Tron (1982) and Tron Legacy (2010)

[Anthony G Williams]

I saw Tron once before, but so long ago that I had forgotten all but the basic premise of a man stuck in a computer game. So I decided that a second viewing was due before watching the long-delayed sequel.

It's hard to think back over the changes in the digital world since Tron was made. According to Wiki, 1982 was the year when "the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) was standardized and the concept of a world-wide network of fully interconnected TCP/IP networks called the Internet was introduced", although the impact of the internet on popular culture was still more than a decade away. This was the first film to be mostly based on computer-generated visuals, and it made quite an impact when it first appeared. It even predated Neuromancer, the innovative novel imagining what it might be like for a human mind in a computer network. So it has a secure place - indeed a cult status - in the history of SF films: but how does it stand up now?

The film focuses on four characters who are present in both the real and digital worlds: Jeff Bridges plays the computer games designer Kevin Flynn (and also his virtual equivalent, an independent programme called Clu), cheated out of his successful inventions by the head of software company ENCOM, (David Warner). The others are two ENCOM employees (Bruce Boxleitner and Cindy Morgan) who help Bridges to break into the company's mainframe to find evidence of Warner's guilt. However, the mainframe has literally developed a mind of its own, the MCP (Master Control Program) which is able to "capture" Bridges and trap him in a virtual game world. Most of the film consists of the three heroes battling their way through the game world to achieve their objective.

The plot is simplistic and the CGI is of course primitive, but I didn't mind that - it was appropriate for the purpose and impressive for the time. Ironically, what struck me more was that the initial part of the film, set in the real world, had a rather dated feel. Also, while the digital background music was fine, the inclusion of the more traditional orchestral elements jarred somewhat. Despite this, I enjoyed seeing it again - it is still entertaining and worth watching if you've never seen it.

Tron Legacy also features Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner, reprising their roles. Bridges again has two parts, as an enhanced CLU (who has not aged, thanks to some CGI trickery), and as Kevin Flynn, who has spent the last twenty years trapped in "The Grid", the name for the virtual game world he created. The focus now is on Flynn's adult son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund) who follows a trail in search of his long-lost father and also finds himself trapped in the Grid. Cue for many reprises of the virtual chases and combat scenes, as father and son try to escape. To reveal more of the plot would spoil a few surprises, so I'll restrict myself to generalities.

The CGI is of course vastly superior to the original film although the same general appearance of the virtual world is maintained, with some added touches reminiscent of the Matrix series. The artificially youthful Bridges is a clever idea but not entirely convincing - if you didn't know what had been done, you would think he was wearing really thick make-up. Some questions from the original film remain unanswered: what exactly is the nature of the humans trapped in the Grid? What happened to their physical bodies when they were "scanned" into the Grid, and how were they reconstituted when they came back out again? If they are virtual, why did Sam Flynn "bleed" when injured and why should Kevin Flynn age? These little niggles kept bothering me as I watched the film.

Overall, Tron Legacy doesn't really take the ideas of Tron much further, and it is of course nothing like as fresh and ground-breaking. It isn't in the same league as The Matrix. However, it's undemanding entertainment and anyone who liked the original and is able to park their critical faculties and enjoy the ride will probably like the sequel.

(An extract from my SFF blog)

 

[Metryq]

I must differ with Anthony as I found the original Tron thought-provoking, while Tron Legacy was a flat and soulless "remake" merely going through the motions—as all too many sequels do.

Flynn's trip inside the computer in Tron can be interpreted both literally and symbolically. Was he really digitized, or did he "battle" the MCP and its warriors from a terminal the whole time? If taken literally, the technology of the laser system is described in the sketchiest of fashions, as one might expect. Dr. Gibbs (Barnard Hughes) tells Alan "The laser dismantles the molecular structure of the object and the molecules remain suspended in the laser beam." This would suggest that virtual constructs cannot be projected into the real world, Automan style.

Once digitized, why would Flynn have any awareness of himself within the virtual world, unless a routine had been written to emulate the mechanism of a human brain? (Video files don't play by themselves, they need a player app.) This is one of the fantasy elements around which one must parse the reality/symbolism of the story. Flynn's virtual appearance is the same as any of the other virtual people—covered in armor with glowing circuits. This is the conceptual leap of the film: like Plato's allegory of the cave in The Republic, the people and things inside the computer are mere shadows, or symbolic representations of the "perfect" forms that created them. That is why both Flynn and his hacker bot, Clu, look like Flynn, and why software written by Alan and Lora (Tron and Yori) look like them. Perhaps this is the creator's "style" of writing, or symbolic of the presence of those users within the system.

The analogy to ancient Rome and the life of Christ is unmistakable: The "emperor" MCP tosses believers into gladiatorial games. Flynn performs "miracles" because he has the permissions of a user (a forged group 6 access), and he "sacrifices" himself at the climax to re-open the I/O gateways to heaven. The last shot of the movie is a time-lapse of the real city, thus making it look like the virtual city of lights. The viewer is left wondering if our world is a program written by a higher level of users. The closing shot might also emphasize the integration of our world with the virtual world, body and soul.

As for the "dated" music and CGI, I see these as "zeitgeist." Also, CGI can be incredibly realistic these days, thus making the virtual world in Tron Legacy more like an alternate world, rather than something strikingly different. For example, the original vehicles were all conceptual, procedural conglomerations of primary shapes. The new vehicles have shock absorbers, knobby tires, jet thrust and the like. Why would a virtual recognizer respond to gravity, thus necessitating thrusters, when it could simply be exempt? Computers are like that.

Tron Legacy took things too literally.

