TRON (1982)
Average Rating: 6.3/10
Reviews Counted: 47
Fresh: 33 | Rotten: 14
Though perhaps not as strong dramatically as it is technologically, TRON is an original and visually stunning piece of science fiction that represents a landmark work in the history of computer animation.
Average Rating: 4.6/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 2 | Rotten: 4
Though perhaps not as strong dramatically as it is technologically, TRON is an original and visually stunning piece of science fiction that represents a landmark work in the history of computer animation.
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Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 69,593
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Movie Info
One of the earliest feature films to reflect the video-game craze of the 1980s, Disney's Tron stars Jeff Bridges as computer programmer Kevin Flynn, who becomes part of the very game that he's programming. Flynn's principal antagonist is his glory-grabbing boss, Ed Dillinger (David Warner), who likewise metamorphoses into a video-game character. The title character, a computer-generated superhero, is played by Bruce Boxleitner. Though antiquated by 1990s standards, Tron represented the last word
Jul 9, 1982 Wide
Jan 15, 2002
Buena Vista Pictures
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Cast
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Jeff Bridges
Kevin Flynn/Clu -
Bruce Boxleitner
Alan Bradley/Tron -
David Warner
Ed Dillinger/Sark -
Cindy Morgan
Lora/Yori -
Barnard Hughes
Dr. Walter Gibbs/Dumont -
Dan Shor
Ram -
Peter Jurasik
Crom -
Jackson Bostwick
Head Guard -
Tony Brubaker
Guard -
Loyd Catlett
Conscript #1, Video Gam... -
Craig Chudy
Warrior -
Erik Cord
Tank Gunner -
Vince Deadrick Jr.
Warrior -
Michael Dudikoff
Conscript -
Bob Neill
Guard #2 -
Sam Schatz
Expert Disc Warrior -
Tony Stephano
Peter/Sark's Lieutenant -
Jack Manning
Bit -
Ted White
Guard #3 -
Gerald Berns
Guard #1 -
Mark Stewart
Guard #4 -
Charlie Picerni
Tank Commander -
Dave Cass
Factory Guard
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All Critics (47) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (39) | Rotten (14) | DVD (40)
For most people, TRON's importance is as a historical footnote. It's the Model T of our CGI age. But the film's fans are passionate ones.
It's a simple idea that ought to serve, but Lisberger's failures of pacing, structure, variation, and characterization ultimately make the film seem monotonous and distant.
Tron is loaded with visual delights but falls way short of the mark in story and viewer involvement.
Top CriticTron never reaches a level of excitement commensurate with its effects budget.
A dazzling movie from Walt Disney in which computers have been used to make themselves romantic and glamorous. Here's a technological sound-and-light show that is sensational and brainy, stylish, and fun.
Its computer sequences exist in a blue-gray scheme filled with flashing lights, speeding objects and dizzying motion. Its visual effects are wonderfully new. They are also numbing after a while.
Story isn't the point here, nor are complex characters, potent themes or arch conversations. The film exists as spectacle in its purest form.
More important for its revolutionary visual effects than anything else, the film is both entertaining and prescient.
There's an undeniable cart-before-the-horse aspect to Tron...but Lisberger's film will always stand as a touchstone in the development of CGI as a storytelling tool... [Blu-ray]
Perhaps one of the more stunning features in motion picture history, creatively adapting mistakes and hunting invention, shaping a movie that displays such curiosity with technology and boldness with sci-fi fantasy.
Comes together in a magnificent manner, hitting viewers with a gale force display of creativity and determination. It's a one-of-a-kind viewing event, guided with a trembling hand from Lisberger, who accomplishes the unthinkable.
...a hopelessly dated relic of the early 1980s...
Without the rosy filter of nostalgia, it's a virtually unwatchable virtual-reality saga.
Tron is at once a supremely silly movie and a groundbreaking one. It's best seen as the maiden voyage of an expedition that has led us to wonders like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings movies and Avatar.
Tron didn't just come up with a new special effects, it came up with new things to use those new kinds of special effects on.
It's as if Fritz Lang had set Metropolis, his silent, science-fiction classic, in a disco.
Dated and mediocre but kid-friendly sci-fi from Disney.
Not only does it introduce the humanity/technology themes that would surface in later cyberpunk fantasies, it boasts some of the most unique visuals in any film, then or now.
Although Tron's state-of-the-art, computer-generated visuals look primitive by current standards, it's intelligently conceived (on a visual level, at any rate) and largely good fun.
The movie's innovative digital special effects were jaw-dropping at the time and still seem pretty cool. But somehow the plot congeals early into an old-time medieval epic and gets pretty dull.
Dated effects, of course, but still nerdy fun after all these years.
Audience Reviews for TRON
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Alan Bradley/Tron: I still don't understand why you want to break into the system.
- Kevin Flynn/Clu: *Because*, man, *somewhere* in one of these memories is the *evidence*! If I got in far enough, I could reconstruct it.
Discussion Forum
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Latest News on TRON
April 5, 2011:
Bruce Boxleitner Talks TronsWith "Tron" and "Tron: Legacy" coming out on Blu-ray today, now is the perfect time for a chat with...
January 13, 2011:
Disney Prepping a Tron: Legacy Sequel?Could we be seeing a third "Tron" movie soon? That's the inside scoop from sources at Ain't It Cool...
December 17, 2010:
The Tron Cast: Where Are They Now?You know what Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner are up to, but what about the rest of the original...
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Foreign Titles
- Tron (DE)
- Tron (UK)

