TRON (1982)

In 1982, the concept of artificial intelligence was advanced enough that a gamer could easily defeat a computer opponent if he memorised the sequence of moves that the AI followed. A computer capable of handing the intense mathematical calculations CGI entailed often took up an entire room. Video games were strictly two-dimensional, and often consisted of video displays that a legally blind man could make out the individual pixels in. Yet they were considerably more fun than most of the annoyances we have to bear with today. The reason for this is as simple as it is obvious. In 1982, programmers realized that graphics are not what make a game fun because graphics could not be made as "real" as they are now.

Tron fell flat at the box office because the concepts it dealt with were not in the public consciousness. Home computers from many manufacturers were duelling for market share, and the idea that the market could one day all be controlled by one monolithic corporation was far from anyone's mind. This little fact is what keeps Tron relevant nearly twenty-five years later. However, as the information age grew into focus, the number of films that openly steal from Tron are numerous. They try to capture the same level of excitement and intrigue, but they fall down because of an inability to make the audience care about the characters.

Tron begins with simple interactions between the world of the programs and the world of the humans, some of which are programmers, or users as they are called here. The sequence in which one user, Flynn, is sucked into the world of the programs, well, let's just say that the Wachowski brothers obviously watched it very carefully before they penned the screenplay for The Matrix. Only in this case, it is done with much more credibility and impact.

Many have talked about the curse that plagues film adaptations of video games. Tron was the first of many films to have a video game adapted from it, the reasons for which should be clear when one watches the game sequences. During the middle act of the film, Flynn is made to compete in a couple of video games, the first of which, while quite clearly based upon Pong, was adapted more or less element-for-element into a crude tennis game. The latter is more notorious, however. The concept of bicycles that create walls behind them as they move, into which one tries to run an opponent, is one of the simple concepts that kept old 4-bit video game machines like the Atari 2600 profitable for so long.

It has been said that it is difficult to understand what is going on, which is hogwash. Once you learn some of the basics of computing, or rather the concepts that Microsoft would like to keep hidden from the user such as input-output addresses and the like, and learn to pay attention to dialogue, it is incredibly easy to follow this story. It is, in fact, one of the best renderings of computer concepts on the big screen to date, which is a sad indictment upon Hollywood when you consider how far technology in both areas has come since 1982.

I gave Tron a ten out of ten. It entertained me immeasurably when I was a child growing up on the cusp of VHS technology. As an adult who is having endless fun with the recordable DVD technology, it entertains me even more. Few things grow more relevant with time, in both happy and sad ways, but Tron is amongst them. If every science-fiction film in which computers and artificial intelligence figured heavily were up to this standard, film critics would have a lot less to do.