TRON (1982) | FIRST TIME WATCHING | MOVIE REACTION 

When this movie was submitted to the Academy Awards for a Best Visual Effects nomination, the Academy rejected it because they thought CGI was "cheating".

Across the hall from where Tron was being edited, a young animator was working as an "in-betweener" on "The Fox and the Hound". But once he got a glimpse of Tron, his mind was utterly blown. THIS was the way stories would be told from now on! He went to his superiors and would not shut up about computer animation. Being fed up, Disney fired the guy. Sooo..... the young man moved to the bay area and went to work for George Lucas. Eventually, his computer animation unit was sold to Apple. After working on several computer animated shorts, it was time to create a feature length computer animated story. Toy Story was that movie and that guy from across the hall? John Lassiter.

Just for reference, computers at the time couldn't do 3D animation, so values were entered for each frame and then rendered out which could take up to 6 hours for a single complex frame, this is literally the work of leading computer graphics engineers and hundreds of artists doing something impossible at the time.

Leonard Nimoy of Star Trek fame sent a letter to the director/special effects team on this film after it was released saying: "Congratulations! You really outdid yourselves with this."

This made me tear up a little. Cindy Morgan (Lora/Yori) just passed a few weeks ago (12/30/2023). RIP Cindy!!!!

R.I.P. Cindy Morgan (Lora Baines) I met her at a con years ago and she was very nice. This and Caddyshack were her two most famous films. May she rest in peace.

In the early days of computing, all software used to be open. You could look at the code of the software and change it to what you needed, or fix it if it was broken. Over the years companies started to close it all down, and users no longer had access to this code. Steve Lisberger worked with a company that did computer graphics for some commercials that he made. He would listen to the programmers complain and tell stories about things getting more restrictive and how they were getting locked out of the system. He wrote it all down, made a movie about it, and that's what Tron's all about.

1982 was a truly phenomenal year for cinematic movies: 1. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 2. Blade Runner 3. The Thing 4. Poltergeist 5. Gandhi 6. Tootsie 7. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 8. Annie 9. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas 10. First Blood 11. Tron 12. The Verdict 13. 48 Hrs. 14. Conan the Barbarian 15. The Dark Crystal 16. An Officer and a Gentleman 17. Sophie's Choice 18. Rocky III 19. Fast Times at Ridgemont High 20. The Secret of NIMH 21. Firefox 22. The World According to Garp 23. The Last Unicorn 24. A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy 25. Airplane II: The Sequel

Many say "it shows its age" but the very spartan, unitarian visuals is a great interpretation of a program's world and remains timeless.

Bruce Boxlietner (Alan and Tron) and Peter Jurasik (Crom) later appeared together playing John Sheridan and Londo Mollari on Babylon 5.

I love the soundtrack for this movie. Wendy Carlos did an amazing job of blending analogue, digital electronic music and the philharmonic orchestra. She was a pioneer of electronic music and also wrote the scores to A Clockwork Orange and The Shining

Can we get a little appreciation for the beautiful, mesmerizing musical score for Tron too, by Wendy Carlos !

Many of the FX are traditional animation, but the CG (tanks, bikes) were (shockingly) done without tools. They'd work stuff out on graph paper then read coordinates and such over the phone to the computer center. So the first time they saw them was in 70mm. Mind boggling. The VFX crew deserved a medal.

I love how Cassie says Master Commander no matter how many times the real name is said :). Just like Tum-Tums lol

This movie holds a special place in my heart because it was one of the last films my father worked on as a grip before started working specifically mostly on TV shows... and then the handheld camera was developed, the entire industry changed overnight, and his job basically got eliminated. He was so incredibly proud of that job, and he was really excited about working on this cutting edge movie. He got to help do all the lighting, which was really crazy considering the way everything looked on the sets. He said he had a blast on this one.

I cannot express to you how much I loved this film as a child. It's probably bizarre to modern viewers, but these visuals were groundbreaking at the time. The theological themes are interesting to consider as well.

This and the Matrix are what inspired me to leave Nursing (right before beginning the program) and pursue my Bachelor's in Computer Science. Graduated on Christmas 2023. Great movie. RIP David Warner, Barnard Hughes and Cindy Morgan🌹🌹🌹

The sequel Tron Legacy has one of the best soundtracks ever imho. Daft Punk really did an amazing job.

