When I look back at it the first time I watched Tron was a betamax copy of the film at an Opus Dei Center called Lauan. This was before Trinoma and even Mall of Asia. We were watching it using a betamax machine – now considered a relic from the immediate past.
Tron was about dystopia and freedom. Aside from the special effects, which were considered up to date at that time. The story of Tron was about two worlds one ours and the other existing in Encom’s mainframe computer. The worlds are ruled by a a human Ed Dillinger and his artificial intelligence Master Control Program or MCP – an old Chess Program. But as MCP grows stronger and as it also goes ambitious and soon wants more … much more. MCP wants to get conrtol of the Pentagon’s computer system. What MCP plans to do with this might be something similar to what Skynet did in the Terminator or simply as innocent but deadly as another program in the movie War Games.
This is a world of programs or at least anthropomorphic software. For instance the security program is TRON is depicted as its creator and similarly CLUE is personified as its creator. In this world, re-engineering leads to terminal consequences and battles/duels are played out well like – video games. Think of it like Pong with no-reset button and with terminal consequences for the programs.
Things end for MCP and company when a user Kevin Flynn enters the digital world and along with Tron formats the old Chess program, which sort of looks like a Sphinx and begins a new world where the world of Tron becomes a free world … freeware and Flynn not only gets credit for his work but becomes the CEO of Encom … exit Dillinger.
Greetings Programs!
After watching the sequel where it is revealed that things do not go as planned. And the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. One is left with one distinct feeling … that Kevin Flynn after several years in his digital world called the grid has become Jeff Lobowski, the Dude.
Lebowksi or The Dude, another character played by Jeff Bridges in the Coen Brother’s film The Big Lebowski, is here in Tron. An older version of the Dude minus the White Russian, the occasional Acid flashback and the rug that tied the room together.
Here was the Dude playing an Obi Wan Kenobi of sorts.
Greeting Programs! The Dude Abides!
In the end, I guess Tron the Legacy is a movie one will probably watch to see if one was interested what they did to the story in the hopes of rebooting it. But it does not hold a digital candle to the original Tron (Bit is also gone) and of course the Big Lebowski. But then again I have always been a fan of the Dude and his movie, specially since I watched at Ali Mall 4 several years ago.
Get a copy of and watch The Big Lebowski.
