Bemused Amusement

Okay, here’s the thing about Tron: it’s the dumbest movie I’ve ever had to work so hard to understand.

When I rented the movie, I really didn’t know much about it - to be honest, most of the reason I got it was because I love “Chuck,” and Chuck loves Tron. I had a vague sense that it was about computers, and I’d seen the preview for the new film, and that was about it. But if you’ve never seen it, Tron is the story of Flynn (Jeff Bridges, looking impossibly young), a computer programmer whose work on cutting-edge video games was stolen by an evil other programmer. The bad guy got promotions, and Flynn got ousted. Now he owns his own video game arcade (this is back when arcades were huge), playing the games he designed and never got credit for. His ex-girlfriend at the old company is working on this laser, and blah blah blah the laser magically transports Flynn INTO the main system at the old company. Flynn becomes one of the Programs, a race of beings who are dominated by the Master Control Program, which pits them against each other, gladiator-style.

Did you get all that? In a nutshell, the computer programs are people, they all have little lives inside the world of computers, and the Master Control Program is the evil dictator. Or, in other words, it’s like The Wizard of Oz if Dorothy went into a computer game instead of Oz.

The thing that made my brain hurt, though, wasn’t the now-ancient looking graphics or preposterous computer animation (everyone goes on and on about how Tron was cutting edge at the time so we should all respect it. I say respect is fine but does not a good movie make), but trying to hold all the metaphors in my head. It’s like this big equation: program equals people. Master Control Program equals evil dictator. Ex-girlfriend equals laser program. Ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend equals security program, Tron. If that wasn’t enough, the filmmakers decided to add on a exhaustingly thought-provoking subtext. Within the world of the computer, the programs (which are like people, remember) believe that they are being watched and protected by Users. It’s religion, people. In case you don’t get it right away, they toss in the word “religion” whenever possible to help you keep up.

If this all seems like an awful lot to keep in your head at once, well, welcome to my world. Tron is one of those films that’s got a smug sense of its own cutting-edge timeliness, which is sort of sad and funny now that it’s so. Incredibly. Dated. On the one hand, it’s kind of boring to watch, given that the graphics could now be made on my laptop. By Max. On the other hand, now that the effects are all bullshit, we all have a lot more time to notice the plot and heavy-handed metaphors, which may or may not give you a wicked headache. I now feel kind of a weird, misplaced fascination with Tron: I didn’t like it at all, and at the same time I’m now kind of fond of it.