring Dillinger down. The film draws in pretty broad stokes who the villains and hero’s are, which is where many attack it for being too simplistic. The premise is fairly straightforward but I don’t think it’s terribly simplistic, maybe the overall goals but that’s breaking the plot out of context of the film for examination’s sake. Just enjoy it! Now I’m not saying that TRON is the greatest, most brilliant film ever made. By no means. I’m just saying that for me it has been and remains my favorite film to watch. Because I LIKE it! But due to it’s simplicity does it suffer as a piece of cinema. Subjected to comparative analysis, possibly. But why must we rely so heavily on critical praise or condemnation when it is WE who decide if it is something that WE enjoy.



TRON for me is like a time-capsule that I can share with others. With my family. With my children. With my friends. In some ways it’s become a part of me in how I express who I was and what I’ve become, in discussing the concepts presented in the film and how they have stimulated my imagination over the years. In the early 80’s I was surrounded by new-ageish synthetic music seemingly wherever I went. The perspective here is somewhat blurry through the lens of time. But I remember seeing advancements in space exploration that fired my imagination to it’s possibilities. And TRON sort of embodied all of these experiences at the time in a single stroke.



This may have become less of a review of the film TRON and more of a perspective on the effects of artistic influences on our lives, sorry! But if there’s anything to glean from my little soapbox examination, it’s this: If you go into any film with preconceived opinions on what should or shouldn’t be, you will nearly always be disappointed on one level or another. And I think that’s the most important lesson I learned so many years ago in that dark domed theater. To this day I go into films with an eager, open perspective on what they might have in store for me. Am I still disappointed? Sometimes, absolutely! But more often than not, because of my commitment I’m transported to other worlds, allowed to visit them even if for a short time. To let myself be filled with the same awe and wonder I felt as a boy, when I first got the opportunity to see TRON.