This is the era of stuff I grew up in, the thriving arcade scene, Tron and my folks, all cemented in me a deep love of video games and it's interesting seeing how much of the future got foreshadowed with this film.

If you havent seen it, watch The Dark Crystal. Being a kid in the 80s was the best. It feels like it was the peak of creativity, now its rare to find movies that have the same charm.

If you like Jeff Bridges, I can't recommend "Starman" highly enough. Karen Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark) co-stars. It's a wonderful movie!

TRON Legacy is a sequel to this film. Not only is it worthy of the original it takes it so much further. And has one of the best soundtracks of all time.

When this movie came out, I, my fiancé and their fellow computer science Masters students went to see it. They joked that the script seemed to written by someone who simply used a highlighter on all the cool words in one of their textbooks.

Tron was a pioneering film using computer generated graphics for its special effects. I still vividly remember sitting in the theater being blown away by what I was seeing on the big screen.

If you want more Jeff Bridges, Starman is right up your alley.

TRON LEGACY is hands down my favorite movie, the music, father and son bond.

I was 11 when I saw this in theaters in 82. This one blew my mind. Killer, futuristic, visuals, and a hero to cheer on. As one of many sci-fi influences (that included the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, and Space: 1999), it would eventually lead me to a career in IT. Enjoyed how you were able to grasp and follow the story. Your cinematic IQ has beautifully evolved over the years...and it has been a pleasure to see your continued growth. I'm looking forward to your reaction to "Legacy".

This movie helped create the internet age. When this movie came out, nobody knew what "cyberpunk" was, there was no "internet," nobody was talking about "virtual reality," and "CGI" was an unknown term. When this came out, I knew one person -- a professional software engineer, dad of a friend -- who actually owned a PC. And while this movie failed commercially because most people didn't get it, so many of the people who *did* get it went into programming and computer science. I remember seeing this as a kid and instantly needing to have a computer. I learned to code in BASIC because of this movie!

RIP, David Warner, Bernard Hughes and now, Cindy Morgan.😢

Love this classic sci-fi gem. Hopefully a reaction to Tron Legacy isn't too far behind.

"Do you think I could have some of your popcorn?" A fitting line for this reaction video. ❤

I saw this in theaters, 6 year old me, and I vividly remember that I understood almost nothing, but I didn't care. I was blown away since the minute the light cycles appeared. Truly a masterpiece well ahead of its time. Bruce Boxleitner (Alan/Tron) has commented that he understood nothing of the script, and thought it wasn't that good of a movie, but, as time passed, people stopped him in the streets only to say how they loved Tron, so he ended up realizing this role would be his legacy, the one for which he will be remembered.

Rest in Peace Cindy Morgan...you made us all wish we could be computer programmers...or computer programs...or caddies at a snooty country club.

Tron is played by Bruce Boxleitner, starred with Kenny Rogers in the 'Gambler'. Had two big TV series 'Scrarecrow and Mrs. King and then played Captain Sheridan on the Babylon 5 series, which competed against Star Trek Next Generation in the 1990s.

Tron was groundberaking when it came out! I saw it in the theater as a kid and was BLOWN AWAY! No one knew what to expect, and everyone was just gobsmacked! Even the making of the movie was something! I was sooo good at the arcade game!

Hi Cassie. Yep, back in 1982, the videogame arcade experience was exactly like Flynn's place.

Tron Legacy is one of my favourite movies, if just for the soundtrack on it's own, by Daft Punk. The visuals are crazy and it's a lot of fun. Don't make us wait too long for the sequel!

TRON. I was 24 and already an arcade veteran with a bad case of 'Defender Knuckle' (where a finger joint gets a knotty callous from rubbing against the game cabinet) when this released. Yeah - It was cool and still has a nostalgic feel for me. "All that is visible must grow beyond itself and extend into the realm of the invisible".

Fantastic review. In case you did not make the connection Programs retain the form of their creator and look like them in the computer world. There is a deleted scene where right as Tron enters the I/O tower where it switches back to real word And you see Alan Bradley upload the Tron program with what he needs. The voice you heard was what he would have typed into system to communicate with Tron.

This movie remains one of the most beautiful and mind-bending sci-fi creations. The 80s videogame visuals are so essential to its look and atmosphere that today's more advanced CGI would only ruin it.

