There was an *explosion* of media. Our cups ranneth over. We couldn't spend enough of our parent's disposable money and we got summer jobs just so we could view and acquire more media New media like video games and video stores, expansion of existing media like cable TV giving us 150 channels after we'd been used to 4-5, first-run syndicated animated series enabled by cheap foreign crews and the iconic toy lines they were created to sell, cable movies, straight to video movies, dozens of channels of scripted programming, MTV, national wrestling leagues, tabletop RPG's created for every popular IP, and even anime OAV from Japan - there was so much pent-up, untapped creativity that suddenly had outlets and could find their audiences, and there hasn't been a comparble sudden increase in content output since. There's a reason so many of the popular media IP franchises still popular today were created or were popularized in the 80's.
Also, 2001:ASO/2010:TYWMC and The Abyss - "aliens vs The Cold War" was a whole sub-genre; and Close Encounters of The Third Kind and Star Trek The Motion Picture, because they are similar mind-blowing first-contact stories and because Robert Wise, director of The Day The Earth Stood Still also directed Star Trek TMP
It's funny how this was a fantasy of how game graphics would look in the future and it involved every VFX trick in the book to create some of those images, (including ironically a lot of traditional hand-drawn ink-and-paint cel animation) but for the sequel, even the beefed up "realistic" game grid has a minimalist, unrendered/wireframe aesthetic in comparison to current games.
Check out the video here, “The Making of Tron”, it was a helluva job. Dig into Wendy Carlos, the person that crafted the soundtrack, we wouldn’t have modern synths or EDM without those contributions.
@@c1ph3rpunk Yeah, I didn't list Starfighter because Jonathan's review was on my To Be Watched list at the time! Blade Runner is #2 on my list of all movies. I started as an AS/400 system operator about the same time then got dragooned into almost 24 years at GameStop!
Yes, the 80's was a great time to be alive and in your formative years! Camping overnight in line for concert tickets, going to the Roller Rinks, and of course blowing your allowance at the Arcades (Wizards Castle was my haunt). Choosing my favorite game is tough with the Pac Man's, TRON, Gauntlet, etc. but I can narrow it down to two... Galaga and Missile Command. TRON did set off us programmers especially with "End of Line" which the end of a coding statement and of course TRON which stood for TRace ON and was used to debug programs. "TRON" was a continuation of Disney trying to move into more serious films which of course started with "The Black Hole" (1979). If you haven't watched that one yet I would recommend it. Just be forewarned that it is a little darker that your typical Disney film. Glad you enjoyed this movie as much as I have since I first saw it in theatres.
This film was so ahead of its time in its concepts and ideas. Another Disney film that gets no attention is The Black Hole. Glad you enjoyed this gem, it is truly wonderfully unique . For the nerd in you I would also suggest Wargames, the tech alone with blow your mind :) stay awesome
"What is water to programs" -> it was never clear. seeing it in the theater was huge motivation to learn programming as a kid. probably thousands of kids were obsessively typing away until we were able to write the light cycles game.
I’ve always viewed it as power given how in basic EE we always refer to how electrons flow in a manner similar to how water does. Granted, electron and conventional flow blows that away, but it’s how it’s taught to start with.
Very cool movie. The soundtrack is by famous synth pioneer Wendy Carlos, who also did music for The Shining and A Clockwork Orange. Hell of a three-film résumé and a very interesting person.
I was 11 in 1982 and when I saw Tron it blew me away. It was all my friends and I could talk about, along with E.T., The Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian, and First Blood. Then came summer of 1983 when a little film call The Return of the Jedi was released. But that's a story for another time. Movie Trivia: The actor that played Ram also played "Billy the Kid" 49:02 the movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Also - Klaatu, Barada, Nikto, were the names of three of Jabba's men on the desert skiff Luke, Han, Lando, and Chewie, were on in Return of the Jedi. 😊
I'm sure it been commented a million times below- but I remember seeing this IN THEATRES- (the FIRST movie ever with CG effects)..and I had to have all the toys, went as tron for Halloween, etc. I still have a lighcycle IN BOX. Man...the 80's WERE great.(arcades too!!!)
There were several films that used CGI prior to Tron, but just not on such a massive scale. Even the intro to Vertigo (1958) was computer-generated. Star Wars used some wireframe CGI, but the effects were dominated by miniature work, green screen, etc.
Hey Jonathan... This movie has aged EXTREMELY well. Besides its being very prophetic, it also has a tongue in cheek humor that adds to the entertainment. I love lines like "they haven't built a circuit yet that could hold you", a play on the old cliche of "they haven't built a prison yet that could hold you.". The story is very archetypal, with the young hero saving the world and the wise old sage. Remember, this is right after Star Wars came out. But the visual world building was something that has never been seen on screen before or since. Much of it was computerized, some of it was hand animated. But for 1982 it was a sight to behold in the theaters ... I was 20 at the time.
Great reaction! Tron was awesome in the theater. We were all hyped to play the Tron video game when it was released. The arcade era was a special time. Some of my favorites were Xevious, Tempest, Battle Zone, Joust, Dragon's Lair, Star Wars, Star Trek, Centipede, Gauntlet. I got very good at Xevious in college and could play for two hours on one quarter. I grew up in a small town in Oregon, and spent a lot of time and money at the Time Machine arcade. Even painted the window art in exchange for $50 in free tokens.
The arcade at the mall had the best games. Down the road was the old mall which had older, early monochrome games with shaded cells over the screens. Games like Pong, Breakout and Lunar Lander.
Really glad Jonathan was able to not only enjoy it but also get so much into it. Most people don't think much of the religion bits or dismiss the effects as outdated. Great reaction!
