Tron Legacy

Set Phasers to Spolier Alert

I don't expect a futurist movie to explain everything to me, and in a lot of cases I perfer not to know stuff because explantations have a way of unraveling Sci-fi movies if you're not careful (I'm looking at you George Lucas). Tron gets into trouble explaining how things ended up the way they are instead of just rolling with it.

Ten Things that kept me from loving Tron Legacy

10. Zuse

I really liked most of the characters in Tron, I found them interesting, engaging, and a few of them (notably Jeff Bridges) I was really invested in their ultimate fate. Sadly Tron also featured a completely pointless character named Zuse. Wanting to find his way to the portal, Quorral sends Sam to find Zuse, an old friend with a reputation of the getting anyone anywhere on the grid. Enter Zuse, a overly flamboyant night club owner trying his damest to be David Bowie. Zuse, pretending not to be Zuse, reveales he is Zuse and agrees to help Sam make it to the portal. The next freaking second, Clue's goons arrive and Zuse betrays Sam; though it hardly seems like betray since Zuse just met Sam and really hadn't helped him at all yet. A club fight scene breaks outs, with Zuse dancing like a fucking douche bag the whole time. Later Clue muders Zuse because he stole Flynn's disc from one of Clu's goons. Really no need for him to be in this movie, though the night club does allow for a Daft Punk cameo.

9. Tron
Who the fuck is Tron? I haven't seen the original so I don't really know, despite both movies being built around his awesome name. Without spoiling the origininal for myself, I gather from Tron: Legacy that A). he was built by Flynn's partner B). he helped Flynn fight some dudes in a story he tells Sam as a kid and C). he was building the Grid with Flynn and Clue. Now maybe it's just me but I wanted to see Tron is this movie, and the snippets of dialouge about him only made me want it more. A flashback scene shows Tron sadly being killed, as he saves Flynn's worthless ass from being killed by Clue and his goons. But wait, turns out Tron didn't die but was merely corrupted by Clue and turned into his Darth Maul assasin now know as Rinzler. Cool in a way though I dont understand how Tron was made evil, why not use the same process to just take over all the programs on the Grid, and I understand it even less when he magically turns good again. Yep, during a Star Wars air battle old feelings start to fester inside Tron/Rinzler for some unknow reason and he betrays Clue so Sam and Flynn can escape. Clue doesn't take the betrayal sitting down though and bitch slaps Tron to steal his air-plane-making-stick, sending Tron to crash land in some water. His lights turn blue, I guess indicating that he is Tron again. Wow what a waste of a character, especially when Tron is like the third man in the party. Would have been cool to have him really confront Clue and/or confront Flynn, as either corrupt or Tron again. He seems so important to the series, yet he's tossed aside in the end not having a place in the writer's stupid plot. Oh wait I checked the film's synopsis and apparently Rinzler remembers he's Tron after making eye contact with Flynn for a split second during the air battle. WFT. Earlier we heard that Flynn had no idea what happened to Tron after he saved his ass. He also said he battled against Clu for years and that only made him stronger. So we're to believe that Flynn never ran into Clu's #1 henchmen in over 20 years. Sam is there for only a day and  he's seen him dam near a dozen times. Plus how the fuck did Flynn recognize Rinzler as Tron when they walked by Clu's big speech, if they have some kind of deeper understanding of each other shouldn't he have defected from Clu's side years ago. Now I'm ranting....


Oh ya I totally see the resemblance


8. Programs vs Users
In Clu's Kingdom there seems to be a strong hatred for the users. Clu gives speeches talking about enslavement, breaking free, and keeping out from under the thumb of bastards like their creator Flynn. In the game collesium, the program crowd goes nuts when they learn Sam is a user and is about to be video-game style murdered by Clu. Adding to the evidence that there is somekind of war between the Users and the Programs, Rinzler/Tron says "I fight for the Users" before betraying Clu. I don't understand this supposed war for several reasons. First off, as far as I can tell, before Sam landed on the Grid the only User was Flynn. Clu and Tron are both Programs, and even Qurra, Flynn's apprentice ISO, is some kind of program seeing how she originated from the computer; can't see how she'd be a User. So in the Grid this makes little sense, seeing as may of these Programs have proably never even seen a User before. Plus on the Grind, aren't Users essentiually just like Programs. Sam encounters a bunch of Programs and none of them seem to have any idea he's a User. Both parties walk and talk and to my eyes opperate the same way. Even outside the computer the Programs have no reason to hate Users, this comp has been sitting in Flynn's office unused for fucking twenty years. Ya, this makes no sense, the movie fails to show the difference between Programs and Users.

