TRON (4K UHD Review)
Director
Steven LisbergerRelease Date(s)
1982 (September 16, 2025)Studio(s)
Lisberger-Kushner Productions/Walt Disney Productions (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: B-
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: A
Review
Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges, The Big Lebowski) was a star programmer for the global software giant ENCOM, until an unscrupulous rival in the company, Ed Dillinger (David Warner, Time After Time), stole his game programs—including the wildly popular Space Paranoids—and took credit for them as his own work. So while Dillinger was quickly promoted and later designed the powerful Master Control Program, Flynn was fired and now makes a meager living running his own video game arcade.
Determined to prove that his games were stolen, Flynn’s been hacking into the ENCOM system in an effort to find the evidence. Dillinger and his MCP suspect what’s happening of course and quickly lock him out. But Flynn still has allies within the company, including its co-founder Walter Gibbs (Barnard Hughes, Oh, God!), Flynn’s ex-girlfriend Dr. Lora Baines (Cindy Morgan, Caddyshack), and his old partner, Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner, Babylon 5). So the latter sneak Flynn into the building late one night to help him out.
Little do they know that the MCP has become more than just a program—it’s now a powerful Artificial Intelligence that even Dillinger can’t control. And when Flynn attempts to log back into the system from a terminal in ENCOM’s science lab, the MCP uses a laser there to “digitize” him and send him to a virtual game Grid. What Flynn discovers there is an entire world within the computer system, where programs are fighting an epic battle for survival against the ruthless MCP and his digital deputy Sark (Warner). But Flynn is not alone, for he soon finds new allies in his battle, including RAM (Dan Shor, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure), TRON (Boxleitner), Yori (Morgan), and Bit.
Directed by Steven Lisberger (Hot Pursuit, Slipstream), Disney’s TRON was groundbreaking upon its release in 1982, as it was one of the first (pre-Pixar) films to employ extensive computer-generated imagery, primitive though they were at the time, produced by four then leading graphics companies—MAGI Synthavision, Robert Abel and Associates (who had essentially been fired by Paramount for failing to produce visual effects on time for Star Trek: The Motion Picture three years earlier), Digital Effects, and Information International. But just as importantly, the filmmakers recruited a trio of legendary artists to hone the look and feel of the film’s virtual world, including the industrial designer Syd Mead (Aliens, Blade Runner), the French comic book artist Jean Giraud aka Moebius (Blueberry, The Incal, The Fifth Element), and commercial illustrator Peter Lloyd (whose produced iconic artwork for Playboy and National Geographic magazines, as well as cover art for 1970-80s rock bands including Kansas). It also features terrific matte paintings by the great Harrison Ellenshaw (The Black Hole) who was also the visual effects supervisor.
But as groundbreaking and visually striking as it may have been, TRON was somewhat less than compelling dramatically. For one thing, the story here is paper thin, and the film’s dialogue is often ham-fisted and on the nose. The pacing is somewhat slow and plodding, and the film’s direction, editing, and score—a moody Moog synthesizer-based effort by Wendy Carlos (A Clockwork Orange)—don’t really help in this regard (though points for the Journey tracks). Still, the cast here does its best to keep things lively, and most of them deliver good performances. But it’s Bridges who really stands out, adding a touch of youthful idealism and goofy energy that’s really the key to what makes TRON work. And looking back now, it’s frankly remarkable just how much of “The Dude” was always a part of his personality, years before it reached its fully-refined purity in The Big Lebowski.
TRON was shot by cinematographer Bruce Logan (Big Bad Mama, visual effects for 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars) on a variety of film formats, including 35mm Panavision (anamorphic) and Super 35 for live-action “real world” scenes, 5-perf 65mm Super Panavision 70 for live action VFX plates, and 35mm 8-perf VistaVision for scanned out animation and computer generated elements. A variety of camera and lens combinations were employed, including Arriflex with Zeiss lenses, Mitchell FC 65 with Super Panavision 70 lenses, Panavision Panaflex Gold with Panavision C- and E- Series lenses, and VistaVision VistaFlex with Nikon lenses.
Per Disney’s director of restoration and library management Kevin Schaeffer, the original 65mm negative was scanned in 8K resolution, the VistaVision at 6K, and the 35mm at 4K by FotoKem. All of this material was then output at 4K and sent to Picture Shop for color grading and Prime Focus for extensive picture restoration (including dirt, stain, and scratch removal, warping correction, and damage restoration). This entire nine-month process was managed by The Walt Disney Film Restoration team with the supervision of director Steven Lisberger. For its release on Ultra HD, the resulting 4K Digital Intermediate (framed at the 2.20:1 aspect ratio) was also graded for high dynamic range (compatible with both Dolby Vision and HDR10) and encoded for release on a 66GB disc (with data rates in the 40-60 Mbps range).
The 4K image here is about as good as it could possibly be, certainly reference quality for this particular film, if perhaps not quite by traditional 4K film standards. Overall detail is very good, but this imagery (by its very nature) just doesn’t require the kind of exquisitely refined texturing that most live action does. Still the large format photography is impressive and results in an exceptionally clean looking clarity that’s impressive, with a photochemical grain structure that’s very fine indeed. (It’s possible that some of the “real world” footage has been grain managed a bit to match the large format’s clean look, but if so it’s light-handed and appropriate in this rather unique case.) But the colors! They’re absolutely stunning, bold looking and vibrant at all times thanks to the HDR grading. Best of all, the restoration team has managed to preserve the film’s pulsing, electrical effect that appears in program costumes and other elements. And aliasing that appeared in the original scanned out graphics has been well managed so it’s never distracting. Knowledgeable fans of TRON should be very pleased with this image indeed.
