I agree. It’s perfectly consistent with both the weird pacing and the suggestive themes of the whole rest of the movie! It’s not worse than any of that. And clearly they did consider it a good idea, for long enough to put a LOT of music and computer animation into it!

…And it’s not the type of “deleted scene” that’s made with the plan to put it in the DVD extras, either… that custom came years later.

I think a lot of the decisions in the making of that film were just… not well-thought-out.

If I remember correctly, I think Lisberger was the one who decided to cut it, for being “too sentimental”? And I think I’ve read that he now regrets that decision?

I dunno. Maybe people were in a hurry and not thinking clearly. Maybe they were preoccupied with too many details of production to focus very well on specific ones. Maybe there were personality clashes and conflicts that prevented anyone’s vision from taking shape as cohesively as it should.

Funny thing: right when I got this ask, I was trying to reblog a post that was just something like “RELEASE THE TRON 1982 DELETED LOVE SCENE CUT” and getting just slightly frustrated that OP had made it unrebloggable.

Because yeah. That scene is a vital part of the movie– and when I watch the movie I don’t wanna have to pause it at the point that scene was cut from, open the scene, watch it, watch the other deleted morning-after scene, and then go back to the main movie. But I DO, because it belongs in there.

grumble grumble going to splice together my own cut now