Jeff Bridges' Oscar Nomination Giving TRON: LEGACY a Boost

In 1982, Walt Disney Studios released "TRON," a video game-themed adventure starring Jeff Bridges, who currently is in the running for the Best Actor Oscar. Bridges' back-to-back wins at both the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards has put this veteran actor back into the spotlight along with "TRON: LEGACY," the sequel to the 1982 adventure.

The Atari 2600 planted the seeds for "TRON"

The 1970's saw the emergence of home video game systems, the most notable being the Atari 2600 VCS (Video Computer System). With plug-in game cartridges, the 2600 became quite popular, especially with a home version of "Space Invaders" available in stores. In my South St. Louis neighborhood, the Atari 2600 was a typical "family Christmas gift" for some of my friends. When my friend Bill and I were struggling through advanced math classes, his mom told me he relieved his frustrations by playing multiple games of "Space Invaders" on their Atari 2600.

Atari had great hardware, but their games left something to be desired. A video game adaptation of the mega hit "E.T." was rushed into stores for the holidays in 1982, but the graphics and game play left many Atari 2600 owners wishing that E.T would have stayed home. An "Indiana Jones" game released by Atari also was so incredibly complicated that a player needed detailed knowledge of the movie just to play the game.

Atari's lack of programming talent led to the birth of Activision, a third-party company formed by some ex-Atari employees. Activision essentially stripped down the Atari 2600 to see exactly what it could do, and created innovative games that took full advantage of the VCS and its capabilities. One of the best Activision releases was "Pitfall," a treasure-seeking adventure featuring hungry crocodiles, great sound effects and lots of treasure. Activision showed that a company could turn a profit merely by making software, not hardware.

Video game culture also served as the inspiration for "TRON"

As Ronald Reagan became President of the United States in 1981, the first cases of what songwriters Buckner and Garcia called "Pac-Man Fever" were beginning to show up. Video games hungry for quarters had been around for years, but Pac-Mac, produced by Namco, has been called "the best-selling coin-operated game in history."

At my local video game arcade, I first saw Pac-Man in operation in January 1981. One twenty-something player was holding court at the console, eating power pellets like there was no tomorrow. It was obvious that this guy was not going to leave the Pac-Man machine for the next few hours, not even an occasional bathroom break.

Pac-Man was the first shot fired in the video game revolution. In the Midwest, anyone who had a few hundred square feet of available space would buy or lease a handful of games and start their own neighborhood arcade. At one gas station on Morganford Road in St. Louis, for instance, the owner even converted some storage space into what he called the "Gashouse Arcade."

Oscar Nominee Jeff Bridges played Kevin Flynn in "TRON"

Arriving in theaters at the peak of this video game mania, "TRON" had scenes in both the real world and the universe inside the computer. Jeff Bridges plays Kevin Flynn, a cocky but brilliant computer programmer who had been betrayed by his boss. Seeking evidence to prove his innocence, Flynn tries to hack into the company's computer network, but the all-powerful Master Control Program (MCP) digitizes Flynn and transports him to the "Game Grid," a video game arena where programs must play until they are either "de-rezzed" or join the MCP's vast army.

"TRON" arrived in arcades before theaters

In a brilliant bit of cross-promotion, Bally Midway released the "TRON" stand-up arcade game in the months before the movie arrived in theaters. With a flashy console and interesting hand-grip controls, the arcade version of "TRON" introduced game lovers to some of the essential elements of the movie:

• Light cycles. A definitive part of the "TRON" universe, the light cycles combine puzzle solving abilities with hand-eye coordination. Players control a hi-tech motorcycle that leaves a solid light trail behind it. The goal is to create an inescapable trap for the other computer-generated light cycles while they are doing the same.

• Battle with the MCP. During the climax of the original "TRON," the title character must face off against the MCP. The Bally Midway game has a stage where players must fight their way into the MCP's "cone" and destroy it.

• Tanks. To search for information, Kevin Flynn created several "tank programs" to sneak through the company's computer network. The "TRON" arcade game places players inside these tanks, forcing them to fight or die.

• Gridbugs. In "Tron," programs had to line up at I/O (Input/Output) towers to communicate with their users. Arcade players had to help TRON make his way to one open tower, but nasty "gridbugs" blocked TRON's path and had to be destroyed.

Three decades later, the original world of "TRON" now can fit on an iPhone

Cutting edge at the time, the computer technology of 1982 represented in "TRON" definitely is primitive compared to 2010, a time where 16 gigabyte memory cards can be purchased off the rack at discount stores. Snopes.com posted an interesting photo of IBM's 305 RAMAC, which is called the first computer with a hard-disk drive (HDD). Weighing more than a ton in 1956, this HDD enhanced computer held 5 megabytes of data, enough to store a couple of tunes today.

While "TRON" was in its original theatrical run, computer memory still wasn't convenient or cheap. Those of us majoring in Computer Science trained on mainframe computers that used either punch cards or magnetic tape to store data. Both storage methods caused problems, especially when student would knocked over stacks of carefully punched computer cards.

My school, Marymount College of Kansas, had invested in a couple of Apple IIe computers in the early 1980's, which stored information on 5 ¼" floppy disks, a name that caused a fair amount of snickering from non-computer majors. The most space you could hope for on a floppy, however, was about 1.2 megabytes, which, by current digital standards, is enough to hold about one minute of a movie. Floppies retailed for about $5.00 in 1984, but were so fragile that a whole project could be lost thanks to a bent disk.

Kevin Flynn lives inside the digital world in "TRON: LEGACY"

In the pre-DVD world of 1982, "TRON" was not a real commercial or critical success during its initial theatrical run, but it has built a cult following over the last 30 years. Jeff Bridges has been racking up awards for his performance in "Crazy Heart," but die-hard fans are waiting for December 17, 2010, the day that "TRON: LEGACY" arrives in theaters.

Some attendees at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con saw a sneak preview of the "TRON: LEGACY" trailer, which now is available to view online. Details about the plot are sketchy, but here is what is known about the movie:

• At the end of the original "TRON," Kevin Flynn is shown as a high-ranking executive at his company. According to a Disney press release about "TRON: LEGACY," however, Flynn has been living inside the digital world for the last 25 years.

• The trailer shows Flynn meditating inside a computerized, cliff-side condo in the computer world. Flynn seems to have remote mental control over his computerized alter ego CLU, which savagely destroys a light cycle opponent.

• Flynn's son Sam (GARRETT HEDLUND) goes into the digital world to pull his father back into the real world.

• Images released by Walt Disney show Bridges with a white "identity disk" on Flynn's back. In the original "TRON," programs were issued identity disks by Sark (David Warner), the lethal henchman of the Master Control Program.

More secrets will be revealed over the next few months, but, based on the trailers, "TRON: LEGACY" looks like it will be worth the wait.

"TRON: LEGACY" arrives in theaters on December 17, 2010.

Resources:

Snopes.com, "Computer Storage (1956)"

Computer Hope, "Computer Hardware"

Gamespot.com, "The History of Pac-Man," Doug Trueman

AtariAge, "Atari 2600 History"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(video_game)