OFF: Metropolis

[Alastair Lee Sumner]

There is a 'Making of' documentary on disk 2 where it is explained how they
did the CG parts like the lightcycle sequence. There was no animation
software to visualise it and all the numbers had to be worked out. Then
they would give the lists of thousands of numbers to the programmers and
they would type them all into the computer.

It's not really special effects that do it for me though. It's the idea of
the film, a world inside the computer. When it was originally shown there
were captions at the beginning where the idea was explained because the
makers thought that it would go over most people's heads at the time. Only
computer people and arcade kids would get it. Also this was a very
visionary and experimental film for which the makers had alot of passion.
So even though it's cheesy in parts and apparently didn't do as well as
expected at the box office, with it's heavy backlit animation and strange
music by Wendy Carlos, I think it still remains unique.

Anyway, the idea of vehicles that turn at pure right angles has never been
bettered and is the reason why I haven't been listening to much Hawkwind
since I got the DVD :)

Oh yeah, and there are rumours of a Tron 2.0

Regards,
Alastair.

On Thu, 14 Feb 2002 21:08:35 -0500, Tim <ma-paharper at IOPENER.NET> wrote:

>Hard to believe that it was once `the cutting edge of motion picture
>technology'!!!!
>tim
>Joe Loehr wrote:
> >
> > In a message dated 2/14/02 12:53:43 PM US Eastern Standard Time,
> > dave.bunn at NTLWORLD.COM writes:
> >
> >
> > > Tron!!!  LoL - wow last time I saw that I was stoned off me ass - Jeff
> > > Bridges right?
> > >
> > > Yep, and Bruce Boxleitener (spelling?) for he is the one that is -
Capt
> > > Sheridan.
> > >
> >
> > Didya also notice that Peter Jurasik (Londo) was also in Tron. He's the
first
> > "guy" Bridges fights on the game floor.
> >
> > Joe