Legacy Program

Tron: Legacy: The movie that blockbuster sequels wish they could be.

This post is more than a little behind the times, but I had a few things to say about Tron: Legacy. First off, it’s really just an “okay” film. The story wasn’t that gripping. The characters didn’t have a lot of depth. The ending felt drawn out.

So why is it that blockbuster sequels are writhing in secret envy? I’m glad you asked, dear reader. Simply put, Tron: Legacy is the picture-perfect example of how to craft a sequel. It may have fallen short of the mark when it stands on its own, but as a sequel it shines.

Sequels usually fall into four categories.

• “The last movie did great. Let’s cash in with a sequel. Minion! Write something for the masses!” These usually just play off of the previous movie, as if expecting that a good movie is simply something staring certain characters and insider references.
• “I can do better than that last movie.” Someone involved with the movie (usually a producer or director rather than a scriptwriter) thinks he can top that last movie. Generally the movie ends up going in a completely different direction than the last installment. Sometimes that's a good thing, but generally you only make sequels of something that was a success the first time around.
• “I wish I had done that movie myself.” Similar to cashing in, the producer or director just wants to say he did an Insert-Name-Here movie. Unlike the one who tries to do it better, this guy usually doesn’t dismiss fan outrage as being uneducated, and usually tries listening to the fan base; however, it still likely lacks originality.
• And the worst sequel of all? “I want to publish my fanfic.” ’Nuff said.

Tron: Legacy didn’t fall into either of these four categories. It was the picture-perfect sequel. It doesn’t depend on the original to be understood or enjoyed (though it has plenty of Easter eggs for those who know the original), it doesn’t just try to be the same as the original, it doesn’t take it in a radically different direction, and it certainly isn’t just fanfic.

“But, but, Mr. Bowman, isn’t every sequel basically fanfic?”

No, actually. Fanfic does have its place, don’t get me wrong; and I’ll put up a post sometime about how fanfic is actually a very useful tool to both the beginning and the seasoned writer. However, fanfic generally describes something that stays just short of a full-fledged, self-contained story. Fanfics also usually focus on some smaller aspect of the story (I’m looking at you, shippers) rather than the whole; then if that gets published, it’s the literary equivalent of sugar-free, caffeine-free Mountain Dew. Basically, what’s the point?

“But, but, Mr. Bowman, this movie didn’t have any of the cool nerdy moments of the original Tron!”

Ah, I see, you were just looking for a remake, not a sequel. Sorry, wrong movie for you.

About 99% of the original Tron’s “cool nerdy moments” were “Oh, wow! I’m in a computer!” If we spent time on that for a sequel, it would have been severely boring. We’ve seen that movie already. Sam Flynn has an initial period of adjustment, but not a copy of his father’s, such as the assumption that he’s dreaming. Sam, instead, has been prepared for this by his father’s childhood tales. Instead of reacting like it isn’t real and doesn’t recognize anything, Sam has a difficult time reacting because he does recognize the Grid. It’s the difference between what happens to the first guy to go through the fairy tale, and then being the guy who finds out the Fairyland he heard about at bedtime is real.

We also have a different viewpoint character. Sam is not his father. Kevin Flynn was happy-go-lucky; Sam is an orphaned, troubled, more-than-a-little-angsty-(but-fortunately-not-emo) young man. All his life, Sam has just wanted his father back. No one, not even his grandparents, could fill that void for him. He’s been trapped in the past, forever running from how everyone expects him to fill his father's shoes. He doesn't hate his father; he hates that he's the only one who seems to care about Kevin Flynn anymore. Over the course of the movie, Sam has a nice if somewhat predictable (and not very deep) character-arc from rebellious layabout to taking charge of his family legacy.

The movie is consequentially darker than the first. It’s not the original, but it also doesn’t go off in a radically different direction. Kevin Flynn hasn’t become a digital tyrant, though we see how the logical extension of his initial desires for the Grid would have (and has) resulted in it; nor has he created a hippy "do what you want" Grid where programs can live in digital brotherhood. Everything that happened is a natural extension of what we saw at the end of the original Tron.

The premise of the two movies is “know your limits.” Specifically in Legacy, it involves not believing you can create perfection. Kevin Flynn tries to create the perfect world, but what does he really create? It’s merely a copy of his own world. Even his entry point is a computerized version of his video arcade. Eventually, too late to stop his own creation, he discovers that he can’t create perfection because he himself isn’t capable of being perfect. Everything that he creates will be as flawed as himself. Even worse, his creations can't grow like he can. In fact, only one thing in the Grid, other than a User, has the capacity to grow and change.

Enter the isos. (Oh, yeah, spoiler warning. Run away now if you don’t want to read this.) Isomorphic life forms spontaneously spring into being because the “conditions were right.” I actually don’t mind this for the story; sure, it’s rather impossible for self-governing complexity to simply spring from nothing like that, but it’s important for that premise. Kevin Flynn tried to do better than nature/God; nature/God did better than Kevin Flynn. Kevin freely admits that the coding in these AI programs is “frankly, beyond me.” In fact, it is a humbling admission for him.

While at first I thought that the appearance of the isos was some sort of evolutionist argument, the rest of the film undermines that view. Rather, it goes back to an old sci-fi question: if we really managed to make true artificial intelligence, a computer that could learn and grow on its own, would it have a soul? While in real life I don't believe that it’s possible to create true AI, any more than I believe that aliens are theologically possible, both are conceits that I accept and enjoy in fiction.

Oh, and the same goes for the last moment of the film. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. Hey, it makes as much sense as a Star Trek transporter. It’s stupid, but it’s not that hard to suspend your disbelief on that one point.

There’s one more thing that I’ll spoil slightly for those who haven’t seen the film. It seems as though the entire Grid is destroyed in the final moments, as Kevin Flynn uses his administrator powers to . . . well, it's not necessary to describe what he does. You know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen it. As a result, the randomly-collected digital junk around the portal is wiped out, and the last thing we see of the Grid is the Sea of Simulation, its waves the only sound we hear.

Well, the very fact that the Sea is still there shows that the Grid isn’t completely wiped. In a flashback, we saw CLU’s creation; he was the first thing that Kevin had made when he began working on the Grid. The Grid was, literally, a grid of lines, vaguely like a Next Generation holodeck. The fact that the Sea of Simulation was still there after the explosion shows that something was still left.

Remember the age-old rule: if you don’t see a body, assume death didn’t happen. We didn’t see the city get destroyed. Sam was putting something on his external hard drive at the end, so odds are it wasn’t just his father’s thirty-year-old notes.

So, final ratings:

Story: 5/10

Movie Experience: 8/10

As a Sequel: 8/10

Music: 10/10

Oh, yeah, the music. Love. That. Music. It is one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever encountered, especially as background music while I work. I wasn’t expecting that, since I don’t really care for Daft Punk. Well, it isn’t a Daft Punk album; it’s a genuine movie soundtrack that happens to be composed by Daft Punk. Try it out. If you want to sample it, I made a YouTube playlist for your (well, my) convenience.