21 Facts About Tron

1.

Tron is a 1982 American science fiction action-adventure film written and directed by Steven Lisberger from a story by Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird.

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2.

Tron received nominations for Best Costume Design and Best Sound at the 55th Academy Awards, but was not nominated in the Best Visual Effects category.

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3.

Tron spawned multiple video games, and as it became a cult film, a multimedia franchise including comic books.

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4.

Inspiration for Tron occurred in 1976 when Steven Lisberger, then an animator of drawings with his own studio, looked at a sample reel from a computer firm called MAGI and saw Pong for the first time.

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5.

Tron was immediately fascinated by video games and wanted to do a film incorporating them.

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6.

The prototype Tron was bearded and resembled the Cylon Centurions from the 1978 TV series Battlestar Galactica.

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7.

Also, Tron was armed with two "exploding discs", as Lisberger described them on the 2-Disc DVD edition.

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8.

Tron was frustrated by the clique-like nature of computers and video games and wanted to create a film that would open this world up to everyone.

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9.

Tron contacted Lisberger and convinced him to use him as an adviser on the movie, then persuaded him to use real CGI instead of just hand-animation.

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10.

Tron gave her and Lisberger the same tour of Xerox PARC that famously inspired the Apple Macintosh, and their many conversations inspired her to include many computer science references.

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11.

Tron met with Richard Taylor, a representative, and they began talking about using live-action photography with back-lit animation in such a way that it could be integrated with computer graphics.

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12.

Tron was one of the first films to make extensive use of any form of computer animation, and it is celebrated as a milestone in the industry though only fifteen to twenty minutes of such animation were used, mostly scenes that show digital "terrain" or patterns, or include vehicles such as light-cycles, tanks and ships.

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13.

At the time, Tron was the only film to have scenes filmed inside this lab.

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14.

Tron was released on July 9, 1982, in 1, 091 theaters in the United States and Canada grossing USD $4 million on its opening weekend.

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15.

Tron was featured in Siskel and Ebert's video pick of the week in 1993.

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16.

Colin Greenland reviewed the home video release of Tron for Imagine magazine, and stated that "three plucky young programmers descend into the micro-world to battle the Master Control Program with a sacred frisbee.

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17.

Tron developed into a cult film and was ranked as 13th in a 2010 list of the top 20 cult films published by The Boston Globe.

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18.

Novelization of Tron was released in 1982, written by American science fiction novelist Brian Daley.

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19.

Tron made its television debut as part of the Disney Channel's first day of programming, on April 18, 1983, at 7:00PM.

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20.

Tron was originally released on VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, and CED Videodisc in 1983.

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21.

Tron was featured in a 5-Disc Blu-ray Combo with the 3D copy of Tron: Legacy.

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