(Pt. 1) Ready Player One / Tron (1982)

Steven Spielberg’s new READY PLAYER ONE turns videogaming into both a fantasy adventure and a meta-narrative about adventure fantasies, a premise that feels directly inspired — and given Ernest Cline’s source novel, almost certainly is — by Steven Lisberger’s 1982 Disney oddity TRON. Before digging into what connects the two films, we dive into TRON’s glow-y, rudimentarily CGI-ed mainframe to consider the bits and bytes that drive this fascinatingly flawed film, from its confusing religious undertones (overtones?) to its strange real world/virtual world disconnect. Plus, we continue to wade through the ocean of feedback on our episodes pairing STALKER and ANNIHILATION.

Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about TRON, READY PLAYER ONE, or both by sending an email to comments@nextpictureshow.net, or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730.

Outro music: “Only Solutions” by Journey (TRON OST)