Tron: Legacy

This year the Easter Bunny brought us a copy of Tron: Legacy (supporing my hypothesis that he’s been bought out by Mickey Mouse). It’s been ages since I saw the original Tron, and my memory was a bit fuzzy, but the sequel is perfectly watchable on its own.

Set almost 30 years after the events of the first film, Tron: Legacy introduces us to Sam Flynn, whose father Kevin disappeared in 1989. Sam investigates his father’s old arcade, and is zapped into the virtual world of the Grid in a maneuver known as the Reverse Matrix.

Kevin has been trapped here for 20 years, first fighting against and then hiding from a virtual clone of himself called Clu, which Kevin created to help him create “a perfect world.”

This is what we professional writers call a Dumbass Move. All those books on Kevin’s virtual shelves, and apparently he never bothered to pick up a SF title? Anyone who knows anything about science fiction knows you don’t instruct the artificial intelligence to create perfection!!! Naturally, Clu turned against the “imperfect” Kevin and set himself up as ruler of the Grid.

We also learn about ISOs, a new species of sentient “isomorphic organisms” which spontaneously emerged in the Grid. I guess Clu thought they were imperfect, so he wiped them out. Sam, Kevin, and Thirteen Quorra (the last surviving ISO) set out to stop Clu, reach the portal, save both worlds, get a brain from the wizard, and return home. 

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Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.