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Interview with Tron Creator Steven Lisberger 212

Posted by michael from the glow-in-the-dark dept.
NeoCode writes "AintItCool has posted an interesting interview with the Tron creator Steven Lisberger. He doesn't talk much about the sequel Tron 2.0 (because of a Disney gag order) but he reflects about the original movie with nostalgia. He talks about what influenced Tron and what Tron meant (and still does) to people. Have a read."
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Interview with Tron Creator Steven Lisberger More

Interview with Tron Creator Steven Lisberger

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  • Misnamed sequel... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gorm the DBA ( 581373 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:20PM (#4191162) Journal
    They really should call the sequel TROFF... or perhaps I need to get back on the medications.
  • From Tron to Babylon 5 to this [discovery.com].

  • Tron 2? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lxy ( 80823 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:27PM (#4191211) Journal
    Why do we need a sequel?

    Tron was awesome because it wowed the audience with its technical advances. In these days with the Matrix and Star Wars and the like, technology isn't as thrilling. Sure, we like to see Pixar's next film, as they continually create more stunning characters and produce each sequential film is less time. That's cool. But it's not the drop-everything-OH-MY-GOD-let's-go-see-this film that Tron was.

    Of course I'll go see it. I think that's a requirement of being a registered linux user, right? my point is that there are some films that had their day, still have their day, and should just be left alone. Tron is one of them.
    • I see yor point, but I also see a lot of potential to deal with the change in computers for a good story. Hopefully it will be a good story, with stunning effects, and not just special effects.

      too me, there is always room for one more good movie.

      OTOH I always condsidered the Matrix to be TRON for this generation.
      • Except Tron was good :)
        • Dude, Tron wasn't good...the story execution sucked. It was eye candy.

          It didn't make any sense until the 15th time you watched it. And it was full of unexplained plot fillers. Kinda like that other great cult-sci-fi film of the 80's...Buckaroo Banzai! Only there was supposed to be a sequel to Buckaroo Banzai that would explain some of the goings on in the first movie, but it never got made and I still have questions damnit! So I'm looking forward to Tron 2, it needs to be made. I mean shit, what ever happened to Tron and Yori anyway? Did they have bits? Did Tron become THMFIC of the mainframe with the MCP gone? Did he figure out a way to make it into the real world? Did Flynn turn his Arcade into a Starbucks after he got the CEO job at Digicom?

          The Matrix on the other hand was well explained/executed and the only question I had leaving was what the Oracle was.

          • I'd resolved to simply lurk, until I read this

            The Matrix on the other hand was well explained/executed and the only question I had leaving was what the Oracle was.

            Duh-huh, what?? The Matrix is like the soggy paper towel of movies: The more you watch it, the more it decomposes into little lint balls. The AIs use humans for power?? So, they store and feed billions of people, plus expend untold megajoules on the whole distribution system, instead of tapping the nuclear fusion plants directly? Or sending up solar satellites above the atmospheric inteference?


            There exists on the face of a mechanized Earth a city which is simultaneously (a) utterly secret and camouflage yet (b) densely populated and technologically extravagant?


            The humans know enough to bend the rules and make 5-mile jumps but not to escape agents?


            The Matrix was the worst kind of psuedo-mystic comic-book cookie-cutter claptrap to come down the pike in many a year. Fun to watch, soemwhat, but hardly a great movie.

            • And things in Tron made any more sense?

              It was clear that the Matrix was "intended to be a fantasy...or is it?" type film. The whole idea of having an alternate world with alternate physics was to get you to wonder, "what is real?"

              But then, with the movie's comic-book origins, I'm probably reading too far into it, anyway. (Don't flame me saying comic books aren't deep...some are, but I don't know which ones.)
    • Well, gee, maybe they don't want to make a big-flashy movie just to show off their budget, but maybe they like the setting of the story and think that they could make an interesting sequel. I'm not trying to flame you, just saying it's not all about the FX...

