Comments on: TODAY I WATCHED TRON :: Instead of Finishing New Website

By: DHARBIN!

DHARBIN! — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 03:19:08 +0000

Now see how much more interesting the religious angle is? But that quote from Sark is like 95% of the actual religious content of the movie–they spend the rest of the dialogue on malarkey and padding.

Tron could have been like Dune, insofar as having a complete world, society, culture, etc. Instead: fluff.

You know what’s awesome, Fred? You are.

By: Fred

Fred — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 03:07:51 +0000

Tron is a religious movie with a hatred of militant secular or Atheistic Ruling Bodies…(I.E Government)
1. The MCP Program represents an Atheistic Government. All “Programs” that exist in the system are enslaved and meant to serve the MCP. All “Resisting Programs” (God Worshipers) are made into “Gladiators” until they die. The MCP’s lackey, Sark, even tries to use Government to enforce Atheism by threatening slavery and death…to quote “Sark” during the scene where he addresses the prisoner/gladiators…”Greetings. The Master Control Program has chosen you to serve your system on the Game Grid. Those of you who continue to profess a belief in the Users will receive the standard substandard training that will result in your eventual elmination. Those of you who renounce this superstitious and hysterical belief will be eligible to join the Warrior Elite of the MCP.” so
1. Religious Programs are given a choice between worship of State which means Life
2. or Worship of the Gods…which means Death
3. Tron is the “Righteous” Prophet or Herald with absolute faith in his “User” (God) “Alan1″. Nobody else in current society really believes in the users anymore but a few, but TRON thoroughly believes. His belief is so strong that it reinforces his purety of heart and purpose which is reinforced I.E Spiritually by his User (Alan1). This is what makes him so strong and such a big threat to the MCP. He cannot do it alone though he will need “Divine” help.
4. Enter Flynn, Flynn is suppose to represent J.C (Jesus Christ) he is the “God-Man” or the God who became Man. Flynn is a user who gets beamed into the TRON Universe and because he developed programs in the “Real World” he has Miraculous powers in the TRON world which he helped create. He eventually sacrifices himself by throwing himself into the MCP distracting the MCP enough so TRON can finish him off.

The entire message of TRON is Pro Liberty, Pro-Freedom and Pro-Religion…notice it links all those three concepts together and does not disconnect Religion from Liberty and Freedom. It is also an argument against over-reaching militant secular atheistic governments and (It was developed in the 1980’s so its likely the MCP represented The Soviet Union)freedom of religion.

Awesome film

By: LOOKA

LOOKA — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:53:09 +0000

Yeah! Yeah! I agree, I agree!
It’s like sience fiction movie house style. In the books, you can jump into your own visual interpretation of the atmosphere and the details. But most SF stories that get transcried to film seem to be picked for those pushy-button drama effects.

Just look at the K. Dick stories that got their turn in recent years. They put the technical paranoia (excuse ME the shortcut here) of stories like “paycheck” into a pure action settlement.
It’s like hearing some studio guy say: “Hey that sounds interesting… but you know what: Lets take all the interesting plot stuff out!”

By: DHARBIN!

DHARBIN! — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:47:18 +0000

You know, it must be that Disney locks down clips of its movies, but I looked like crazy for one of the more “out” sequences when I was writing this post. For instance, I had forgotten the bizarre scene (around the same time as the byte’s “yes/no” thing) where Flynn pilots that thing drunkenly and as he gets lower, pieces of his construct are chopped off until only the capsule at the top is left. Whoa! I remember seeing that as a kid and just having my mind blown for some reason; literally like there’s some kind of deep truth embedded in that deconstruction.

On the other hand, the byte scene you mentioned goes NOWHERE! I don’t think he ever shows up again–so weird how that movie is put together.

Did you ever see a movie called (I think) LIGHT YEARS? It was an Isaac Asimov thing, with a similar group of bizarre world-building ideas tied to this messiah idea that fantasy/sci-fi seems to latch onto. Again, how come in the future everything is so terrible? Why do we always need messiahs?

By: paul

paul — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:33:58 +0000

Most of the good stuff in Tron is due largely to 2 men– Syd Mead and Moebius, who did a large portion of the memorable design work for the film. I watch Tron in slow motion, and only the parts with the computer effects/design.

I love watching the Byte in slow motion when it does the YES/NO dialogue (it turns in on itself with a 4th dimentional cube) and also that scene with the tank (a Recognizer was it?) reassembling on the Atari-ish landscape…not to mention the whole Lightcycle battle, needless to say.

I think I like this film more now than I did at the time. But I remember seeing early thumbnail sketches in a magazine by Moebius– illustrating the Jai-lai like game of toss on the suspended battlefield…my first introduction to Moebius, I must’ve been 9 yrs. old. Still a vivid memory. And years before I saw an ish of Heavy Metal let alone the Marvel books…

The effect sequences in the first Star Trek are the same way– excellent stuff to watch on its own.

By: DHARBIN!

DHARBIN! — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:49:40 +0000

I have a slight advantage in that I didn’t see ANY of these movies when they originally came out, except The Black Hole, which was the last movie I saw in a theatre until I was 15, due to excessive Christianity. I saw Tron on a local “Saturday Afternoon Movie” -type channel when I was a teenager. So most of these live-action kids’ movies aren’t really creepy to me, just inane. I didn’t see The Dark Crystal until I was 23 or so, and a girl I was wooing wanted to watch it. God, it was awful, but my need to agree with everything this girl said prevented me from protesting aloud. So I fell asleep.

By: Shannon Smith

Shannon Smith — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:55:59 +0000

I thought the dryness was appropriate and I can really appreciate the art and design behind a visual image that can make a person feel something/anything on a physical level. I salute them for pulling off the sterility of the computer world. Still, it’s kind of hard to take. It should have played up that religious statement you mention but…yeah, the Black Hole should not have sucked either but… ya can’t have it all. Tron and The Black Hole are two of the most disturbing movies a person can ever watch on mind altering drugs that I never did back in college and would never ever do now. They make Jacob’s Ladder and The Shining seem like episodes of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Why are live action Disney movies from the 70’s and 80’s so disturbing? Don’t even get me started on Something Wicked This Way Comes.

By: Dustin Harbin

Dustin Harbin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:04:47 +0000

See, I kind of liked that dryness of the computer world–the water-drinking scene was so weird, I couldn’t handle it. I mean, here they are as fugitives in this digitized world, and they get all excited to drink some water? Very weird, and not at all something that gave the world more depth or anything–if anything, it made things more confusing.

The best “people” parts are the religious elements–the idea that the downtrodden cling to the idea of “users”, still out there somewhere in the real world. Tron should have been a giant religious allegory, with a foundation in humanism rather than just standard 80’s computer ideas and fear.

By: Shannon Smith

Shannon Smith — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:30:05 +0000

I watched it a while back when it first came out on DVD and one thing that struck me was how dry the computer world was. Just the look and sound of it made me gasp for air and need to drink water. There is that one scene where they drink that water and without that, I think I might had died right there in front of the TV. Very surreal.