One last Tron post

The thing about Tron is that it’s a crap movie. The script is basically a disjointed series of monomyth clichés in a nutso setting that doesn’t seem entirely sure of its own rules. Even the parts of the story that don’t ask you to suspend disbelief are insane: a junior programmer secretly abuses the mainframe by writing video games while he’s supposed to be working on lasers or something, and an unscrupulous colleague steals the credit for his illicit games and as a result is promoted to head executive of the Big Scary Talking Desks division. But none of that is important because the actual plot revolves around a mission to destroy a rogue sentient computer program by throwing a Frisbee at it.

Yet, indisputably, there’s tons to love about this film. It can’t really even be called an artifact of its time—1982—because there’s no other movie like it. The sheer ambition of the art direction is reason enough to sit through it: not everything quite works, but the Lightcycles, the Recognizers, Bit—even the grid bugs—are timeless.

And toward the end, there appears this curious bit of theology:

             YORI
  A User -- in our world?


             FLYNN
             (nods)
  Guess I took a wrong turn somewhere...


             TRON
  But -- if you're a User -- then
  everything you've done has been
  part of a plan ...


             FLYNN
            (laughs)
  You wish. Man, I haven't had a second
  to think since I got down here. I mean
  in here. Out here. Whatever.


             TRON
  Then...


             FLYNN
  Look, you guys know how it is. You just
  keep doin' what it looks like you're
  supposed to, even if it seems crazy, and
  you hope to hell your User knows what's
  goin' on.


             TRON
  Well -- that's how it is for programs,
  yes, but --


             FLYNN
  I hate to disappoint you, pal, most-the
  time, that's how it is for Users, too.


             TRON
  Stranger and stranger...


             BIT
  You said it.