A New Geek Milestone: My first viewing of TRON

So the new Tron: Legacy movie is due this December, and there has been much buzz about it care of Disney and ComicCon and Fan Expo, etc. But it's got me wondering; how many people have actually seen the original Tron? It was a bomb back in 1982, and while it's visual style is still recognizable thanks to references in many forms of media, who's seen it? Who remembers it? Who actually knows what it's about?

Well, I can officially add myself to that select group. I can now see Tron: Legacy and say that I have seen Tron. Yay for me!

So what is it about? Basically it centers around a software engineer named Kevin Flynn (a young Jeff Bridges), who was with the powerful computer company ENCOM until his colleague stole his ideas for games and forced him out. Flynn now runs a video-game arcade, and he's a little annoyed about the whole thing. He's been trying to hack ENCOM to find the code he needs to prove the games are his, but the artificial intelligence that runs ENCOM's mainframe, Master Control, keeps him out. So with the help of a couple of his friends, Flynn makes one more ditch effort to hack in. But Master Control has a surprise for him. Using new ENCOM technology, Master Control digitizes Flynn and brings him into the mainframe. Now, Flynn must survive games and light cycles and work with the computer program Tron (Bruce Boxleitner) to bring down Master Control and find the codes.

Honestly though, the plot is rather secondary to the visual effects. Yes, though the technology was absolutely groundbreaking back in 1982, it looks dated by today's standards. Regardless, it is still visually stunning to look at. Part of it might be that I had the opportunity to watch it in high def, but still it looks amazing. It really gives you an idea of how far film technology has come, and it really makes me wonder why this film wasn't a bigger success. This would've blown people away back then. Maybe it was too new for the early 80s crowd. A shame really. But still, sequel coming!

So join the nerd masses and see it. That way when Tron: Legacy makes use of modern film technology and blows us all away in the present day, you'll know where it all came from.