If you need more... there's "Tron Legacy"! It's not actually a reboot, but a continuation. Maybe because it's the one I saw first, I loved it. When I finally watched "Tron", AI wasn't a thing as much as it is now, but maybe having seen the movie, I'm not a huge AI fan. Just in case you guys haven't watched "Dredd", please consider reacting to it. I'm talking about the 2012 version with Karl Urban, which is a really good movie. Not just a good screen adaptation of the legendary comic books. A good movie. Or, if you want to watch Stallone's "Judge Dredd", watch it before "Dredd" because I doubt you'll be able to enjoy it the other way around. They don't have anything to do with each other, they're both standalone movies that happen in the Dredd universe. It's not a question of original and remake.
great reaction! Loved it. And as someone who did see this in the theater and was around and aware during this IRL time. I have to say you got where they were coming from. A ton of reactors don't. It's cool to see someone who does. Can't wait to see you watch the next one.
I lived by a place that had a, arcade, movie theater, bowling alley, teen dance club and a outside BMX track. I was there almost every day during the summer. I saw Tron there, the first showing at 11am on the day it came out. It was 3 days before my 12th birthday.
Love your reactions to these, Jonathan! Got to see Tron in theaters when it premiered and I was like 9 years old. It seemed like so much of it was done with computers to us, even though it was mostly animated by hand. Great featurettes showing how they did a lot of this stuff. And the soundtrack is one of the best... and Wendy Carlos is an interesting figure with a storied past and she deserves some credit for her amazing synth work and beautiful music. Now you should check out Tron: Legacy! It's a sequel but it has its great moments.
"Should I watch The Day The Earth Stood Still?" Hell to the yes. Also; 2001/2010, and The Abyss (Exteneded cut!). It's entire sub-genre of science fiction about aliens vs The Cold War. And you should also see "Close Encounters of The Third Kind" and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" because they are both similar veined mind-blowing first-contact stories, and because Robert Wise, the director of The Day the Earth Stood Still also directed Star Trek TMP.
"THAT'S SO COOL!" 100 times. Yep, that pretty much WHAT TRON is! I was 11 or 12 when I saw this. (Gen X) And we ALL pretended (with our bicycles or running around with a stick or paper towel cardboard roll) that we were playing Light Cycles! Favorite Arcade Game? Hard to pick. When younger? TRON or Wizard of Wor maybe? When a bit older? Golden Axe and some cool two-person space fighter game (whose name I forgot). My friend/ roommate ROCKED that space game! (Me pilot, him rear gunner.) We were so in sync that we were like two halves of the same brain when we played! As far as the programs looking like their Users. . . remember "we are made in God's image".
Glad you saw one of my most beloved films from childhood. I made countless drawings of Tron as a child, lightcycles, recognizers... the concept art of Syd Mead and Moebius is fascinating. I was kinda disappointment growing up realizing the computer world as we see in the movie didn't exist haha (or who knows!). If you watch The day the earth stood still then also watch Army of Darkness, another film where that phrase is used. :D
This movie was awesome in the theatre. When Troy hit our arcade, it quickly became one of my favorites. That, and the Star Wars trench run game. God, I loved the 80s.
I got my first computer when this came out (atari 800xl, 64 whole kilobytes of RAM!). If you were there and one of the few who had a home computer, it was your Star Wars.
It’s really cool that you liked this so much Johnathan. I think Tron is so underrated. It was so ahead of its time, and wasn’t appreciated I’m told. It wasn’t until after the 2010 one, that people rediscovered it, and it has a bigger following now.
People didn’t understand computing in 1982, so they sold it to the Pac-Man kids, and it wasn’t quite that movie. And once it disappointed at the box office, that immediately stigmatized it as a “nerd movie” for thirty years. 🤓
Yes, this was a love story to devs - when we first had access to programmable home computers in 1982! (for this middle-schooler!) If you want access to arcades, you can come to Madison WI where we have at least 4 full-time arcades available daily! (~1/4 million residents)
It still blows my mind that the Academy refused to nominate this movie for "Best Special Effects" because they considered using a computer to generate the effects cheating.
I was an 80's kid and grew up in the ARCADE era....it was AWESOME! I used to watch this movie every Sunday morning and still own it on CED (Compatible Electronic Disc) and VHS. This movie and series is a part of me, 80's Disney and groundbreaking Sci-fi.
It was actually tough seeing this as a kid and loving it when the grown up world just thought it was the dumbest thing ever. As video game fairy tales go, I think it's aged pretty well
Man, I remember the arcade at Malibu Grand Prix out by the Oakland Coliseum was huge. Circa 1985 they had every game new and old. On Wednesday nights you could get forty tokens for five bucks = half price. So we'd go in $2.50 each and get twenty tokens and play for hours. Maybe 8pm until midnight and not run out of tokens. Total video game party , tall cans of beer in the trunk of the car, smokin' bowls, running back inside to play TRON and pinball, air hockey, etc. Good times.
12:56 “Encom’s not the business you started in your garage anymore.” Re-watch Legacy and take a look at the name above the garage which Sam’s using as his apartment when he rolls-in on his bike.
"I NEED MORE!!!" - Well how fortunate for you that there is an entire animated series called "TRON: Uprising" which you can safely watch because you have seen this and Legacy. Uprising takes place between the two films, but since it kind of spoils some stuff for Legacy, it's best to watch both films before the series.
I was 15 when this came out and it was amazing. The 80's were the peak of human civilization even it wasn't the peak of human technology. For 25 cents I could take a bus downtown (alone) blow a bunch of quarters at the arcade, then hop across the street to catch a movie at 1pm for $5. Tron, Star Trek Wrath of Kahn, Bill & Ted, life was good.