The 4K disc includes its primary audio in a new English Dolby Atmos mix created by Audio Mechanics (from the previously restored sound files) that’s quite good. The soundstage is big, wide, and tonally full, with abundant use of the height channels for atmospheric immersion. Flynn’s first battle with the actuarial program is a perfect example, as the “ball” pings off the ceiling and walls above you. Recognizers hover ominously around the listening space. The voice of Sark and the MCP filter down from the height channels. Best of all, the lightcycle grid comes alive with spaciousness and sonic whip-pans. Bass is perhaps a little modest, but then this film has never really been a low-frequency monster. Additional audio options include English 2.0 Descriptive Audio, French, Castilian Spanish, German, Italian, and Japanese 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Spanish and Czech 5.1 Dolby Digital, and Polish 2.0 Dolby Digital. Subtitles are available in English for the Hearing Impaired, French, Latin Spanish, Castilian Spanish, German, Italian, Czech, Polish, Japanese, Dutch, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish.
Disney and Sony’s new Ultra HD release is a 2-disc set, including the remastered film in 4K on UHD and also unremastered 1080p HD on Blu-ray (this is the exact same Blu-ray released by Disney in 2011). There are no extras on the 4K disc, but the Blu-ray includes the following:
- Audio Commentary with Steven Lisberger, Donald Kushner, Harrison Ellenshaw, and Richard Taylor
- The TRON Phenomenon (HD – 9:45)
- Photo TRONology (HD – 16:37)
- Original DVD Features
- Development
- Early Development of TRON (SD – 2:37)
- Early Lisberger Studios Animation (SD – :30)
- “Computers Are People Too” (SD – 4:28)
- Early Video Tests (SD – :31)
- Gallery*
- Digital Imagery
- Backlight Animation (SD – 1:39)
- Digital Imagery in TRON (SD – 3:44)
- “Beyond TRON” (SD – 4:00)
- Role of Triple I (SD – :34)
- Triple I Demo (SD – 2:15)
- The Making of TRON (SD – 88:21)
- Music
- Lightcycle Scene with Alternate Carlos Music Tracks (SD – 2:46)
- End Credits with Original Carlos Music (SD – 5:15)
- Publicity
- NATO (SD – 5:02)
- Work-in-Progress (SD – 1:26)
- Trailer #1 (SD – 2:35)
- Trailer #2 (SD – 1:34)
- Trailer #3 (SD – 1:01)
- Trailer #4 (SD – 1:34)
- Gallery*
- Deleted Scenes
- Introduction by Steven Lisberger (SD – 2:18)
- TRON and Yori’s Love Scene (SD – 1:56)
- TRON and Yori’s Love Scene #2 (SD – :44)
- Alternate Opening Prologue (SD – 1:21)
- Design
- Introduction by Steven Lisberger (SD – 1:10)
- Gallery*
- Lightcycles: Syd Mead Discusses Lightcycle Design (SD – 1:52)
- Lightcycles Magi Animation Tests (SD – :16)
- Recognizer: Space Paranoids Video Game – Letterbox (SD – :16)
- Recognizer: Space Paranoids Video Game – Full Screen (SD – :16)
- Storyboarding
- The Storyboarding Process (SD – 3:52)
- Creation of TRON Main Title – Moebius Storyboards (SD – :16)
- Gallery*
- Introduction by Bill Kroyer (SD – :51)
- Lightcycle Chase Storyboard Only (SD – 1:56)
- Lightcycle Chase Final Film (SD – 1:56)
- *Interactive Art Gallery
- Design
- Early Concept Art
- Publicity and Production Photos
- Storyboard Art
- Development
Virtually all of this material has carried over from previous home video releases. The TRON Phenomenon and Photo TRONology were produced for the Blu-ray. The Making of Tron is an excellent feature-length documentary produced by Robert Meyer Burnett for the film’s 2002 Special Edition DVD release. The rest of the content was created for the excellent Archive Collection LaserDisc in 1995 by Kurtti-Pellerin, a company led by producers Jeff Kurtti and Michael Pellerin back in the 1990s to supply value added bonus material for Disney releases. (Their work included terrific features for the Walt Disney Treasures DVDs, and Michael Pellerin later became the guiding hand behind The Appendices features on New Line’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy DVDs.) The important thing to note here is that virtually every aspect of the production is covered in detail. A Movies Anywhere Digital code is also included in a paper insert in the Steelbook packaging. (Standard Amaray/Elite packaging is also available in the UK only.)
Long a cult favorite of cinephiles, especially those who grew up as budding filmgoers in the 1970s and 80s, Steve Lisberger’s TRON has finally been given its ultimate home video expression on 4K Ultra HD. Everything you loved about this film has been made even better here—a big tip of the hat to everyone involved! And if there are a few dramatic elements in the film that are less than fully effective, well that’s always been baked into this particular program. So grab your identity discs, Users! The game Grid awaits…
[Editor’s Note: For more on TRON, I highly recommend reading Michael Coate’s excellent History, Legacy & Showmanship retrospective on the film here at The Bits.]
-Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media on Twitter, BlueSky, and Facebook, and also here on Patreon)