This Week in Retro: Tron Legacy [2010] (Patreon)

December 17, 2010: Disney Tries to Overwrite History with Tron: Legacy

by Diamond Feit

Greetings, programs! Like a lot of Retronauts fans, I was a child in the early 1980s, and some of my earliest memories revolve around video games. The nature of that era meant I was also vaguely aware of "computers" as a concept, although I could not understand how they worked or how they did whatever it was that they did. I had an excuse, though: I was in kindergarten. Meanwhile, grown adults without an understanding of computers were tasked with making a movie on that subject, and thus we got Tron in 1982.

Tron asks the far-out question of, "What if there were, like, people inside the computer?" It supposes that every single program, be it an app at a bank or the latest arcade game, is full of cyber-denizens who live their digital lives just like we do... except they all wear gray togas with hi-tech highlights and believe that somewhere out there, a race of beings called "Users" created them all for a singular purpose. #Relatable, am I right?

(The fact that an arcade game is a computer program unto itself should matter more to the story of Tron, but for dramatic purposes, the movie is instead all about anthropomorphized "programs" actively competing in video games the way human beings would play frisbee or jai alai. Please, do not ask further questions about this concept, for you will find no answers.)

In Tron, a young programmer named Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) spends his free time actively hacking into his former employer ENCOM's database, searching for evidence that he was responsible for the company's hit arcade games—not the executive who stole his ideas before firing him. When Flynn sneaks into the facility for direct access, he’s attacked by ENCOM's sentient Master Control Program, who shoots Flynn with a laser beam that transmits his body and consciousness into the mainframe, leaving him to fight for his life inside the world of the computer. Flynn succeeds in his mission thanks in part to Tron, a security program written by his real-life friend Alan Bradley (both roles are played by Bruce Boxleitner), as well as Flynn's nature of being a "User" rather than a program, which grants him innate powers over cyberspace.

Tron's appeal wasn't just the then-futuristic subject matter, but also its use of unprecedented computer animation, albeit in limited form. Most of the film consists of actors on a live set, shot in black-and-white. Old-fashioned animation techniques were used to add color, while the digital landscapes and the famed "lightcycle" sequence were entirely computer-generated. Though primitive by modern standards, Tron retains a distinct look that has enabled it to age more gracefully than other contemporary CGI productions like The Last Starfighter and the clunky helicopter attack sequence from Golgo 13: The Professional.

Tron grossed a modest $33 million in 1982 dollars—more than Blade Runner, which released that same year, but far less than the lauded hits of the day like E.T. or Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Tron was a spectacle, no doubt, and it continued to grab the imaginations of viewers for years thanks to the emerging home video market; I do not remember seeing it in theaters, but I remember repeated viewings on VHS. At best, it was a cult hit, the kind of movie that people would reference either ironically or with occasional reverence, wondering when the Disney corporation might consider revisiting it one day.

That “one day” turned out to be December 17, 2010, when Tron: Legacy arrived after nearly three decades of silence. The film is a straight sequel, not a reboot or a remake, telling the story of Sam Flynn whose famous father Kevin went missing back in 1989. ENCOM has grown in size and strength over the years, but Sam doesn't particularly care for his corporate benefactors; the film opens with an "action" sequence where Sam sneaks into ENCOM the night of their new software launch, steals it from the server, and shares it publicly for free.

After a brief incarceration, Sam gets a tip from his dad's old friend Alan that sends him searching through the now-shuttered Flynn's Arcade from the first film. Sam discovers a hidden workstation, complete with laser, which sends him into the computer world to stand face to face with Clu, a program designed by his father to help run the system but who now seems hell-bent on building an army. Of course, Sam also reunites with his father on the inside, and the two of them seek means to get him safely back outside.

There's something curious about making a decades-late sequel to a well-remembered kids' film and trying to convince the audience from that start that the original film was bigger than it was. Tron: Legacy opens with a scene of a young Sam hearing a bedtime story from his father in 1989 as he plays with Tron action figures lying atop Tron bedsheets. This scene functions in part as exposition to inform the audience of who the major players are and what they did in the past, but it's also brand propaganda that purports to sell the first film as a sci-fi blockbuster.

Tron: Legacy is fan-fiction written by Disney that takes an alternate version of our world and applies it to the in-universe world of Tron, turning security-program Tron into a superhero and a video game icon that made ENCOM a success. It also transforms Clu from a one-off hacking program who is quickly dispatched in the first film into a mastermind who Flynn envisioned as a crucial collaborator in rebuilding the digital world. Every other character from Tron, ally and foe alike, is written out of the narrative entirely.