44:08 "It's like digital Narnia" Of all the classic portal fantasy stories, this draws the most from The Wizard of Oz, (which, because of tradtional Easter broadcasts on network TV, every Boomer and Gen X kid was familiar with) with all the characters he meets having real-world counterparts with variations of the same personality and both Oz and MCP being revealed as pathetic little old men "behind the curtain" false-gods, hiding behind a giant scary projection of their face. Although The MCP's face and personality does give a lot of Red Queen from Alice, (Which would be the portal story Gen X kids were second most familiar with because it was public domain and there were already a dozen adaptations and things would reference it all the time) and Sark's thugs feel a lot more like Red Queen's card-soldiers and less like The Wicked Witch's flying monkeys.
It's not explicitly stated in the movie, but it's hinted that "cutting off Group 7 access" was the event that turned the digital world into a wasteland devoid of the influence of the Users. It just happened earlier that evening, but from the programs' perspective, they barely remember being able to talk to their User. "You'd have programs lined up just to use this place," Tron tells Dumont, and he scoffs at the notion. From Flynn's perspective, he felt like he was in the computer world for at least a day or so (he took two naps during his time there) but it was probably a few seconds, similar to the amount of time the orange spent digitized near the start of the movie.
I was 15 when this was released, and going to the arcade was just like you said, a club with video games. I was VERY into computers then. This and "Wargames" are my two favorite computer themed movies from this era.
To me going to the arcade was like a pool hall for kids. At least the big ones seemed that way. Seedy aspects to them, but I wouldn't change it for the world.
This movie started life, no joke.. as a tv commercial for a radio station. Steve Lisberger was a freelance animator and while doing an tv spot for a radio station, he animated an electronic man holding a blue spinning disc. That character was nicknamed "Tron". He shopped around the idea of a movie set inside a computer to every studio in Hollywood. The only reason why Disney bit was because they were desperate to change their image from the "kiddie movie company". At the time they were making a lot darker and edgier stuff.. so this fit right in. But all the CGI bits were farmed out to a handful of companies... each of which specialized in one type of animation... there was no unified software yet... they all had proprietary animation systems.
Klaatu Barada Nikto originally came from the original 1951 The day the earth stood still but has been used in many other movies since then, like Army of darkness.
I was 13 when this movie came out. I was just starting to learn computers and this movie was AMAZING! TRON is was so underused as a franchise it is criminal. Great reaction program!
Great reaction! I was 18 when this came out and it blew me away. And yes the arcades were a magical place to spend hours immersed in the cacophony of all the game sounds. There is a Making of Tron 1982 documentary on YT you might want to watch, it’s very good.
I just love Jeff Bridges he's one of those actors if I saw him in real life it would be hard not to want to hug him. this movie holds a special place in my heart. Love 80s disney. Have you ever seen Flight of the Navigator?you would love it
The original movie to the sequel took 20 yrs. And a cameo you may or may not have noticed. The program running the bar at the End of the Line club. That's the director from the original movie.
Tron Legacy is a sequel to Tron, not a reboot. You will understand it more now that you have seen the 1st installment. Can't wait for the 3rd movie which is currently in development, if I'm not mistaken. 😊
A little secret for you, people: in the minute 25 of the movie MCP explains Dillinger its intention to make a global coup d'etat and eliminate all the nations around the planet. Flynn and Tron never knew that when they defeated MCP they actually had prevented the first cyber-terrorist attack on history.
It's so awesome to see how much you appreciate these movies. I've seen tens of thousands of movies if you need tips on what to watch. I have around 10,000 on my own collection alone
This was groundbreaking and inspiring….dared to try new tech and explored those newfangled computers! I lived in arcades!! Stargate Defender. Toughest game but I probably spent $1,000 on it one quarter at a time. Your reaction is so spot on…it blew our minds. Digital Narnia, love it!
They also have a CGI animated series called Tron uprising and video game called Tron evolution that act as a prequel to Tron legacy, not to mention the third movie coming called Tron Ares.
Defender, Track and Field, Star Castle, Tempest, Missile Command etc were all good. Pac-Man had patterns and it was so big that multiple books were written on the patterns on each level.
The Grid Bugs were created using traditional animation (there was some resentment at Disney over cgi if I remember correctly, and the bugs were given to them as appeasement). They had a bigger role in earlier scripts but were cut. The makers of the real Arcade game were upset when they heard the bugs were cut because they were prominent in the game, which was created based on the earlier script, so one story is that Disney put the one finished sequence back in the movie for them. Another story is that they left it in because the animator was angry that his sequence was cut due to the time it would take to animate it. Bit is another element lost due to time constraints. He was supposed to be with Flynn through the rest of the movie, but they didn't have the time to animate more than they did, so he just gets lost in the wreckage.
@les4767 I also had a 2600 and a Sinclair ZX81 prior to the C64 ... then went on to Amiga (best time of my life) ... then a loooooong time nothing (that's what the military does to you) and my first PC was a Pentium II 90 MHz (the one with the Turbo button). It was good enough for Diablo in TCP/IP.
15:32 That’s no “set.” It was the actual SHIVA LASER Lab of the Department of Energy’s Fusion Research Project. Before today’s National Ignition Facility, it was the largest experimental fusion reactor project.
Tron was one of my favorite movies as a kid. The more I learned about computers the more little Easter eggs I keep noticing while rewatching. I do miss the old style video arcades.
Tron has it all, visually it still looks fantastic & the story is full of action & philosophical concepts regarding technology & existential beliefs... ~ ( In the arcade it would have to be Gauntlet & Dragons Lair for sheer awe!... ~ Though there were many others that captured the imagination & coins... ) ~ Though unrelated to 80's Fantasy, you might also enjoy PI, from Darren Aronofsky... ( 1998 ) ~ It's definitely a harder watch, but also throws some interesting concepts into the mix, regarding Religion & Existentialism etc...
