Lazy Sequalizing?
on Tuesday, July, 01, 2003 5:28 PM
One thing that has disappointed me about every official sequal idea I've seen is that they show a complete lack of sci-fi imagination. The attempt seems to be simply to capture the "flavor" of the original Tron movie and "translate" it into modern times. The first movie sequal idea I saw had something to do with fighting an out of control search engine with eXtreme sports enthusiasts. The latest is a little better; the possible criminal uses of the digitization technology... but still, nothing compared to the possibilities that digitization opens up.
In the original Tron, matter digitization was merely a plot device. Okay, fair enough. But my suspension of disbelief is rather severely challenged when I hear that 20 years have gone by... and nothing happened. I mean, *why* did twenty years go by without matter-digitization, which worked without a hitch in the original movie, working again? I understand the explanation the Tron 2.0 crew use, that a sophisticated AI is required to digitize human beings, which of course means that Flynn could not have been digitized without the help of the MCP.
But what about inanimate matter. I sincerely doubt the MCP was involved in digitizing oranges. And if one can digitize matter, one can ship it via network cables and re-materialize it at the end point. Can anyone say this wouldn't result in the complete transformation of the shipping industry, at the very least? Flynn, of course, would profit from this greatly...
And if it did take twenty years to duplicate this technology, why, of all people, was it Alan who accomplished it? Lori was on the original team, under Dr. Walter Gibbs... why is it Alan, of all people, that ends up "reinventing" matter-digitization twenty years later? He's a security programmer, not an applied physicist (as his wife was).
I see in a Tron sequal the opportunity to chronicle a changing world, one very different from our own. One in which matter-digitization technology threatens to displace the long distance shipping industry. One in which hackers have something new to do: the modern equivalant of train-robbing. I see the digitial frontiers as just that: a frontier, complete with the lawless, but developing, environment that leaves a great deal of room for truly stirring stories of adventure.
I see increasing interaction, and perhaps even conflict, between and within the physical and digital worlds. Digital thieves, espionage, direct confrontation of purely digital threats: viruses, worms, etc.
Simply put, just trying to make a 2003 version of Tron seems lazy and misguided. There is so much more potential there...