Alan/Tron is Bruce Boxleitner "Captain Sheridan" on "Babylon 5" TV series.

When this came out I was given the choice to see TRON or E.T. I chose TRON. One of the best decisions I ever made.

Fun fact: the lab scenes, including that ginormous door (which actually exists), were filmed at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

I got to see this in the theater it's opening weekend. After the movie, my dad took me to the arcade afterward and gave me $20 in quarters. It was a magical evening.

I had no Clu we were getting this reaction Ram’s user was the guy who asked Allan for some popcorn

It was a pretty bad week…then you said ‘mothers milk power juice”. And I smiled. And then everything was better.

I saw this when it was released and it was a groundbreaking movie. The light cycle scene was mind boggling on the big screen.

I've always loved this movie. I was 22 when it came out. 1982 may have been the greatest year for movies ever. Tron, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Star Trek 2, the Wrath of Kahn, Blade Runner, Time Bandits (which I think you would like), Chariots of Fire, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and tons more. It was like every Friday I was going out to see a movie that would end up being among my lifetime favorites.

One of the craziest things about this movie to me is that the people who animated all the 3d effects, like the lightcycles and ships, were just writing code that they thought up. They couldnt see what they had animated until all the work was already done and they plugged it in to a screen. So it was a lot of trial and error to get things to look the way they wanted.

This was my favorite movie growing up. My parents were into movies and took me when I was 2. I wore out the VHS and had the Disney read-along cassette book. I was lucky enough to work at Digital Domain on the sequel Tron: Legacyand as a fan it was really special. Unfortunately it well received. Fun fact this movie wasn’t allowed to be nominated by the Academy for special effects because they believed using computers for the effects was cheating.. lol. If you watch bts videos about this you can see how crazy the process was for making this film with the backlit animation. They stated at the time that a movie had never been made like this and never would be again as technology would catch up, and it did. Definitely a product of its time and I loved it!

Jeff Bridges "Fearless" is incredible.

If you want see more of Jeff Bridges early work I highly recommend *Thunderbolt And Lightfoot* (1974) He's co-starring with Clint Eastwood. Magnificent movie, great performances..

This was really groundbreaking for it's time and not really everyone took to it. But it gained a cult following in later years. You'll really enjoy Tron: Legacy as the visuals are beautiful and the Daft Punk soundtrack is so fitting. Glad you're watching this Cass! 🙂

So here's a little Fun Fact: the older engineer working in the laser room department, is also in the movie The Lost Boys; he plays the Grandfather.

FYI: Cassie, while i'm not directly connected with the movie, a buddy of mine met with the original Tron World artist(not the vehicle ship design as that was Sid Mead) and was given some of the graphic designs and original prints from the arcade scene used IN the movie. The background art lines and such were also used in the arcade version of the game. He has a ton of stuff, usually video game related. He brought them out during an arcade party night. We're both arcade collectors and I think he has two Tron machines and I have one i am currently restoring. Same buddy WAS the world record holder for Afterburner arcade(1988), at least up until the last 5 or so years. He's a scorekeeper for the Kong off Donkey Kong tournaments at Funspot.

I was fortunate to have been involved with this movie in two ways. First, since I was working at Disneyland in the Character Dept. (the costumed characters in the park) a bunch of us got to wear the original screen-used Tron costumes at the Tron premiere at the Disney Studio. Since I’m 6’3” tall, I wore a guard outfit (the big hooded guys whose face you can’t see). I remember the guy who played Tron looked inside the helmet and it said “Boxleitner.” We even had people playing the weird characters that Flynn encounters right after crashing the recognizer, including the one known as “Shower Curtain Lady.” The second way I was involved with the film was I got to sing as part of the choir on the Tron soundtrack. I was a music student at UCLA and they used the UCLA Chorus (recorded inside Royce Hall). Sadly, we were never credited on the film.

One of my favorite movies of all time. Saw back around when it first came out and I've adored it ever since. This and War Games turned me into a computer geek back in the 80's.

OMG! I can't beleive you're watching this! It's one of my favorite movies of all time! I saw it in the theater in 1982 with my best friend. It was one of those 'magical' experiences you never forget.

"A piece of our soul remains in every program we've written." That's why the programs look like the people who programmed them.

