When I went to see Tron: Legacy last Friday, I walked into the movie theater as an outsider – since I hadn’t (and still haven’t) seen the original Tron from 1982, I was keenly interested in how accessible and enjoyable the movie would be to someone who didn’t have a “Clu” what was going on.
Luckily, Disney chose (wisely) to not bank on a scenario where the masses would make connections between the two movies, and created a standalone sequel to the nearly 30-year-old original version. This new version is the story of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), the brilliant and obsessive computer genius who creates a computer fantasy world called “the Grid.” Helping Flynn with this world are two programs of his creation – Tron, who keeps the Grid secure, and Clu (Codified Likeness Utility), whose job it is to create a perfect system.
Flynn ultimately gets sucked in to the Grid, and many years later his son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) visits his father’s old office and gets pulled in as well. Sam learns from his dad that Clu has taken over the Grid and that Flynn Senior was not included in Clu’s plans for establishing a perfect system. Flynn Junior must take Flynn Senior and the mysterious and childlike computer program Quorra (Olivia Wlide) and make it to the portal to the real world unnoticed by Clu if they’re to have any chance of going home.
(I won’t bore you with the play by play of the movie’s pot – lots of others have done a very competent job of that, including Roger Ebert in his review).
While this movie certainly isn’t going to win any awards for earth-shattering brilliance, I found the plot to be much stronger than other recent movies that feature beautiful graphics and lots of action (cough, AVATAR, cough). And Tron: Legacy certainly skipped that whole pseudo-political moral superiority thing that Avatar had going on.
A couple themes that stood out:
Perfection
The concept of creating a perfect computer world is at the heart of Tron: Legacy, and differences between Flynn and Clu as to what constitutes perfection are ultimately the cause of Flynn’s exile by Clu from the Grid.
What’s ironic to me is that an obsessive innovator like Kevin Flynn would be interested in creating something that’s “perfect,” since mistakes and imperfection in life are the ultimate drivers of the “next big thing” for which he so clearly thirsts. If perfection is achieved, the quest to create that next big thing is over. I wasn’t buying that Bridges’ character was prepared to embrace a perfect creation, kick back with a Mai Tai, and say “well, I guess that’s done, let’s go play Parcheesi.”
Free will also plays heavily in the quest for perfection, in that as long as entities have the free will to define for themselves and disagree with each other on what constitutes a perfect world, there will never be a world that’s perfect in everyone’s eyes. Clu and Flynn came to blows because Flynn programmed Clu to have his own ideas, which ultimately differed from Flynn’s.
The only way for Clu to continue the quest for the perfect world was to strip his programs of free will and make them work for him. Even so, the plan was thwarted by Flynn Senior and his team of free-willed variables, thus proving that even the most unlikely of factors can cause a major meltdown in the journey to perfect.
Sex
Don’t misunderstand, I love gratuitous, lengthy screen shots of Olivia Wilde in black leather. But I still reserve the right to crack up whenever a Disney production features something so obviously included for no other reason than to sexually excite. Quorra could have just as easily been a boy, or some unattractive woman. Of course I’m used to this from other companies, but I can’t help it, I still think of a wholesome cartoon mouse when the name Disney is uttered.
Garrett Hedlund isn’t so bad himself, and his outfit is no less tighter than Wilde’s.
Any time a Disney movie features anyone more attractive than the Seven Dwarfs, it reminds me of that South Park episode where Mickey Mouse explains to the Jonas Brothers that they are selling sex to little girls. Tee hee.
3D and Special Effects
I saved these for last because they speak for themselves. Very well done. I enjoyed the mix of 2D and 3D shots because it was less nauseating, although the 3D parts seemed very natural themselves.
And man, those Lightcycles were AWESOME! Almost as awesome as Flynn Junior’s Ducati, a bike that I secretly dream to own, yet freely admit that I would drive at 5mph around the block before deciding I’d risked my life enough for one day and retiring to the nearest bar for Buffalo wings and Bud Light.
Frotein 