Something that I wonder about now, watching this as an adult, is software development in the 80s. Rudimentary debuggers, bare bones IDEs, no real source control, no Agile. It had to be insane.
I had just turned 10 when this came out. And it was a welcome escape, because that summer a friend from my class lost his life in a motorcycle accident.
With regard to "The day the Earth Stood Still", there is the original, black & white (1951) and the 2008 remake. Both are good, but they have different vibes.
I watched this in theaters in '82 as a young adult. Personal computers (PC) were just becoming a thing and each one had its own way of doing things. Windows (for PC's) was the MCP. In reality Windows made programs more consistent, adding to the programmers earning potential. So when we saw this in 82, it was just about the most amazing thing ever. End of line.
Arcade games were a big part of my childhood. I started listing my favorites, and the list went on and on and on. Also, any decent arcade had pinball machines, and many of them were every bit as fun as the video games.
Jonathan’s enthusiasm is so much fun. I grew up during the arcade era. Favorite game? I honestly played so many games, I don’t know if I had a favorite. I loved vector screen video games like Battlezone, Tempest and Star Wars. I also loved classics like Galaga, Donkey Kong, Defender and Joust. Multiplayer games were awesome later on like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Gauntlet and House of the Dead. My favorite pinball game definitely was Terminator 2.
Rush 'N Attack or Joust...but quite frankly, I miss the pinball machines because each one was very specific with great design. I remember Starship Troopers had one, stumbled across it at a truckstop in California like in 1998. Even Elvira had her own. I think those were the last real machines I played on.
TRON used to be a debugging command in BASIC programming. It is also one heck of a movie. It used to be my standard New Years Eve film, back when we had to rent them from video stores. Ah, the good old days.
funny thing about hollywood between 75 to 85, was there was a ton of sci fi/fantasy films that expanded the mind. movies that made u think cuz of how outside the box they were. brainstorm, dreamscape, tron, dark crystal, altered states. golden age of sci fi for sure.
This movie was SO ahead of its time and audiences were not ready for it. It didn't do well at the box-office, but it gained a huge cult following with nerds.
As a Navy brat in the 80s, out of the many arcades locations, the bowling alley in the Navy Base had awesome video games! A lot of the American made games but also a lot import titles from the early days of Capcom, Namco, Taito, etc! I was pretty fond of import laser disc games like Super Don Quix-ote and Cobra Command.
If you want a slightly darker movie about computers taking over, you should track down a film from 1970 called Colossus: The Forbin Project. Also: while it was never made into a movie, Harlan Ellison’s 1967 short story “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” is another great “computers taking over the world” story. Sort of like what would have happened had the MCP succeeded. This was a great reaction! Keep up the great work!
Would be great to see Jonathan react to Tron Legacy with this still fresh in his mind. Doesn't bother me he's already seen it, I think he'd appreciate it on a whole different level now and would be great fun to geek out with him.
Walter gives the in-movie explanation for programs looking like their users in his meeting with Dillinger - "You know, you can remove men like Alan and me from the system, but we helped create it! And our spirit remains in every program we design for this computer!" Also the literal 'red light district' programs Flynn stumbles past after his recogniser crash.. :P
After a lot of marketing and Tron making its mark with its style and name, the arcade games based on the movie would be more popular and have a longer-lasting effect. My local movie theater still had a Tron arcade game in the late 1990s. I am always wanting to watch this movie and just be immersed in that world.
As a gen-Xer, can confirm that the arcade era was as great as it sounds.
Those were great days for sure. Kids and teens will never know what truly hanging out with friends feels like! great days back then!
I love when the kids recognize the 80s as a superior decade. 😄
There was an *explosion* of media. Our cups ranneth over. We couldn't spend enough of our parent's disposable money and we got summer jobs just so we could view and acquire more media
New media like video games and video stores, expansion of existing media like cable TV giving us 150 channels after we'd been used to 4-5, first-run syndicated animated series enabled by cheap foreign crews and the iconic toy lines they were created to sell, cable movies, straight to video movies, dozens of channels of scripted programming, MTV, national wrestling leagues, tabletop RPG's created for every popular IP, and even anime OAV from Japan - there was so much pent-up, untapped creativity that suddenly had outlets and could find their audiences, and there hasn't been a comparble sudden increase in content output since.
There's a reason so many of the popular media IP franchises still popular today were created or were popularized in the 80's.
"The Day The Earth Stood Still" - the original 1951 version, not the remake - is iconic and one of those films you MUST watch before you die!
So, if I don't see it, I'll live forever?
@@MGower4465 You haven't really lived if you haven't seen it
...and Klatuu Verata Nikto...shows up in a bunch of different movies, so obviously, he needs to watch Army of Darkness with Bruce Campbell (The Chin).
Also, 2001:ASO/2010:TYWMC and The Abyss - "aliens vs The Cold War" was a whole sub-genre; and Close Encounters of The Third Kind and Star Trek The Motion Picture, because they are similar mind-blowing first-contact stories and because Robert Wise, director of The Day The Earth Stood Still also directed Star Trek TMP
Saw it in an arthouse theater a double feature with "Forbidden Planet"....been a fan of science fiction ever since.
Every 70s and 80s kid imagined this is what it looked like inside an Atari game.
It's funny how this was a fantasy of how game graphics would look in the future and it involved every VFX trick in the book to create some of those images, (including ironically a lot of traditional hand-drawn ink-and-paint cel animation) but for the sequel, even the beefed up "realistic" game grid has a minimalist, unrendered/wireframe aesthetic in comparison to current games.
Check out the video here, “The Making of Tron”, it was a helluva job.
