So it appears that an "80s movie" must involve outdated trends, outdated fashion and an uneasy relationship with technology. I accept that and endorse that, while also requesting everyone at least glance at my apologia for the '80s. Further, there are plenty of movies from the '80s that stand on their own. Breakfast Club is still a great film. ET? Raiders? '80s films. It should therefore be a film so overcome with its 80s ness that it has been largely forgotten by time. I think it also has to still be worth watching... which culls a bunch of shit. I mean, did you know that Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters played robots escaping from the military-industrial complex to start a new life in Heartbeeps? It's every bit as awful as the trailer indicates though; I watched it at the ripe old age of 7 and found it corny and terrible. Then there's Cloak and Dagger, in which the kid from E.T. accidentially discovers Soviet espionage while playing a weird hybrid of ZORK and D&D and the only person who can save him is Dabney Coleman, a character from the game. Again: not a great film. All-american boy as military science project? D.A.R.Y.L checks lots of boxes but again, ain't a great film. So: Above all, it still has to be good. 80s but good. Perhaps so '80s that nobody still watches it but still good. It probably should also have not been a bomb. People actually had to have watched it back in the '80s. This eliminates a lot of the truly amazing post-apocalyptic Road Warrior ripoffs like Defcon 4 and amazing counter-culture icons like Repo Man. So I offer up two: Tom Selleck, Kirstie Alley and Gene Fucking Simmons in Michael Fucking Crichton's Runaway. In which the guy who brought you Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park presents a cop and his hot blonde teased-bang partner as they attempt to deal with a rogue industrialist bent on destroying the world via robotics. dat font. Score by Jerry "Star Trek TNG and half a million other things" Goldsmith, but they couldn't afford an orchestra or even a lot of voices for their Synclavier so it's good and crunchy. Alternatively The film that nearly destroyed Disney: TRON. Jeff Bridges and a whole bunch of other people you've never heard of, although it should be pointed out that Sark was also Satan in Time Bandits and Councilor Gorkon in Star Trek 6. So much computer shit it hurts - the analogies and technology of Tron remain an amazing flight of fancy. Finally, the soundtrack by Wendy Carlos is positively seminal and is, I believe, the first major work she created after announcing to the world she was no longer Walter in 1979. It should also be noted that Disney pulled all available copies of Tron ahead of the release of Tron 2, and that the writer/director did absolutely nothing other than Tron. It ended his career. There was a great deal of effort expended by Disney to make everyone forget Tron ahead of Tron Legacy... but it's well worth remembering. My 2 cents, actually. Well, more like two bucks. What can I say. that era matters to me.
I took my first couple of computer graphics classes with someone who worked on Tron. He tells a great story about it: it looked dated at the time, and on purpose. The renderer they were using was much more sophisticated than the Blinn shaded CSG objects in the movie, they were asked to make something more primitive looking because the best they could do didn't look computery enough. The company he was working for had trouble finding clients after that, because everyone who had seen Tron thought their renderer was crap.The film that nearly destroyed Disney: TRON.
I CAN'T WAIT FOR TRON 3. Tron Legacy was my 2010 Pacific Rim: yeah that shit was stupid, but dammit it was pretty and entertaining. And it had Daft Punk in it. TL, not PR. Tron has a bad rap in general. Tron: Uprising was fucking amazing and was canceled immediately. Main Character voiced by Frodo, Tron voiced by actual Tron and not a horrendous double, and the antagonist voiced by Emmanuelle Chriqui? Swoon Too good for Disney. I worry the same thing will happen with Gravity Falls.
I Unabashedly loved the shit out of the Tron reboot with Olivia Wilde.
I will never forgive that film (TRON) for portraying a bit as having 3 states. Stupid, I know, but the rage still burns.
You view it in the wrong spirit. That film is a cargo cult interpretation of computers. I mean "lose your disk and you will die?" It's the Axe Cop of cyberpunk.
Those are independent axes. "Cyberpunk" does not preclude "sci fi adventure" nor does it include it. My best friend wrote his master's thesis on cyberpunk literature and film. While the definition is variable and often debated, key elements always include computers and counterculture. Beyond that, all bets are off.
Ha, I haven't seen Runaway in forever. I need to see it again. I'm watching this even if it doesn't get picked.