Fixing Tron Legacy (Includes some Spoilers)

A couple days ago I reviewed Tron Legacy and pointed out some of the problems with the story. I really wanted to like this movie.  It's beautiful.  The look of the movie really resonates with me.

In today’s post, I’ll propose a way to partially fix it. Of course, I don’t pretend to solve all the problems here; I’m a random amateur and not a professional screen writer. And I’m not constrained by budgets or anything like that, so I have a little more freedom.

I should note that this post includes spoilers for Tron Legacy. If you plan to see the movie and want to be surprised, skip the rest of this post.
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In Tron Legacy, CLU was created by Flynn and charged with pursuing perfection within the system. He goes beyond that role and becomes an evil dictator within the system assuring that it runs perfectly. Ultimately he wants to leave the digital world and move into the real world for some reason. He even has has a sycophant and entourage for some reason. The only way he can break into the real world, though, is by getting Flynn’s disk so he has the information and skill needed to make the leap through the portal separating the two worlds

I’m not sure what they mean by perfection; the world of the grid with its nightclubs and rebels certainly doesn’t seem perfect. That’s kind of the point of the movie, though -- perfection is unknowable.

To fix it, we need to slightly change the nature of CLU. To begin wihth, CLU needs to be more Borg and less Klingon.

Beyond that, CLU was created by Flynn in Fynn’s image. We need to treat CLU as part of Flynn. In the movie they tell us that Flynn stopped fighting CLU because it made him more powerful. Maybe they were already going down that path.

If they are parts of each other in the Grid, then CLU has the same performance skills as Flynn. He can execute the same tasks, perform the same actions, and know the same things. He basically download Flynn’s knowledge at time of creation. But because he is a program, and not a user, he lacks one thing -- creativity. CLU cannot develop new skill or tactics. He can’t envision how to do new things. Code can only do what it’s been told. It can’t learn form new thoughts from its own experience.

Flynn can learn. He can create new ideas. Afterall, he’s human. He’s a user. He’s the maker. The one thing CLU can’t do, Flynn can.

The problem for Flynn is that they are inhernetly connected. They are still, in some respects, one. Anytime Flynn comes up with something new -- an original approach, a new idea, a unique way of seeing the word, CLU learns it too. Flynn can try to fight CLU, but CLU knows everything about fighting that Flynn knows. Anytime Flynn learns a new skill, or thinks he has the upper hand on CLU, CLU suddenly has that skill as well. Now, not only are they continually evenly matched, anything new that CLU learns in battle with Flynn, he can now repurpose into his other efforts. Fighting CLU only makes CLU stronger and makes “life” for other programs even worse.

That’s why Flynn pursues a lifestyle of zen. He needs to keep his mind at peace. He needs to push aggressive thoughts out of his head so he doesn't risk giving new skills to CLU.

Qora becomes more important in this context. She’s a program but with the spontaneous creation story of the Isos we already know she’s different. She’s a program that can learn and can think. Flynn needs to work on educating her without simultaneously educating CLU.

She’s underutilized in the movie. Most of what she does in the movie has noting to do with her Iso nature. That’s what they should exploit more. She can be the one to tell Flynn’s sone more about the history of what happened in the world. She can become more of a guide than she is in Tron Legacy. She can be more of a random factor -- a glitch in the grid.

We can keep the final conflict between CLU and Flynn the way it is. Ultimately the way to defeat him is to join with him -- to reintegrate with CLU.

As part of the bigger picture, the entire grid can be shaped by the conflict between Flynn and CLU. The arrival of Flynn’s son is what breaks the stalemate -- he’s a user not constrained by the limitations of code. He can team with Qora who is not necessarily constrained by the limitations of code, but it largely constrained by her lack of vision. She doesn’t know the world outside the grid. Her intimate knowledge of the grid, and a her abilities, combined with the rogue nature of Flynn, who is not constrained by “knowing”something is impossible is a powerful tool.

I think we can grow Qora’s role even further and make her more like Neo from The Matrix. She’s different and can ultimately break free of the grid, see it in a different way, and finally break free to a different world.

Those structures may not solve all the problems in the movie and the may be a bit derivative of other stories, but they would make Tron Legacy a better movie than it is.

Have you seen Tron Legacy? How would you fix the story?