As a boy who had a fascination with computers, this movie was so cool. In order to understand how amazing it was, realize that Tron was made in 1982. The first IBM PC came out in 1981. In the early 80's, I remember going to the local department store and seeing Commodore 64, Vic-20 and Amiga computers. Radio Shack sold PC compatible computers, and I ended up purchasing one at age 16 in 1987 with summer job money some 5 years after the movie released. In the early 80's the video game craze was taking hold with the first arcade games like Pong, Pac Man, Donkey Kong and Centipede showing up in gas stations, stores and malls. Arcades started popping up everywhere. Home gaming consoles like Atari 2600, Colecovision and Intellivision were finding their way into homes, and I would play them every chance I got when I was at a person's house that could afford them. Anyway, my point is... it was a time of wonder for a kid growing up in that technological age, both with computers and video games. Having lived through having a rotary home phone, a black and white TV and no computer, then seeing all of these advances, Tron was just awesome for a boy like me.

Jeff bridges and Clint Eastwood “ thunderbolt and light foot “ 1974 , the ending has a bite

Oh! If you like Jeff Bridges, check out Starman. Very cool movie, and I haven't seen anyone do it.

The voice of the scientist with the laser/"dumont" sounded familiar so I did a quick search and it's Barnard Hughes. I recognised his voice because he played the grandad in "the lost boys" ! (Jeff bridges movie R.I.P.D is a fun film) (it even has a love story in it for you) !

This movie was my favorite as a kid. I was completely mesmerized by those visuals. It's a stylistic form that still holds up in my opinion

This was the first Disney movie to use CGI animation effects. Over 200 scenes alone had CGI backgrounds. They filmed the movie in Black and White with a complete black background, while the effects team used rotoscoping and CGI animation for the costumes, which were grey in color.

Actress Cindy Morgan (Lora & Yori) just passed away in December 2023. All of the scenes in the computer world were filmed in black and white, with black backgrounds, and white costumes. The footage was then broken down frame by frame, blown up to a much larger size, the values reversed so that everything black was white and vice versa. Then, each frame of film. or cell, was hand painted and then refilmed using rotoscoping...in effect making this a live-action/animated hybrid. There were instances of actual CGI, but those shots are few and very short. Tron: Legacy is an amazing film with some great actors...and it was written and directed by Joseph Kozinski, the director of Top Gun: Maverick.

I remember seeing this in a nearly-empty theater back in the day. I don't recall much of the movie, other than the light cycles. But as the credits began to roll, I was treated to a (then) new Journey song, Only Solutions. That really stayed with me. Sitting in the dark, letting that moody tune wash over me.

"Our spirit remains in every program we design" - Dumont. Always wonder how long it takes people to figure out that the actors in the "real world" are playing the programs their characters wrote in the Tron world. Truly, created in their own image.

Cassie remember this was 1982. Tron might look a bit dated by today's standard but used a little very early cgi and cool animation techniques to make a unique and fun sci-fi movie. I look forward to your Tron Legacy reaction aswell.

In '86 I saw ALIENS on opening day. The SULACO looked hauntingly familiar. So much so that over many years and DOZENS of viewings its familiarity always nagged at me. Then at some point TRON is released on DVD and I get it as soon as I can make it to the store. And during my first viewing it hits me!!!!! The SULACO looked familiar because its the same configuration as SARK's LIGHT CARRIER!!!!!! They were both designed by Syd Mead!!!!!

To properly put the time period of this movie in its place, this movie was the first video tape I ever owned...on BETA MAX.

Tron is very omg. no greenscreen tech and cgi, no, 24-25 movie-layer on top of each other. that´s amazing and a amazing cult movie. 😎

Watch "Starman" with Jeff Bridges! Really good movie!

When it was released Tron was disqualified from receiving an Academy Award nomination for special effects, because the Academy felt at the time that using computer generated effects was "cheating".

I was a teenager when Tron came out. The arcades carried 2 Tron games at the time ... Tron, which was a series of mini games strung together on your way to destroy the MCP with a story thread to carry you through. But the better one was a 2 player game called Discs of Tron where you and your opponent had three platforms that you hopped back and forth on to try and derezz each other by throwing data discs at each other. Each player had 3 discs. My friends and I developed a backyard version of this, which was essentially Dodgeball with Frisbees. Man I miss the Eighties.

