TRON: Legacy

TRON: LEGACY. Joseph Kosinski, dir., story (with others). Edward Kitsis, Adam Horowitz, et al., script, based on the characters of Steven Lisberger, Bonnie MacBird, for original TRON (1982 [q.v. in Clockworks [1]). USA: LivePlanet (sic on spacing) and Walt Disney Pictures (prod)., / Disney Studios Motion Pictures (US and most of world dist.), 2010. Darren Gilford, production design.

As with the original TRON, there's a computer-takeover motif, but the major importance of both films remains with the images of the superimposition of the electronic on the visually human — whether "users" trapped in the cybernetic world or "programs" — and, emphatically, the presentation of cyberspace as an arena for quest and adventure (the space-iness of cyberspace is stressed even more in the 3-D version of LEGACY). Repeats with state-of-the-art improvements the «ultimate Frisbee» gladiatorial matches and the «death-race 3000» motorcycle contests; adds a notable live-action, so to speak, video-game aerial dogfight. The villain, Clu — an avatar of Jeff Bridge's Kevin Flynn — attempts to follow Flynn's pre-enlightenment instructions and make a perfect world, purging everything, and everyone, that's imperfect: cf. "The Changeling" episode of classic Star Trek (29 Sept. 1976); note for a slightly more nuanced revival of Cold-War-era attacks on eutopia as an attempt to impose perfection.

RDE, 17/XII/10 _______________________________________________________________

Robert von der Osten, 27 Dec. 2010:

While the original TRON may have been innovative (at least for Disney) in its visualization of virtual space, TRON: LEGACY, besides being a poor movie, is regressive and unthoughtful in its representation of the human/machine interface and the recreation of the grid. The user, in this case Flynn’s son, when translated into virtual space still seems to have a human body that bleeds when wounded. Users also seem to be able to have identity disks that record their lives without any explanation of how or exploration of what this might mean. Programs are tediously represented almost exclusively as humanoid and seem subject to limited transformations and capacities. While the AI program supposedly was attempting to create a perfect virtual space, it is rather hard to see how this virtual space would be anyone’s realization of perfect. Even the computer’s idea of perfect, whatever that might be, is not explored except to provide us with a totalitarian state and the goal of conquering the external world. Compared to the outer world TRON: LEGACY’s grid is lackluster and continues many of the same games as TRON, as if no one had heard of WOW or X-Box. Indeed, the point of the movie seems to be that whatever inner space might be, it pales in comparison with the physical world and a “real” sunrise. The ideology seems clear as Flynn assimilates his virtual alter-ego, the grid creation seems to be destroyed, and Flynn’s son goes on to assume responsibilities. Leave behind the childish, virtual things and take on responsibilities of the “real” world. Perhaps even worse for this old feminist, in the movie we are presented with a dynamic, heroic female virtual being, and ISO, who initially saves Flynn’s son but then seems to lose effectiveness, is disarmed, literally, needs to be saved, and finally is translated into the physical world, without any really interesting explanation, where she ends up on a motorcycle, clinging to the real, male hero of the film. Where is the “Cyborg Manifesto” and really useful metaphorical explorations of machine/human interfaces when we need them?