Top SFX shots No.9: TRON

Having taken a sound thrashing at the box-office when pitting its old-style The Black Hole against Star Trek: The Motion Picture in Christmas of 1979, Disney was desperate to update its appeal for a generation of kids beginning to think of it in terms of 'old' movies. Consequently The Mouse leapt on Steven Lisberger's crazy idea for a semi-CGI adventure - even though CGI was a preserve mainly of theoretical labs at the time. The sails on the 'Solar Sailor' in this shot had a small amount of transparency to them throughout most of the movie, something that was going to add a fair chunk of cash to the rendering pipeline, but which Lisberger held out for. In this particular shot, the transparency has been filled in after a 'charge up', possibly due to the scope of the shot and the enormously increased rendering times for a transparent element within it. The shot itself presages the style of many a later CGI adventure, as well as clearly harking back to the holy grail of sci-fi movies - Star Wars.

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