Back to the future: Tron

This is an oldies post. Or a Geek Dad's post.

Who remembers Tron, the hopelessly flopped movie, released in 1982? Notwithstanding the fact that it got Oscar nominations, it failed miserably at the box office. Tron was the story of  hacker who is literally abducted into the world of a computer and forced to participate in gladiatorial games where his only chance of escape is with the help of a heroic security program (called TRON). 

In 1982 computers could generate static images, but could not automatically put them into motion. Thus, the coordinates for each image, such as a lightcycle, had to be entered for each individual frame. It took 600 coordinates to get 4 seconds of film. Each of these coordinates was entered into the computer by hand by the filmmakers. So imagine what we could do today, with the technology we have.


Well: TRON is back. Disney is planning a release for the end of this year and is already merchandising the toys that are to go with it. Check out this cool "zero gravity light cycle' that cas run across ceilings.

Something tells me this new TRON will be incomparable to the old one. Which makes the old one vert futuristic indeed. With thanx to www.fastcompany.com for the image.