Sci-fi September: Science Fiction Influences (Part VI)
In 1982 if you had a video game console, all the neighbourhood kids would be in your basement, much to the annoyance of your parents who would shout the time honoured phrase:
Go play outside and don’t come back until supper!
We did that too. the joy of growing up in the 80s was that no one knew where you were and couldn’t get ahold of you anyway.
But more than likely if we weren’t at the other kid’s place who had an Atari, Colecovision, or Activision, we were at the arcade. Ours was above the local arena and featured, Pacman, Joust, Dig Dug, and Frogger.
Then TRON happened. What we all wanted. To get sucked into a video game and have to use our hard earned skills (and many many quarters) to fight our way to victory.
It was a bold move for Disney to make a movie about cyberspace, a concept that was new to kids and stretched our imagination. Explaining it to the parents is the equivalent of someone telling you what a blockchain is.
Disney had money so the special effects were mind blowing. To keep equilibrium though, they also produced the stinker, The Black Hole featuring plywood robots*.
So on the day our arcade got new TRON game, we were lined up with our pockets full of quarters.
Ah, the 80s.
-Leon
*Before you fact check me, yes I know that this movie that gets 42% on Rotten Tomatoes was released a few years earlier, but that doesn’t make the post as humorous.
Leon Stevens is a multi-genre author, composer, guitarist, songwriter, and an artist, with a Bachelor of Music and Education. He published his first book of poetry, Lines by Leon: Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020, followed by a book of original classical guitar compositions, Journeys, and a short story collection of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. His newest publications are the novella trilogy, The View from Here, which is a continuation of one of his short stories, a new collection of poetry titled, A Wonder of Words, and his latest sci-fi mystery, Euphrates Vanished.
My new book page: http://books.linesbyleon.com/
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