movie challenge
Hans 2021 Movie Draft: Round Twelve-Pick Four-Tron 1982
Hanspostcard has a movie draft challenge. This is my Round Twelve and final pick. Thanks for the invitation, Hans!
Category: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Film: Tron
This has been my worst category as I love science fiction anything. I have struggled over these past six months trying to pick just one. My choice would change, daily. I finally settled on one that is part of my teen years and became a cultural cult classic. I still have the sticker that I got when I went to see this at the theater in 1982. Like The Breakfast Club, this movie means something to me. Released the summer before my junior year, this movie got me interested in computers and graphics. There is also the memory of a scene I saw in the original release at the theater, that disappeared in subsequent showings on HBO, TV and the VHS tapes, and made me crazy:
The 20th Anniversary DVD edition includes a deleted love scene: Tron and Yori go to her apartment, where she pushes a button on the wall. [T]he walls [disappear] and her uniform changes into a different costume. Also included are a partially completed “morning after” scene…(all dialog tracks for this short scene are lost).
All the data on the Internet states that the scene was removed from the final cut. I beg to differ. I distinctly remember seeing them go to her “apartment.” That being said, what I remember from the scene is a little different from the “official deleted scene” (she glowed, her hair was blowing around and her helmet floated off her head). I think a shortened version of that scene was released to theaters and when the movie was released to HBO & VHS tapes, they wiped all of it out. This is a very clear memory. The prologue to the movie, when released to theaters, was also removed. The “original” opening monologue (that I’ve never heard) was restored in the 20th Anniversary DVD. ~Vic
Directed by Steve Lisberger, the screenplay was written by Charles S. Haas & Lisberger, adapted from the original story by Bonnie MacBird (whom is married to DARPA-connected computer scientist Alan Kay). Produced by Donald Kushner, it starred Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan, Barnard Hughes, Dan Shor and Peter Jurasik and, was released July 9.
Kevin Flynn is a software engineer and an ex-employee at ENCOM. He runs a video arcade and tries to hack into ENCOM’s mainframe, looking for proof that his video games were plagiarized. The Master Control Program stops him. Programmer Alan Bradley and engineer Dr. Lora Baines, his girlfriend, discover that they have lost access to their projects. When Alan questions Senior Exec. VP Ed Dillinger about the restriction, Dillinger states that extra security is needed to stop outside hacking. When Alan leaves, Dillinger asks the MCP about the issues and realizes that the MCP has become a power-hungry virtual intelligence. Dillinger is blackmailed into complying with the MCP’s wishes due to his theft of Flynn’s material. Alan, Lora & Flynn break into ENCOM and Flynn winds up digitized inside the mainframe when the MCP uses an experimental laser to dissect him. Flynn must navigate his way around a strange digital landscape where all the programs resemble the users that created them and find his way back out.
(high school classmate).
Trivia Bits:
♦ [T]he Motion Picture Academy refused to nominate Tron for a special-effects award because, as director Steven Lisberger put it, “The Academy thought we cheated by using computers”.
♦ Originally MacBird envisioned Flynn more comedically, suggesting the then-30-year-old Robin Williams for the role.
♦ Bruce Boxleitner and Peter Jurasik would later work together on Babylon 5.
♦ Nine script revisions caused bitter credit disputes.
♦ Though it made $50 million from a $17 million budget and had $70 million in merchandise sales, it was considered a financial failure.
♦ The ENCOM laser bay was real. It was actually the target bay for the twenty-beam SHIVA solid-state laser facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
♦ The soundtrack was primarily composed by Wendy Carlos with two additional tracks provided by Journey after Supertramp had to leave the project.
Additional Reading:
Bruce & Cindy Discuss Deleted Scenes (Beyond The Marquee/12-24-2013)
Tron Then and Now (Digital Content Producer/Archive/07-07-2012)
Deleted Love Scene (Fandom Wiki)
Tron 30th Anniversary Screening Review (Nuke The Fridge/10-30-2012)
Tron’s 20th Anniversary (SFGate/01-09-2002)
End of line…
Opening Scene (Missing Prologue)
Officially Deleted Scene
Bruce Boxleitner & Cindy Morgan @ California Convention
(helmets coming off mentioned) 11-16-2013
Hans 2021 Movie Draft: Round Five-Pick Two-The Ninth Gate 1999
The Nine Doors (or Gates) to the Kingdom of Shadows
Aristide Torchia, Venice, 1666
Image Credit: IMDb & Amazon
Hanspostcard has a movie draft challenge. This is my Round Five pick.
Category: Foreign/Silent
Film: The Ninth Gate
A French/Spanish Roman Polanksi vehicle (director & producer), he co-wrote the screenplay with John Brownjohn and Enrique Urbizu. Loosely based on the 1993 book El Club Dumas, a Spanish language novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte Gutiérrez, the Polanski/Brownjohn script removed a sub-plot, changed the two main characters’ names and altered the finale. Filmed in France, Portugal and Spain, it stars Johnny Depp (Corso), Frank Langella (Balkan), Lena Olin, Barbara Jefford and, Emmanuelle Seigner (mysterious woman & Polanski’s wife). Actor Allen Garfield suffered a stroke prior to filming and Polanski incorporated Garfield’s paralysis as part of the character. Released August 25, 1999, in Belgium, France and Spain (premiere), and November 1999 at the Stockholm International Film Festival, it wasn’t released, widely, in the US until March 10, 2000.
I would have to describe the movie like this…:
“[It] is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma…”
Winston Churchill
October 1, 1939
Dean Corso is a bit of a sleazy rare book dealer from New York with questionable ethics. Boris Balkan, a wealthy collector, hires Corso to determine if a book he owns (the book to the left/above) is authentic. The author, supposedly, wrote the book with help from the Devil and only three copies of the book are known to exist after the author was burned at the stake during the Inquisition, along with his works. Corso must find the other two to complete his investigation. Balkan believes that the owner of the book would have the power to summon said Devil. As the skeptical Corso travels and searches, he is followed by a mysterious woman. He eventually becomes obsessed with his task and desires the complete truth. The movie twists and turns to it’s bizarre ending. Depp is a strange cat but, he makes really interesting movies. Visually, Polanski intended for Corso to resemble Philip Marlowe. ~Vic
Additional Reading:
The Ninth Gate (Roger Ebert)
The Ninth Gate Opens (Philip Coppens Web Archive)