User blog:ARTaylor/35 Years of Tron

Greetings, programs. Today marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of the premiere of TRON. Produced by The Walt Disney Company, the film follows a computer programmer who finds himself inside the computer databases of his former company and must team up with digital versions of his friends to stop a takeover of the company. Originally intended as a traditionally animated feature, the film became one of the first to extensively use computers for animation. The film did well with critics who praised the groundbreaking visuals and acting though criticized the plot. It was a moderate box office success, that Disney saw as a disappointment, but has since gained a massive cult following and is considered a groundbreaking for animation. It received numerous awards and won an Academy Award for Technical Achievement. It spawned numerous video games, comic books (including some by Marvel Comics), an animated series, and sequel.

The film features the talents of David Warner in three roles. The first as Senior Executive Vice President of ENCOM Ed Dillinger who seeks to take the hero's work and pass it off as his own. The third as Sark, a computer program designed by Dillinger to work in the system. And the third as Master Control Program, the rogue artificial intelligence operating system that was once a chess program that Dillinger repurposed to control ENCOM's mainframe.

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