Tron: Legacy
Virtual world, real dictator
It is very common in the film industry sequences and remakes of famous films to ensure more box office from characters or stories that the audience liked it. There are times when a movie is sequence and remake at the same time, as it was the case of “Tron: Legacy” (USA, 2010).
Many cycles ago, when computers still occupied entire rooms and microcomputers were still simple-minded machines, Disney Studios launched a revolutionary movie with the odd title “Tron” (USA, 1982).
The film, starring Jeff Bridges, was about Kevin Flynn, a software engineer who breaks into his old company looking for evidence that the games he invented had been stolen by a colleague. In this quest, he is dematerialized and taken to a virtual world. There, he was helped by Tron, a program developed by a colleague to fight the powerful CPM, the operating system that had created a life of its own. Though rudimentary, the special effects were revolutionary for the time, and the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound and Best Costume Design.
In the 2010 film we find Flynn (Jeff Bridges) a few years after the events of the first film. He had married, widowed and had a son, Sam. When the latter was seven years old, Flynn left for work, and he never returned, disappearing completely from the face of the Earth.
Twenty years later, Sam (Garret Hedlund) is an adult, a rebellious and daring young man, who practices extreme sports but refuses to run his father’s company, while displaying his products on the internet.
One day, Kevin Flynn’s best friend and former Tron program creator Alan (Bruce Boxleitner) gets a pager call (does anyone under twenty know what a pager is?) from his old company Flynn games.
Curious, the boy goes there, and discovers a laboratory hidden in the basement of the house. By turning on an old computer, Sam is dematerialized and transported to a virtual universe, where all the inhabitants are computer programs.
This universe is ruled by the powerful Clu (Jeff Bridges), who Sam believes to be his father. But soon he finds out that Clu was created in the image of Flynn, but he had created his own world where only those who obeyed his rules survived.
Sam is helped to escape by the beautiful Quorra (Olivia Wilde), who leads him outside the Grid, where he will meet the real Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), who had all this time been trapped in this self-created virtual universe.
Flynn explains to his son that he had created this world because he dreamed of a perfect universe. For this, he had asked the help of Tron (Bruce Boxleitner) and Clu. But when ISOs (spontaneously created programs) appeared, Clu rebelled, because he believed that Flynn was running away from his own ideals.
While Flynn had taken refuge outside the city, unable to return to the portal that gave access to the outside world, Clu carried out the Purge, a plan to exterminate all ISOs and all other programs that rebelled against the ideal of the perfect world that the leader believed.
Sam’s arrival changed the delicate balance in which the virtual universe lived. To save his son and Quorra, the last surviving ISO, Flynn would have to return to the Grid, as he was the only one who had the key to open the portal. In turn, Clu was preparing an army to leave the virtual world and invade the real world, implanting his image of the perfect universe. Who will be able to achieve the intent?
During Sam’s journey, viewers will experience odd battles, light bike races and various other experiences that had already been shown in Tron’s first movie, but now with a graphic perfection that is light years away from rudimentary effects of the original production. With an immersive and impactful soundtrack with Daft Punk, we have a fantastic sound and image experience, especially if watched in a 3D environment.
As for the plot, although the viewer can find visible similarities with “The Matrix” (USA, 1999) and “Inception” (USA, 2010), we cannot forget that the original Tron was created in the distant year of 1982. However, it is easier to see an influence of the pre-World War II Nazi model of domination, with a charismatic leader, the ideal of the perfect nation, the purge of sub-races, such as Jews and others, and the use of a mighty army. I don’t know why, but I think about a country in South America that is also moving towards this.
Ruminations aside, “Tron: Legacy” is a fun and exciting film, which should please the younger generation, used to a frantic rhythm and with the omnipresence of technology. See and check it out.