THIS DAY IN TECH HISTORY: 'Tron' warps to the big (and small) screen

Dubai - Getting sucked into your own computer program was a cool concept at that time - and it still is

The most recent memory most of us may have about Jeff Bridges is when he played the baddie who tried to take Tony Stark out of business (and out of this living world) in 2008's tech-filled Iron Man.
Thirty-five years ago, however, the Academy Award-winning actor was the goodie in one of the most advanced movies at that time, Tron.
It was an ambitious film during those days, but in certain respects it took inspiration from more well-established franchises like Battlestar Galactica and, of course, the 'Death Star' (symbolically speaking) of space opera films, Star Wars (bandwagoning? Some say).
The story was simple: Bridges, who played software engineer Kevin Flynn, gets sucked into the video games he created (pretty mind-boggling tale at that time), fights his way back to sanity in a high-tech way and, as usual, lives happily ever after.
Tron's writer and director, Steven Lisberger, was inspired to do the film because of his enchantment with another iconic retro piece of tech, the video game Pong.
And speaking of video games, the same day also saw the release of a Tron arcade game.
It wasn't exactly a smashing hit at the time of its release, but it did gain a cult following and, eventually, spawned a franchise that included a sequel (2010's Tron: Legacy, in which Bridges reprised his role), an animated TV series (2012's Tron: Uprising, which was bannered by Elijah Wood), a number of video games (one of which inspired Snake), a theme park at Walt Disney World Florida and lots of toys and merchandise (of course).
In 2015, Disney had given the go signal for a third film (Tr3n), but just this February, it was announced that the company was looking into rebooting the franchise, with Jared Leto to play a new character named Ares.
The funny thing about it was, despite the promising concept of the film, several studios snubbed it until it was offered to Disney. And while it wasn't the first film to use CGI, it was the first to use it with gusto, despite the fact that this was used in only about 20 minutes in the 96-minute movie.
And while the film did dish out some really nice effects, it was somehow snubbed during that year's Academy Awards, though it did get nominations for Best Costume Design and Best Sound the following year, and did win the Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 1997.
Just for fun: according to Movie Fone, to get the actors in the right frame of mind, there were coin-operated arcade games on the set. Shooting was delayed when someone was on a winning streak, and it was Bridges who had the highest score.
Something tells me that if this story was conceived today, well, good luck. A lot of things require good timing, right?
- alvin@khaleejtimes.com