Let the Games Begin

Disney’s Tron is frequently hailed as an artistically visionary film. Released in 1982, it featured cutting-edge computer graphic effects, live-action compositing, and a lot of hand-painted effects all to make audiences believe that the characters of the film really were living inside of a computer. Not a simulation, mind you, but actually within the computer itself. Programs were people, bits and bytes were objects, and the very power they needed to run was the water they drank to survive. It’s a very strange premise, to be sure, but the artistic design of the film goes a long way towards selling the concept, if nothing else.

At the same time, as visionary as it was, Tron was only a mild success for the studio. Developed on a budget of $17 Mil, the film made $50 Mil upon its release. While not bad, and certainly not a bomb, it took Disney some time to come back to Tron and develop any kind of sequel. For some reason the film just didn’t resonate with audiences the way the studio expected. Despite its cutting edge effects and interesting world, people just weren’t that excited by Tron. Why? What was it about the film that kept people away?

Honestly, it’s just not very good. I’ve watched the film twice now, once way back in the day and now a second time for this review, and both times I left the film with the same thought: it’s about a half an hour too long and takes way too much time getting to anything interesting. This is shocking considering the film is only 96 minutes long, but it wastes so much time on setup for what is, effectively, A Princess of Mars but inside a computer mainframe. The design and aesthetics of the film are great, but its actual execution when it comes to story and characters is truly lacking.

Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) was the former head of development at computer conglomerate ENCOM. He lost his job, though, when another developer, Ed Dillinger (David Warner), stole his work and passed it off as his own. Dillinger’s star in the company rose, until he became the Senior Vice President of Development for ENCOM, largely on the back of his early successes (which he stole) and his one big idea, the Master Control Program (MCP), which was integrated to run all of ENCOM.

In all that time, though, Flynn hasn’t let things go. While running his own arcade as his primary job, Flynn has been sending his computer programs into the ENCOM system in an attempt to hack in and find the proof that Dillinger stole his work. The MCP, though, catches on to what Flynn is doing and shuts off all Level 7 access into the system. To get the proof he needs, and to stop Dillinger and the MCP, he’ll need the help of friends: fellow ENCOM developers Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) and Dr. Lora Baines (Cindy Morgan). They get into the building, and access the systems, but the MCP is ready and willing to defend itself. With a blast of lasers it digitizes Flynn and sucks him into the mainframe, expecting him to die there. But with access to the system, and a little help from Bradley’s program TRON (also played by Bradley), Flynn might just find the proof he needs and make it out of the program alive.

When we actually get into it, the actual meat of the film – the time spent in the computer mainframe which is, of course, the major draw for Tron – is only about an hour of the total movie. There’s a lot of time spent outside the mainframe, setting up the plot, the setting, the story, the characters, the tech that will get Flynn into the computer. Twenty minutes at the start that feels like it goes on and on. Most of this could, and really, should have been trimmed since it all feels pretty superfluous, especially on repeat viewings.

Instead of spending twenty minutes with Alan and Lora as they try to figure out what Dillinger is up to, all before they go to Flynn, bring him on board, and sneak him into ENCOM, the film really could have just had Flynn break in on his own after his computer program CLU (also played by Bridges) was caught and destroyed by the MCP. Alan and Lora add almost nothing to the film, and are completely ignored once Flynn ends up in the mainframe, fighting for his life. All we need is “Dillinger is a bad man, and Flynn needs to stop him,” and that gets us to the story a lot faster, and far more effectively, than how Tron does it.

Once we’re into the computer mainframe, things get a little better, at least for a while. Flynn developed a series of video games while at ENCOM – Light Cycle, Deadly Discs, Space Paranoids among them – and these games are core to the experience within the system. They supply vehicles the bad programs use while they chase down Flynn and Tron. They’re arena sports used to torture and punish programs that step out of line with the MCP’s master vision. They helped to solidify and create the program experience within the system. And these events are pretty great. We get a solid forty minutes or so of action, adventure, chase sequences, and cool (at least for the time) computer graphics.

And let’s not downplay the art style. While the CGI in the film might look a little primitive now (with forty-plus years of development on that front since Tron came out) it all blends together really well. The stark filming against sets composed against CGI and modeled backgrounds, all intermixed with CGI vehicles and hand-painted lighting effects makes for a very cool, certainly unique viewing experience. Tron still looks like nothing else that we’ve seen on film (not even its later sequels just due to the upgrades in tech we’ve had since 1982) and that helps it to stand out.

It just would be nice if the story were there. The film really starts to drag in the last act, once Flynn and Tron get on a ship headed to the MCP’s main source. It loses momentum for two reasons. The first is that watching characters sail along is far less thrilling than an actual chase. There’s less action, less to do, and a whole lot more talking, and the script for Tron really isn’t good at handling its dialogue-heavy sequences. Characters say too much and yet at the same time they don’t say enough, blabbering on in techno-speak that doesn’t make a lot of sense all while assuming we’ll just go along with it. It’s all used to justify a paper thin conclusion that feels slap-dash and empty.

Because it is. As Tron glides (quite literally) to its ending, it starts throwing out random ideas on a whim. It changes its own rules, constantly making things up as it goes along, all so it can get the characters to a point where they can defeat the MCP, get the proof Flynn needs, and send him home. But none of that is actually developed in any coherent way. Stuff just happens, and then the film explains it to us afterwards as if any of it actually makes sense. But then, really, that’s just about everything in the film when you get down to it. Stuff just happens, and then the film tries to justify it afterwards. When there’s a lot of action and cool stuff going on, we accept it because, heck, why not. But the film can’t carry that momentum, nor that good will, for very long.

And it’s a pity because the core idea of this story could work. A guy gets transported to a world he barely understands, meets people that need his help, and he goes on to become the hero of the world, learning lessons about himself before magically going back home. This is a tried and true formula that can and does work. As I said at the start, it makes Tron into A Princess of Mars, but instead of the hero going to Mars for his adventure he enters into a mainframe. Unfortunately for Disney, their attempt at this story back in 1982 was about as effective as their later adaptation of that first Barsoom story, John Carter. This time it at least wasn’t a Box Office Bomb, but it really isn’t any better of a movie.

I want to like Tron, I really do. It’s a visually interesting movie with some very creative ideas. But when it comes to execution of the story, the film falls utterly flat. Disney pumped a lot into making this film look like nothing else, and they managed it. Unfortunately a bad movie is still a bad movie no matter how prettily you dress it up.