Tron Legacy: Don't worry about the visuals. Worry about the metaphor.

[elfs]

A lot of readers have expressed concern that, with modern CG effects, the new Tron movie is going to suck because it has abandoned its abstract, hazy background in favor of highly-rendered precision environments. I think we have something much more profound to worry about: what metaphor the writers choose to describe their alternative reality.

In the original Tron, the computer world was a metaphor for what an operating system does. Hence Tron, Yuri, and so forth were limited in what they could do-- what they could even conceive of-- because they were ordinary programs as we understand them. Only under Flynn's influence, as something with extraordinary free will, did other programs begin to experience something unique, that touch of the divine.

In The Matrix, the Matrix wasn't a metaphor for anything: it was a setting with its own set of rules determined by the operating system. Those rules had exceptions and backdoors that allowed cheaters (Morpheus, Neo and the other free people) to shim special powers onto themselves or otherwise throw off limitations imposed if you went through the standard pod interface. Other programs, like Smith, the Twins, the Oracle, and so forth, were programs of such enormous complexity that had begun to emulate their human models so well they had started to demonstrate free will.

In The Matrix Revolutions, at the very beginning in the train station, the nervous businesmann gives Neo a speech about the trainman, and the entire premise of The Matrix Series falls apart: the trainman is not a free program within the Matrix, he is a metaphor for how the Matrix works. The Wachowski Brothers didn't understand the difference between the Matrix as a setting running within a computer and the Matrix as a metaphor for the computer.

My biggest concern is that the filmmakers of Tron: Legacy will make this same confusion: they'll mistake the whole point of the original and go for the explanation in the original Matrix series: that Flynn has dropped into what is merely a setting, and will not get any of the underlying metaphor correct at all. Tron as setting deprives the main characters of their two most important qualities: a capability for influencing the real world, and an almost Promethean message of free will.

Although the Tron 2.0 video game touched on these concepts only briefly, they did a pretty good job of staying within the lines of the original. Sam and Flynn don't exploit exceptions within the operating system as Neo did to save the world, they are exceptions. That's what the divine is. Sam and Flynn are angels, demons, or gods: they're spheres intersecting Flatland. If the script for Tron: Legacy doesn't understand that, it's doomed.

(A particular irony: in the original, many of the sets were hand-built and the glow effects were achieved through stage lighting: in effect, the real world was manipulated to make the computer world seem convincing. In the trailer, you can tell that the scene where Sam is approaching the arcade was green-screened; today, the computer world is manipulated to make the real world seem convincing.)

Comments

[dossy.livejournal.com]

And this, Elf, is why I love reading your writing.

[wookie-cd.livejournal.com]

hear, hear

[(Anonymous)]

You're right as far as you go, but I think you dismiss the importance of the visuals a little too easily. For one thing, the first movie wasn't a success because of its musings on free will or its religious allegory, it was a success because it tapped into the popular imagination of computers at the time, and gave mainstream audiences an audiovisual experience most of them had never had before.

And second, you're absolutely right that the movie could be a flop if it doesn't give its metaphysical underpinnings the consideration they deserve, but my worry is that no amount of thoughtfulness on the script's part will make the movie great if it doesn't extend the metaphor to what we see on the screen. The look of the computer world should reflect its nature as much as what happens there, and I'm worried that grounding the visuals in the concrete (e.g. dust swirling up as the Recognizer lands, or the ornate sofa Thirteen is sitting on) will fail to do that. The computer world should look abstract and alien, because it is.

Or, to put it another way, most people don't remember how Flynn started a kissing meme in the computer world, they remember the lightcycles.

Number 127

Re: Graphical upgrades

[(Anonymous)]

Well, that's a good point (and having watched the trailer a few more times, it bothers me less now). But the original movie was kind of schizophrenic about what the computer world actually represented; sometimes it seemed to take the "video games are real" approach you mention, but other times it was obviously supposed to be a representation of the hardware itself, leading to some pretty bizarre combinations like video game lightcycles driving up to a pool of electricity to refuel. :)

I can get on board with why things might look more concrete in 2010, especially since you reeeeeeally shouldn't take it too seriously in the first place, but my big worry is that it will feel, well, conventional, no matter how pretty it is. Maybe it's because I was only seven and just starting to get into computers when it came out, but the first movie felt completely new and original to me, and I'm worried this one is intentionally steering away from the things that made it feel that way to me.

Number 127

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Yes, but this movie is taking the setting of tron, and creating an inevitable Oedipus situation with all the computer networks of Earth for the part of the wife.

Young man, divine, brought into this new world. Falls in love with it and has the same ultimate powers as his father. More reckless than his father because he has more to gain than to lose. TRON with ingenuity of his own.

Old man, divine, now mad by decades of ultimate authority. Knows more about the system than the young man, but is slower and less willing to take a chance which could lose his power. MCP with ingenuity.

My personal feeling on the project is that Flynn had great plans for the future, and he entered the computer world once more. But he forgot to arrange for someone to push the button and bring him back out, so he got trapped there (note the secret room the son found by chance.) With the upload program still running, the son presses the EXECUTE button and is pulled in also. How is the kid going to get out? Will father and son fight to the death? Can a program come out of the same beam and survive in the real world, opening amazing possibilities (anyone and everyone becomes a god if they can create something in a computer)?

Stay tuned :)

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

Interesting the direction they went, I wonder if they're going to consider the events of Tron 2.0 canon, with Jet Bradley having caused a bit of a shake-up within the computer world seven (Wow, has it been that long?) years ago. Doesn't appear so, as there's no mention of the fCon takeover on Encom International's timeline, which is kind of sad, though it will be interesting to compare the different experiences that Jet Bradley and Sam Flynn have in the same world.

Also, Kevin Flynn's been in there apparently since 1989. A long time by our standards, forever in computer cycles. How has the influence of this living god-user changed the digital world over 20 years? Has he at least re-vamped the Standard Sub-standard Training for the Games?
And is a version of the TRON program still running, wearing the face of Flynn's friend?

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

Everything i've heard says that the 2.0 game will not be cannon.