Tron

Tron (1982) starts with a programmer trying to break into the systems of the company that stole his games. The system digitises him and pulls him inside, and he finds a world where programs are enslaved and made to play games. The idea was strange for its moment: the inside of a computer shown as a place. Half the legend is how the images were made. Only fifteen to twenty minutes of the film is actual computer animation: digital terrain, light cycles, tanks and ships. Most of the rest was achieved with backlit animation, using Kodalith film and layered cels, typically twelve camera passes per shot and sometimes as many as fifty. Over 569 people worked in post production, 200 of them inkers and hand painters. The film was not nominated for Best Visual Effects. Director Steven Lisberger offered his own explanation: he believed Academy voters thought they had cheated by using computers. It was nominated for costume design and sound. It cost 17 million dollars and grossed 50 million worldwide. Disney treated that as a disappointment and wrote off part of the budget. Merchandise, on the other hand, brought in 70 million at wholesale. It runs 96 minutes. Good for: visual experiment, eighties science fiction, and the history of film technology. Less good for: the story and characters lag far behind the images. The rules inside the system are inconsistent and the dialogue is thick with jargon; following what the film is saying is much harder than watching it.