“Tron” The first full-scale CG movie in history, the long road to birth (Part 1)

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2020.05.15Takayuki Oguchi

"Tron" synopsis

Kevin Flynn, a genius engineer and former employee of the IT company Encom, develops The Game``Space Paranoid,'' but all the data is stolen by his colleague Dillinger. Dillinger's own work, ``Space Paranoid,'' became a huge hit. After that, Dillinger rose through the ranks and rose to become the president of ENCOM. Meanwhile, Flynn is exiled to become the master of a remote The Game center. Flynn then attempts to hack into Encom in order to obtain evidence of plagiarism.

In 1982, computers were not yet commonplace. Suddenly, a very innovative movie comes out from Disney. It was set in cyberspace inside a computer, and made extensive use of computer graphics (CG), which was still largely unknown to the general public. However, it took a very long run-up period to get there.

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"Tron" synopsis

Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), a former employee of the IT company Encom, has the rights to The Game he created stolen by his colleague Dillinger (David Warner). The Game was a big hit, and he quickly rose to become president of Encom, but Flynn was forced out.

Flynn tries to hack into Encom in order to find evidence of plagiarism. Encom employee Alan (Bruce Boxleitner) hears about this and visits Flynn with his girlfriend Laura (Cindy Morgan). Flynn explains the reason and asks for direct access from within Encom.

Flynn infiltrates Encom and attempts to hack into Laura's computer, but it is suddenly digitized and taken into cyberspace. Flynn is captured as a rogue program and trained as The Game player. There, Alan meets Tron(Bruce Boxleitner), a security program created by Alan.

“Tron” preview

Boycott of the Moscow Olympics

The Tokyo Olympics were postponed due to the effects of the new coronavirus, but did you know that "Tron" was also born from issues related to the Olympics?

Around 1978, film producer Donald Kushner and animation director Steven Lisberger were looking to make a buck by tying their games to the Olympics.

They first created a 30-minute cel-animated work (*1) called ``Animalympics: Winter Games'' to coincide with the ``Lake Placid Winter Olympics '' to be held in February 1980 in the United States. The story was about animals competing in Olympic competitions, and it was broadcast on February 1, 1980 by NBC, one of the three major American networks, and was well received.

『Animalympics: Winter Games』

At the time, the Olympics were held simultaneously in winter and summer, so the contract with NBC meant that the second part, Animalympics: Summer Games, would be produced at the same time as the Moscow Olympics in July.

However, in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that began on December 24, 1979, President Carter of the United States advocated a boycott of the Moscow Olympics. Approximately 50 countries agreed to this.

Because of this, NBC unilaterally terminated its broadcasting contract with Lisberger Studios. Still, Lisberger Studio did not give up and re-edited the winter and summer editions, added more scenes, and created the theatrical version of ``Animalimpics'' (1980, unreleased in Japanese theaters) with a total length of 1 hour and 18 minutes. ) was created for overseas use. However, the film was never released theatrically, and Warner Bros. only acquired VHS and CATV distribution rights.

*1 This work makes extensive use of transmitted light, and you can certainly tell that it's the work of the director of ``Tron.'' Incidentally, Brad Bird, who would later go on to direct `` The Iron Giant '' (1999), ` `The Incredibles '' (2004), and `` Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol '' (11), also participated as an animator.

Planning for “Tron” begins

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