    • Re:Tron 2? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Skirwan ( 244615 )
      Why do we need a sequel?
      Scene: Marketer's bedroom, night.

      Marketer, formerly fast asleep, sits bolt upright with a look of sheer amazement on his face. The sleepiness drops from his face as he slowly turns his head upwards, as if thanking God himself for the incredible inspiration.

      Marketer: Tron... Two Point Oh! It's like 'Tron Two', but like a computer! Dear God, am I a genius! This movie must be made!

      --
      Damn the Emperor!
      • Marketer: Tron... Two Point Oh! It's like 'Tron Two', but like a computer! Dear God, am I a genius!

        You think you're funny, but watch the credits when it comes out.. I'm sure you'll see something like the following:

        Based on an idea by the Marketing Department of Disney Pictures, Inc.
      • Why do we need a sequel?

        I read this somewhere. A wiseguy said, "I saw Antonioni's 'The Passenger', [imdb.com] and I plan to see Passenger 57, with Wesley Snipes [imdb.com]. But I missed Passenger 2 through 56. Were they any good? Did I miss very much?

  • Remind me. What was the Bit? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:28PM (#4191217)
    "Remind me. What was the Bit? "
    The author sure did his research didn't he?
    Did he even watch the movie?
    Sure, the bit was a minor element in the movie, but come on.

  • horrible interviewer. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportlandNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:29PM (#4191222) Homepage Journal
    First he states the tron is the best, then later asks: "Remind me. What was the Bit? "
    not really much of a tron fan.

    then its?: I know you can't talk about tron 2, so here is a bunch of questions about tron 2...

    blech.
    Can /. do a 10 questions?

  • Obligatory Quote (Score:4, Funny)

    by daeley ( 126313 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:30PM (#4191229) Homepage
    Eisner: What kind of consumer is he?

    Ghost of Disney: He's not any kind of consumer, Eisner. He's a geek.

    Eisner: A geek?!

    GoD: What's the matter, Eisner? You look nervous.

    Eisner: Geeks... well, I mean... geeks wrote us. A geek even wrote you!

    GoD: No one geek wrote me! I'm worth millions of their geek-years!

  • Tron? (Score:3, Funny)

    by cr@ckwhore ( 165454 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:31PM (#4191235) Homepage
    I thought Bill Gates created tron and troff ... OH... sorry, I'm thinking of GWBASIC again.

  • Tron 2.0 ?? (Score:4, Informative)

    by TheKubrix ( 585297 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:32PM (#4191238) Homepage
    I could be wrong but I believe it's called Tron Killer App [imdb.com]
  • Sure it may seem cheesey to todays standards, but it was a great story. I think nobody can truly call themselves a geek unless they own the Tron DVD.

    BTW, that DVD is great. The directors commentary is just flat spectacular.

    • BTW, that DVD is great. The directors commentary is just flat spectacular.

      Is it really too much to tell us why you think it is spectacular??? Then we could make up our own minds whether it's worth getting or not. "I own this product and I think it's just great. You should own it too. The end."

      GMD

      • Are you suggesting that peer-pressure isn't be part of the geek community?

        The words "Flamebait" and "troll" come to mind... (No, not applying to you.)
    • The directors commentary is just flat spectacular.

      Did you notice that they talk about the technical travails in making it, they mention little incidents that happened along the way, and so forth - but they don't comment on the story itself, the plot, or anything like that?

      Even they recognize that the movie was all about the technology used in making it, and the story was entirely secondary.

  • What's up with the gag order? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jonman_d ( 465049 ) <nemilar&optonline,net> on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:34PM (#4191255) Homepage Journal
    What's with this Disney gag order? I mean, come on! I, for one, would be more inclined to spend the $10 to see the movie if I had been able to read more about it from this interview.

