The Story of Tron 367
An anonymouse reader writes "Tom's Hardware has a feature up on the makings of Tron which may interest latent fans. Through interviews with the creators they explore the makings of Tron, from how it came to be picked up by Disney to how the effects were put together ('While the majority of the film takes place in the computer world, only 15 minutes worth of footage actually used CGI', because it would have taken years to make the film otherwise). They then explore why the film flopped at the box office. 'It was like we put LSD in the punch at the school prom and it was just way more than they can handle,' said Steven Lisberger."
Re:Reading anything on tomshardware.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Reading anything on tomshardware.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Reading anything on tomshardware.... (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, that's just about the stupidest page layout ever. But the underlining is easy to fix if you block intellitxt.com.
Grossing Twice the Cost is a Flop? (Score:5, Informative)
It was 22nd in the top grossing films of 1982. Blade Runner was 27th that year.
Maybe it wasn't the smash hit they were hoping for, but it looks like it did very well.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/ [boxofficemojo.com]
Re:Where is our Pixar/Disney Sequal? (Score:1, Informative)
The game isn't fantastic, but it's fun and the storyline is moderately interesting. I especially like the internet hub level.
Re:Grossing Twice the Cost is a Flop? (Score:4, Informative)
Because you generally need to make several times the cost of the movie at the box office to break even. Theaters take a cut, distributors take a cut, then there's the advertising costs to pay on top... which can be massive: in the extreme case of low-budget movies, they can be many times the cost of the movie itself.
$33,000,000 gross for a $17,000,000 movie probably just about paid for the advertising and the coke and hookers budget.
"Blade Runner was 27th that year."
If I remember correctly, 'Blade Runner' was considered a disaster when it was released: hence the voiceover and happy ending tacked on to try to raise revenue with Joe Sixpack.
Obligatory lightcycle games (Score:4, Informative)
GLtron [gltron.org]
Both free, for Windows/MacOSX/Linux.
Re:Even better: South Park (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting fact they glossed over. (Score:5, Informative)
Furthermore, the computers of the time didn't have enough memory to store entire movies, let alone any sort of device to output it to video tape or film like we have now. Instead, they had to render each individual frame, display the frame on a high-resolution monitor and then photograph the monitor onto regular 35mm film. Each frame would take several hours to render further complicating the process trying to keep the lighting uniform on each exposure.
Now, fifteen minutes * 60 seconds in a minute * 24 frames per second = roughly 21,600 frames. Just an insane amount of manual labor.
Wendy Carlos soundtrack (Score:4, Informative)
Something the article doesn't mention is that Tron also had a futuristic soundtrack [wendycarlos.com] by Wendy Carlos, the same woman who composed (at least, she composed the song Timesteps) and performed the soundtrack for A Clockwork Orange.
Re:Tron 2.0? (Score:3, Informative)
He's talking about the game [go.com] they did a couple years back. Should be cheap, I just saw it for $6 at the local Big Lots. Amusing, and it really does look very much like the movie - sobering to think we can do those kinds of graphics in real-time now.
Music available here [tron-sector.com].
First Geek Movie (Score:5, Informative)
The ethic of programs of little fighters within a sometimes incomprehensible system was very appealing. The idea of old crusty programs bearing the likeness of their users was cool. The idea of independently minded security programs running around like white blood cells was also pretty fabulous. In terms of what actual programs could do at the time, Tron was inspirational to real programmers. I mean every program in Tron could communicate to every other program. Strong programs could defeat weak programs by learning new games at the instruction of stronger still programs, all without user intervention. A super program that could heal other programs that had crashed...
There were realistic in-jokes, like the Bit, the PacMan graphic in Stark's domain, the endless infinty of cubicles, and the fantasy that (arcade) gamers could pull chicks by getting high scores.
Tron was true the spirit of the then-emerging hacker ethic in many ways that other movies haven't really ever captured. In fact, I can't think of any other that captures more truly on an emotional scale how programmers think about their programs. In fact there is probably only one movie that has ever been cooler to hackers and that is Swordfish.
Re:Don't forget the TRON soundtrack! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:And they pimped up a PDP-10! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:And they pimped up a PDP-10! (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Easy answer (Score:3, Informative)
Mxyzptlk.
Sorry, sorry, sorry ... [runs away and hides]