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Tron

1982 film directed by Steven Lisberger

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ626483
Source-derived summary

Tron is a 1982 American science fiction action adventure film written and directed by Steven Lisberger from a story he co-wrote with Bonnie MacBird. The film stars Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, a computer programmer and video game developer who is transported inside the software world of a mainframe computer where he interacts with anthropomorphic programs in his attempt to escape. It also stars Bruce Boxleitner (in the eponymous role), David Warner, Cindy Morgan, and Barnard Hughes. Tron was one of cinema's earliest films to use extensive computer-generated imagery (CGI).

The inspiration for Tron dates back to 1976, when Lisberger became intrigued with video games after seeing Pong. He and producer Donald Kushner set up an animation studio to develop Tron with the intention of making it an animated film. To promote the studio itself, Lisberger and his team created a 30-second animation featuring the first appearance of the title character. Eventually, Lisberger decided to include live-action elements with both backlit and computer animation for the actual feature-length film. Various studios had rejected the storyboards for the film before Walt Disney Productions agreed to finance and distribute Tron. There, backlit animation was finally combined with the 2D computer animation and the live-action footage.

Editorial summary

“Tron” enters the record as 1982 film directed by Steven Lisberger. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Tron, film and directed can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1982, 1976—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1982-07-09, 1982-12-09, 1982—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Tron, film and directed.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Tron” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Tron, film and directed provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q626483. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1982 and 1976.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Tron”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Tron primary sources, Tron archive and Tron research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Tron”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Tron” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.