In a previous life, I was editor of Video Games magazine and author of Video Invaders, a history of the video-game industry, written in 1982, the same year Tron was released. Watching Tron Legacy brought back memories of those heady times.

When Space Invaders hit the Times Square arcades I waited on line to play this new electronic sensation from Japan. Who didn't love Pong? But Space Invaders was a quantum leap in gaming - its soldiers advancing on your base until you were wiped out. You played over and over, hoping to solve the matrix.

At Video Games, Tron was big news - the first movie about a digital world to become a game as well. Bally Midway released the game at the conventions, then to the arcades. There was a handheld Tron portable as well.

We didn't miss a beat at Video Games. "Tron Coulda Been a Contender," our headline read in the Jan. '83 issue featuring Donkey Kong on the cover. With $33 million earned at the box office, the Disney movie was dubbed a flop.

One Disney exec hinted that Tron was ahead of its time: "We're dealing with a subject matter that, storywise, may have left some people who aren't familiar with computers or who haven't played video games out of the picture, so to speak." Another predicted, "In the next few years, when more and more families have computers in their homes, this kind of movie will do much better because it will reflect a part of peoples' live."

Flash forward 28 years. Every home has at least one personal computer. Tron Legacy, the sequel, is finally released. After two weeks, the film once again starring Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, the software genius who created the magical cyber grid he can't escape from, grossed $88 million. The Disney execs were right.

I thorough enjoyed the sequel. Bridges, now identified with his Dude character from The Big Lebowski, says things like, "You're messing with my Zen thing, man" and "that's radical, man." He's a digitized Tommy Chong.

My big concern was alleviated early, when Flynn's son Sam - he winds up in the Grid searching for his father - hops on a lightcycle and goes on one of the movie's great stylized chases. The CGI is are more delicate and vector rather than the fatter raster images of its predecessor. It's a visual highlight.

As the Daft Punk soundtrack pulsates, the 3-D landscape comes in waves. Sam wants to rescue his dad, but he ends up with the hot "iso" Quorra, played like a Bond girl by Olivia Wilde, instead. Pretty good deal, if you ask me.

So, in 2010, the world is clearly ready for Tron. It took long enough.

• Read Matt Chelsea's review of Tron Legacy here.
• Watch the new and originals Tron trailers here.

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