    Why must they do that?
    • They do it for two reasons:

      1. You can't have an "out-of-the-blue" hit movie if people know it's coming.

      2. Disney lives in a fantasy world (really - this is not me making fun of them) where the abiliy to control the flow of information is more important than the information itself. The image, the presentation is everything to them.

      If they didn't have gag orders, they would just have to lock people on the studio lots until filming was done - and fewer actors would work with them.

    • Re:What's up with the gag order? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Schnapple ( 262314 ) <tomkiddNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:51PM (#4191349) Homepage
      What's with this Disney gag order?
      A few things, really. First, TRON 2.0 is really early into production, so no use in putting information out there that's potentially wrong. Second, lack of information at early stages makes for more tension and hype. But really part of it has to be based off of the idea that Disney may well pull the plug on the whole thing. A TRON sequel has been in the talking/development hell stages for years and years now.

      Monolith wanted their upcoming TRON 2.0 game to be based off of the sequel, but after waiting so long they gave up and persued (and won) the right to do up TRON 2.0 as a game, regardless of if the movie is made. Oddly enough, it looks like all the hype the game has created has made Disney more anxious to work on the movie, which is why we're hearing more and more about it.

    • What's with this Disney gag order? I mean, come on!

      Yeah, I mean it's so unlike Disney to disregard what's best for the geek community just to serve their own interests. No precedent for this kind of action whatsoever.

      GMD

    • I wish Disney would hit McDonald's with a gag order. Everytime they release a new cartoon movie, I am sick of hearing about it before it even hits the theaters.
  • Remind me. What was the Bit? It was just a bit--the increment that we could get out of computers at the time. The computer's equivalent to an atom? Exactly. A zero and a one. A positive or a negative.
  • *break to Tron scene*

    Peter: Eric?

    Eric: Peter!

    Peter: Oh my God! I haven't seen you since high school! God, what are you doing these days?

    Eric: I'm the red guy!

    Peter: Oh my God!

    Eric: What are you doing?

    Peter: I'm the green guy!

    Eric: No kidding! Is that Stacy Beecham?

    Peter: Where?

    *cuts off and destroys Peter*

  • I don't think it's going to do well at the box office... The memory protection inherent in todays OS's all the UP (user programs) wont be able to slug it out with each other as in the first incarnation. (would they each be surounded by a virtual glass cage I guess?!).

    I wonder if the MCP will be an M$MCP? - Probably not, you'd only have to wait a while, and it'd crash all on its own...no fun there....

    T.

  • jesus christ! (Score:3, Funny)

    by lingqi ( 577227 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:39PM (#4191280) Journal
    ...I kept playing through post-production for six months and my final score [for BattleZone] was somewhere around five million...

    by the monitor's "radiation king" standards back then -- that's 5 inches of hairline you won't be getting back. we will just leave alone the effects on the cornea and skin cancer and the coughwastedtimecough...

  • Homer: Uh...it's like...did anyone see the movie "Tron"?
    Hibbert: No.
    Lisa: No.
    Marge: No.
    Wiggum: No.
    Bart: No.
    Patty: No.
    Wiggum: No.
    Ned: No.
    Selma: No.
    Frink: No.
    Lovejoy: No.
    Wiggum: Yes. I mean -- um, I mean, no. No, heh.
    -- "Treehouse of Horror VI" [snpp.com]

    • Lisa: Well, where's my dad?

      Frink: Well, it should be obvious to even the most dimwitted individual who holds an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology, n'gee, that Homer Simpson has stumbled into...[the lights go off] the third dimension.

      Lisa: [flips the light switch back] Sorry.

      Frink: [drawing on a blackboard] Here is an ordinary square....

      Wiggum: Whoa, whoa - slow down, egghead!

      Frink: ... but suppose we extend the square beyond the two dimensions of our universe, along the hypothetical z-axis, there.

      Everyone: [gasps]

      Frink: This forms a three-dimensional object known as a "cube," or a "Frinkahedron" in honor of its discoverer, n'hey, n'hey.

