Today when moviegoers see highly successful computer-animated films such as Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Dinosaur, or Monsters, Inc., they often don’t realize that the technology for such films has only been around for two short decades. TRON, originally released in 1982, was actually the first motion picture to make extensive use of computer imagery, and this pioneering effort required much expertise and imagination on the part of the filmmakers. Although computer-generated special effects had previously been seen in motion pictures such as Star Wars and West World, TRON was the first film to use the technique to create a three-dimensional world. The idea for the film grew out of director Steven Lisberger’s deep passion for video games. Why, he thought, couldn’t the world of video games be transferred to the movie screen?

Partnering with producer Donald Kushner, Lisberger spent two years researching the technology needed to make the film, which would be his live-action directorial debut. Computer graphics had first been applied to aerospace and scientific research in the mid-1960s, when methods of simulating objects digitally in all of their dimensions proved as effective as building models. The technology was then adopted by the entertainment industry. The production team for TRON hired four digital effects companies to provide the computer imagery needed for the film as the Disney Studio didn’t have the computer capacity to do the work in house. In fact, MAGI, the single largest contributor of computer imagery for TRON, sped up the process of supplying its work to the Disney Studios in Burbank by a transcontinental computer hook-up from its New York offices. The computer link cut between two-and-a-half to five days from the creation of each scene. Such a feat, which was played up by the Disney publicity people, seems commonplace these days, but in the early 1980s computers were just becoming popular for home and office use, and it was most unusual.

The result of this painstakingly difficult work in computer graphics was a well-received motion picture that intrigued movie audiences with its never-seen-before technology. TRON was nominated for two Academy Awards®, for Sound and Costume Design, and today is rightly regarded as a groundbreaking part of film history.