As video game fans should well know, there is no rulebook for making a sequel. It’s perfectly acceptable to follow up a beloved title with an experimental spinoff or a radical reimagining. Audiences will either accept it, or they will not. There’s nothing inherently wrong with making a broad, action-oriented sequel to a small, slower-paced original—famed director James Cameron has done it twice—but that expansion should build on ideas that already existed in the first place. Tron: Legacy jettisons Tron's best ideas about what it could mean for a society to co-exist with its God and simply settles for reminding audiences that the lightcycles were super cool.

I could almost forgive Tron: Legacy for being a beautiful-if-empty mess if it weren't so hopelessly vapid. The first Tron gives everyone a clear motivation: Flynn wants stolen data; the MCP wants to grow larger and more powerful; and the rest of the programs just want to "live" their "lives." Flynn's journey leads him to discover new allies and a cause to fight for, but ultimately his goal never wavers. In Tron: Legacy, Sam has to be convinced to look for his dad in the first place, and as soon as he finds him, his priority is to leave. Likewise, Flynn is content to remain inside the troubled computer world and only acts once he realizes his son's entry has put him in danger. Even still, the major push is to get Sam outside, not to solve the problems that Clu is causing; that part just sort of happens at the end.

What does Clu even want, though? He shouts a lot about "perfection" and seems comfortable with digital genocide, but what is his goal? World domination? That's both cartoonish and stupid given that his plan to escape the world of computers would strand him in a "real" world he knows nothing about. It's on par with a goldfish planning to escape from its bowl onto the floor.

The effects in Tron: Legacy are certainly an improvement over 1982’s computer graphics, but there is one glaring weak point which leaves the film looking more dated than its predecessor today: The CGI Jeff Bridges. In order to portray a younger version of himself in flashback sequences (which in turn becomes the template for Clu's appearance), Jeff Bridges performed motion-capture so that his image could be "de-aged" and overlaid upon another actor.

The effect is passable when inside the computer space, as everything there is supposed to be digital anyway, but completely unbelievable when "young" Jeff Bridges is supposed to coexist with other human beings. He looks like he stepped off the set of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within—and yes, I promise it looked shoddy at the time, not just in hindsight. To see how far the technology has come, amateur YouTube creators in 2020 have gone back to fix these sequences, and the results are dramatic.

If I am to gripe about Tron: Legacy, I must highlight two unambiguous achievements of the film. The first: The pulsing score by Daft Punk. Just as the original Tron features an electronic score from synth pioneer Wendy Carlos, Daft Punk's music gives Tron: Legacy an urgency that is palpable to the audience. It’s a soundtrack I still routinely play to this day.

The other esteemed merit of the film is Michael Sheen's performance as a club owner. He doesn’t matter much to the story, but he steals every scene he’s in. I have never seen The Queen or Frost/Nixon, so in my mind he is forever Wesley Snipes on 30 Rock, Aziraphale in Good Omens, and...whatever his name is in this film. I’ve already forgotten it (I think he uses two names?)

Tron: Legacy received mixed reviews from critics—not just from me—and despite making $400 million it was hardly a smash hit; this was the same year that Disney's Toy Story 3 and Alice in Wonderland made more than a billion dollars apiece. Two years later, Disney would purchase Lucasfilm. Combined with their purchase of Marvel in 2009, the studio suddenly found itself awash in recognizable sci-fi properties. A third Tron movie became less of a priority.

As recently as August 2020, there was chatter that another sequel is coming. But at this point, what would be the point? When Tron came out, computers were akin to magic and video games were the latest craze; by the time Tron: Legacy came out, most adults in America were used to carrying wafer-thin supercomputers in their pockets. A decade later, more people than ever before have access to high-tech devices and always-online Internet; to my children, the PC in our home is the least-advanced technology they can use to watch YouTube videos on.

I love science-fiction, and I'm a sucker for electronic music, so of course I would be curious about a third Tron film. But after two near-misses, it's hard to feign excitement about the property. There's tons of story potential, of course, especially seeing as how both existing films don't really explore half the ideas they could have. But if Tron continues to be nothing more than shorthand for laser frisbees and lightcycles, I'm reluctant to vote with my wallet for another installment.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan and is an active Twitter user.