If Tron was any more ‘80s, it'd be wearing legwarmers and listening to Adam Ant on a Walkman. With its arcadeinspired plot, synth-heavy soundtrack and splashes of neon, Disney's 1982 sci-fi fantasy is unmistakably a product of its time. Beneath its retro aesthetic, though, is a groundbreaking film that sowed the seeds of modern CGI, pioneering production techniques so radical it was allegedly banned from receiving a Special Effects Oscar nomination because the Academy viewed computer-generated effects as “cheating”.
“I cannot stress heavily enough how absolutely terrified people in Hollywood were of what a future might be like where computers were an integral part of making movies,” says director Steven Lisberger, who had the idea for Tron when he was working on Animalympics, a kids’ animated TV movie commissioned by NBC as part of its 1980 Olympics coverage.
During the production, artist John Norton drew an image of a stylised neon warrior hurling a glowing frisbee and, when Lisberger saw early computer graphics being developed, especially the videogame , he knew the time was right to try to bring the warrior to life. “Because was based on the games of the ancient Olympics,” he says, “I decided to set the neon warrior, now called Tron [], in the world of videogames, but this time the game arena would be based on the Roman gladiatorial games. I always loved the film and thought that type of story