Dig into Wendy Carlos, the person that crafted the soundtrack, we wouldn’t have modern synths or EDM without those contributions.
Tron and Wargames helped me decide to get into computers and a nearly 40 year IT career! Great reaction!
Almost exactly the same list, just add in Blade Runner and Last Starfighter. First “real” job in MIS was 1992 for me.
@@c1ph3rpunk Yeah, I didn't list Starfighter because Jonathan's review was on my To Be Watched list at the time! Blade Runner is #2 on my list of all movies. I started as an AS/400 system operator about the same time then got dragooned into almost 24 years at GameStop!
Yes, the 80's was a great time to be alive and in your formative years! Camping overnight in line for concert tickets, going to the Roller Rinks, and of course blowing your allowance at the Arcades (Wizards Castle was my haunt). Choosing my favorite game is tough with the Pac Man's, TRON, Gauntlet, etc. but I can narrow it down to two... Galaga and Missile Command.
TRON did set off us programmers especially with "End of Line" which the end of a coding statement and of course TRON which stood for TRace ON and was used to debug programs.
"TRON" was a continuation of Disney trying to move into more serious films which of course started with "The Black Hole" (1979). If you haven't watched that one yet I would recommend it. Just be forewarned that it is a little darker that your typical Disney film.
Glad you enjoyed this movie as much as I have since I first saw it in theatres.
This film was so ahead of its time in its concepts and ideas. Another Disney film that gets no attention is The Black Hole. Glad you enjoyed this gem, it is truly wonderfully unique . For the nerd in you I would also suggest Wargames, the tech alone with blow your mind :) stay awesome
I was 13 when this movie came out. Yes, it was mind-blowing to see this in the theater back then.
drove miles to a theatre that had 70mm/dolby stereo...worth it!
@@SolarTiger lol "dolby stereo" used to be $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
I was 7 in the summer of 1982 when I saw TRON in theaters. Oh, and I also had the main character figure, too.
tron 3 is getting filmed as i type. u hype? no i didnt intend to rhyme
Yes. Watch The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
"What is water to programs" -> it was never clear. seeing it in the theater was huge motivation to learn programming as a kid. probably thousands of kids were obsessively typing away until we were able to write the light cycles game.
I’ve always viewed it as power given how in basic EE we always refer to how electrons flow in a manner similar to how water does. Granted, electron and conventional flow blows that away, but it’s how it’s taught to start with.
My pop owned an arcade. I loved Tron. I had an awesome childhood because of these two facts.
Very cool movie. The soundtrack is by famous synth pioneer Wendy Carlos, who also did music for The Shining and A Clockwork Orange. Hell of a three-film résumé and a very interesting person.
I was 11 in 1982 and when I saw Tron it blew me away. It was all my friends and I could talk about, along with E.T., The Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian, and First Blood. Then came summer of 1983 when a little film call The Return of the Jedi was released. But that's a story for another time.
Movie Trivia: The actor that played Ram also played "Billy the Kid" 49:02 the movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.
Also - Klaatu, Barada, Nikto, were the names of three of Jabba's men on the desert skiff Luke, Han, Lando, and Chewie, were on in Return of the Jedi. 😊
I'm sure it been commented a million times below- but I remember seeing this IN THEATRES- (the FIRST movie ever with CG effects)..and I had to have all the toys, went as tron for Halloween, etc. I still have a lighcycle IN BOX. Man...the 80's WERE great.(arcades too!!!)
There were several films that used CGI prior to Tron, but just not on such a massive scale. Even the intro to Vertigo (1958) was computer-generated. Star Wars used some wireframe CGI, but the effects were dominated by miniature work, green screen, etc.
Hey Jonathan... This movie has aged EXTREMELY well. Besides its being very prophetic, it also has a tongue in cheek humor that adds to the entertainment. I love lines like "they haven't built a circuit yet that could hold you", a play on the old cliche of "they haven't built a prison yet that could hold you.". The story is very archetypal, with the young hero saving the world and the wise old sage. Remember, this is right after Star Wars came out. But the visual world building was something that has never been seen on screen before or since. Much of it was computerized, some of it was hand animated. But for 1982 it was a sight to behold in the theaters ... I was 20 at the time.
Great reaction! Tron was awesome in the theater. We were all hyped to play the Tron video game when it was released.
The arcade era was a special time. Some of my favorites were Xevious, Tempest, Battle Zone, Joust, Dragon's Lair, Star Wars, Star Trek, Centipede, Gauntlet. I got very good at Xevious in college and could play for two hours on one quarter.
I grew up in a small town in Oregon, and spent a lot of time and money at the Time Machine arcade. Even painted the window art in exchange for $50 in free tokens.
The arcade at the mall had the best games. Down the road was the old mall which had older, early monochrome games with shaded cells over the screens. Games like Pong, Breakout and Lunar Lander.
@timmooney7528 loved lunar lander
Really glad Jonathan was able to not only enjoy it but also get so much into it. Most people don't think much of the religion bits or dismiss the effects as outdated. Great reaction!
If you need more... there's "Tron Legacy"! It's not actually a reboot, but a continuation. Maybe because it's the one I saw first, I loved it. When I finally watched "Tron", AI wasn't a thing as much as it is now, but maybe having seen the movie, I'm not a huge AI fan.
Just in case you guys haven't watched "Dredd", please consider reacting to it. I'm talking about the 2012 version with Karl Urban, which is a really good movie. Not just a good screen adaptation of the legendary comic books. A good movie.
Or, if you want to watch Stallone's "Judge Dredd", watch it before "Dredd" because I doubt you'll be able to enjoy it the other way around. They don't have anything to do with each other, they're both standalone movies that happen in the Dredd universe. It's not a question of original and remake.
great reaction! Loved it. And as someone who did see this in the theater and was around and aware during this IRL time. I have to say you got where they were coming from. A ton of reactors don't. It's cool to see someone who does.
