First shot of animation; the opening light cycle sequence.

Not classified as animated film, even though most of it is made in backlight animation, including the work of over 200 ink and paint artists. And zero people from Disney animation contributed in any capacity. Which is probably why the little green scout bugs are the only computer animated element with personality and life, all the vehicles move with mathematic coldness.

This movie just starts, then just ends. We’re immediately inside the computer world and getting lore dumps before we meet our human characters, and as soon as the MCP dies Flynn gets a helicopter The End. It all feels like a studio having just enough cash on hand to bet on a long shot, and a young weirdo in the right place to answer the call.

If I saw this movie at a certain age it would have been my life. The digital sky that can resolve equally into the computer world and the real, CLU’s tank set, Sark’s battleship, it would have rewired my entire child brain. The ship and cycles are classic Syd Mead, and the Moebius design on the costumes become much clearer in set photos when they aren’t glowing.

It’s the sort of really simple story that does have avenues for more to think about it. The programs get much more interesting when you think of them as what their programmers want to exist in the digital world. Flynn wants a direct hunter, but Alan wants a simple and earnest hero. Programs are also nonmanogamous because the lady one makes out with Flynn and Tron two minutes apart and nobody thinks anything of it.

The MCP’s backstory as a chess program grown beyond its bounds must have felt prescient in a pre-Deep Blue world where we thought computers that did “smart people coded” things would be the path to intelligence, but it probably dates the story more than anything. That and the matte lines.

David Warner was the best. This was back to back with Time Bandits, just a whole life of being evil for kids.