Having risen through the ranks of a large computer corporation known as ENCOM, a sociopath named "Ed Dillinger" (David Warner) has installed a software package known as the Master Computer Program (MCP) into the corporate computer which hacks into various computer programs and data bases all over the world to steal valuable information and thereby increase profits. However, the MCP soon gets too powerful and after taking control of ENCOM decides to appropriate other computer systems in an effort to rule the world. However, a former ENCOM employee named ""Kevin Flynn" (Jeff Bridges) feels he has been cheated by Ed Dillinger and convinces two current ENCOM employees named "Alan Bradley" (Bruce Boxleitner) and "Lora Baines" (Cindy Morgan) to give him access to the main computer terminal to prove his allegations. Unfortunately, the MCP becomes aware of his activity and manages to transport him into the computer system where he has to fight for his life against programs designed to eliminate anything that interferes with the computer's operational status. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this film created quite a sensation in the science-fiction community when it first came out due its computerized graphics which were well ahead of the times. Unfortunately, it suffered at most of the science-fiction award ceremonies that year due to the release of "E.T. the Extraterrestrial" and "Star Trek-The Wrath of Khan" which dominated that specific genre. That aside, however, this is still an enjoyable film even though it is certainly quite dated. But in any case, I liked this particular film and have rated it accordingly. Above average.

If you take the idea of TRON, advance it to today's world of computers, and pretend like both it and its sequel never happened… What would today's TRON look like? What would it be like, having a human being digitized into the world of the internet? The reason I ask is merely a curiosity: What battles would TRON face? Would he be like Superman in the internet? Battling hordes of evil corporate programs with the help of other guardian programs? Geez. This is the first time I've ever thought of a reboot as a good idea. It would be an impressive landscape to throw Tron into, wouldn't it? A superhero movie in today's cyberspace.TRON was the first movie I've ever seen in a theater. That by itself pushes it up to a 10 for me. Understandably, I am biased. At the ripe old age of five years old, watching the screen with my eyes and my mouth wide open, I had found Heaven in the battle between light-cycles.But there is more to TRON that meets the eye.A lot of pictures have attempted the idea of artificial intelligence, some even earlier than TRON. COLOSSUS: THE FORBIN PROJECT comes to mind. WARGAMES comes to mind, though honestly I don't remember which one came first. Newer movies like THE TERMINATOR, and even the much more recent A.I. gave it a shot (though honestly A.I. was a hodgepodge of thrown-together ideas and too many cooks in the kitchen. That review is for a later day).Accepting a film like TRON today is difficult, similar to the way that watching an episode of the original STAR TREK has its challenges. The special effects are dated. The concept is completely silly. Remember a time when MOST movies had silly premises, instead of the ultra-realism of today? It is quite possible (and more than likely) that we take ourselves far too seriously, and today's mainstream films prove it, time and again.Jeff Bridges is the star, playing Kevin Flynn in a movie whose title reflects on a co-star, instead of the main character. TRON is more than a character here, he is the embodiment of a general concept, and truly, the centerpiece of the film. Like his character, Bruce Boxlietner plays TRON, and like TRON, Bruce has (believe me, no offense intended, sir) always been more of a side-character his whole career (unless he's doing television). In that regard, his performance fits perfectly here… Just enough to get the job done, without stealing the show from Jeff.The idea of digitizing matter and sucking it into a computer is a feat that even we, in the 21st century, have not yet cracked. But here, it is produced to us as a given, and like all movies with silly premises, the forcefulness of the delivery is everything here. The operation is taken as seriously as anything else in the film, and that is what forces you to accept it. In this version of the 80s, matter can be digitized and sucked into a computer mainframe.You have to admire the story, and pay attention to the subtle seriousness of it all to really feel the impact. Admittedly, being five years old, I kind of missed it the first time around, but there is some very serious business going on here. Sure, the main plot is simply that Dillinger (played awesomely by Mr. David Warner, sir, one of my all-time favorite actors) stole computer programs from Flynn and found a way to boot him out of the company, riding on false laurels all the way to the top of the chain—but what he's dealing with now is the Master Control Program, a monster of a program that lives in both worlds—computer and real—and KNOWS about them both. By the end of the sequence with Dillinger and him dancing toe-to-toe, not only do we learn that Dillinger is the puppet of the MCP, but we learn its true intentions: World domination. Dillinger, not only spineless but caught in blackmail, is helpless to assist the MCP despite knowing what its intentions are, and goes along with it helplessly.So even though Kevin Flynn is simply trying to right an age-old wrong and get the life back that he rightly deserves, he accidentally assists the computer program TRON in stopping the MCP from taking over the real world… By giving him the chance to erase him from the system.Take that into account, the next time you watch this truly underrated masterpiece of 80s culture, and the fear of Artificial Intelligence, before it ever had the chance to become a real threat.

I have no idea how this is considered a classic. Even in 1982 the effects were very, very bad. The acting is pretty bad as well, the music is annoying and the movie in general is boring.The only two good things are that this is a short movie and it spawned an amazing sequel. The only ones who would have liked this were programmers back then.This movie has so little plot that, watching the much better sequel can be done easily.And the sequel is the only good thing that came out of this crap.Avoid the original.

I don't like Tron. There I said it. People regard this film as a cult classic but personally I don't see why.For anyone that is unaware, Tron is a film released in 1982. It's about a video game creator's idea being stolen by a big company head. He goes in to get proof that the idea was his, only for a machine to get him sucked into the game he created. He needs to work with programs that he created in order to get out as well as fight against viruses inside the game in order to get out. The plot was probably one of the best things about the film. It was quite a unique idea at the time and was interesting to see this new sort of plot being taken on.The main thing that's praised about Tron is its visuals and I'll come to agree. The movie's effects were really impressive for the time and even live up today.The one thing I noticed about the reviews of Tron was that they only seemed to talk about how good the visuals were and didn't talk about anything else. I find Tron stupid. Some questions are left unanswered and it also has a few confusing and unnecessary parts. I will go onto list them here. At the start of the movie a scientist says "his whole life he's worked on a machine" and that machine's purpose is to make objects disappear and then they reappear a few seconds later. I don't know about you but I think that's his life wasted. I can't think in one way how that sort of machine could be useful. The guy who created the game is introduced in an arcade playing a video game which he for some reason sweats from, I don't know one person who sweats from playing a video game. It might have also just been an excuse for that actor to take their top off to reveal his pecks for no reason and yes that actually happens. There is a scene when he's about to have a fight to the death with a program. I'm not sure about you but if I was going into a fight to the death and I was just a video game creator, I would be terrified, but this programmer isn't as he goes into the fight to the death grinning like an idiot. There's a huge dramatic moment where one of the programs dies and despite this program appearing in about 2/3s of the film, the other characters don't seem to care. I'm actually going to type the dialogue that is delivered after he dies."Where is he?" "He died" "*gasp* alright* I'm not joking, that is actually what is said. There's another part where one of the programs is tired from lying down. I'm not joking about that either. He literally lies down, gets up and is gasping for breath.I fail to see how other reviews of this movie haven't considered that this movie is so bad that it's good. That's how I see it. Yes the plot is creative and the visuals are cool and still hold up today but everything else falls flat. The characters aren't given anything to be called characters, the acting given off feels like the actors were held at gunpoint to perform, there are scenes that don't go anywhere, and most of all it suffers from bad writing.