Can't wait to see you watch the next one.
I lived by a place that had a, arcade, movie theater, bowling alley, teen dance club and a outside BMX track. I was there almost every day during the summer. I saw Tron there, the first showing at 11am on the day it came out. It was 3 days before my 12th birthday.
Love your reactions to these, Jonathan! Got to see Tron in theaters when it premiered and I was like 9 years old. It seemed like so much of it was done with computers to us, even though it was mostly animated by hand. Great featurettes showing how they did a lot of this stuff. And the soundtrack is one of the best... and Wendy Carlos is an interesting figure with a storied past and she deserves some credit for her amazing synth work and beautiful music. Now you should check out Tron: Legacy! It's a sequel but it has its great moments.
"Should I watch The Day The Earth Stood Still?"
Hell to the yes. Also; 2001/2010, and The Abyss (Exteneded cut!). It's entire sub-genre of science fiction about aliens vs The Cold War.
And you should also see "Close Encounters of The Third Kind" and "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" because they are both similar veined mind-blowing first-contact stories, and because Robert Wise, the director of The Day the Earth Stood Still also directed Star Trek TMP.
"THAT'S SO COOL!" 100 times.
Yep, that pretty much WHAT TRON is!
I was 11 or 12 when I saw this. (Gen X) And we ALL pretended (with our bicycles or running around with a stick or paper towel cardboard roll) that we were playing Light Cycles!
Favorite Arcade Game? Hard to pick. When younger? TRON or Wizard of Wor maybe? When a bit older? Golden Axe and some cool two-person space fighter game (whose name I forgot). My friend/ roommate ROCKED that space game! (Me pilot, him rear gunner.) We were so in sync that we were like two halves of the same brain when we played!
As far as the programs looking like their Users. . . remember "we are made in God's image".
Glad you saw one of my most beloved films from childhood. I made countless drawings of Tron as a child, lightcycles, recognizers... the concept art of Syd Mead and Moebius is fascinating. I was kinda disappointment growing up realizing the computer world as we see in the movie didn't exist haha (or who knows!). If you watch The day the earth stood still then also watch Army of Darkness, another film where that phrase is used. :D
This movie was awesome in the theatre. When Troy hit our arcade, it quickly became one of my favorites. That, and the Star Wars trench run game. God, I loved the 80s.
I got my first computer when this came out (atari 800xl, 64 whole kilobytes of RAM!). If you were there and one of the few who had a home computer, it was your Star Wars.
It’s really cool that you liked this so much Johnathan. I think Tron is so underrated. It was so ahead of its time, and wasn’t appreciated I’m told. It wasn’t until after the 2010 one, that people rediscovered it, and it has a bigger following now.
People didn’t understand computing in 1982, so they sold it to the Pac-Man kids, and it wasn’t quite that movie.
And once it disappointed at the box office, that immediately stigmatized it as a “nerd movie” for thirty years. 🤓
Tron was one of my favorite video games growing up. I sank hundreds of dollars in that machine as a kid. LOL
Yes, this was a love story to devs - when we first had access to programmable home computers in 1982! (for this middle-schooler!)
If you want access to arcades, you can come to Madison WI where we have at least 4 full-time arcades available daily! (~1/4 million residents)
It still blows my mind that the Academy refused to nominate this movie for "Best Special Effects" because they considered using a computer to generate the effects cheating.
I was an 80's kid and grew up in the ARCADE era....it was AWESOME! I used to watch this movie every Sunday morning and still own it on CED (Compatible Electronic Disc) and VHS. This movie and series is a part of me, 80's Disney and groundbreaking Sci-fi.
I also owned this on CED
It was actually tough seeing this as a kid and loving it when the grown up world just thought it was the dumbest thing ever. As video game fairy tales go, I think it's aged pretty well
Man, I remember the arcade at Malibu Grand Prix out by the Oakland Coliseum was huge. Circa 1985 they had every game new and old. On Wednesday nights you could get forty tokens for five bucks = half price. So we'd go in $2.50 each and get twenty tokens and play for hours. Maybe 8pm until midnight and not run out of tokens. Total video game party , tall cans of beer in the trunk of the car, smokin' bowls, running back inside to play TRON and pinball, air hockey, etc. Good times.
12:56 “Encom’s not the business you started in your garage anymore.” Re-watch Legacy and take a look at the name above the garage which Sam’s using as his apartment when he rolls-in on his bike.
"I NEED MORE!!!" - Well how fortunate for you that there is an entire animated series called "TRON: Uprising" which you can safely watch because you have seen this and Legacy. Uprising takes place between the two films, but since it kind of spoils some stuff for Legacy, it's best to watch both films before the series.
Where the series ends is where the XBox 360 Tron game begins, no?
@@Ryan_Christopher Sadly, I never played it so I cannot speak to that.
So much fun!!! Takes me back to when it was released, still looks amazing!!! My fav arcade game from that time was actually Tron!!! 🙂
I was 15 when this came out and it was amazing. The 80's were the peak of human civilization even it wasn't the peak of human technology. For 25 cents I could take a bus downtown (alone) blow a bunch of quarters at the arcade, then hop across the street to catch a movie at 1pm for $5. Tron, Star Trek Wrath of Kahn, Bill & Ted, life was good.
You have to watch the making of tron. It has to be the best making of movie documentary that I have ever seen.
