Almost two years in the making, Walt Disney's Tron (1982) was a bona fide media event, complete with Disney's usual array of commemorative posters, lunch boxes, action figures, T-shirts, and a promise that you would be transported to a world unlike any you'd ever seen.

The difference this time around was that the promise was true-- Tron WAS different. The only problem was that nobody seemed to care. Tron jumped out of the gate and landed with a thud. For the first time, Disney found themselves on the difficult "avant-guard" side of the coin as they watched Steven Spielberg's cuddly, Disney-esque E.T. The Extra Terrestrial rake in the money. Even Tron's hope for Oscar vindication was denied when the confused Academy said that Tron "cheated" by using computers to achieve their special effects. It was only years later that the film began to attain cult status, with young people asking each other, "Remember Tron? Wasn't that COOL?"