7. ISOs
Flynn's fucking miracle in waiting, what the fuck are the ISOs. They look like Programs, they act like Programs, so what makes them so god dam special that they're going to change science, medicine, philosophy, and religon, huh? The movie told us they magically appeared on the Grid/in the computer one day and...... that they're really special. Clu was convinced and decided to murder all them (really not sure why; where they not useable/corruptable?).  The only clue to their awesome power seems to be Quorra being able to regenerate her arm, but that only happens after Flynn fucks with the dizmos in her head. I'm no computer wiz but couldn't you potentialy do the same thing to an injured program; re-program the injury or corrupt part of them and wham-o bang-o good as new. If they ISOs are so fucking great why couldn't they stop Clu, oh well.

6. The Portal
Don't you hate it when writers put completely illogical plot points into a film to force the character's hand? Meet the portal from Tron: Legacy. Flynn, the millionare computer whizz who built a world inside a computer and revolutionized technology, decided to make it really easy for himself to get locked into his own computer world forever. Upon entering the Grid through the portal, Flynn set it up so he has only eight hours to get back to the portal before it locks for good. Yep it's like a fucking safe and therefore can't be opened from the inside. Wow, isn't that fucking stupid. Not even a secrect password, or emergency to open the portal for the inside Flynn? What if Clu hadn't betrayed you, what if you just had a buisy day of fucking Quorra, loose track of time, and oh shit I'm trapped in here forever. Don't buy it Sam, the motherfucker secrectly wanted to stay in this comp forever, that way he could turn into the Dude no questions asked; no nerds asking for his fucking autograph. And another thing, after Clu betrayed him and Flynn ran off like a little bitch, did he even try to get to the portal? But I guess without the retarded portal debacle we got no story, proving just how retarded the story is to begin with.

5. Flynn
The main problem with this movie isn't that it's unwilling to tell the audience shit about it's self, no it actually does that quite a bit, the problem is it's explantions are supposed to be taken without thinking and actually make no sense and raise more questions. Here's some about Flynn: How did Clu not kill you right away after he did in Tron? How the fuck did you save Quorra? How exactly did you fight Clu when you appear to have no allies or weapons? Why the fuck would you give yourself a disc with all your knowledge about shit so Clu could kill you and know what u know? Why in 20 years didn't Clu just show up at your house and murder your ass, it's not like you live that far away. Do you have some kind of special god powers because you created the Grid? Where the fuck did that food come from that you ate with Sam and Quorra? Do you need food to survive in the Grid? Why did you age? So many questions and no quality answers.

4. The Disc
Why does everyone have a disk on their back? They come off easy and double as a weapon, but do they serve any needed purpose for the individual? I get that they contain the back stories of our lives and shit, but are they essential for living on the grid? Rinzler seems to throw his around regularly without a worry, and after Flynn looses his disc it really doesn't seem like that big of a deal besides Clu gaining the info on it. If it's just information about us, Flynn should have destroyed his years ago to stave off Clu escaping the grid. Quorra doesn't even take hers with her through the protal so I continually fail to see their purpose besides figuring out how often Flynn fucked Quorra or playing a game of cyber ultimate frisbee.

3. Clu's Plan
We learn from that movie that Clu is amassing a large army to take with him through the portal to conqueor the outside-the-one-computer-I-live-in-world. Here's the problem Clu, the outside world isn't like the fucking Grid. First off, since Sam and his father were turned into 1's and 0's upon being lazered into the computer, I'm assuming that your now flesh and blood in the real world Clu. That means you need to eat, drink, and not get fucking shot in the face by the numerous companies, goverments, militaries, and nut jobs who already exist in the outside world and will no appreciate you trying to take over it. Even if his plan somehow focused on using technology to bring the world to it's knees, guess what dumbass you're a program off a computer from the 1980s, it's 2010 now. Computers work a lot differently now (ever heard of the interent) and there are already hackers and programs ready you take your ass out, while you try and figure out the basics. Also, your fucking weapons won't work outside the computer because airplanes and cars don't generate out of nothingness in the real world buddy, sorry. Nope you'd end up walking out of a run down arcade and quickly be killed or arrested.