I was a sophomore in highschool when this came out. I remember the reviews were pretty harsh, but I loved it. Back then vector graphics games ruled, and Tron was so cool. I still have a Starlog magazine with Tron on the cover. Disney made good stuff back in the day.

The original Tron! Cool to see you watching this.

David Warner (Dillinger / Sark) will be in Star trek V & VI... First watched him in Time Bandits...

I watched this movie in theaters when it came out, and I immediately fell in love with everything about it. It was right up my alley as a kid that loved being in an arcade for hours and hours a day. I also lost track of how much money I spent playing this video game back in the day at the arcades.

Love, love, love this film. And that game Flynn played when first arrived in the system was almost one on one jai alai.

You gotta give it the Blade Runner treatment: Watch the original AND the (very) later sequel. Trust me, Tron Legacy definitely still holds up today, and the CGI, though over 10 years old now, still beats other Hollywood mainstream movies' SFX imo. Legacy is a trip that needs to be had 😎

This was unexpected, but very cool to step back 42 years or so and see it with fresh eyes; fun movie

Tron is one of the few movies where nostalgia has completely blinded me, and I can't see it as anything but awesome. A classic good vs. evil story with fun characters and a mind-blowing/charming aesthetic.

Hope you enjoy your trip to Disney. One sci-fi that should be on everyone's required watch list is the original "The Day the Earth Stood Still" from the early 50's. 5 out of 5 stars. You won't be disappointed!

There are two official and completely different sequel stories. One is in The sequel movie Tron Legacy and the animated series Tron Uprising that is set between the two movies. The other story was in the form of the video game Tron 2.0 which was awesome and expanded on the world of Tron a massive amount and had gobs of story telling throughout the game with conversations between characters while you are playing, cutscenes, and e-mails you can find and read. The game came out years before Legacy and for some reason they forgot they had made it and just ignored all the plot from it even though they brought back characters from the first movie and had them voice by their actors. The good news is you can still buy the game for 10 dollars even when it isn't on sale and like 2.50 when it is on sale and since it came out 20 years ago even most of the most low en computers now should run it just fine.

I would love to see you react to "Short Circuit" (1986). It's one of my favorite childhood movies.

RIP Cindy Morgan, I had the pleasure in the mid 2000's having a conversation with her, she was a very sweet person and was quite genuine and kind..

RIP Barnard Hughes (July 16, 1915 - July 11, 2006), aged 90 RIP David Warner (July 29, 1941 - July 24, 2022), aged 80 RIP Cindy Morgan (September 29, 1954 - December 30, 2023), aged 69 You will be remembered as legends.

This will hopefully be amazing. Tron was such a big influence on me. I got my first computer the year this was released. And a nerd ever since.

This is the origin of CGI.. the next big movie was The Last Starfighter. Wonderful movie with Robert Preston AKA The Music Man.

Another classic ROM-COM with Jeff Bridges to watch is "Kiss Me Goodbye" (1982) staring Sally Field, James Caan and Jeff Bridges. It has a special place in my heart since I was a little kid.

I loved this movie! Back then I was still under the illusion that the 2000s would be like Space 1999 or Star Trek, so this was another great futuristic idea. Great review, as always.

One of the animators came to my class an talked. He said that it was so primitive back then. When they shot a scene and animated it, they would find a week later that the actor's feet went through the floor! There were no quick previews!

An incredibly moving Jeff Bridges movie: The Fisher King. A little remembered gem. Thanks Cassie.

My mother worked on the Cray 1 Supercomputer that was used to generate some of the graphics for Tron... the closest connection I have to the film industry lol

THIS IS cgi!!!! .. . an EARLY FORM of it.

Here's some other Jeff Bridges movies to check out; Starman (1984) Tucker: The Man And His Dream (1988) Blown Away (1994) Arlington Road (1999)

I didn't know you loved Jeff Bridges. There's a great Rom-com with him Sally Field and James Caan from the 80's called "Kiss me Goodbye". He's also in a romantic sci-fi with Karen Allen from the 80's called "Starman". Both are great films.

I'm so glad you chose Tron ! It's one of my top 5 favorite films of all time. If you're not an 80's kid it's hard to understand the impact . RIP Cindy Morgan ❤

This movie was the reason I got into playing video games as a kid. And my father was into electronics back when this movie came out. I would never had the game consoles from Atari to Nintendo to Xbox to playstation