Interview Conducted by and Copyright Edward Gross
MEDIA GEEK: Any interesting tale in how the adaptation came your way in the first place?
PETER DAVID: I'd love to tell you that there's some really nifty story involved in how I got the job--that I found out about it and did something appropriate like hacking into the Disney central computer and got it assigned to me--but honestly, it was nothing more involved than that the editor called me and said, "Hey, would you like to do this?" I guess they were pleased with the job I'd done on a similar gig when I did an adaptation of the first Iron Man movie.
MEDIA GEEK: Looking back at the original Tron, what do you perceive as its strengths and weaknesses?
PETER DAVID: Well, naturally the major weakness of it were the restrictions of the time: What was cutting edge back then now looks stiff and primitive. Plus some of the dialogue was rather wince-worthy. On the other hand, it WAS cutting edge, and it conveyed to audiences the concept of a totally immersive computer world which was pretty heady stuff. It was the kind of thing that, once you saw it, stayed with you, as is evidenced by the way Tron references keep showing up everywhere, from Youtube to South Park, long before the sequel film was launched.
MEDIA GEEK: Is your script a straight-on adaptation or were you able to elaborate on things?
PETER DAVID: I had 64 pages in which to tell the story in a script that was 128 pages. So it's not as if I had a ton of extra space. What I did do was fix some plot holes in the film, although I don't want to go into detail since they're closely tied to the climax of the story.
MEDIA GEEK: Did you find you had to do much to allow the original story to connect to that of Tron: Legacy?
PETER DAVID: I'm actually kind of hoping that Tron: Legacy is taking care of that, because I haven't seen the film or read the script for the sequel. So I've no idea where the gaps might be, presuming there are any. But I've every confidence that the filmmakers have it covered.
MEDIA GEEK: In your opinion, what could be the appeal of the Tron concept to today's audience?
PETER DAVID: I think it should be self-evident. Computers are even more thoroughly integrated into society than they were at the time of the first film. A grand Internet plateau where avatars interact with each other and compete in games of skill and challenge? Welcome to World of Warcraft. People being pulled into an entire computer society, sometimes even losing track of time? Hello Facebook. Tron was way ahead of the curve twenty years ago. To my mind, the real challenge the new film faces is to try and anticipate what's coming next so that viewers can look back on it from the year 2030 and say, "Wow, look at all the stuff they intuited was on the horizon."