sf-lovers (07/28/82)
>From JPM@MIT-AI Wed Jul 28 04:08:00 1982
SF-LOVERS Digest Friday, 23 Jul 1982 Volume 6 : Issue 23
Today's Topics:
SF Movies - TRON,
Spoiler - TRON
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Date: 17 Jul 1982 03:44:46-PDT
From: decvax!duke!uok!uokvax!mwm at Berkeley
Subject: TRON
Tron opened today, and after reading the book (yes, I stooped that
low), I had to go see it.
Mini Review: GREAT Grafix/sfx. Plot? What Plot?
TRON does not suffer from the one flaw in Star Wars: at no point
during TRON do they let the plot get in the way of the movie, which
occasionally happened in Star Wars.
TRON will undoubtedly become a cult movie, being pre-target at the
CS/Grafix freaks. I recommend see it, at least once. If you're a
hard-core Grafix person, see it again, and again, and ... You might
also consider reading the book, as it's slightly better sf (but who
can tell at those depths?).
mike
------------------------------
Date: 18 July 1982 22:25 edt
From: Frankston.SoftArts at MIT-MULTICS
Reply-to: Frankston at MIT-MULTICS (Bob Frankston)
Subject: BOZOS:TRON::Doctor (nee Eliza):Video Games
The corruption of terminology in TRON reminds me of the Firesign
Theatre album "We're all Bozos on this Bus" (or somesuch title). It
sounds like that starting points was a demonstration on the Lisp
Doctor program. It was invoked via "(worker)". Use of the term MAC
sounded like a reference to project MAC.
TRON was a fairly impressive hack, but much of the humor came from the
writer's misuse of words that sounded nice but were totally
inappropriate (like de-resed). I just took the attitude that TRON was
simply a vehicle for cute graphics and some action.
One question -- why human faces instead of computer-generated faces.
We it simply too much of a technical annoyance or was it felt that the
human faces were need as a reference for the audience.
------------------------------
Date: 26-Jul-82 9:48:56 EDT
From: duntemann.wbst
Subject: See TRON anyway
An awful lot of my friends, including a good many respected hackers,
are avoiding TRON before the fact as being silly, juvenile, and not
worth the money. Two out of three maybe...but I saw it the other
night, and it was fully worth the money. Not for the plot (hilarious)
or the characters (what characters?) but for the G R A P H I C S
!!!!!!!!
You guys have never seen computer graphics like they throw around
wholesale in that movie. Even if you have seen little things running
around on a 19" RGB monitor with 1024 X 1024 resolution, seeing it up
on the big screen is QUITE another matter. It is one the most
beautifully done evocations of an utterly alien world I have ever seen
on film. Once you insert actors it loses something, granted. But the
wide views of a solar sailer sliding down a beam of light over
geometric purple mountains was magnificent.
And as for its juvenile silliness, well, heck; try to lay back and
just let it take you. SF is for lots of different things; this one
exists primarily to help you forget mortgage payments, dropped
transmissions, and why the dog's been throwing up all week. To me
that's worth 4 bucks.
I also saw The Secret of NIMH, and I'll include a quickie opinion
(since it's waythehellout in the hinterlands of appropriateness here)
when I have a little more time.
--Jeff Duntemann (duntemann.wbst at PARC-MAXC)
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jul 1982 2144-EDT
From: JHENDLER at BBNA
Subject: TRON
To avoid being redundant I will not mention that this is a great movie
for hackers and video game players, while leaving something to be
desired for the rest of the world. Instead, I'd like to throw in a
quick reference to my favorite scene, The little green cubbies where
the hackers worked. As a hacker who works in one of these little
suckers I couldn't avoid a chuckle.
All hail Herman-Miller
-Jim Hendler
TI Dallas
------------------------------
Date: 07/21/82 00:04:01
From: LWF@MIT-MC
Subject: TRON
A fact that may interest some people is that while 65% of the movie
was computer animation, it only accounted for 20% of the movie's
budget.
------------------------------
Date: Tuesday, July 27, 1982 3:10AM
From: Jim McGrath (The Moderator) <JPM at MIT-AI>
Subject: SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING!
The following ten messages in this digest discuss some plot details in
the movie TRON. They may not wish to read on.
