This Week In Retro: Tron (Patreon)

June 9, 1982: Greetings, programs!

by Diamond Feit

I can't think of a device more integral to my life, my employment, and my leisure time than the computer. I turn it on when I wake up in the morning, I spend hours upon hours of my day sitting in front of it, and when I turn it off at night, that means I'm ready for bed. In this accounting of my daily habits, I'm not even including the many other computers in my life—smartphones, tablets, game consoles, refrigerators, etc—I'm exclusively describing the whirring tower attached to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I've been locked in the computer's vice-like grip for about 18 years now, going back to my time as a college student and running straight through graduation and my subsequent relocation to Japan. That's more than a third of my entire lifetime (so far).

Making these calculations concerning the role a computer plays in my everyday activities shocks me when I lay bare the facts like this, but I'm even more shocked when I recall that for the first third of my life, I routinely went days or even weeks without touching a computer. I didn't grow up in a log cabin or anything like that—my father bought a computer for the family in the early 1980s—but for many years that device served as a luxury item, a curiosity that sat in our living room while we watched television, played games, or listened to music on the only stereo in the entire house. Even when I reached high school and had lengthy papers to write, I did most of my work with a pen, typing the data after the fact so I could print it out for maximum legibility.

Rolling these numbers around in my head, I find it remarkable that before I ever used a computer on a daily basis, before I even had regular access to a computer, Disney produced an entire film based around the world of computers and used that film to showcase groundbreaking new animation techniques. 40 years ago, Disney released Tron in theaters nationwide, a tech-heavy film that's more fantasy than science-fiction, but still one that gave us a glimpse of our collective futures.

Tron tells the story of two worlds, connected yet separate; the everyday world that we humans occupy, and the electronic world "inside" the computer.  Out here, people use computers for work and for pleasure, and we write programs to perform complex tasks on our behalf. Inside the digital space, according to Tron, the programs we write live their lives much like we do, forming social groups, engaging in recreation, and committing the occasional genocide.

As the film opens, neither world in Tron exists in harmony. In our world, young ENCOM programmer Kevin Flynn had his personal projects stolen by rival Ed Dillinger who, using Flynn's work to swindle a promotion, fired him. Struggling to make ends meet as an arcade operator, where he sees eager players pumping quarters into ENCOM video games that he created, Flynn spends his nights trying to uncover evidence of the theft so that he can earn his due credit—and compensation. Meanwhile, the rest of ENCOM's workforce grumbles about Dillinger's authoritative management style, particularly through his rigid control of the computer system via his Master Control Program. When it's not restricting access to vital systems or outright appropriating other people's work, the MCP reaches out across networks to infiltrate other computer systems, all to expand its own knowledge base and power.

Inside the computer space, the MCP oversees all, rounding up dissident programs from its conquests to either absorb them into its circuits or sentence them to death on the "game grid," using Flynn's video games as a means of execution. It turns out that whenever a player puts money into an arcade cabinet and hits start, they're unknowingly engaging in a fight to the death against the MCP. Since games of this era had no ending, the house always wins.

Flynn's desperate quest to claim what rightfully belongs to him and the MCP's quest to claim everything it possibly can run in opposition to one another, leading to a confrontation inside ENCOM headquarters. Thanks to a laser beam capable of disassembling matter molecule by molecule conveniently placed behind the terminal Flynn uses to raid the MCP's memory banks, the sentient supercomputer manages to zap Flynn out of his world and drag him into the electronic frontier. Only by putting his life on the line to play the video games he designed and befriending his fellow incarcerated programs can Flynn possibly hope to escape back to our world.

If Flynn had spent the remainder of the film blasting killer robots, eating power pellets, or running through the motions of any typical video game hero, Tron would have aged out of relevance decades ago as a footnote in cinema history. Instead, Flynn's adventures raise grandiose questions of faith and belief in a higher power. The computer programs in Tron have enough self-awareness to recognize the nature of their existence: They know they are computer programs written by beings outside of their perception called "users" and they know what functions they were designed to perform. When they converse during the film, the programs discuss their duties much like we might discuss our occupations, only they say "I'm an actuarial program" instead of "I sell insurance." The programs' understanding of their nature makes them indignant at the MCP's insistence that they participate in what amounts to gladiatorial combat on the game grid; if you knew for a fact that you had been designed to split logs with an axe, you'd bristle at the notion of spending eight hours a day making photocopies even if no one threatened your life.

Meanwhile, the MCP exerts control over its territory by treating users as nothing more than superstitious concepts, and agents for the MCP treat programs who continue to believe in the users as religious fanatics. The MCP propagates these lies all while having regular contact with human beings and understanding how things operate in our world. It knows full well that users exist and what work they expect programs to do for them, but the MCP believes itself superior to the users and wants to continue its unchecked growth; hence its desire to drag Flynn down to its level and destroy him, proving its dominance. Likewise, the MCP takes no guff from Ed Dillinger, its original creator, as it keeps the evidence Flynn seeks on hand just to ensure Dillinger acquiesces to its every whim.

