Tron

MOVIES In lieu of the French duo Daft Punk playing live during "Tron: Legacy" with a 100-piece orchestra, Hollywood's legendary El Capitan Theatre will give us the next best thing: a laser light show before each screening. OK, so it's not vocoders or spacesuits from the band that scored the Jeff Bridges vehicle, but we have a feeling that lasers shooting around the theater will delight even the most steely of robot hearts. To further entice your electronic soul: One person will win a pair of tickets to Disney California Adventure Park before every showing.

Played in the denouement to a gripping shootout between digital warriors on rocket-propelled hang-gliders, the musical passage "Adagio for Tron" arrives about two-thirds through the $170-million sci-fi thriller "Tron: Legacy" (which hit multiplexes Dec. 17). It's an elegiac movement recorded by a symphony orchestra that features desolate violins swelling around a barely there synthesizer pulse. Scoring aces such as Hans Zimmer ("The Dark Knight," "Pirates of the Caribbean") and John Williams (the "Star Wars" and " Harry Potter" franchises)

They had fans at the trailer. For weeks, the previews for "Tron: Legacy" have offered a striking look at what digital-age décor could look like. Though the film, which opened Friday, unfolds in a virtual landscape known as the Grid, it also features the midcentury childhood home of hero Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) and a modern house made from shipping containers where Flynn's son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund), lives. The most dazzling interior by far, however, is the Safehouse, a glowing hideout at the edge of the "Tron" universe.

Scan-Tron Corp. Tuesday announced a five-for-four stock split, two weeks after the company reported record earnings for its fiscal 1986. "The board wanted Scan-Tron's shareholders to share in the company's ongoing prosperity," said John T. Saunders, president and chief executive. The split of Tustin-based Scan-Tron's 3.4-million outstanding shares of common stock is scheduled to be paid Sept. 30 to those holding shares of the company's stock Sept. 15.

Your attention please. Using a No. 2 pencil, add Scan-Tron Corp. to the list of companies that have moved or consolidated operations in the sunny climes of Orange County. The company makes the test-scoring equipment that made the No. 2 pencil famous. It also makes hospital menu systems and forms used in both machines. Scan-Tron recently consolidated its Santa Ana, Carson and Long Beach operations in new quarters.

The merchandise collaborations for "Tron: Legacy," which opened in theaters Friday, may seem like they're all over the grid ? with the movie's distinctive look and name turning up on everything from $30 backpacks to $15,000 hand-finished designer armchairs. But the range of wares has actually been carefully calculated to appeal to a variety of demographics, whether fan boy or fashionista, following the same strategy Disney Consumer Products used to leverage "Alice in Wonderland" this year.

Although its pretax earnings declined almost 8.5%, Scan-Tron Corp. was able to report record net earnings of $3.4 million for its fiscal 1987 because of a reduced federal income tax rate. Net income was up 21% from the company's fiscal 1986 earnings of $2.8 million. Sales for the year totaled $28.6 million, up 11% from $25.7 million in Scan-Tron's fiscal 1986.

The weekend before Christmas is not the time when box-office hits are made, but it is when the early holiday flops are established. Among the trio of new movies that opened just ahead of the two most important moviegoing weeks of the year outside of summer, the big-budget sequel "Tron: Legacy" appears to have a solid chance at turning into a hit, while the kids' cartoon adaptation "Yogi Bear" is a long shot, and the pricey adult dramedy "How Do...

Hollywood is obsessed with producing reboots and sequels to its hit movies. But Walt Disney Co. is trying something more audacious this week ? releasing a sequel to a 1982 sci-fi fantasy film that was a box office disappointment and that most of today's moviegoers have never seen. On Friday, "Tron: Legacy" will arrive in theaters as one of most intensely marketed films of 2010, but it represents an investment that goes well beyond the box office. The movie sits at the center of a massive multiplatform push with high stakes for Disney, which is counting on the mercury-glow of the film to light up toy and apparel sales, spark purchases of related video games and lure viewers to an upcoming animated series on cable television.

Ken Sakamura dreams of a future in which billions of compatible computers link together the world's people, creating understanding and peace. But the U.S. government says his new basic computer design, named Tron, may be an unfair trade barrier that restricts American access to the Japanese market. Sakamura, a 37-year-old computer scientist at the University of Tokyo, says such charges are a misunderstanding. "In the current climate of trade friction, anything new and Japanese is considered an economic threat by people in other countries," he says.