      Homer's voice: Help me! Are you helping me, or are you going on and on?

      Frink: Oh, right. And, of course, within, we find the doomed individual.''

    • Why did Wiggum answer Homer's question twice?

  • Website.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by TheKubrix ( 585297 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:41PM (#4191292) Homepage
    Since the interview was a bit sucky, here is the official site for Tron 2.0 [tron20.net], its got a pretty neat flash intro....worth a peek
  • It meant a really sore neck from sitting all the way at the end of the first row because my stupid friends couldn't get their act together to get to theater on time opening night.

  • Tron - blech (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:52PM (#4191354) Homepage
    Tron was a box office bomb. Some people in the industry said it set the adoption of CG in Hollywood back ten years.

    In fact, much of the "CG" in Tron was hand-animated by some outsourced firm in Asia. The first movie to have "realistic CGI" was The Last Starfighter, with 27 minutes of CGI. Tron, except for the "light cycle" scene, did not have significant CGI.

    Read this history of the field. [siggraph.org]

    • Re:Tron - blech (Score:2, Insightful)

      by rjung2k ( 576317 )

      Hey, Tron directly inspired John Lasseter to get into computer animation, and without him, we wouldn't have Luxo Jr., Pixar Animation, the Toy Story movies, etc., etc.

      For that reason alone, it's enough to give Tron a break.

      • It's kind of odd that all of the pioneers of film computer graphics knew someone who worked on Tron. It's almost like that film ruined the careers of everyone who worked on it, but started the careers of everyone who knew somebody who worked on it.


    • Re:Tron - blech (Score:3, Insightful)

      by freeweed ( 309734 )
      Tron was a box office bomb.

      Most good movies are.

    • Tron was a box office bomb. Some people in the industry said it set the adoption of CG in Hollywood back ten years.

      How true. If Tron had never existed, we wouldn't have had to wait until 1985 to see The Last Starfighter. We could have seen it ten years earlier, in 1975, six years before Tron so deeply harmed the industry. Jurassik Park would have appeared in 1983 instead of 1993. And by 1985, of course, we would have seen Toy Story. It makes perfect sense.

      I have read the document you link to (have moderators?). It's an interesting choice of reference. Interesting, because apart from the comment about box-office sales, the author does not seem to agree with you at all.

      Also released in 1981 (and also not a box office success), Tron used 3D computer graphics extensively in both concept and actuality. Although traditional optical effects created the characters' look, the film used the most CGI to date--it took four major CGI companies to achieve it all. The light cycles were done by Magi, the solar sailor ship by Triple-I, the Tron title logo and wireframe world by Robert Abel and Associates, and the bit character and Tron opener by Digital Effects.

      What this author seems to say is that Tron contained a lot of CGI... which shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone who has actually seen it. I might add that the following paragraph, which talks about The Last Starfighter, calls it "the next landmark". Yes, the next landmark.

      The first movie to have "realistic CGI" was The Last Starfighter, with 27 minutes of CGI. Tron, except for the "light cycle" scene, did not have significant CGI.

      This makes absolutely no sense at all. Have you seen the movie? Have you even seen the movie? Just look at the damn poster, if you're too lazy. Do you think that "realistic" CGI has anything at all to do with the aesthetics of this film? What would a realistic bit look like, anyway? And, more importantly, who cares? Is Toy Story unimportant just because it does not have "realistic" CGI?

    • Tron was a box office bomb.

      1. Make first CG movie
      2. Lose Money
      3. Make Sequel
      4. ????
      5. Profit!
      • Disney was frantically trying to come up with an answer to Star Wars. Their first attempt was The Black Hole, which also described its profit picture. Tron was try #2, also a flop.

        My main point about Tron was that many of the effects in Tron which today look like "obvious CG", weren't. All those nifty glow effects in scenes with live characters were hand animated.

        I was surprised at the time that Burroughs didn't sue them for the use of the term "Master Control Program" in a derogatory way. The Burroughs MCP was a real, and quite good, operating system.