------------------------------
Date: 16 July 1982 07:29-EDT
From: Christopher C. Stacy <CStacy at MIT-AI>
Subject: TRON spoiler
Aside from the flashy computer graphics, which are as excellent as
they are cracked up to be, I thought I would share a few of the more
intense scenes from the creative script of TRON with all you Spoiler
Lovers:
1. Flybys of big space ships.
2. The evil Sark Lord talking to his Master.
3. Hack Solo acting like his usual cocky self.
4. The old IO tower, a religious fanatic who is perhaps more
than he seems, mumbling mystical mumblage at Luke.
This is followed by music sounding similar to "Yoda's Theme".
5. The Millenium Lightsail being coaxed into hyperspace for a fast,
dramatic, and temporary escape from the Imperial battle cruiser.
6. To introduce the final light-disk duel, the evil MCP feels
a disturbance...slowely he says:
"I feel a presence...there is another warrior on the grid!"
Indeed, it feels like a presence we've not felt in years!
Cheers,
Chris
PS., In the theatre I saw the movie in, they were showing Star Wars
reruns commercials before the main feature began.
------------------------------
Date: 23 Jul 1982 05:38:50-PDT
From: decvax!duke!uok!uokvax!jejones at Berkeley
Subject: TRON as Disney allegory
The review of TRON on NPR's "Morning Edition" show made an interesting
point: one can point out possible similarities between Dillinger's
takeover of ENCOM and an alleged (not being a follower of Disney
internals, I couldn't say) move of business types into control of the
organization Walt Disney built--after all, the reviewer said, ENCOM is
rather similar as an acronym to EPCOT (Experimental Prototype
Community Of Tomorrow, which is going up at some Disney park), and the
first name of Dr. Gibbs, who built up ENCOM from a garage business,
*is* Walter.
Oh, well--Gerald Weinberg must not like TRON at all. I did, though,
for the effects, and having experienced a fair number of programs (not
to mention possibly at least one devoutly-worshipped programming
language) that may reflect their creators only too well. (I'm sure
mine do.)
One question, though. TRON, like TWoK, lacked a good deal of
supporting detail which could only be found in the novelization (which
I think I'd like to have seen, though budgets may be a limitation).
I'd be interested in hearing some cinematic flames on why the holes
were (if indeed they were) so gaping in these movies when compared to,
say, *Star Wars*, which, as a friend so felicitously said, never let
the plot get in the way of the movie.
James Jones
(duke!uok!uokvax!jejones)
------------------------------
Date: 16 July 1982 10:55 edt
From: Barry Margolin at MIT-MULTICS
Subject: TRON and gratuitous sex
Possibly a spoiler warning:
Yes, the female part in the TRON movie was pretty gratuitous, but that
is standard fare these days, so don't expect any better.
The book makes a much bigger deal over her, and it is much more
effective. In the book, Tron is motivated during the first half by
two things: his innate desire to do what his User (the book always
capitalized the term) wanted, i.e. destroy the MCP, and his desire to
see his beloved again. Every time the narration entered his mind,
there was always the mention of "the one for whom he lived" (or
something along those lines).
The book actually had a scene in Yori's "apartment", and described how
programs "do it" to some extent. It turns out that programs do not
actually kiss, but at the end of the story Flynn kisses Yori, and she
is confused. However, she enjoyed it so much that after she is
reunited with Tron (after he defeats the MCP) she kisses him,
explaining that that is something that Users do.
barmar
------------------------------
Date: 16 Jul 1982 1826-PDT
From: Craig W. Reynolds <REYNOLDS at RAND-AI>
Subject: TRON nits
To CHUQUI@MIT-AI: well yes, meaningless sex scenes are a lose, but
TRON didn't have a sex scene. There was some dialogue that indicated
that Flynn and Lora used to be lovers and that Alan and Lora currently
were. By analogy, the "electronic alter egos" of these characters
appealed to each other. We see FLYNN (the program) kiss YORI, and
later she shows TRON this bit of user-chic. This is gratuitous sex?
Also, the MCP was not written by Dillinger, SARK is the embodiment of
his contributions to the system. The MCP is supposed to be a truely
Artificially Intelligent entity which "started as a chess program",
back when Gibbs was a young hacker. Mostly it programmed itself.
There was also some crack about TRON being "...a 50 year old's idea of
what kids would like ...". The basic story of TRON was by Steve
Lisberger who is currently 31 years old. I can't think of anyone who
was in a major creative position who was older than 38. No "old Disney
hands" had any significant input to this project. Remember, "The
Secret of NIMH" (no not the National Institutes of...) was the Disney
movie that Disney didn't make and TRON was the non-Disney movie that
Disney produced.
-c
------------------------------
Date: 16 July 1982 17:16-EDT
From: Andrew Scott Beals <BANDY at MIT-AI>
Subject: TRON
I'm replying to Chuck's message replying to me.
