Tron - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Tron or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Tron

[kristina]

Composer Wendy Carlos' score for the film was unavailable on CD for many years due to the severe degradation of the original analogue master tapes. By the time of the film's 20th Anniversary, techniques had been developed which allowed the tapes to be temporarily restored to a playable condition for digital re-mastering.

[veronica]

One of the inspirations for the film was Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus.

[fred]

Wendy Carlos' score was recorded using the same Moog modular synthesizer used for her groundbreaking "Switched-On Bach" LP in 1968, as well as her previous film scores for "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Shining". Also used was Carlos' then-cutting edge GDS digital synthesizer, as well as the live London Philharmonic Orchestra. The Tron soundtrack, therefore, at the time represented a hybrid of three generations of music production: past (live orchestra), present (analog synthesis), and future (digital synthesis).

[jessie]

Although now regarded as a special effects milestone, in truth only about 20 minutes of TRON (1982) consists of its highly influential animation techniques.

[sylvia]

Due to the poor return at the box office, following this film and its predecessor The Black Hole (1979), Disney Studios did not make another live subject film for ten years.

[ken]

According to Hollywood Treasure: Comic Con-Quest (2010), Cindy Morgan traded her Yori costume for a Lexus.

[terry]

Sound effects designer and synthesizer Frank Serafine achieved the unique soundtrack by processing various everyday noises through a Fairlight CMI digital synthesizer at different speeds. For example, the slowed-down purr of Lisberger's pet cat became the "Master Control Program" rumble, screeching monkeys were used to simulate the throwing noise of the "Identity Discs," and virtual explosions were created by popping firecrackers inside a warehouse. The "Solar Sailer" was the modified sound of a Goodyear blimp.

[toni]

Although the film was an initial failure, the arcade video games based on it proved to be a tremendous hit and actually out-grossed the film.

[caroline]

As long as the real and virtual worlds are controlled by the MCP, the whole movie is set in night time in both worlds. Once the MCP is defeated, the last virtual world shot shows characters contemplating the horizon, with the "sky" slowly fading to lighter colors as if the day was coming. Then, back to the real world, the remaining shots show a sunrise thru Dillinger's office windows, followed by Flynn's helicopter coming down with the only full daylight shot of the whole movie.

[bernard]

In the novelization, the final printout Flynn gets is very different from the one shown in the movie; it is more detailed and complicated, shown as a database-like list, and it shows evidence that Dillinger stole several game programs, not just Space Paranoids. The filmmakers may have originally had this list in the film and decided to simplify it so the audience would have no trouble knowing exactly what the printout says. The shots of the printout - and the readout on Dillingers desk computer - are inserts, and a wider shot of Dillinger sinking into his chair looking at the screen clearly shows a readout identical to the one in the novelization. (See also Goofs)

[clayton]

The original plan was to have the circuit lines of the "good" programs glow yellow, and the "bad" programs would have blue circuit lines. At one point, this was changed to where good programs are blue, and evil ones are red. Some of the original coloring remains, mostly in tank programs (Clu has yellow lines on his uniform, and all of Sark's tank commanders are pale green). But Flynn takes on this greenish tint after he crashes the recognizer and gets knocked out, shortly after he gets up he returns to the normal blue. This is also seen some shots in the original theatrical trailer, Master Control appears blue in one shot and in many shots of the main characters they appear yellow.

[marc]

Co-writer Bonnie MacBird first studied computer programming with paper and pencil in the 1960s during junior high school. While attending Stanford she made punch cards for use on a PDP-11 minicomputer at night when students were allowed access, and played a rudimentary version of Pong with lights on the computer's control board. Before joining Steven Lisberger's company, MacBird worked as a mid-level story executive at Universal Studios where she tried unsuccessfully to get their story department to put their records in a database. It was MacBird's suggestion to Lisberger that they get computer pioneer Alan Kay as a consultant on the film they were developing. MacBird sent versions of the script via acoustic coupler to Xerox Palo Alto Research Center where Kay helped her edit them on the company's early version of a personal computer called the Alto. MacBird believes this makes her the first screenwriter to edit a screenplay on a computer, but chose the closest approximation to industry standard Courier font available so the studio would think it was typewritten. The character of Alan Bradley was based in part on Kay, and, along with the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, the lab in the film was based on Kay's lab at Xerox PARC. Kay and MacBird married in 1983.

[beth]

Flynn's personal computer, which he uses to interact with CLU and hack into the ENCOM mainframe, is an Apple III (///) desktop computer with a monochrome green-on-black monitor.