        The Last Starfighter was the "Final Fantasy" of its day - good CG, miserable plot. But it was the movie that made it clear that minatures and matte paintings were on the way out. Tron was sort of "gee whiz, we can show the inside of a computer, but what else would we do this way?". The Last Starfighter was "this stuff is going to be a mainstream production tool."

        A current graphics milestone: "Britney's Dance Beat" for PS2. The game sucks, but the character rendering is perhaps the best ever seen in a game.

        • (* The Last Starfighter was the "Final Fantasy" of its day - good CG, miserable plot. But it was the movie that made it clear that minatures and matte paintings were on the way out. *)

          My reading suggests that CG was looked down on in Holywood after Tron until Terminator II made big bucks. This seems to be the turning point. Before that, it seemed to doom films WRT profits. If GC did not equal profits, then directors avoided it. James Cameron was happy with small-scale CG from Abyss, so was willing to use more for later films such as T2, and of course Titanic. He is known for his risk-taking in general. (Titanic was considered a huge gamble and he risked his own future returns on it.)

          The Last Starfighter was pretty much a break-even film, wasn't it?
    • (* Read this history of the field. [siggraph.org] *)

      I read this and have been poking around on Google.

      It seems the first movie to use "3D" computer graphics was FutureWorld in 1976 where a human head was allegedly shown digitized into polygons. (It was the sequel to WestWorld, where android cowboys in a theme-park turn murderous. The original used some computer processing, but not 3D renderings.)

      I have never seen FutureWorld, nor could find any screenshots of the CG in it. Has anybody here seen it and have comments?

      Another oddity is about CG in the original Star Wars. Some accounts said they showed wire-frame "navigation" renderings of the Death Star tunnel on some of the ship equipment, but other accounts say that such was later added and that the original had zilch computer graphics whatsoever. IOW, the accounts seem to conflict.

  • The bit wasn't a bit! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Wee ( 17189 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:54PM (#4191366)
    Remind me. What was the Bit?
    It was just a bit - the increment that we could get out of computers at the time.

    The computer's equivalent to an atom?
    Exactly. A zero and a one. A positive or a negative.

    NO! The bit in Tron wasn't a bit at all! It didn't have two states, on and off, yes and no, zero and 1... it had three states: 'yes', 'no', and 'stateless'. It would sit there until Flynn asked it a question and then it would answer yes or no. That's not two states. I don't mean to be a stick-in-the-mud, but it isn't.

    Now, if they would have had the bit only say 'yes' when the answer to a question was yes (or vice versa: say nothing until the answer is no), then it would have been a bit. Nothing or yes, nothing or no: they should have picked one of those.

    This is just something that's been bugging me since I was like 15 or so is all. Nothing to see, move along...

    -B

    • Possible answers...
      - It was a quantum bit. It had no state until you observed it.
      - It had five states: blank, "YES", "NO", "YESYESYESYESYES", and "NONONONONO"
      - It was a beta version of the magic eight ball
    • Does a bit have a state if no one is looking?

    • It didn't have two states, on and off, yes and no, zero and 1... it had three states: 'yes', 'no', and 'stateless'.

      Actually, at a hardware level, this is an accurate depiction of a "bit." If a logic gate is not powered, it can't be said to have either a low or high state since it can't be measured. Chips and circuitry that handle multiple input or output pins will usually support a "high impedance" state; this allows a manufacturer to leave individual pins unconnected in a complex chip housing. For example, a chip implementing a 4-way AND gate without supporting high impedance would require the fourth pin to be connected high if only 3 inputs are needed. (And connected low in the case of an OR gate.)
      • Actually, at a hardware level, this is an accurate depiction of a "bit." If a logic gate is not powered, it can't be said to have either a low or high state since it can't be measured.

