Jeff Bridges plays Kevin Flynn, a wunderkind programmer whose gaming software is stolen by corporate baddie David Warner and hidden in the ENCOM computer. While attempting to hack into the mainframe to obtain proof of the theft, Flynn is digitally transported inside the computer and finds himself trapped in the "grid," which is basically a videogame world. There, he connects with the digital analogs of his real-world friends and enemies. In the end Flynn obtains the proof he seeks and destroys the thieves, both inside and outside the computer world.
And yet this entire scenario is reversed in Tron: Legacy, where the protagonist, Flynn's neer-do-well son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) apparently has nothing more to do with ENCOM (his father took it over at the end of the first film) than to make its proprietary software free to the entire world in contravention of the board's (and conceivably the shareholders') wishes.
In short, Sam Flynn is a thief. But this never comes up when Sam finds himself in cyberspace; he never admits to his father (whom he respects greatly) that he has essentially destroyed everything Kevin Flynn ever worked for: private property rights.
It's astonishing that a film could go so awry from its template. The first Tron was about punishing theft; this one is about theft perpetrated by the protagonist that is never punished, much less admitted.
But I'm not surprised. Hollywood has been hypocritically attacking the "man" for years now, forgetting that it is the ultimate "man," making films in right-to-work states to avoid paying union wages in L.A., brutally destroying all competitors, refusing to make or distribute films based on #1 best-selling books (see my review of Atlas Shrugged herein) -- quite literally acting like the teenagers they are as they sneer at Mom and Dad for their reasonable request that junior mow the lawn in exchange for room and board.
I have a nephew who, back in his teenage years, righteously defended the music-theivery site Napster by saying, "Hey, man, music should be free!" Now, a decade later, he's a struggling musician in England. I'm certain everytime he hears about someone bootlegging his intellectual property, he's outraged. Thus are Republicans born: when we are not fairly compensated for our labor, we become absolutely reactionary.
But not Hollywood. Since it's intended audience is teenagers, it wouldn't do to have all this jive bringdown about mowing lawns. Even though these "adults" take every opportunity to lecture me about smoking, evil corporations, renegade soldiers, and not recycling, they will not face their own hypocrisy. They truly are the MAN, sticking it to the audience and waltzing away without a thought about their own perfidy.
Tron: Legacy is an okay movie if you like chases, but a terrible movie if you want an actual story. Jeff Bridges doesn't reprise Kevin Flynn here as much as Jeff Lebowski, a kind of stoner dude whose laid-back answer to most questions is to "wait." That way, "The forces, man, will combine on their own, man, like the way those Isos came out of nowhere, man, you know? Man?"
He's sleepwalking through this. But one thing he's true to: he sacrifices himself (by reintegrating both yin and yang portions of his psyche) to save his son, the same son who never tells his dad he's ruining his company out there in the analog world.
The kid does show a glimmer of hope upon returning, however: He tells Bruce Boxleitner (Tron) that he's now ready to run ENCOM. I wonder if he'll reverse his "freeing of the bytes" and start looking after ENCOM stockholders' interests. If he's had a true epiphany, he will.
Unlike his Users, the filmmakers.
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