Wait, now that I think about it Sam Flynn did bleed while fighting Rinzler in the game room. So apparently he wasn't the same shit as the programs after all. So, if Clu and his homies are just programs in a computer and not anything substanable, how the fuck could they exist outside the computer? They're just a bunch of '1010101010101011101001011101101' how would that transfer in the real world? If Sam was digitalized to be in the computer, why would he bleed? Does he still operate like a regular human in there, can he cut himself or break bones? What would even happen if Rinzler hit him dead on with that disc, a bruise, broken rib? Fuck, now it makes even less sense than I thought it did.

2. Perfection
As viewers, we are informed constantly that Clu betrayed Flynn in order to create the perfect system. Hmmm, guess what dumbass you fucking failed misseably. We don't see all the goings on in Grid-land, but it becomes pretty clear that things are far from systematically perfect. Programs that are injured and disobediant run around all over the place. You can't even detect when a User is in your mist unless he bleeds on you, not to mention Quorra just chillin on the collesium wall; don't you have fucking security? Can't drive outside the city, can't find Flynn, man Clu the list of your failures just keeps growing. Flynn says himself that here is little need to even battle you because a revolutionary coup is developing in the city; not to mention people like Zeus who apparently have been doing shit behind your back for years. For fuck sakes man I would expect a computer city to be completely wired; you should know what's going on everywhere at all times. Instead, Sam, Flynn, and Quorra can navigate in, out, and about the city pretty much undetected. Plus, we all know a perfect world can't have free will, so why do you allow your program underlings to have it?
Perfect, huh, get a clue Clu.

1. Clu
They chose his name wisely, cause I have no fucking clue what's going on with Clu in this movie. Flynn tells us he created Clu to help him make the Grid 'perfect' and to run shit when he had to be out and about in the real world. I guess he made Clu look like himself so he would feel that he was still running shit in the computer even when he wasn't running shit in the computer. So Clu, Tron, and Flynn are old working buddies, yet Clu is ready to betray his friends at one disagreement. While Flynn is over joyed with the ISOs, calling them miracles and spouting non-sense about how they'll change the world, Clu doesn't share his joy. He sees the ISOs as imperfect, and I guess unable to fit into their perfect system. I say "I guess" because all the flash backs of Clu's early days never show any motivation. It's always just Flynn with his arm around Clu talking, no insight into the mind, thoughts, or acutal emotions of Clu. Flynn's his creator, his partner, his "old friend", why wouldn't he voice his concerns about the ISOs to Tron and Flynn? Flynn than could explain why he was being completely irrational, and if not changing Clu's mind have at least have some idea that bad thoughts are swirling in my stand in's mind. Immediatly before trying to kill his ass (why does disagreeing lead to killing), Clu asks Flynn "Was I created to create the perfect system" to which Flynn replies "ya man", bringing on Clu's killfest. Since your a quasi-Flynn and your operating under a defination of 'perfect' that Flynn bestowed into you, I think you would realized that the perfect system does not include killing Tron and Flynn. Near the end of the film Flynn talks to Clu and seems to say that Clu's main problem is that he is instilled with the definitions and ideas his younger self had, but now he's older and wiser. Hmmm, that seems hard to believe, just from the flashbacks it doesn't seem like young Flynn would hatch a plan to turn the grid into a totalitarian government. Feels like the writers just got lazy and made Clu into the generic over barring artificial intelligent stolen from I, Robot /Space Odyssey. At least those machines were a little more sublte in their take over and grew that way over time. Tron: Legacy makes it look like Clu simply woke up one day and decided fuck Flynn, fuck Tron, I want to be Hitler. It wouldn't have been that hard to flesh out Clu, but no we needed a fucking dance club scene.

Bonus: Three more burning questiosn that show how retarded the plot for Tron: Legacy really is.
1. Why would Alan own and carry a pager 20 years after his partner disapeared? Guess he could just be a little nutty.

2. If Alan knew Flynn had an office at the arcade, why wasn't it ripped apart and searched when Flynn went missing? Maybe Alan could have at least noticed the giant fucking laser, or that the comp in the office had programs named Tron, Clu, and fucking Kevin Flynn on it.

3. How the fuck did Clu send a page to Alan? Movie never even attempts to answer this one, despite it driving the entire fucking plot.

Tron Legacy, a beautiful failure.