44:08 "It's like digital Narnia"
Of all the classic portal fantasy stories, this draws the most from The Wizard of Oz, (which, because of tradtional Easter broadcasts on network TV, every Boomer and Gen X kid was familiar with) with all the characters he meets having real-world counterparts with variations of the same personality and both Oz and MCP being revealed as pathetic little old men "behind the curtain" false-gods, hiding behind a giant scary projection of their face. Although The MCP's face and personality does give a lot of Red Queen from Alice, (Which would be the portal story Gen X kids were second most familiar with because it was public domain and there were already a dozen adaptations and things would reference it all the time) and Sark's thugs feel a lot more like Red Queen's card-soldiers and less like The Wicked Witch's flying monkeys.
It's not explicitly stated in the movie, but it's hinted that "cutting off Group 7 access" was the event that turned the digital world into a wasteland devoid of the influence of the Users. It just happened earlier that evening, but from the programs' perspective, they barely remember being able to talk to their User. "You'd have programs lined up just to use this place," Tron tells Dumont, and he scoffs at the notion.
From Flynn's perspective, he felt like he was in the computer world for at least a day or so (he took two naps during his time there) but it was probably a few seconds, similar to the amount of time the orange spent digitized near the start of the movie.
I was 15 when this was released, and going to the arcade was just like you said, a club with video games. I was VERY into computers then. This and "Wargames" are my two favorite computer themed movies from this era.
To me going to the arcade was like a pool hall for kids. At least the big ones seemed that way. Seedy aspects to them, but I wouldn't change it for the world.
This movie started life, no joke.. as a tv commercial for a radio station. Steve Lisberger was a freelance animator and while doing an tv spot for a radio station, he animated an electronic man holding a blue spinning disc. That character was nicknamed "Tron". He shopped around the idea of a movie set inside a computer to every studio in Hollywood. The only reason why Disney bit was because they were desperate to change their image from the "kiddie movie company". At the time they were making a lot darker and edgier stuff.. so this fit right in. But all the CGI bits were farmed out to a handful of companies... each of which specialized in one type of animation... there was no unified software yet... they all had proprietary animation systems.
Klaatu Barada Nikto originally came from the original 1951 The day the earth stood still but has been used in many other movies since then, like Army of darkness.
Klaatu ... Barada.. ... ... nickel!
Most things in this film were practical and film based effects. It was the first film to use the most CGI. The costumes fall into the former effects.
I was 13 when this movie came out. I was just starting to learn computers and this movie was AMAZING! TRON is was so underused as a franchise it is criminal. Great reaction program!
Great reaction! I was 18 when this came out and it blew me away. And yes the arcades were a magical place to spend hours immersed in the cacophony of all the game sounds. There is a Making of Tron 1982 documentary on YT you might want to watch, it’s very good.
I just love Jeff Bridges he's one of those actors if I saw him in real life it would be hard not to want to hug him. this movie holds a special place in my heart. Love 80s disney. Have you ever seen Flight of the Navigator?you would love it
“I NEED MORE!” Well, now you have a reason to watch Legacy again, so you can react to it for us here. 😊
The original movie to the sequel took 20 yrs. And a cameo you may or may not have noticed. The program running the bar at the End of the Line club. That's the director from the original movie.
Tron Legacy is a sequel to Tron, not a reboot. You will understand it more now that you have seen the 1st installment. Can't wait for the 3rd movie which is currently in development, if I'm not mistaken. 😊
This film was amazing when I watched it in the 80's. The sequel is worth watching too.
A little secret for you, people: in the minute 25 of the movie MCP explains Dillinger its intention to make a global coup d'etat and eliminate all the nations around the planet. Flynn and Tron never knew that when they defeated MCP they actually had prevented the first cyber-terrorist attack on history.
It's so awesome to see how much you appreciate these movies. I've seen tens of thousands of movies if you need tips on what to watch. I have around 10,000 on my own collection alone
I had a friend that owned this on laserdisc
This was groundbreaking and inspiring….dared to try new tech and explored those newfangled computers! I lived in arcades!! Stargate Defender. Toughest game but I probably spent $1,000 on it one quarter at a time.
Your reaction is so spot on…it blew our minds. Digital Narnia, love it!
They also have a CGI animated series called Tron uprising and video game called Tron evolution that act as a prequel to Tron legacy, not to mention the third movie coming called Tron Ares.
Defender, Track and Field, Star Castle, Tempest, Missile Command etc were all good.
Pac-Man had patterns and it was so big that multiple books were written on the patterns on each level.
The Grid Bugs were created using traditional animation (there was some resentment at Disney over cgi if I remember correctly, and the bugs were given to them as appeasement). They had a bigger role in earlier scripts but were cut. The makers of the real Arcade game were upset when they heard the bugs were cut because they were prominent in the game, which was created based on the earlier script, so one story is that Disney put the one finished sequence back in the movie for them. Another story is that they left it in because the animator was angry that his sequence was cut due to the time it would take to animate it. Bit is another element lost due to time constraints. He was supposed to be with Flynn through the rest of the movie, but they didn't have the time to animate more than they did, so he just gets lost in the wreckage.
Now imagine being 12 years old in 1982 and owning a Commodore C64 .....
I was 14 and had an Atari 2600 and an Apple IIC home computer. Good times....good times...
@les4767 I also had a 2600 and a Sinclair ZX81 prior to the C64 ... then went on to Amiga (best time of my life) ... then a loooooong time nothing (that's what the military does to you) and my first PC was a Pentium II 90 MHz (the one with the Turbo button). It was good enough for Diablo in TCP/IP.
15:32 That’s no “set.” It was the actual SHIVA LASER Lab of the Department of Energy’s Fusion Research Project. Before today’s National Ignition Facility, it was the largest experimental fusion reactor project.
This film puts out Wizard of Oz vibes with regards to re-purposing actors in both worlds
That was an absolutely wonderful reaction!!