        Well, I'm not much of a hardware engineer, but how could the bit respond unless it was powered? If it could respond to inquiry (i.e., be measured as to which state it happens to be in) then that means it was in fact powered. Yet it had three states while powered, and so therefore it was not a bit at all.

        But since we are talking about what essentially amounts to a cartoon, I'm willing to end the debate in a draw. :-)

        Now for Tron 2.0, I'd buy a group of eight bits, all in a row, "doing the binary wave", in answer to Flynn's questions:

        "Hey byte, how many Recognizers are after us?"

        "<nothing> <nothing> <nothing> yes yes no yes yes"
        That I could see.

        -B

        • Blockquoth the poster:

          Well, I'm not much of a hardware engineer, but how could the bit respond unless it was powered? If it could respond to inquiry (i.e., be measured as to which state it happens to be in) then that means it was in fact powered. Yet it had three states while powered, and so therefore it was not a bit at all.

          Ummm... when queried, the bit had only two states (Yes and No). I too am not a hardware person but it seems to me that the query is exactly what powered the bit and applied whatever bias was needed to have a state.
          • I too am not a hardware person but it seems to me that the query is exactly what powered the bit and applied whatever bias was needed to have a state.

            It's still pretty fishy in my book. I just can't get past it having three states. I mean, when it wasn't responding it wasn't inanimate -- it was moving around and pulsing and such. Although maybe it had some other deal which moved it about and the "bitness" was only that part which responded to a query (ie, unpowered until queried)? But that moves away from it being a "fundamental" particle.

            I think Tron fudged the whol "bit" thing.

            -B

        • Trinary exists. It's even common, in the case of "high impedance."
    • It would sit there until Flynn asked it a question and then it would answer yes or no.

      Foolish, foolish geek.

      What sits is but a Pointer.

      Access it you must.

    • digital binary logic calls this the Hi-Z (high impedence) setting. It's not logic zero (voltage 0, voltage -5, etc.), its not logic one (voltage 5, etc.) it's hi-z.

      It's a bitch but thats how the circuits are defined.

  • MCP=MS Windows (Score:3, Informative)

    by dillon_rinker ( 17944 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:56PM (#4191389) Homepage
    The MCP controlled access to the I/O system, or tried to. It died when a program got direct access to I/O. While it seemed to have the potential for much more, it spent a lot of its time on games. It obliterated other programs by absorbing their functionality. At its core, when everything else was stripped away, it had a teletype interface. Without it, the system had a lot more power (think CPU cycles). What it feared most was a debugging tool and it was destroyed by source code. (This last bit is clearly prophetic =)

  • Crypto biblical deal creeps me out (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sam_handelman ( 519767 ) <samuel...handelman@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @04:58PM (#4191398) Journal
    Of course, as it turns out, it's very funny.

    At the time, the whole millenialist rigamarole, with computers serving as the mark of the beast, had not permeated popular culture.

    Then, in this silly movie there are computer programs which get died red in order to show their obsequious obedience to antichrist, I mean to the Master Control Program.

    It's an amusing transposition - much more amusing than it was at the time (oh, the commie/atheist/roman computer programs are forcing the christian computer programs to fight in gladiatorial games,) since computers themselves have had a lot of PR as instruments of Satan since then.

    Q: Moby's live show has a grand finale where he takes a beam of light to the head and arcs his arm in a similar fashion to the grand finale of Tron... A: ... Anytime a work like this can go from one generation to the next, it means something ...

    Moby was born in 1965. He's 38 years old. Come on.
  • ... when I was about 8 or so years old I saw tron - and at night I used to go to sleep praying that god would give me one of those bars that turned into the motorcycles from that one scene where they were racing in the grid (cant remember it too well now). I would awaken in the morning and look under my bed - but no magical motocycle rod was to be found. I did this for weeks after seeing that movie.

