Tron Uprising premieres tomorrow.

In 1982, one of my favorite movies was released. And as with everything that is good, it was a combination of several things that created this Eighties classic, but most importantly, it was about playing Video Games! At the time, 2D games were making a huge impact, moving from the old arcades into peoples living rooms with the release of the Philips Magnavox Odyssey 2 and the Atari 2600, which made it possible to actually play these great games at home for the first time (this was three years before Nintendo introduced it's first 8-bit console and 'Donkey Kong' in the West).

The movie I'm talking about is of course 'Tron' which starred Jeff Bridges, popular for his role in De Laurentiis 1976 remake of 'King Kong' and known (then) for his Academy award nominations for 'The Last Picture Show' and 'Thunderbolt and Lightfoot'. After twenty eight years, the much anticipated sequel 'Tron: Legacy' was created in 2010 with the latest in 3D graphics technology, and tomorrow, Disney XD finally premieres the first episode of their new animated series 'Tron Uprising'. Showing an interesting combination between 2D and 3D animation, Uprising will further investigate the story and background of the world of 'Tron', althought it actually takes place before 'Tron: Legacy'.

Above: scenes from the pre-season episode of 'Tron: Uprising', released by Disney in May showing 'Beck', a young program living inside 'the Grid', an artificial world programmed by Kevin Flynn in the original movie from 1982. Beck is trained by Tron to continue his revolution against the armies of General Tesler. Below is 'Paige', one of the guards of the grid who is curious about the existence of the new Tron.

Tron (1982).

In the original film, Bridges (below) played software engineer Kevin Flynn, one of the brightest programmers who worked for ENCOM, a huge multinational technology corporation with defense contracts, researching the very boundaries of technological possibilities. In the meantime ENCOM is pocketing Millions from gamers blowing coins at the arcades on games Flynn had written but were unfortunately stolen from him by his colleague Dillinger (i.e. 'Space Paranoids', 'Matrix Blaster', 'Vice Squad' and 'Light Cycles').

While Dillinger went on to become Senior Executive VP of the company, Flynn got fired and, living above his own arcade, trying to earn some of the money ENCOM is making off his creations, he's determined to find evidence by trying to hack into ENCOM's system, which is controlled by the MCP (Master Control Program), an all powerful program that became self aware and, running completely on it's own, is secretly taking over other systems, including that of the Kremlin and the Pentagon.

Armed with 'TRON', a small program created to keep track of the MCP, written by his colleague Allan Bradley (played by Bruce Boxleitner) Flynn breaks into the ENCOM building and uses his ex-girlfriend's computer at the laboratory facilities, where she was doing research on experimental laser technology, to capture real life objects and move them into a virtual reality. When Flynn is at the verge of breaking the system, the MCP uses the lasers to teleport Flynn into his realm to literally fight and beat him at his own game. Once inside, Flynn encounters human looking bytes of data, trapped in a highly advanced Orwellian world, where disobedient elements are obliterated, ruled and controlled by the elite guards of a cruel dictator, the MCP.

In 1982, George Lucas's ILM created the first all digital CG images for Star Trek: Wrath of Khan', but Disney's TRON was the first feature film ever to use over 20 minutes of 3D computer graphics.

Below is the complete sequence of Flynn being teleported into digital the world of 'Tron', made possible by the pioneering work of four early CGI companies that produced the graphics: Information International Inc. (Triple-I), Robert Abel & Associates in LA, the Mathematic Applications Group Inc. (MAGI) and Digital Effects in NY.

Futuristic industrial designer Syd Mead and French comic artist Moebius (Jean Giraud) worked as visual consultants with high-tech commercial artist Peter Lloyd and Bruce Logan as director of Photography on the graphics. Giraud, a very talented comic book and storyboard artist, known in Europe for his comicbook series 'Blueberry' sadly enough passed away this March. Below is some of the  concept artwork he did for the original film:

Backgrounds.

Disney will air 18 episodes in the first season of Tron Uprising. The series has an excellent voice cast, starring Bruce Boxleitner as Tron and Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore and Lance Henriksen voicing the other major characters. Adam Horowitz  and Edward Kitsis, who wrote the screenplay for Tron: Legacy' will act as consulting producers, they both also worked as producer and writer on almost 100 episodes of ABC's successful show 'Lost'. Check out some of the great background artwork for the first season below (Click to enlarge).