It’s been 40 years since ‘Tron’, the movie that prophesied the Metaverse

Seen now, a an almost abstract yet prophetic movie in a world dominated by virtual reality: the story of a programmer transported inside a video game or the adventures of a human being faced with artificial intelligence in a digital universe. It wasn’t a hit in the US and Canada for under €5m on its opening weekend – but it didn’t take long to become a hit. cult movie and its effect in video games, computers and ‘Wreck-It Ralph!’ such as animations. we follow the relevance five keys:

Virtuality and metastore

At the end of June, the Sitges festival announced that the 2022 edition will pay homage to 40 years of ‘Tron’, but above all give it the status of a groundbreaking film that introduces advanced concepts to wide-format cinema such as virtual reality, digital. hyperlink and (then nonexistent) metadata store. The movie actually told the story of a programmer, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges)a tech villain has stolen a successful program from him and will try to hack into the company’s central computer to expose the scam. What Flynn doesn’t know is that the computer has a conscience of its own and will pull him into its virtual inner world after turning it into a bit of a mix. There, our hero must face (or help) programs that are actually avatars of their creators, on an incredible journey to the metaverse ‘avant la lettre’. Not in vain, it was two years before he was born when it was released. Mark Zuckerberg.

Pioneer of 3D effects

‘Tron’ isn’t the first movie to feature three-dimensional computer-generated graphic effects, as that honor often falls into a short series. ‘The Future World’ (Richard T. Heffron, 1976), but was an absolute pioneer when it came to chattering the language of computer iconography. Captivated by the world of video games, director Steven Lisberger He presented a project to Disney with a ‘Tron’ embryo (a screenplay, ‘storyboards and visual effects blueprint) and the producer accepted the encouraging challenge, but box office result would be disappointing.

Today no one doubts that it’s a cult movie, but 40 years ago the public still wasn’t familiar with the concept of virtual reality or the digital images of those fascinating computer circuits that people had become simple. binary information.

Less than half of the 96 minutes the movie takes is digital. The action was filmed in black and whiteand colored using traditional photography and rotoscoping techniques, giving it that whimsical texture reminiscent of old Méliès cinema.

Strangely enough, ‘Tron’ not nominated for best visual effectsbecause at that time the Hollywood Academy did not take into account computer-generated gimmicks.

‘Tron’ legacy

Nearly thirty years after the film’s release, ‘Tron: Legacy’ revives infographic fantasy on an infinitely bigger budget – 17 million euros compared to 170 million euros including all inflation – but with more cautious results, the son of Jeff Bridges’ character turned into a programmer investigating his father’s disappearance.

Prior to this new cinematographic attack, the original film spawned a variety of products. video games ‘Tron 2.0’ (2003) and ‘Tron: evolution’ (2010)Situations and scenarios from other Disney video games planned as a sequel or sequel to the original movie, and various comic book miniseries: ‘Tron: ghost in the machine’ and ‘Tron betrayal’. Then came an animated television series, ‘Tron: uprising’ (2012-2013)his argument will be among those reported in the two feature films.

Daft Punk, the architects of ‘The French House’, was such a fan of ‘Tron’ that they eventually composed the music for ‘Tron: Legacy’.

Moebius and Syd Mead at work

Syd Mead and Jean ‘Giraud’ Moebiustwo fantasy and science fiction visionaries, the first from industrial design and the second from comics, who died in 2019 and 2012 respectively, only worked together once, and that was the design of the electronic world ‘Tron’, although some of them were in Moebius’ ‘Alien, the eighth passenger’ some of the things he practiced would be inherited by Mead in ‘Aliens, the return’.

In this understanding, each was interested in different events. electronic world. While Lieutenant Blueberry and the creator of ‘El incal’ initially handled the costume and set design, Mead did something very similar to what he would do on ‘Blade runner’ that same year, conceptualizing the vehicles, but he was apparently also responsible for the logo for that movie. peter lloydHaving passed away in 2009, starring in films such as ‘Mission to Mars’ and ‘The Day After Tomorrow’, training in advertising illustration, imagining environments and supervising digital effects, Dr.

What happened to their creators?

Only those most responsible for the making of the film Jeff Bridges He has gone on to a well-directed career, winning Oscar recognition in 2010 for his work on ‘Rebel Heart’ and titles such as ‘Starman’, ‘Tucker’, ‘The Fisher King’ and, above all, ‘The Big Lebowski’. . your co-star, Bruce Boxleitner, basically worked in television and repeated in the sequel. Manager Steven Lisberger He’s only made two more movies since then: ‘Hot, Hot Chase’ and ‘Slipstream (Wind Fury)’ – both of which need no revisions – despite being listed as a producer on ‘Tron: Legacy’. One of the participants in the script, Charles S HaasAlthough unnamed, he wrote two of Joe Dante’s films, ‘Gremlins 2: The New Breed’ and ‘Matinee’, and it seems the world then swallowed him up. Wendy Charles The electronic music of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ and his contribution to ‘The Shining’ fascinated him, but after ‘Tron’ he did nothing else in the movie.