It took 36 outlines and 18 rewrites of the script before director/writer Steven Lisberger and producer Donald Kushner felt they'd gotten the story right. In a 1998 interview with Realhollywood.com, Lisberger, who came to film via animation, explains the genesis of Tron: "The idea was to come up with a character made out of light and one of our designer/animators, John Norton, designed this warrior who was made up of neon -- looked like neon. . . . And, he looked electronic and from that came Tron. . . . once that footage existed it was alive and couldn't be stopped. Here's this interesting character -- where do we put him? And, it made sense to put him in an electronic dimension. One thing lead to another."
Unable to secure initial financing, Lisberger and Kushner put up $300,000 out of their own pockets to create a development package to present to major studios. It included a script, the entire film in storyboards, designs and a sample reel of proposed effects. Disney bought it, securing the deal several months before the computerized video game craze took off. Though Tron didn't provide the jump-start to Disney's slumping family film market that studio executives had hoped for, it did exemplify the risk-taking sensibilities that had been a hallmark of the studio's earlier days with its production of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), for example. Unfortunately, filmgoers in the early '80s didn't know quite what to make of Tron, though a successful Tron video game, released later in 1982, out-grossed the film's box-office take. Over time, the movie and the game have built a cult following and there are rumors that a film sequel may be in the works.
Tron represents the first use of computer-generated, 3-D imagery to produce effects that had previously been done with miniatures, model sets and matte paintings. The film contains 40 minutes of computer animation, much of it combined with live action elements shot against a black screen. The live action that occurs inside the computer was filmed in black and white and later colorized with photographic and rotoscopic techniques -- giving the film that magical silent-era look. These new techniques posed a challenge for the actors. Reportedly, Peter O'Toole was offered the role of Dillinger/Sark but balked at the black-screen notion and passed. "A lot of the time we had no idea what kind of world we would be in," says Jeff Bridges. "But Steven kept video games right on the set. If you were on a streak, people would gather around and he would postpone shooting. Then you'd pop right into the scene with this adrenaline buzz."
The demand of the work was extreme. In some of the film's more complex sequences, like the Solar Sailer moving through metal canyons, it took up to six hours to generate individual frames. "The medium is the message of this film," Lisberger told Rolling Stone in 1982. "The main character is sent into an electronic world that he's helped create, and has to deal with it. The filmmakers were put in a very similar situation."
Producer: Donald Kushner
Director: Steven M. Lisberger
Screenplay: Steven M. Lisberger, Charles Haas
Art Direction: Al Y. Roelofs, John Mansbridge
Cinematography: Bruce Logan
Editing: Jeff Gourson
Music: Wendy Carlos
Principal Cast: Jeff Bridges (Kevin Flynn/Clu), Bruce Boxleitner (Alan Bradley/Tron), David Warner (Ed Dillinger/Sark), Cindy Morgan (Lora/Yori), Barnard Hughes (Dr. Walter Gibbs/Dumont).
C-96m. Letterboxed. Closed captioning.
by Emily Soares
