The Making of TRON

The original Tron (1982) still has a special place in the hearts of many geeks like myself, and I found it quite fascinating how the film came along at an interesting period in Disney's history. 

At that point, Disney was what you'd call "last on the train" to bring a project to, and they were still some years away before Michael Eisner reinvented the company, and made them #1 in the business.


Tron was one of several experimental Disney films as the company was in transition, it also took many years for the impact of Tron to make itself clear in modern day film. In '82, Disney was in serious trouble. Its films were no longer drawing audiences into theaters. In the era of Star Wars, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Disney desperately needed to reinvent itself." 

And their salvation came with Tron. I'm looking forward to reading The Making of Tron: How Tron Changed Visual Effects and Disney Forever. A book on Tron is long overdue, and this one was written (and self published) by William Kallay.

No matter how entertaining a movie is, the behind the scenes stories can often be even more fascinating and dramatic. Nothing can be more true than the 'making of' bonus material that came with the remastered DVD release of the original film in 2002. Funny and dramatic tales from the cast and crew about the filimg, special effects, artwork, designs, costumes and the process of creating the film. So here's the epic 90 min documentary that has some incredible stories about the great difficulty they had in producing the film.