When Sam appeared inside the computer, it was within a simulation of Flynn's arcade, and he was dressed in his own clothes—thus prompting the unnecessary and titillating scene where the Sirens strip him with their laser fingernails. "It has a zipper" didn't strike me as funny, like Flynn's "If this is about those parking tickets, I can explain everything."

(Technical note: The original ENCOM computer was a data center that took up a building, and the digitizing laser was the equally large Shiva, most powerful laser in the world at the time of the first film. Yet the computer in Tron Legacy was nothing more than Dillinger's old desk, and the laser fit neatly into the corner of a musty, old basement.)

While the rejuvenation of Jeff Bridges was clever, why would Flynn age when Clu (a virtual "clone") did not? Flynn seemed completely out of character "doing nothing." The description of the Isos—the answer to life, the universe, and everything—sounded more like a drug trip than something awe inspiring. "I found them here, like flowers in a wasteland... profoundly naive, unimaginably wise." The innocent children of the earth.

I didn't care for Sam as a character either. He's supposed to be a tech wizard who can run circles around the physical and software security of ENCOM (that laser gimmick in the security camera would not work), yet instead of running the company, he is a tediously cliche rebel without a cause doing his best to sabotage the company. Melodrama. For that matter, where did Sam come from? Flynn suddenly has a 10-year-old son, but no wife. And why would Alan Bradley still be hanging around that bunch of venomous yes-men?

The premise may have been adequate for a videogame (Tron 2.0), but as a movie, it rates no higher than an action film with lots of explosions and other shaggy dog story stuff. The scriptwriters proved that they had seen the first film by dropping a few lines ("Tron fights for the users."), but they did not appear to understand it. Tron Legacy made no sense and was not emotionally moving.

 

[Starbeast]

I must differ with Anthony as I found the original Tron thought-provoking, while Tron Legacy was a flat and soulless "remake" merely going through the motions—as all too many sequels do.

I agree with you Metryq, for it's time, Tron was a movie to marvel at. But the story and heavy special effects in the long awaited sequel did nothing for me. I think the hardcore fans of the first film will enjoy the closure of the sequel.

Back in the 1980's, the Tron arcade machine was great fun for me to play.

 

[Anthony G Williams]

I must differ with Anthony as I found the original Tron thought-provoking, while Tron Legacy was a flat and soulless "remake" merely going through the motions—as all too many sequels do.

I'm not sure that you differ that much from me; as I said:

"Overall, Tron Legacy doesn't really take the ideas of Tron much further, and it is of course nothing like as fresh and ground-breaking."

 

[Metryq]

Oh, okay. You were actually being gracious, while I was saying Tron Legacy is terrible.

 

[biodroid]

Oh, okay. You were actually being gracious, while I was saying Tron Legacy is terrible.

Imagine if they used the SFX in Tron (2010) and remade the original I think it would be way better. I forgot the movie, I last saw it about 17 years ago.

 

[Metryq]

Imagine if they used the SFX in Tron (2010) and remade the original I think it would be way better. I forgot the movie, I last saw it about 17 years ago.

Hmmm, that is a tough call, and part of what I meant by "zeitgeist" in my earlier post. Tron was not the first feature film with CGI. Ed Catmull's hand animation appeared in Futureworld (1976) and the wireframe animation of the Death Star trench appeared in Star Wars (1977). Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was released the same year as Tron. And although the Genesis effect animation, featuring fractals, completely blew away any of the work in Tron, Tron was still groundbreaking for the sheer volume of CGI in a single film.

(I've read that George Lucas previewed some raster graphic animation for the Death Star attack briefing in Star Wars, but opted not to use it because he felt audiences would not recognize it as computer animation. Although the Genesis effect animation looked strikingly good to me in 1982, it was still visibly "synthetic." Lucas made the right choice to use scale models. CGI was not capable of the same gritty realism at the time.)

Tron was not meant to look "gritty" and "realistic," it was meant to look like a videogame. Most of the movie-going public had no experience with computers (allusions like CLU went right over their heads), OSes were all text-based, and arcade games had sprite-driven graphics. Slick, ultra-realistic CGI from 2010 would be completely out of place—

Which brings me to the topic of "special edition" reissues with updated FX, like the original Star Wars trilogy, or the original Star Trek series. While the special edition FX look really good, they stand apart from the rest of the film. Stylistically, they do not fit. Imagine sticking a movie passage into the middle of a live stage play.

The one thing that might benefit from modern technology is the virtual people. Director Steven Lisberger was an animator, and so took an animator's approach to the circuit-covered people. He photographed actors in high contrast costumes, then painstakingly rotoscoped all the footage into a series of back-lit layers.

Although there are some sharp exposure gradients and "chatter" in the rotoscope work, the art in Tron is not so faulted that it must be corrected. It would not make economic sense to retouch the movie, anyway. Art is always a compromise of time, resources, and other factors. Even if an artist is not bounded by such limitations, most artists still itch to change or retouch a work, even after it has been released. The art is never "finished." If the artist is sensible and mature (unlike Lucas), he'll leave well enough alone and go do something else.

(Kubrick was approached to direct 2010: The Year We Make Contact, but told the producers he was not interested because he always did things right the first time.)

 

[Starbeast]

Overall, Tron Legacy doesn't really take the ideas of Tron much further, and it is of course nothing like as fresh and ground-breaking. It isn't in the same league as The Matrix. However, it's undemanding entertainment and anyone who liked the original and is able to park their critical faculties and enjoy the ride will probably like the sequel.

(An extract from my SFF blog)

I forgot to multiquote, but yes, I do agree with you too Anthony. Even my teenage nephew (who I thought was going to like it), gave the Tron sequel a "thumbs down".

Plus the Matrix first sequel was awesome on the big screen. I loved that thrilling highway sequence.



Thanks again Mr Williams for another great double feature reveiw.