Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Tron’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

It's interesting how some films, that were in essence designed to capture the spirit of the times, which in turn should make them dated; have become iconic and legendary on so many levels. They are films that have truly captured the feel of an era, and the joy that comes with it. 

These are the movies we pop into our DVD, or VCR player for some, to transport us back in time to our youth or whatever memories resonate when we first saw these films and one such motion picture fits into all that and still brings about an incredible sense of magic and wonder after all these years, Tron.

The plot of this film is one we all know, so no need to cover that today, instead, let's talk about what makes this film so incredibly magical and memorable because this is a film that everyone looks upon so fondly when they discuss it and there are several good reasons for that. One of which, is that despite the fact that to an extent the film seems dated in this day and age, it is still considered to be groundbreaking and spectacular from a visual perspective.

Sure we know a good majority of the special effects for this film were put together at the dawn of the CGI era, and well...folks simply don't care. For one, it's neat to look back at this film to see how far we've come in terms of computer-generated effects and also because, a lot of these effects still look incredibly good. The light cycle scene is still stunning and thrilling to this day and there is still something new for our eyes to discover, thanks to Blu Ray, when it comes to the amount of detail that was put into all the costumes and vehicles that appear on screen.

But really, what makes Tron such a beloved film, is its nostalgia factor. This is a motion picture that harkens back to the classic science fiction of the 1950's, where we didn't quite understand atomic technology and what it could do. The same applies here, computers and computing were a brave new world when this movie was released in 1982, and their function and potential at the time were woefully misunderstood and well, the end result is a creative and majestic journey that still manages to enthrall us to this day. Either way, Tron is truly a modern classic, one that deserves a place in our home video collections and one that should be revisited and shared as often as possible.

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