Freedom from Master Control

The entry yesterday made me think of things from that era. Kind thoughts of the early 80's might be due to my age. I mean hair was big if not awesome, wasn't it? More importantly, I consider it as the beginning of a paradigm shift in society's relationship with electronic communications.

In order to capture that feeling of a time when personal computers were new, I went to the video store and rented Tron (1982). Before that movie, I don't think I had ever seen cyberspace represented on the silver screen. Even on the re-mastered, 20th-anniversary DVD edition, the effects were interesting. The dialog was extremely awkward, silly, and stilted. Though it must be pointed out that most audiences wouldn't have had a clue about the vocabulary references in the year of its release. For example, you'd have had to know a little about binary theory to appreciate the orphaned, floating bit which could only respond by saying, "Yes," or "No."

Even though the words might not inspire, in 2004, the audio still rocks thanks to a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.