{"id":97,"date":"2010-12-24T12:40:43","date_gmt":"2010-12-24T20:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.straycouches.com\/documents\/archives\/97"},"modified":"2010-12-24T12:40:43","modified_gmt":"2010-12-24T20:40:43","slug":"tron-is-smarter-than-you-think-tron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.straycouches.com\/documents\/archives\/97","title":{"rendered":"Tron Is Smarter Than You Think #tron"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tron<\/i> Is Smarter Than You Think<\/a><\/h3>\n
\t\t\tAymar Jean Christian<\/a> \t\t<\/div>\n

<\/h3>\n

No, really; it is. Grade: B+<\/strong><\/p>\n

\t \"20090726_tron_legacy_concept_art_04_large\" \t <\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Brainy blockbusters are rare. For every Inception<\/em> there is a Sorcerer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Apprentice<\/em>. The most we hope for in our big-budget spectacles is some decent writing and a couple of big bangs. Usually, we don’t even get that.<\/p>\n

Critics have put Tron Legacy<\/em> in the Sorcerer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s <\/em>camp. Both Disney films have been branded \u00e2\u20ac\u0153empty,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cheesy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153silly\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by various writers.  <\/span>But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m here to defend Tron<\/em>: it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s smarter than it seems.<\/p>\n

First, the basics. The story about a young boy, Sam, whose father, Kevin, disappeared when he was a child, Tron<\/em> Legacy <\/em>follows Sam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story as he reenters his father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s game of the same name to find him and save the network from a fascist program, Clu, hell-bent on control and perfection. In the real world, Kevin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s company, Encom, has turned into Microsoft, a monopolizing behemoth releasing secure operating systems in the style of Windows.<\/p>\n

What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so special about this film? Like most blockbusters, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a whole lot of non-special<\/em> aspects: the storyline\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pastiche of other ones (Fifth Element<\/em>, Pocahontas<\/em>, and The Matrix<\/em>, for starters); the plot is all over the place, but vaguely about fathers and sons and corporations versus the people; and of course our lead is a boy who needs to find his purpose, a conceit seen in every other big budget feature made in Hollywood. Yes, the visuals are amazing (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m telling you, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gorgeous!) but there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of retreading in Tron<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But Tron <\/em>sharpens the social critique of the first installment: more so than many other dystopic sci-fi thrillers, Tron <\/em>is a clear cautionary tale of the state of the current digital economy. Our current debates over net neutrality, Facebook, Apple and the continued diversity of the web are all wrapped up in Tron<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s allegories.<\/p>\n

The first Tron<\/em> was one among a long line of seventies and eighties films about fears over technology, fascism and government and corporate control over society and media (Videodrome<\/em>, Brazil<\/em>, Blade Runner<\/em>, V<\/em>, 1984<\/em>, War Games<\/em>, Network<\/em>, etc.). Steeped in rather ridiculous concerns about the loss of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the end of the Cold War, these films are great but feel a bit dated today, a bit too \u00e2\u20ac\u0153postmodern.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Their critique of society was soft.<\/p>\n

With the growth of the web, however, some of these fears started to seem justified: corporations really do have access to vast stores of information about people and they are cementing their power (by lobbying, for instance, against net neutrality). While the first Tron<\/em> had vague concerns about the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153user\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and master control, when Tron Legacy<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Tron yells at the end \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I fight for the user!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it means something more.<\/p>\n

How does the new Tron<\/em> participate in these debates over the future of the digital?<\/p>\n

Tron Legacy<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s script was probably written about four to five years ago, back when the big rivalry in tech circles was Google versus Microsoft. Google championed openness, allowing the user some degree of control. Google was releasing its \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Docs\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for free as a challenge to monopolistic, controlling Microsoft, charging ridiculous fees for Windows and Office.<\/p>\n

The opening scenes of Tron<\/em> mimic this debate. Sam, who owns Encom (read: Microsoft) but doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t control it, hacks into the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mainframe and releases their OS for free on the web. The company was releasing its twelfth version of the system, charging more money for essentially the same program (read: Windows).<\/p>\n

Then, Tron Legacy<\/em> takes the debate to fantasy land, inside the game, where Clu (played by a CGI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ed Jeff Birdges), a program meant to create a utopian virtual world, has turned into a controlling fascist, wiping out communities and creating an army to control society. Clu is the virtual Encom. Sam is the user, the hacker, the idealist whose job it is create diversity, embodied in Quorra (Olivia Wilde), a digital mutation unwelcome in Clu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dream of monopolized perfection.<\/p>\n

Tron Legacy<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dark aesthetics (we only see the sun in the end) reflects growing concerns over the death of the digital utopia. We see the same concerns in this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Social Network<\/em>, a similarly cynical and dim feature about the fading promise of the digital revolution, its retreat into the same corporate monopolies of the 20th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

Why is this smart? Tron Legacy<\/em> plays the cards right. Bringing back the aging hippie in Jeff Bridges reminds us the first digital prophets of the sixties and seventies were counterculture idealists who believed in openness and freedom. Bridges\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Kevin in the film is zen pacifist, a caricature but a true one. The counterculture ideology has always been at the heart of digital culture (see the book From Counterculture to Cyberculture<\/em>) but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dying, perhaps already dead.<\/p>\n

The leading tech companies today are led by huge cultural figures, many of whom have spoken, at one point or another, about the democratic potentials of new media: Steve Jobs (Apple), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google).<\/p>\n

Like the CEO of Tron<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Encom, though, the now-billionaires have realized idealism isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t too profitable. Apple is essentially a closed network (Clu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s virtual world). Facebook controls how profiles are made and, at times, what information gets shared. Scholars are writing how Google actually facilitates inequalities online (see the book, The<\/em> Myth of the Digital Democracy<\/em>), and of course caused a stir this year by seeming to waffle on its net neutrality promises. We all know about Microsoft.<\/p>\n

Tron <\/em>tells us these companies aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u0153evil,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just companies. It offers no solutions except to start fresh, which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t possible, of course. Yet it also offers the fantasy of a younger generation who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll attempt to keep the digital as open, non-hierarchical, diverse and user-friendly as possible.<\/p>\n

Other glowingly reviewed blockbusters, chief among them Avatar<\/em> and Inception,<\/em> were so lost in their own hall of Freudian mirrors they completely bailed on their corporate intrigue plotlines (which wereactually really interesting!); and Avatar<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s environmentalist theme was about as inventive as the one in The Day the Earth Stood Still<\/em>, perhaps less so.<\/p>\n

Is Tron Legacy <\/em>a work of genius? No way. But it is a rare example of a big budget feature intimately in conversation with cultural, political and technological history.<\/p>\n

\t\thttp:\/\/www.splicetoday.com\/moving-pictures\/tron-is-smarter-than-you-think<\/a> \t<\/div>\n
\t\t\u00c2\u00a9 Splice Today, LLC \t<\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
via splicetoday.com<\/a><\/div>\n

People say the story is shallow, but I totally disagreed. But that’s because people don’t understand the message, or don’t take it seriously – at least some people do.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Posted via email<\/a> from Th’ Reverend Dak Post<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tron Is Smarter Than You Think Aymar Jean Christian No, really; it is. Grade: B+ Brainy blockbusters are rare. For every Inception there is a Sorcerer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Apprentice. The most we hope for in our big-budget spectacles is some decent writing … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-strays"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.straycouches.com\/documents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.straycouches.com\/documents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.straycouches.com\/documents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.straycouches.com\/documents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.straycouches.com\/documents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.straycouches.com\/documents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.straycouches.com\/documents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.straycouches.com\/documents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.straycouches.com\/documents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}