Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I finally went to see "Tron: Legacy" this afternoon (I'd tried to see it the first week it was out, but the sound wasn't working in that one theater of the multiplex, so ended up having to get my money back and go home), and I can honestly say I'm glad to have seen it on the big screen, even if I can off-hand think of at least a dozen ways that it could've been made into a much, much better movie.

Summary evaluation? Too much Jeff Bridges, not enough Bruce Boxleitner, but some interesting themes . . . even if they didn't really come together too well.

In-depth analysis follows.

First, the good stuff about this film:

1) Bruce Boxleitner! His character from the first film -- Alan Bradley -- is still a darned decent guy, who's only gotten handsomer and wiser with his gray hair. It's just too bad that his computer program alter ego "TRON" (whose name is still prominently featured in the movie title) is almost totally absent from the film. Maybe they spent all their special effects money on that CGI version of a younger Jeff Bridges' face for his Kevin Flynn flashbacks and his ageless digital alter ego "CLU", and so they couldn't show more than a few scenes with TRON, and none with a facial close-up. Darn shame, if you ask me.

2) The young actor playing Flynn's grown-up son Sam isn't just a standard pretty boy -- he's got an interesting face and quite a good range of expression, and it wasn't hard to like him or root for him.

3) Visually it IS very impressive. I saw it in 2D, of course, since 3D would be wasted on me and I'm certainly not going to pay four dollars extra to see an out-of-focus film. Even so, it was still pretty dazzling.

Now, the so-so stuff about the film:

1) The theology/spirituality/philosophy stuff -- which was featured prominently in some very long and occasionally semi-tedious scenes of Kevin Flynn angsting -- often seemed as out-of-focus as I fear the 3D version would've been for me. Maybe it's just because I was looking for explicit biblical themes and couldn't find any one story-line that worked for more than a little piece of the film at a time (unlike the original "Tron", in which I had no trouble finding an extended metaphor of the incarnation of Christ in much of Flynn's storyline in the computer world).

The idea that Flynn had created a program in his own image who had grown jealous of anything or anyone who took his creator's attention, affection, and approval off of himself -- that's really good; I mean, I get that . . . or I got that, when it eventually manifested itself.

Flynn tried to play God -- to "be like God", one could argue (yes, I'm getting ready to teach Genesis 1 Tuesday night at my first Intro. to OT class meeting) -- and as with Dr. Frankenstein and most other creators in science fiction history, his own imperfections and not really being up to the task of being anyone's deity came around and bit him in the butt, big time.

There's possibly more than a hint of the non-biblical story of Satan (God's loyal -- if pain in the butt -- angelic prosecuting attorney still in the book of Job) becoming jealous of God's affection for imperfect humanity (possibly represented in the film by the imperfect human son Sam and by the 'miraculous' isomorphs that Flynn had been so hipped on, even though he claimed no direct responsibility for the creation of that new digital lifeform).

There're underlying themes of order and chaos and free will, and questions of what 'perfection' or an 'ideal world' really means (for instance, CLU is stuck with the imperfect understanding that Flynn had when he created him, and is as incapable of acquiring wisdom beyond that point as he is of creating new programs himself). But those themes came with a few too many slightly pretentious speeches from Jeff Bridges' Flynn, for my taste.

And then they throw in this whole Zen theme, with Flynn striving for true Emptiness, No-Self, as the only way he thought he could resist CLU, through non-resistance and non-action. I'm just not sure that fit in with the other stuff. And one could argue that it ended up getting short shrift, being cast aside when Flynn was forced to act and actively resist in order to save his son. Or maybe it took all that meditation on Emptiness for all those years to get Flynn to the point where he was capable of embracing CLU in some kind of matter-antimatter explosion of identical but opposite particles (ST: TOS "The Alternative Factor", anyone?) at the end, sacrificing his own life only when it was absolutely the only way to save his son. Could be, I suppose.

2) Michael Sheen (whom I've adored since he played "Lucian" in two of the three Underworld films -- and I maintain that Underworld: Evolution would've been much better if Lucian had been in it) as an albino program with way more self-love and flair for the cutesy and overly dramatic than I'd have thought strictly necessary. I didn't like the character too much (very 'old school' Batman movie villain, with lots of Jack Nicholson's Joker combined with a hefty dollop of Jim Carrey's Riddler), but it's Michael Sheen, after all, whom I do like very much. So . . . that's another one for the "so-so" column.

