Skip to content

Showbits

News, reviews & commentary on sci-fi & fantasy movies & shows

Menu
  • About
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Categories
    • Films
      • Reviews
      • Trailers
    • Star Trek
    • Television
    • Humor
    • Celebrities
      • Fade to Black
    • Potpourri
    • Star Wars
Menu

Now for Some Real User Power

Posted on Jul 10, 2007Jul 3, 2021 by Ken Gagne

Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of Tron, a film that is so many things to so many people: a milestone of computer animation; a staple of any geek's library; an element in the film studies curriculum I developed; another Jeff Bridges box office bomb. My love affair with this film spans multiple media:

Tron tank
A classic rendering of a Tron tank. Check out the credit — this file is almost as old at the movie!
A classic rendering of a Tron tank. Check out the credit — this file is almost as old at the movie!
Tron arcade machine at FunSpot
Here I am playing the 1982 arcade game Tron at <A HREF = "http://www.funspotnh.com">FunSpot</A> in New Hampshire.
Here I am playing the 1982 arcade game Tron at <A HREF = "http://www.funspotnh.com">FunSpot</A> in New Hampshire.
Cindy Morgan & Bruce Boxleitner
Cindy Morgan and Bruce Boxleitner sign my 20th anniversary DVD of <em>Tron</em> at E3 2003. Read the story of <A HREF = "https://www.showbits.net/2007/01/11/tron-comic/" TITLE="End of line.">how I embarrassed Mr. Boxleitner</A>.
Cindy Morgan and Bruce Boxleitner sign my 20th anniversary DVD of <em>Tron</em> at E3 2003. Read the story of <A HREF = "https://www.showbits.net/2007/01/11/tron-comic/" TITLE="End of line.">how I embarrassed Mr. Boxleitner</A>.

I had to commemorate the anniversary of this cult hit with more than just a marathon session of lightcycling. After reading IGN's interview with Steven Lisberger, Tron's creator, I felt there must be better interview subjects out there.

So I instead got ahold of John Knoll, visual effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic. ILM was created by George Lucas for the original Star Wars films and has since gone on to become a powerhouse in visual effects. Mr. Knoll has worked on several of their best films, including Willow, The Abyss, Mission: Impossible, Star Trek: First Contact, the Star Wars prequel trilogy, and the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. And somehow, during all that, he found time to invent Photoshop.

On very short notice, Mr. Knoll generously donated a half-hour of his time to speak with me on the subject of Tron, computer graphics, and the industry's evolution over the last quarter of a century. The end result is a very satisfying transcript, even if some notable, general observations didn't make the final cut:

"Even today … filmmakers rely on the special effects to be the only appeal in the movie, and they don't try so hard on the movie because they figure the visuals will carry the film … For those of us who work in the industry, that's not something we encourage. It's just as hard to do the effects on a bad movie as it is the effects on a good movie, and we'd all rather have worked on a good movie."

Continue on to Computerworld.com to read the full interview.

A huge thanks to old LucasArts and ILM colleagues Tom Sarris and Ellen Pasternack, without whom this interview would not have been possible.

Update: the above article has been Slashdotted!

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

Tags: Adobe, Alan Bradley, Bit, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan, Clu, Computerworld, cyberspace, David Warner, Dillinger, disc, Disney, ILM, Industrial Light and Magic, Jeff Bridges, John Knoll, Lightcycles, Lora, MCP, Photoshop, Recognizer, Steven Lisberger, Tank, TRON, TRON 2.0, Walt Disney Productions, Yori

5 thoughts on “Now for Some Real User Power”

  1. Ken Gagne says:
    Jul 11, 2007 at 11:12 am

    Here's a sampling of other Tron media around the Web:

    • Video: Cindy Morgan reflects on the staying power Caddyshack has given her celebrity status
    • Video: John Knoll on inventing Photoshop with his brother, Thomas
    • Videos: Tron and Discs of Tron, two arcade games being re-released this year in original and enhanced formats for Xbox Live Arcade
    • Tron Sector, a site of all things Tron (movies, games, and more)
    • The Tron Guy, Jay Maynard, who created his own Tron suit
    • The Disney Blog, an unofficial site of all things Disney, including parks, press, and Tron.

    0
  2. Ken Gagne says:
    Jul 16, 2007 at 4:13 pm

    I've written on this film's impact a bit further over at my Computerworld blog.

    0
  3. Ken Gagne says:
    Sep 5, 2007 at 2:24 pm

    Excerpted from today's ComingSoon.net:

    Tron writer/director Steven Lisberger has sold Soul Code, a futuristic tale he wrote, to Reliant Pictures.

    Lisberger will direct the story of a tech pioneer who has perfected a way to download and transfer a person's memory. The script examines what happens when her memory is placed into a much younger woman's body.

    0
  4. Ken Gagne says:
    Dec 3, 2007 at 6:50 pm

    A link to the interview with John Knoll has appeared on the popular Star Wars site TheForce.net.

    0
  5. Computer Sale says:
    Jun 25, 2009 at 10:37 am

    Very nice posting. I've always had deep interest in computer graphics and animation. And that's also one of the reason why I'm into computer-sale
    event so much, that is to get good quality computer at low price:-) thank you for the post. I like it so much!

    0

Comments are closed.

Categories

  • Films (143)
  • Reviews (86)
  • Television (84)
  • Humor (52)
  • Trailers (48)

Tags

  • holiday (33)
  • TNG (29)
  • summer shorts (27)
  • Christmas (25)
  • parody (25)

Year

  • 2022 (1)
  • 2021 (16)
  • 2020 (3)
  • 2019 (3)
  • 2018 (1)

Recent Posts

  • Ted Lasso and the Missing Christmas Mustache
  • A Pandemic Year of Moviegoing & Star Trek
  • Star Trek IV: The Voyage to Alameda
  • Take care of yourself for Christmas 2020
  • Televisions shows for the pandemic
  • WordPress: The Final Frontier
  • Picard Will Make It So
  • Remembering Carroll Spinney
  • Reuniting The Next Generation's cast
  • A Christmas aboard the Enterprise NX-01

Recent Comments

  • peterw on WordPress: The Final Frontier
  • peterw on A Star Trek Christmas with family
  • Ken Gagne on Rogue One is a one-hit wonder

Archives

News

  • CNN.com
  • ComingSoon.net
  • Dead or Alive?
  • STARTREK.COM
  • Superman News
  • TheForce.Net
  • Trek Nation

Resources

  • American Film Institute
  • Apple Trailers
  • Box Office Prophets
  • DVD Price Search
  • IMDb
  • Movie Mistakes
  • MPAA
  • Oracle of Bacon
  • RiffTrax
  • Rotten Tomatoes
  • TV Shows on DVD

Theater & Acting

  • Boston Casting
  • C.P. Casting
  • LDI Casting
  • NE Theater 411
© 2023 Showbits | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme