Greetings, Programs!

Cinerama had a special showing of Tron in 70 mm tonight, which I couldn't pass up. An homage to time-share mainframe computing, 8-bit arcade games and the kids who hung out in said arcades, command-line teletype interfaces portrayed as word processors, art deco esthetics, and the public's complete misunderstanding of computer technology. Every scientist wears over-sized glasses, computers alternate between near perfect voice interfaces and having to dump everything out to a line printer, corduroy and polyester rule the day, lasers require entire power plant complexes to run, and the CG effects consists of maybe a hundred Lambert-shaded polygons that can be out-done by the computing power in a modern singing greeting card.

Still, there is something visionary about the CG sequences, glowing lines of power, and the crazy-ass electronica music. The film actually has very little CG in it, with most of the look achieved through lighting and camera techniques taken to 11, and the dialogue is appallingly silly at times, but it was still a formative movie for me as an impressionable youth of 12.

The audience was mostly 20-something hipsters, and while they giggled at much of the dumber lines, they applauded loudly for the opening and closing credits. As a bonus, not a single commercial or movie trailer was shown.