Movie Review – TRON: Legacy (2010)
Back in 1982, the world was captivated and amazed by the computer-generated world of TRON.
Other computer movies came and went since that time, but the genre as a whole became dominated by The Matrix trilogy. No complaints there. But in a world that became fascinated with The Matrix, would it be possible to bring TRON back to life, keeping it separate enough from The Matrix?
Released on December 17, 2010, TRON: Legacy returned us back to the exciting virtual computer world of TRON.
Jeff Bridges reprises his role as Kevin Flynn, a gifted computer programmer and head of the ENCOM company. Garrett Hedlund plays the role of Sam Flynn, Kevin’s son and primary shareholder of ENCOM following his father’s sudden disappearance. Starring alongside Bridges and Hedlund is Olivia Wilde in the role of Quorra, one of the last ISOs and a warrior who fights with Sam and Kevin. Bruce Boxleitner also reprises his role of Alan Bradley, an executive consultant with ENCOM.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
Tron: Legacy begins back in 1989 as Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is telling his son, Sam, tales from his adventures in the Grid. Before leaving for work that night, Kevin promises Sam that they’ll play his popular TRON arcade game again. That night was the last time anybody saw Kevin Flynn. We see several news clips that help fill in the gaps, such as the death of Sam’s mother in 1985, the ENCOM board taking the company away from Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner), and a hinting that Kevin Flynn discovered something really important inside the Grid.
But that’s it. Kevin’s disappearance is still a mystery.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
Twenty years later, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) is fully grown and also the primary shareholder in ENCOM. A bit of an outcast and also disgruntled with the leaders of ENCOM, one night Sam breaks into the ENCOM headquarters as the leaders are having an important meeting. Sam hacks into ENCOM’s computers and interrupts their meeting. He also releases the latest version of ENCOM’s new operating system software for free out on the Internet. The board of directors is furious at Sam’s actions, but they accept it as a humanitarian scenario of ENCOM “sharing” this gift of the computer software to the world.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
Sam flees from the ENCOM building by base jumping from the roof with a parachute, but he’s later captured by the police. After returning to his home, Alan Bradley pays him a visit. He tells him that somebody at Kevin Flynn’s old video arcade actually paged him. When Bradley mentions that the arcade has been closed for twenty years, Sam takes the key and decides to go investigate it. Sam arrives at the arcade and sees that it’s still preserved as when it was last open and being run by his father. Behind the TRON video game is a secret doorway that leads to his father’s office. While accessing his dad’s computer (an incredibly advanced model for the late 1980s), Sam runs a command showing the last commands that his father used on the computer. He enters the LLLSDLaserControl command and the experimental laser from ENCOM (now in Flynn’s office) fires, transporting Sam Flynn to the world of the Grid, a virtual reality created by Kevin Flynn.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
Inside the Grid, Sam is quickly captured by guards and is determined to be some sort of stray program. The transport carries Sam along with other stray programs to the main complex, an area that houses the arena used for the games. Sam is analyzed by a guard and sent to go play in the games. As we remember from the first TRON movie, the games are used to have stray programs battle each other to the death. Sam’s outside world clothes are removed and he’s given a new blue suit and his identity disc.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
Sam first has to play the Disc War game like his father did back in 1982. This version of the game is a little more advanced as several Disc War games are taking place simultaneously. As each combatant wins, the arena moves and re-shapes itself and pits the survivors against each other until there’s only one winner. After defeating the first two opponents, Sam breaks out of the arena only for it to move and capture him again, this time putting him against Rinzler, the top opponent. Rinzler beats Sam, but before he lands a crushing blow he spots Sam’s blood. Rinzler stops the fight and takes him to the leader.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
Sam meets with the leader of the Grid and is shocked when the leader’s mask is removed. It’s his father, or, at least the 1989 version of him. His father hasn’t seemed to age one bit. Oddly enough, his father doesn’t really care that Sam is there in the Grid. Sam questions his father’s odd behavior when his father reveals that he’s really CLU. CLU sends Sam off to the arena to face a match with the Light Cycles.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
The Light Cycles from TRON are back, and this time the cycles and the arena are much more advanced and elaborate. This time around the cycles can turn at any angle, and the arena has multiple levels and speed power-ups, just like in video games. Sam and his fellow riders battle CLU and his guards in a spectacular match. Sam uses teamwork and strategy, and they beat a couple of the guards. But the opponents are highly skilled, and Sam is nearly killed. Somebody driving a two-passenger Light Runner invades the arena, saves Sam, and escapes off the Grid.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
The Light Runner’s hotshot driver turns out to be Quorra (Olivia Wilde), a deadly but mysterious person. She goes off roading in the Light Runner and takes Sam to a secret hideout far from the Grid.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
Waiting in the hideout is the real Kevin Flynn. He’s shocked and amazed to finally see his son again. In the hideout, Kevin explains to Sam why he’s been trapped here in the Grid for the past twenty years. It turns out that back in the late 1980s, he was determined to create the “perfect” computer system. Kevin used the help of CLU and Tron to design and co-create the system. Deemed as a “miracle,” the trio discovered the existence of isomorphic algorithms (ISOs) living within the Grid. They simply manifested there in the virtual world. These ISOs carried genetic secrets that could eliminate diseases and unlock the secrets of the universe. They were going to be Kevin Flynn’s gift to the world.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
Somehow, CLU’s programming had become corrupted. His suit was the orange color that we’ve seen in this version of the Grid. CLU had assembled a few troops and used them to attack Flynn and Tron. Flynn escaped from CLU as Tron was captured and defeated. CLU saw the ISOs as an imperfection and destroyed them, killing the genetically superior race of people. The portal that Kevin used to transport between the Grid and the real world closed, trapping him with the Grid. He explains that the portal remains open for about eight hours until it closes, unable to be reopened from inside the Grid.
