tronsequel.com

Maybe someone can help me with this, but I don’t understand the scene where Flynn tells Tron about what it is like to be a user. If my memory serves me correctly (and it should because I have seen Tron on the order of about 500 times) Tron says to Flynn, “If you’re a user, then everything you do is according to a plan” after which Flynn says something like “well you know how it is, you just keep doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing” and then Tron says “well, that’s the way it is for programs” and Flynn says “sorry to disappoint you, but that’s the way it is for users too”.

This recently struck me as strange. Why is it that what-it’s-like-to-be a program is to “keep doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing”? And why does Tron assume that users do everything according to a plan? Are these even different? “Doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing” seems to imply a kind of acquiescence, yet an element of freewill. “According to a plan” would seem to be much more deterministic. Initially it seemed kinda backwards, as if the programs should be the ones that do things according to a plan. I can’t say for sure what the image of the users would be from the perspective of such a program who “does things according to a plan”, so I can’t assume that they would necessarily see the users as “keep doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing”.

On the other side, I suppose we tend to imagine that God (that sonuvabitch) does things according to a plan. And, speaking for myself, that I do things that it seems like I’m supposed to be doing. So, in this way I can see why it is that this scene is scripted as it is. Regardless, it is still curious that what-it’s-like-to-be-a-program is to have the experience of “doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing”. There are some philosophical implications here that I haven’t really thought out yet.

Granted that a program does do things according to a plan (a program), yet it is claimed in the movie that programs have the experience of “doing what it seems like they’re supposed to be doing”. And as I said above, this seems to imply a bit more autonomy than doing things “according to a plan”. This seems to be getting at two sides of the same coin: that the program can be completely determined (by it’s program), and yet still seem to have this autonomy of just rolling with the punches or what have you. I guess just ‘going through the motions’ might have the subjective experience of just “doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing” even though your behavior is completely determined. The thing about freewill is that it certainly feels like I could’ve done something different (even though I didn’t). You get the point, “keep doing what it seems like you’re supposed to be doing” seems to imply a bit more autonomy than “according to a program”.

The other thing I was thinking is that the Bible (never touched the thing) is said to say something like that we were created in the image of God, so it might make sense to think that God is something like us. In that case, the fact that Tron “does what it seems like he is supposed to be doing” might make sense.

Anyways, there seems like some little nugget of something there.

Here are a few more ideas that follow from from what I was saying here. It is strange that the arcade games that we see in the original Tron (the tank/recognizer game, and the light cycle game) so accurately resemble the Tron world that Flynn finds after he get sucked in. It would seem that these games are a direct window into the Tron world, but as I discussed elsewhere, that has it’s own ramifications.

My question earlier was: what about all the other video games? Like Mario and Link? Where do they fit into the Tron world? Or are they (Link and Mario) just fluff games and it is only the ‘Tron’ games that actually reflect what is going on inside the computer? This can’t be. All computer games, and the internet and everything must be incorporated into the Tron world.

So how could all of these be reconciled with the Tron world? Here is my preliminary response: all the various characters, monikers, avatars, personas, etc. are all just masking this underlying Tron world reality. So, “Master Chief”, “Mario”, “Link”, etc. are all just personas/masks/etc. Or maybe there shouldn’t be some explicit “underlying Tron world reality” of circuit board suited characters; maybe these circuit board suited characters are just one of these many personas/avatars/etc. in the computer world. I like the later idea. These are personas that are adopted in the computer world. In World of Warcraft III, I am so-and-so. In Yahoo! Games I am known as so-and-so.

So, in the Tron sequel, the characters of the movie could be moving through not just the Tron world, but the World of Warcraft world, through the world of Zelda and Mario, etc. etc. (I don’t really know how this would fit together with the earlier posts about the faux-documentary, but they could be.)

I like the idea of the main characters making their way through all of these other games (like the games I’ve already mentioned), in search of the Tron world. These characters are on some mission, and completion of this mission requires that they find the Tron world, which is in some way the most basic level of reality out of all of these other video games they have been through. Thus such a Tron sequel could also incorporate a best-of/greatest hits/retrospective of past great video games for gamers to geek-out on.

I’ll think about this some more, and try to connect it with the faux-documentary idea next time.

i don’t know if i was very clear in #4. In #4 I was talking about the two levels of reality in the original (computer world and real world), and that the sequel should add an additional (at least one): that of the making of the original movie. So there would be three: that of Kevin Flynn, Alan and Laura; that of Flynn, Tron and Yori; and that of Jeff, Bruce, and Cindy. The last of these is what I was referring to when I mentioned a “faux-documentary” aspect to the sequel.

Ok, I just had a great idea, but I will have to lead up to it a bit, but if follows from the above stuff. So in the above outline of the three levels of reality (Alan, Tron and Bruce), this itself could be divided into two: the real world, and the world of the movie ‘Tron’. So the sequel could be about the actors on the set of the original themselves (the actors) getting sucked into the world of the MOVIE ‘Tron’.

Here is another little side idea, similar to what i was saying in an earlier post, that the world of Bruce Boxleitner wouldn’t have to be a realistic vintage 80’s rendition, but a revamped 80’s, exaggerated and stylized (if that makes any sense). Here is another idea, the sequel could be set in world where the original movie Tron had been made today, so no 1982 Tron, but as if it were/had been made in 2008. The reason for this is that if this faux-documentary element to the sequel were set in a realistic early 80’s, it wouldn’t necessarily invite any revamping of the graphics/visuals/style of the original. So, the sequel could depict a world in which Tron didn’t come out in 1982, but came out in 2008! AND it could be set in the real world set of the MAKING of the ORIGINAL movie Tron as if it were made in 2008! In a sense rewriting history.

I really like that idea.