Cult Movie Notes

In 1976, Steve Lisberger was inspired to make a sci-fi film, animated by his small animation company using both traditional hand-drawn cell work and trying to use some of the new-fangled toys offered up by the newly-becoming-affordable computer. He decided to book-end the animation with some live-action scenes.

Finding backers was difficult, but someone bit. When they realized they needed more money, they had put together a rough scene, and eventually convinced a major studio, who at that time was more interested in being daring than they are now.

The final film, from 1982, was only a modest box-office hit, earning about twice as much as it cost. It was received well by some critics, poorly by plenty more, but eventually found a cult following.

It revolutionized the way computers were approached by filmmakers, and developed a technique called Perlin noise, a way of making computer generated images look more realistic in perspective.

The major studio that took the risk was Disney, and the film was Tron (in case you hadn't guessed).

the only reason I mention any of this talk about a sci-fi film from the early eighties is because they're making a sequel, Tron Legacy.

I am curious to see how the project turns out. The original, along with King Kong and Starman, were the movies that made Jeff Bridges one of my childhood favorites. It looks like he's in the sequel as well.