Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1982 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1982 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1982 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around it’s July 9, 1982, and we’re off to see TRON.
Quick side note: Since we launched this series this year, we’ve discovered that Vintage Video Podcast is doing the exact same project with two differences: First, it’s audio (naturally), and second, they are doing every major film. We’ve listened to numerous episodes and it’s fun checking off their thoughts against my own. Check them out over at Vintage Video Podcast.
TRON
TRON is one of those movies that it turns out is far better when viewed through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia and memory.
I can remember being so excited for Tron when it first came out, and having not seen it in years I was ready to revisit it. What I found was this was just a really, really boring film. Yes, it was visually interesting, and still is, but the story was just so slow. The lengthy travel scenes, the complete throwaway reference to the Grid Spiders (yes, I know there was a cut fight with them, but they should have cut the introduction of them as well), and it just added up to a film that seemed to only care about getting you from special effect to special effect.
This is a film that was unabashedly a technological achievement at the time, and it’s still interesting to look at, but it just doesn’t invoke any sort of emotional journey at all. While it would have been easy for this movie to be visually cold due to the limited computing power they were working with, it was the story that left you chilled.
From a historical perspective it is a work every film buff should see, but make sure you have some coffee to go along with it to make sure you don’t fall asleep somewhere along the way.
1982 Movie Reviews will return on July 16 with Six Pack and Young Doctors in Love!
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