Stories by Ken Gagne

Knoll on CGI, Tron and 25 years of change

In 1982, Disney studios released Tron, one of the first films from a major studio to feature extensive computer graphics. The movie is about a programmer (Jeff Bridges) who gets "digitized" and finds himself inside a computer where he is forced to play the gladiatorial games he wrote. (Bridges' character eventually escapes and sets out to topple the despotic Master Control Program, or MCP.) Even though Tron was something of a milestone for computer-generated imagery, it met with little success at the box office and failed to garner a special effects nomination from the Motion Picture Academy. At the time, the Academy considered the use of computers in films as "cheating."