Skip to main content

Tron Legacy...the title tells the story of the power and the curse of the new cross narrative bleed


Ok, I saw Tron Legacy. It is not a bad movie, nor especially great movie, so it is similar to a lot of mass entertainment. Still, thinking about its release for a few weeks and seeing the pop culture landscape react to it, I gotta take a stab of contextualizing it.

Tron Legacy is the perfect example of major corporate entity (Disney) trying to exploit a legacy property they know (or have been told) is cool, but they don't quite understand why it is cool. The original 1982 TRON was a financial disaster for Disney, but the movie became a cult classic because it foreshadowed our modern cyber culture. The idea of world inside the computer (the GIRD), the struggle to bring "freedom" to the digital world and the fate of the "user" all resonate with an emerging computer culture shifting from industrial computing to desktop/personal computing affecting everyone. TRON spoke to the implication of living in a world shaped by the computer--good and bad.

For kids who saw TRON and then grew up experiencing the digital revolution, Disney is hoping Tron Legacy will represent a chance to revisit the cutting edge represented by TRON, while rebooting the franchise to attract new audience who don't know the old movie beyond the iconography of Disc battles and Light cycles. At some level, Tron Legacy is about bigger and better graphics (like a video game), and the philosophical questions are loss.

This is not to say there is not an attempt to connect those issues. Jeff Bridges channels a little bit of "The Dude" while acting as a cybergod in this movie. His son is kinda like Jesus at the end(kinda...not exactly so don't write to me about religion). Questions about information freedom are in the movie, but kinda loss in the story that drags a little here and there.

The problem is that the coolness of Tron Legacy is built upon the geektastic nature of TRON. You can't make the movie without those elements. Therefore questions about cyberspace, identity, and freedom are as important for TRON LEGACY as they are were TRON. The buzz before the movie was all about the visuals, yet those philosophical issue give TRON and Tron Legacy the substance. We are currently in the midst of struggle/debate between a "closed system" approach represented by a company like Apple versus a "open source" approach represented by a company like Google (kinda). For critics of the closed system, the power of centralize design and control architecture limits choice and stifled innovation. This is in the movie (ENCOM is corporate behemonth--very much like Microsoft). The opening sequence will give everyone who had a problem with Window Vista a warming feeling.

I know we don't often associate Apple as the information technology enemy, but aesthetics aside, critics are quick to point out the rules in their system prevent users from creating solutions that push the product forward. In contrast, Google is associated with open source approach were people have multiple tool and the flexibility they can use to create something new and unexpected. This discussion is the core discussion for the 21st century as companies, countries, and individuals struggle to maximize the values of technology but fear the restrictions and control represented by people in power controlling that information. Be honest, do you really know what Apple's terms of agreement allow it to do to your computer? What about your employer's access to your mobile device or email? I have you really looked at your new IPAD's communication kit?

The Wikileaks debate represent the latest evidence of this struggle. Free and open access to information is causing the U.S. embarrassment. Some would argue that this will cause the government to act with greater morality as people are watching. It will not, it will create a new security industry to insure information cannot be seen by unauthorized people. Some kid in school now is gonna to create the next generation encryption software and become very wealthy. That kid will probably be Chinese....


Tron Legacy has elements that could have engaged the viewer and sparked excitement with a certain part of the audience. On the other hand, the great middling masses wouldn't have cared. This is the beauty and the curse of new media bleed. Comics, video games, television, and movies are becoming one integrated experience. This is good because it makes these properties hot and drives corporations like Disney to want to produce movies like Tron Legacy. On the other hand, if you are spending 150 to 200 million dollars on a movie and want to merchandise to appeal to a wide audience, you don't want the story to be too...anything. As a result, the story in Tron Legacy is a little of this (ISOs and struggle to control the system), and a little of that (Father and Son reunite--hugs) and not necessarily doing either thing well.

Still, if you want to see light cycle battles.....TRON LEGACY
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why blame comics for societal failure?

Why blame comics for societal failure? Society blamed comics for the societal failures because it was a fairly new industry, and as things seemed to go “wrong” they figured it must be comic books. When a child grew up during the war, his father was probably killing people and the military and his mother was probably making things in factories to help kill the opposition. The only things kids had to “babysit” them was comic books, and they read many different kinds. So when kids starting acting differently in this new generation the figured it must be the comic books. Society didn’t want to believe it may have been the internal and external scars war causes on the soldiers and their families. Also the fact that young unattended children are reading these comics may not be able to differentiate between fantasy and reality. When society fails it always needs a scapegoat then it was comic books next it was rock and roll. Society naturally resist change.
2 comments
Read more

Mythology and Superheroes in Comics

Ohhh my goodness... When I decided on trying to analyze the mythological origins and references in superhero comics, I had no idea the can of worms I was opening up... On the one hand, it was awesome to see just how many connections there were between superheroes and psychology/mythology/philosophy, but all the information also made it terribly difficult to distinguish what I should be using and how to tie it all together. When I was talking to one of my sorority sisters about it she said, "Oh yeah, well, research essays are kind of like putting together puzzles..." and I think that really sums up what writing this paper was like for me. Fortunately, I was really interested throughout the whole process and I very much enjoyed writing the paper. Being a psychology major, I was especially interested in reading about the Jungian archetypes that had a lot of parallels with major modern comic books superheroes. I was also able to incorporate Joseph Campbell's "hero cycle...
2 comments
Read more

The 1950s are often portrayed as a period of social cohesion. Why is this misleading?

When we think of the 1950's, most people think of similar things such as "Leave it to Beaver", very conservative and cliched pop music, and high patriotism. Our view of that time is one of social conformity to conservative values, with a traditional nuclear family where the father worked and the mother stayed home, where a majority of people attended church, where crime was relatively low, where a majority of American citizens were extremely patriotic, and where entertainment media emphasized these same conservative values and were subjected to censorship if they did not conform. This is misleading because while these things were all true to a certain extent, the world was obviously not perfect and not everyone was conforming or upholding traditional values, even if it seemed like they were. The 1950's were actually a very tumultuous time period, with the end of World War II leaving Europe war torn and in debt, the outbreak of the Korean War and the clashes of opinion...
1 comment
Read more