I guess I can accept (sort of) an alter-ego approach to programs.
However, I can ``feel'' this a lot better in an operating system than
in a program.
Take, for instance, UNIX(tm). It's a GREAT system to develop software
on...to me, it feels comfortable (v7 sh), but I prefer C-shell
(written not by Bourne at Bell, but by someone at Berkeley). I can
feel the difference between the two.
Hopping to (ugh!^3) EXEC-8 is one hell of a shock. From an environment
which promotes experimenting and poking I end up in an environment
which is openly hostile to everyone, including the people who wrote it
(personally, I think that they're all on death row awaiting
execution...).
However, personifying them seems a bit far-fetched. It seems that this
is just a matter of personal ability to suspend disbelief (ramble,
ramble...).
- Andy
------------------------------
Date: 16 Jul 1982 1357-PDT
From: Dolata at SUMEX-AIM
Subject: Programs mirroring authors
I went to a seminar a few months ago in which the topic was the
program/ programmer interactions. The fellow had a number of
examples of how the program closely mirrors the environment around it.
For example, groups working with the IBM team concept ( a hierarchical
structure, a manager with about 7 subordinates (teams or proggers))
tended to produce code with lots of subroutine calls, and definite
hierarchical flow of control, while more democratic teams produce
co-routines, agenda driven mechanisms, etc. He also told about a
company that wanted to create a two pass compiler. They put 6 proggers
on it who worked best in three teams of two, and created a three pass
compiler. Another interesting note was that the proggers tend to
think that the higher level code is interesting and needs more work,
while managers generally tend to feel that the nitty-gritty code is
what needs to be worked on!
This kept coming into my mind when I saw TRON.
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jul 1982 05:09:23-PDT
From: decvax!duke!uok!uokvax!jejones at Berkeley
Subject: Origin of Tron
Anyone who has used Microsoft Basic can tell you that TRON is the
command that turns on statement execution tracing, listing the line
numbers of statements as they are executed. (I hope no one makes a
movie called TROFF...)
James Jones
duke!uok!uokvax!jejones
------------------------------
Date: 16 July 1982 13:57 edt
From: York.Multics at MIT-MULTICS (William M. York)
Subject: shadows
Craig,
The shadows mentioned by people were REAL shadows that intruded into
the animation via whatever rotoscoping technique was used (it looked
like blue-screen or something). It was most noticible when the guard
is walking across the transparent tops of the holding cells where
Flynn, RAM, and Tron are held prisoner.
Bill
[ Forwarded by Craig W. Reynolds <REYNOLDS at RAND-AI> -- Jim ]
------------------------------
Date: 17 Jul 1982 1831-PDT
From: Craig W. Reynolds <REYNOLDS at RAND-AI>
Subject: Re: shadows
I remember the scene you mention. I didn't see that set myself, but I
think there was actually a shiney transparent sheet that the guard was
standing on, and that the "extra" image was a reflection, not a
shadow. Since the set pieces were flat black, it was usually easy to
lose any shadow in the photo-roto step. Also the lighting for the
original photography of the "electronic world" was always very flat
and diffuse to reduce shading and shadowing of the white (with black
"circuits") costumes.
-c
------------------------------
Date: Sunday, 18 July 1982 00:01-EDT
From: G.JMTURN at MIT-EECS
Subject: TRON and the real world.
I just got back from seeing TRON, and in one respect, I think the
movie comes very close to reality. Let me demonstrate by way of a
question: In what way is Dillenger and the MCP different than your
local sysop and operating system? Answer: The sysop makes less money.
Ah, you argue, but the MCP stole programs, an operating system is
supposed to prevent this! The problem is that given an OS, someone has
to have the key. This person then has access to all the data on the
system. Now, in theory, the people running the system are supposed to
be responsible. But in reality, the kind of people attracted to this
kind of work are the last people you want doing it. I have found that,
like in any "enforcement" situation, the enforcers tend to go off on a
power trip.
Reality copies fiction still more. This week, someone used a wheel
account on MIT-OZ to do nasty things. What was the reaction of the
system managers? They revoked most of the wheel and operator accounts.
Now if I can just forge myself a level 6 account...gee, where did that
laser come from...?
Note: That wasn't a true bit! It was Tri-state.
James
P.S. I'm not saying that all system managers are twits, but most that
I've had occasion to meet are. It something like security at a con,
anyone who want to do it should be the last person to pick.
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End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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