Finally, the stuff that I thought was downright weak about the film:

1) Mis-use of the character TRON, who is hidden behind an opaque helmet throughout almost the entire film (though who among us didn't suspect that Rensler, the champion gamer fighting on CLU's side, was actually TRON all along, who had been reprogrammed and enslaved by CLU?), gets to 'come to himself' at one crucial moment at the end of the film (though we still can't see his face -- just hear his voice, briefly), and then is shown sinking lifeless to the bottom of the digital sea, with no further ado.

Look, I get that they felt they needed to have TRON (whose name is in the movie title, after all) be somehow present throughout the film but in a way that didn't interfere with the story they actually wanted to tell, which didn't involve him at all (it's all about Sam Flynn and his relationship with his father Kevin, basically), but that felt like a major rip-off.

I especially resented being given the impression that the world of The Grid had been obliterated at the end through Kevin's rejoining with CLU, instead of any indication that Tron or his world could be saved or redeemed or liberated, or whatever. What? Because Sam and the last surviving Isomorph Korra are safely transported to the real world, there's nothing in Kevin Flynn's so-beloved digital world that's worth continuing or worrying about or giving a second thought to?

Yes, maybe they were trying to highlight the difference between the mystery and impression of unlimited potential that computers had in the early 1980s vs. the much more familiar and skeptical take we have on the silicon world today. Maybe back then, the restoration of freedom to the computer programs' world as a consequence of Flynn's sacrifice and TRON's heroism and dedication(keeping the faith, fighting for the Users, etc.) was an important part of the film's resolution because we were so much more optimistic about the potential of computers to transform our world for the better.

Maybe the same zeitgeist that gave rise to theories like Frank J. Tipler's The Physics of immortality (arguing that the only eternal life or resurrection is as digital download, etc.) was being critiqued through showing how Kevin Flynn's obsession with the 'miracle' happening in his digital fiefdom and giving humans the chance to experience life as a program actually led to badness in both worlds (real and digital), costing Flynn the chance to be part of his son's life as he grew up or to keep his company ENCOM on a benevolent course. So, the digital world had to be seen as a trap, a prison, rather than a new frontier.

Maybe.

But it kinda sucked to be smacked in the face with the idea that any 'good' programs who were still willing and wanting to fight for the Users, to fight for freedom, had been massacred by the end of the film, and so with TRON's and Flynn's deaths that digital world was good for nothing but being sent to the Recycle folder. Even if they were trying to end with a 'focus on the real world, live in the light of the sun, and step up to your real-life responsibilities, instead of wasting your life hunched over a keypad, obsessed with living online instead of talking to people in the next cubicle' message.

2) All the stuff that seemed inconsistent with what happened in the first movie.

Didn't Flynn's original program named CLU (who looked just like him, because as Dumont suggested there was something of the programmer's soul in every program they created) get whacked in some fashion by the Master Control Program pretty near the start of the film? So is this despot program actually 'CLU 2.0'? Or what?

Since Dillinger's theft of Kevin Flynn's game programs was widely publicized in the closing scenes of the first movie, leading to the Flynn becoming the new head honcho of ENCOM (arriving in style in his helicopter with a cheery 'Greetings, Programs!' on his lips for Alan and Alan's girlfriend who used to be Flynn's), how come Dillinger is spoken of so highly when we're (ever so briefly) introduced to Dillinger's son and his cold, money-grubbing ways in the ENCOM boardroom scene? And then, instead of showing up in any form that I recognized on The Grid (as I half-expected, since hey! Dillinger = 'watch this guy', right?), Dillinger Jr. seems to disappear from the film.

(Maybe they're setting up for a hoped-for sequel? With Sam Flynn, now taking control of the company, having to square off against young Dillinger, who feels that HE ought to be in control? Is that why they didn't really say definitively if Tron was really dead or The Grid was entirely destroyed at the end?)

In conclusion: Lots of good stuff, lots to chew over and try to make sense of, but also a significant number of things that struck me as major stumbling blocks, taking me out of the suspension of disbelief and enjoyment of the film far more often than I would have liked.