Kevin tells Sam that his identity disc is essentially the master key for transporting through the portal. CLU most likely figures that if Kevin can be transported into the Grid through the portal, then his identity disc can transport him out of that virtual world. The portal will be closing soon, and Sam insists on making a run for it. If he can make it through the portal, then Sam can reprogram the Grid and take care of CLU from the outside world. But that means making it to the portal first.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
Against his father’s wishes, Sam takes his father’s Second Generation Light Cycle and heads back into the Grid. There he goes to a bar as instructed by Quorra and meets a character named Zuse (Michael Sheen). Supposedly Zuse can secure safe transit to the portal. Unfortunately, the meeting is a trap and many guards swarm the bar. A fight ensues and during the middle of it Quorra and Kevin suddenly appear. Quorra is injured during the fight and has to be carried out of the bar. As they’re leaving one of the guards snatches Kevin’s identity disc off his back.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
Kevin, Sam and the injured Quorra escape in an elevator and make their way onto a “solar sailer” program, much like the one Flynn, Yori and Tron used in TRON. Kevin Flynn analyzes Quorra’s damaged programming and repairs her. During the repair Sam realizes that Quorra is actually an ISO, and his father had kept her in hiding all these years. Meanwhile, CLU visits Zuse and takes Kevin’s identity disc, destroying Zuse and his bar in the process.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
The solar sailer is eventually stopped on board a warship. On the warship Kevin, Sam and Quorra discover that CLU has been amassing an army to follow him through the portal. Quorra sacrifices herself to be captured by the guards as a distraction for Kevin and Sam. While she’s fighting Rinzler, Kevin recognizes the superior guard as Tron. Sam sneaks off and steals back his father’s identity disc while Kevin prepares a large Light Aircraft for flight. Sam then rescues Quorra from Rinzler, and the two of them make it to the aircraft and escape from the warship.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
CLU, Rinzler and a few guards are in hot pursuit, each of them using a Light Jet to catch and attack the escaping Light Aircraft. What follows is a long sequence of Sam using turret guns to attack the Light Jets while Quorra pilots the aircraft through crazy maneuvers, trying to dodge and lose them. Just as CLU is about to finish them off, Rinzler recognizes Sam as a User and he becomes Tron. Tron uses his Light Jet and rams into CLU, knocking them both out of the sky. CLU manages to grab Tron’s spare baton and reactivate the Light Jet, but Tron falls into the water. As he’s sinking we see his suit change from CLU’s orange back to Tron’s original blue.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
Kevin, Sam and Quorra finally arrive at the portal. The only problem is that CLU beat them there and he’s blocking their path on the bridge to the portal. After listening to Kevin explain that they failed in their plan for creating a perfect world, CLU hits Kevin and knocks him across the bridge. Sam fights CLU only to get knocked towards the portal. Kevin tells Quorra to go with Sam, and she makes her way around CLU and puts herself between Sam and CLU. CLU is about to attack her when Kevin reminds him about his identity disc. CLU grabs Kevin’s disc and realizes that he tricked him. Quorra and Kevin switched discs. Sam and Quorra use Kevin’s identity disc to pass through the portal and escape from the Grid.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – (c) Walt Disney Pictures
Back in the real world, Sam backs up the Grid onto a memory card and then deactivates his father’s computer. Alan Bradley is waiting in Flynn’s Arcade. Sam appoints Alan to the chairman of the board at ENCOM, placing him in control of the company. Sam then goes outside and takes Quorra on a motorcycle ride to the city. Before riding away, Quorra asks Sam what’s happening next. He tells her that it’s time to change the world, leaving the TRON movies open for further expansion.
As a whole, TRON: Legacy is a fantastic return to the imaginative world of TRON. The action sequences are great, the special effects are outstanding, and the movie’s soundtrack just plain rocks.
My main problem with TRON: Legacy is that the movie feels more like a repeat of TRON rather than a new adventure in its digital world. This time around CLU is basically the MCP, and there’s more action and a few more characters in this version of the movie. But the sequence in the Grid just feels too similar to the 1982 TRON movie.
Despite all the similarities, I still think TRON: Legacy is a pretty good movie, perhaps a little bit better than the original TRON. In particular I liked the whole father-son angle once Kevin and Sam are re-united in the virtual world. Not enough TV shows and movies focus on that strong bond between a father and his son.
Like the mainframe in TRON, I also enjoyed the futuristic look of the Grid in TRON: Legacy. Apparently the Grid was designed from a point-of-view from the late 1980s and without the influence of the Internet, allowing for more of an abstract view of the future.
Another one of the interesting parts of TRON: Legacy involves the special effects used to create the face of a much younger looking Jeff Bridges / CLU. In TRON: Legacy, CLU maintains a look about twenty years younger than Kevin Flynn. Apparently that younger face was created entirely with digital effects, a process that took over two years to complete.
Part of the marketing process for TRON: Legacy was Walt Disney World repainting Monorail Coral into Monorail TRON, a special edition monorail that ran on the Epcot monorail line.
TRON: Legacy (2010) – movie trailer
Kevin Flynn – “The Grid. A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships? Motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I’d never see. And then, one day . . .”
7-year-old Sam Flynn – “You got in.”
Kevin Flynn – “That’s right, man. I got in.”