    • Re:The Dreams of a boy... (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Mmm hmmm. No doubt the motorcycle would have allowed you to "rescue" your mother from the perverse sexual depredations that your father continually subjected her to.
  • Actually, its from Filter Magazine, not aintitcool.
  • So is Tron 2 going to live up to the original, by sucking badly, and not make any sense to anyone except computer geeks? And then in 20 years we will all like it.

    Seriously, I remember not too long ago hearing Steven Lisberger talking about how Tron "wasn't very good." It seems the new public's opinion and Disney's have somehow swayed his own.

    Mod me down for being a skeptic.

  • AIC has ceased to be relevant (Score:3)

    by Torgo's Pizza ( 547926 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2002 @05:48PM (#4191638) Homepage Journal
    Ain't It Cool has long ago transformed itself to Ain't It Crap. Far be it for me to troll on poor Harry; others do it better than I can ever do. It's just the "Local Boy Makes Town Proud" headline has faded and so has AIC.

    This interview just bares this out. No interviewing skills demonstrated, meandering thought processes and the general kiss-ass attitude is just overbearing. This is hardly an endorsement for Filter Magazine [filter-mag.com]. Sheesh, if this is what they call content, then I'm moving my mouse over to the X button in a hurry.

  • He doesn't talk much about the sequel Tron 2.0 (because of a Disney gag order)

    Ah yes, this must be one of those "stealth" marketing jobs, where they get signed agreements and/or threaten to sue anyone who so much as mentions a prospective film before its release. That way, nobody knows a damn thing about it until it comes out. I mean, we don't want to generate any buzz, develop a fan community, or leak out info that might drive potential customers mad with lust for the sequel, right? Right. I mean, it's all just so much darn work!

    Where do I go to become a corporate marketing genius like the folks at Disney?

    • Blockquoth the poster:

      That way, nobody knows a damn thing about it until it comes out. I mean, we don't want to generate any buzz, develop a fan community, or leak out info that might drive potential customers mad with lust for the sequel, right?

      All these posts complaining about the gag order and wondering what Tron 2.0 is really about ... you don't think this qualifies as "buzz"??
  • ...from Dennis Miller during the 1992 election season.

    "Do we really want Al Gore for a vice predident?! Come on, his favorite movie is "TRON" for fucks sake!"

  • Alan Kay's wife - listed as co-writer, but I believe she sold her script to Disney - not a peep about her in this bit. Huh.
  • The amusing thing is that there really was a Master Control Program- it's the real name of Burroughs' Operating System, which culminated in the A-series of mainframes and now hides out in emulator mode on Unix and NT-based Unisys machines.

    MCP is not destroyed, he's just hiding in that 20-way server......

    Don't believe me? Check this [unisys.com] or this [ardenstone.com] out
  • TRON wasn't even nominated for the special effects oscar, because as the academy put it, using computers to do the special effects was cheating.

    What idiots. As if that made it easy. They worked very hard on getting the light cycles alone to work (In that day and age the animation took so long to compute, and there were no animation modellers, that they "animated" the whole scene by writing the 6 coordinates for each cycle (three for position and three for attitude) on paper over and over and over in a big table. Then they sent that off to the computer studio guys to render over the next several weeks, and saw nothing of the result until they were done.

    The idiots at the academy probably were of the mindest that thinks "oh, computers are like those things that make it so, like, people don't have to you know, think."

    It's almost as dumb as not picking Fellowship of the Ring for best picture.

  • Well, as long as there is as much spandex as in the first one, I'm game!
  • The movie was rendered on a PDP-10 (well, a clone actually, but that doesn't matter) which had an instruction called TRON. I always thought the anti-christ-like character in the movie was so named because TRON's opcode expressed in octal, which was the convention for the PDP-10, is 666.

    Anobody know if it was just a coincidence?
  • Wha'?? No mention of Wendy Carlos [wendycarlos.com] and the wonderful Tron soundtrack [wendycarlos.com]??
  • 2 should feature a cyber battle between a kid and the likes of Microsoft and DMCA who want to control his computer and content.

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