Flynn, for his part, goes on a journey of self-discovery as he makes his way through the system towards his eventual escape. At Tron's start, we see him holding court at his arcade (named for himself), showing off his video game prowess for a crowd of onlookers. He holds a justifiable grudge against ENCOM and Dillinger, but he still behaves in a cocky manner, openly flirting with his ex-girlfriend when she brings her current beau to the arcade in a way that only actor Jeff Bridges could perform and remain likable.

When Flynn finds himself playing games on the other side of the monitor, he remains arrogant regarding his abilities, showing off mid-match even after he sees that his life is at risk. Flynn only demonstrates empathy and compassion when he realizes that the MCP expects him to kill the competition, flatly refusing to finish off an opponent at his mercy.

Although Flynn initially declines to share his status as a user to the programs he meets, he demonstrates abilities that they cannot comprehend such as activating dormant vehicles and even resuscitating a dying comrade. When he admits the truth about his existence, the programs treat him as we might treat an omnipotent being and flood him with questions about his "plan." Flynn scoffs at the idea of having any "plan" at all and levels with them, saying "You just keep doin' what it looks like what you're supposed to be doin', no matter how crazy it seems." The programs learn what we might learn oneday, that our gods have more in common with us than we'd expect.

By sheer coincidence, the 40th anniversary of Tron closely aligned with the release of Thor: Love and Thunder, another Disney film where mortals confront their gods and ask hard questions about their nature. While neither film offers any hard answers, I think Tron comes closer to treating the matter seriously, as Flynn ultimately accepts his position and performs a risky stunt just so the programs have a chance to liberate themselves from the MCP. Thor: Love and Thunder prefers to paint gods as oafish and comic in their disdain for mortals, and none of them seem to learn anything by the film's end.

I haven't mentioned it yet, but more than any philosophical points raised by the script, Tron's groundbreaking use of computer animation and electronic music represent the film's grandest legacy. Rather than portraying video games realistically, using pixel-based 2D artwork as befitting the era of early arcade machines, Tron shows us video games the way a child might imagine them to be as slick, fully-3D environments ripe for exploration and adventure. Likewise, video games in 1982 featured limited sound effects and hardly any music, but Tron uses a score by synthesizer pioneer Wendy Carlos to maximum effect, giving every scene a otherworldly grandeur.

These two elements combine to make Tron hold up today in ways that few of its contemporaries do, even if watching the film as an adult, I'm forced to recognize haphazard edits and other glaring flaws that I simply could not have noticed as a child. Tron opens impatiently, quickly jumping between our world and the computer world rather than building up to a big reveal when Flynn gets a surprise laser to the back. More than once, the film addresses our society as "the real world" which undercuts the just-as-real computer world, albeit one with poorly defined geography. The third act involves multiple characters traveling separately inside the computer to the same location, and since we as viewers have no frame of reference, it comes across as a random sequence of events.

I still hold a lot of affection for Tron. Back in 1982, video games had just entered the mainstream, so seeing my (only) hobby represented in another medium in a new light got me excited for the future. Tron also came out at a time when the very idea of regular access to a computer remained exciting; my elementary school wouldn't open a computer lab until 1984. Today I know enough about computers to know that Tron doesn't make much sense from a technology standpoint, but its fantasy and philosophical elements, combined with its one-of-a-kind aesthetics, make up for that deficiency.

Given how much has changed in both worlds since Tron debuted 40 years ago, it's a shame Disney hasn't done more with the property. As a movie about video games, Tron has seen its share of interactive adaptations and follow-ups over the years, and even made its way into the Kingdom Hearts universe. A 2010 legacy sequel, literally titled Tron: Legacy, saw the return of Kevin Flynn, introduced his son, and set the stage for future conflicts, but that film's lukewarm box office returns combined with Disney's acquisition of hit properties like Marvel and Star Wars pushed a new Tron onto the back burner. As of this writing, a third film remains in development according to those attached to the project, but no title or release date has ever been announced.

Whatever the future holds for Tron, the original 1982 film endures as a time capsule of how Americans at large viewed computers and video games as magical portals to another world. Today I imagine even my kids understand that just because they can play Splatoon 2 on a Nintendo Switch, that doesn't mean there are little Inklings running around inside the console, but that's probably how I thought my Atari 2600 worked. Given the seemingly limitless nostalgia for 1980s pop culture in our media today, I hope someone takes a second look at Tron beyond its lightcycles and glowing togas to try and tackle the deeper questions it raises but never truly answers. Then again, if we knew exactly how it felt to meet a god, would people even keep believing?

We might, if said god was Jeff Bridges.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.