The Tron sequel that’s been being kicked around for years now is finally happening. HR says commercial director Joseph Kosinski (not to be confused with The Office’s John Krasinski) is in negotiations to direct it while Sean Bailey and the great Steven Lisberger (who directed the original movie) are on board as producers.

Disney is keeping the story under wraps, but they’re calling the movie “the next chapter”, which should mean we’re getting a sequel and not another awful, remake. With Lisberger producing, that should mean Tron is safe from Hollywood revisionism. Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz are writing the script with input from Kosinski. Kitsis and Horowitz are TV writers, but good TV writers having worked on shows like Lost.

I love Tron. I really love Tron. It’s the first movie I ever remember seeing. I watched it at the drive-in by looking over the cab of my Dad’s pickup, while everyone else sat on the tailgate looking the other way, watching Snow White. Even without sound I was awed. As a kid my days were spent throwing Frisbees at my friend’s heads pretending they were light discs. From age 8 to 12 Tron was my favorite movie. As an adult, I was first in line for the fantastic two-disc set and watch it frequently. But as someone who fervently loves the original 1982 Tron movie, my worry is that the film’s story is now somewhat dated. Tron existed at a time when computers were still these big, hulking, mysterious machines kept in underground bunkers. People didn’t understand them, some even feared them, and Lisberger’s movie did a great job of playing on that by telling the story of a computer jockey sucked into the world he helped create and forced to fight his own creation. Obviously now, computers are just a normal part of our daily life. There’s no mystery associated with them, they’re just tools to us like a screwdriver or a hammer.

The signature look of the movie too, was very much a product of its time. The film was one of the first to use computer animation in it, and the way the movie looked was in large part dictated by the limitations of the technology they were working with. The look of the movie was new, it was exciting. Now… it’s dated. In order for this to be a Tron movie they’ll have to keep at least some of that signature look, while resisting the temptation to go crazy using all the new technology available to them to change it. At best they’ll make something that looks awesome, but there’s no way the sequel will ever be the cinematic innovation that the original Tron was. A lot of what made Tron, Tron was 1982. In 2007 they’ll have their work cut out for them to make it work again as a sequel.

Here’s a great example of what I mean. Check out the original 1982 trailer for Tron in the embed below: