This is Garrett Murray's Maniacal Rage

I watched Tron last night in preparation for hopefully seeing Tron: Legacy at some point in the next few weeks. Prior to this screening, I had only seen Tron once, some time around 1988 or so. Needless to say, as a kid I simply enjoyed the visuals and the idea of entering the computer world, but I didn’t notice much about the story or characters. These days, with a slightly better ability to discern character development and plot, I found myself realizing that the film is, more than anything else, an amazing technical achievement for the time wrapped around the world’s dumbest story.

The 1982 film all boils down to an absolutely trivial plotline. Most people, myself included, remember fondly the events that take place inside the mainframe, how serious and life-and-death it all felt. The big, bad Master Control Program trying to take over all other programs, assimilate them and grow strong and stronger. The character Tron is a hero, a savior, trying to stop this dictator’s regime and restore peace and freedom to all programs. But none of these events have anything to do with why Kevin Flynn, the main protagonist, finds himself in the mainframe, or even why he goes to ENCOM the night the story takes place. As it turns out, the whole film is about Flynn trying to get due credit for creating a handful of video games. That’s the story. Flynn has been hacking into ENCOM because he’s looking for proof that Ed Dillinger, the real-world “antagonist” (quotes there because he’s never in a scene with any of the protagonists in the real-world, so how bad could he really be?), stole his game code and presented it as his own (thus rising to become the head of the company and, later, building the Master Control Program—which Flynn cares nothing about).

There is a scene in which the MCP tells Dillinger he has accessed the Pentagon and wants access to China and other governments. The MCP can rule the world, effectively. But this notion and plot point is so buried and so temporary it can be nearly completely ignored. In fact, the protagonists in the film never learn of this and so it is not a driving force in their actions. That Flynn ends up being digitized and entering the mainframe is, effectively, a completely unnecessary step the MCP takes because the MCP thinks Flynn is trying to stop him from taking over the world. But Flynn has no idea about this. Nor does Alan Bradley (Tron’s real-world user), it seems. Bradley had been creating Tron simply to monitor the MCP, but he gives no impression in the beginning of the film that he has any reason to think the MCP is already so evil, but rather he just seems annoyed that no one is watching what it does. They all hate Dillinger because he’s a dick, but being a dick doesn’t necessarily make you the antagonist (at least in the real world).

So let me reiterate: The point of this film is that Kevin Flynn wants credit for creating video games.

Once Flynn is inside the mainframe, he becomes part of Tron’s quest to destroy the MCP, but only because Flynn happens to be placed nearby Tron. If he hadn’t run into RAM (another program) and Tron, he probably would have dicked around uttering one-liners (which is what he does most of the time anyway) for the whole 90 minutes and then been de-rezzed. So it is by utter coincidence that Flynn ends up helping Tron save the mainframe from the MCP, and, by virtue of this, receives (randomly) proof that Dillinger stole his games.

And so we arrive at the conclusion of the film, which should forever be regarded as one of the most abrupt and ridiculous endings ever made. Flynn is returned to the real world and immediately sees the printout proof he was looking for. Dillinger is in his office and sees that the MCP is gone and Flynn has found proof. Then they cut to a helicopter landing on the roof of ENCOM and Bradley yells something like, “Here’s the new boss!” and Flynn gets out of the helicopter. End credits. That entire sequence takes about 9 seconds. Tron destroys the MCP, Flynn appears, looks at printout, Dillinger sees the results, helicopter lands, credits. Bam, bam, bam, bam. Horrible. Bonus points for the “Here’s the boss” line being terribly-done ADR as well.

Tron is certainly a classic, if anything for its visuals. After watching it again, I’m very curious to see if Tron: Legacy features a deeper and less trivial plot.