Tron was one of my favorite movies as a kid. The more I learned about computers the more little Easter eggs I keep noticing while rewatching. I do miss the old style video arcades.
Tron has it all, visually it still looks fantastic & the story is full of action & philosophical concepts regarding technology & existential beliefs... ~
( In the arcade it would have to be Gauntlet & Dragons Lair for sheer awe!... ~ Though there were many others that captured the imagination & coins... ) ~
Though unrelated to 80's Fantasy, you might also enjoy PI, from Darren Aronofsky... ( 1998 ) ~ It's definitely a harder watch, but also throws some interesting concepts into the mix, regarding Religion & Existentialism etc...
I am all for the haircut.
6:52 That guy on the other cubicle is Ram’s User. Listen to his voice.
Something that I wonder about now, watching this as an adult, is software development in the 80s. Rudimentary debuggers, bare bones IDEs, no real source control, no Agile. It had to be insane.
I'm glad you loved Tron Jonathan.
I had just turned 10 when this came out. And it was a welcome escape, because that summer a friend from my class lost his life in a motorcycle accident.
With regard to "The day the Earth Stood Still", there is the original, black & white (1951) and the 2008 remake. Both are good, but they have different vibes.
I loved where he said that he’d be a different person if he’d seen this as a kid. I turned nine the summer this came out in theaters. I can confirm.
Jeff Bridges is a user. In 1982 he was caught in possession of MCP.
Also Jonathan needs to watch Enemy Mine.
I watched this in theaters in '82 as a young adult. Personal computers (PC) were just becoming a thing and each one had its own way of doing things. Windows (for PC's) was the MCP. In reality Windows made programs more consistent, adding to the programmers earning potential. So when we saw this in 82, it was just about the most amazing thing ever.
End of line.
Arcade games were a big part of my childhood. I started listing my favorites, and the list went on and on and on. Also, any decent arcade had pinball machines, and many of them were every bit as fun as the video games.
Jonathan’s enthusiasm is so much fun. I grew up during the arcade era. Favorite game? I honestly played so many games, I don’t know if I had a favorite. I loved vector screen video games like Battlezone, Tempest and Star Wars. I also loved classics like Galaga, Donkey Kong, Defender and Joust. Multiplayer games were awesome later on like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Gauntlet and House of the Dead. My favorite pinball game definitely was Terminator 2.
Berzerk ("coin detected in pocket")and Xevious were a couple of faves...and of course, Tron but hated those damn tank levels
It was the MCP cone knockout that frustrated me
Rush 'N Attack or Joust...but quite frankly, I miss the pinball machines because each one was very specific with great design. I remember Starship Troopers had one, stumbled across it at a truckstop in California like in 1998. Even Elvira had her own. I think those were the last real machines I played on.
TRON used to be a debugging command in BASIC programming. It is also one heck of a movie. It used to be my standard New Years Eve film, back when we had to rent them from video stores. Ah, the good old days.
13:20 - Fun fact, that door actually shields a neutron gun in real life. It was featured in the same way in the 2010 film when Sam broke in.
funny thing about hollywood between 75 to 85, was there was a ton of sci fi/fantasy films that expanded the mind. movies that made u think cuz of how outside the box they were. brainstorm, dreamscape, tron, dark crystal, altered states. golden age of sci fi for sure.
I was 9 in 1982. This is an awesome movie.
The '80s were awesome.
My favorite arcade game was "Afterburner." Fun fact, Afterburner makes an appearance in Terminator 2.
This movie was SO ahead of its time and audiences were not ready for it. It didn't do well at the box-office, but it gained a huge cult following with nerds.
Ram's real world counterpart was the guy who asks Alan if he can have some of his popcorn.
I don’t care that it’s early 1980s CGI and backlit animation. This film still looks amazing more than 4 decades later.
As a Navy brat in the 80s, out of the many arcades locations, the bowling alley in the Navy Base had awesome video games! A lot of the American made games but also a lot import titles from the early days of Capcom, Namco, Taito, etc! I was pretty fond of import laser disc games like Super Don Quix-ote and Cobra Command.
As a Babylon 5 fan, it's always weird seeing a younger Bruce Boxleitner and Peter Jurasik together, and hearing Peter's natural American accent!
Enjoy Jonathan
W00t! Dragon Con shout out! I've been taking an MCU/Tron mashup costume to Dragon Con for the last few years: Tony Sark
I saw this at a drive-in theatre in 1982 when I was 8 years old.
"I need more!", said 10 year old me after seeing the movie.
If you want a slightly darker movie about computers taking over, you should track down a film from 1970 called Colossus: The Forbin Project.
Also: while it was never made into a movie, Harlan Ellison’s 1967 short story “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” is another great “computers taking over the world” story. Sort of like what would have happened had the MCP succeeded.
This was a great reaction! Keep up the great work!
Would be great to see Jonathan react to Tron Legacy with this still fresh in his mind. Doesn't bother me he's already seen it, I think he'd appreciate it on a whole different level now and would be great fun to geek out with him.
Walter gives the in-movie explanation for programs looking like their users in his meeting with Dillinger - "You know, you can remove men like Alan and me from the system, but we helped create it! And our spirit remains in every program we design for this computer!"
Also the literal 'red light district' programs Flynn stumbles past after his recogniser crash.. :P
After a lot of marketing and Tron making its mark with its style and name, the arcade games based on the movie would be more popular and have a longer-lasting effect. My local movie theater still had a Tron arcade game in the late 1990s. I am always wanting to watch this movie and just be immersed in that world.
Jon if you’re going to Dragon Con you need to see Dragonslayer next.
Tron is totally an origin story for The Dude
Yes , Please watch the original The day the earth stood still.
Thank you, Jonathan! 🕹