“Tron” The first full-scale CG movie in history, the long road to birth (Part 2)

music

As for the music, sound/music director Michael Flemer asked Wendy Carlos (*6). When Carlos worked on Stanley Kubrick's `` The Shining '' (1980), he created a synthesized version of the fifth movement of Berlioz's ``Symphony Fantastique'' (a piece based on the melody of the Gregorian chant ``Day of Wrath'') that plays at the beginning. He had the experience of having about an hour's worth of recorded tapes stored away without his consent.

As a result, she had some distrust of film music, but since Framer is a huge fan of hers and was interested in the film's concept, she accepted the offer. The song was recorded using a digital synth track by Carlos over live performance by the London Symphony Orchestra. The last song, "Shinou," is a solo performance by Carlos.

*6 Her former name was Walter Carlos.moog synthesizerplayed “Switched on Bach” was released in 1968, and it became a huge hit, making the world aware of the existence of electronic musical instruments called synthesizers. However, she suffered from gender identity disorder, and in 1972 underwent sex reassignment surgery and changed her name to Wendy.

As for film music, he also participated in director Kubrick's `` A Clockwork Orange Orange'' (1971), which included almost all of the songs. By the way, Kubrick also wrote the composition for ` `2001: A Space Odyssey '' (68).alex northMusic by the artist was rejected without the person's consent.

Publication and its aftermath

In this way, ``Tron'' became the world's first movie to fully use CG, and was released in 1982. However, in the United States, it was a commercial failure, partly because it was released immediately after Spielberg's blockbuster `` ET '' (1982).

However, even if it didn't have a strong rival like ``ET,'' it seems unlikely that it would have been a hit. It was not yet an era when the average person had a computer, and the technical terminology was very simple to the general public. In particular, I wonder how many people were able to understand the core of the story: ``Some programs run away from the user's will.''

Furthermore, despite using such innovative techniques, it was not nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. The reason was that using a computer was deemed to be ``cheating''. I feel this is extremely stupid, but similar things have happened several times since then.

"The matrix" trailer

However, the idea for this film came to fruition in cyberpunk novels , films such as Virtual Wars (1992), Virtuosity (1995), and above all, The matrix (1999). Furthermore, today, the `` Tron ''-like world has become a daily scene, with Avatar living in the Metaverse , ALife used in medicine and evolutionary biology, and computer viruses that continue to evolve every day.

However, more than anything else, this film should be praised for its role in making many people around the world aware of the existence of CG. As a result of this work, many CG productions were born in America, Japan, Europe, and other countries.

John Lasseter's reaction