![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In the years after its release, however, Tron’s popularity has spread like a veritable computer virus. To add insult to injury, Tron’s remarkable visual achievements weren’t even considered for an Oscar – its use of computer technology was so new, and so ground-breaking, that it was considered by the Academy to be cheating. Released around the same time as Spielberg’s all-conquering (and far cheaper) E.T., Tron made only modest business when it appeared in 1982. Tron’s forward thinking ambition could also partially explain why it wasn’t the box office colossus Disney had hoped. The director also stated that “Our studio was artistically, not commercially inclined,” a mindset that survived on the big screen, and a sentiment that Walt Disney himself would have appreciated. The result is, as Lisberger himself has since pointed out, Disney’s most ambitious movie since Fantasia. A mere 15 minutes of the movie was actually rendered by computer – the rest was achieved via traditional animation techniques and liberal use of an airbrush. ![]() Then there are the gorgeous, exotic designs from Mead and Mobius, including the former’s simple yet deliciously organic Light Cycles, the latter’s ethereal Solar Sailer and outlandish costumes, including Barnard Hughes’ exotic, bishop-like outfit.Ībove all, Tron is a movie whose technical limitations gave rise to remarkable feats of creative ingenuity. The sequence in which Flynn is digitised and blasted into a kaleidoscopic gateway to the digital domain is extraordinary, despite the antiquity of its effects, and cries out to be seen on the biggest screen possible. The weird, high-contrast world that Lisberger and his huge team of artists, designers and animators created has the look and tone of an indie movie in places – in our interview with director Gaspar Noe earlier this year, he cited Tron as one of the visual touchstones for his head-trip drugs and death movie Enter The Void, and there are moments in Tron which are almost that movie’s equal, such is their hallucinogenic quality. ![]()
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