Unfortunately, yeah, it can. Usually I take bits and pieces-- like the whole Jordan storyline, and the stuff about what was happening with Clu et al behind the scenes-- and defer to the films where there are discrepancies. (I'm having a difficult time toeing the hard-and-straight line with my fill-in, since I'm having to now convincingly write stuff I've not accepted before, even stuff I've not accepted because it makes no sense).

Everybody's got a head-canon; some of us are just more stubborn about it than others. I do it with pretty much every fandom I have, to varying degrees, and then new material comes out that contradicts it and I'm just like, "Nope." It's half the reason why I don't watch the animated series. There are some things in which I'm not willing to be open-minded, and apparently my fandoms are one of them...

Unfortunately, I'm no help there. I don't tend to read fic except what's posted here or by people I know from here-- I popped over to FF.net once and there was way too much to sort through so I gave up.

Other folks who read in other places more might have some good recs, though.

I guess it's not something I ever considered doing myself... in part 'cause I'm not sure what Alan would do. It may be implied elsewhere in material I'm not familiar with (like the Next Day short), but I'm not sure how much hope Alan truly had at that point. He gets a page but he waits two days to do anything about it, and then he just makes a vague comment to Sam and hopes Sam does something about it... which as I've said before, isn't the way *I'd* react if I still actually expected anything. If you're waiting for a really important call, you don't hear your phone ring and think "Yeah, I'll check my voicemail tomorrow or something." And when Sam pages him, he comes by (makes you wonder why now all of a sudden it's urgent? Clearly Sam didn't page from his own number, 'cause Alan's surprised it was him-- "Sam, you paged me?") but doesn't really ask what Sam found or anything. So I'm not even sure what I would expect from such a story-- I'm not sure total grief and shock would be what I think we'd get from Alan, because I am not sure such news would surprised him. At this point he may just be at the "I just need definitive news that he's dead" stage even though he may be relatively certain. Perhaps other writers feel similarly-- that it might be anti-climactic when it does happen.

Tzigone Wrote:I definitely think Alan had some hope after he got that page. His "wouldn't that be something" and even the fact that he still had the pager before that indicate to me that he thought it possible that Flynn was not dead.

That line always bugged me too, because between it and the delivery, it sounds like Alan *knows* *something.* But someone here finally told me that according to Bruce himself, he meant the delivery just to be sad and wistful, and not really supposed to "mean" anything. But frankly, I still don't hear it that way. It sounds like Alan knows precisely what Sam's going to find at the arcade... which has some interesting implications for writing about Alan if you're willing to accept that maybe he's not a good guy.

Tzigone Wrote:Also, I don't think Alan would send Sam to that arcade if he thought it was just a wild goose chase. That would just be cruel, which I don't think Alan is. At the least, I think Alan thought it might lead to something - even if only a clue or hint as to what did happen to Flynn.

I'm not sure. The whole thing was weird, really. But it's possible he may have just wanted to shake Sam up enough to get him out of whatever apathy Alan thought he was in (whether I think he was right to do, and whether I think Sam really was in a negative apathy, is a totally different subject). Again, at the end Alan doesn't ask why Sam had a sudden change of heart, so I don't think it likely he expected much happened at the arcade except Sam getting nostalgic.

Tzigone Wrote:However, I don't think Alan had been told yet in "The Next Day" even thought he shut down "Flynn Lives." He was far too chipper for that, IMO.

I didn't see that clip, but recall that at the end of T:L, even Sam was pretty chipper. He just found out what happened to his dad, discovered a new world, went through a bunch of turmoil, watched his dad die (FOR HIM, no less), has acquired a new roommate/responsibility, and like Lucy he has a lot of 'splainin' to do to a lot of people...... and then he pops out, looks sad for a few seconds, and then he's all smiley at Alan and flirty with Quorra and seeming like he's in a pretty good mood. (I still assume there's a lot they didn't show us between the time they rez out and we see them again, and he probably crashes hard later. I understand they had to end the film on an upbeat note, so I'll give it to them, but... I do think I or you or most people would have a slightly-different reaction.)

Tzigone Wrote:I agree Alan wouldn't be shocked. I think he has been at least considering the idea that Flynn was dead ever since Flynn disappeared. He'd still grieve some, but I'm not sure how distant a grief that would be. That's actually one of the aspects that interests me - how do you react when you've at least half-way suspected he's dead for so many years?

I imagine it's the same reaction in someone who, say, had someone who was MIA in Vietnam, or kidnapped a long time ago, or something. You know there's pretty much no chance they're still alive, so at that point you really just need confirmation for your own sense of closure/peace of mind/whatever. And if they do finally find some sort of remains or proof, it's probably a sense of relief, mixed with some sadness, but not nearly the raw grief as if it were something new or unexpected.

Tzigone Wrote:But I don't think Alan was 100% certain Flynn was dead. If he was, he wouldn't have carried the pager, wouldn't have told Sam about the page, wouldn't have made that comment, and wouldn't have come to the arcade when he got the second page.

I've wondered if he maybe kept the pager more out of nostalgia than because he thinks he'll actually need it. That would explain why he didn't think the page he received was urgent. Like people who don't get rid of stuff that belonged to a loved one after they die, or keep their room the same, or something. They don't expect the person to come back and use it, but it's a gesture. But again, he may have told Sam and sent him over there thinking it would get Sam's blood flowing to see all of it again and such.

Tzigone Wrote:As for the waiting two days - I sort of have a theory, but I'm not that convinced of it, myself. I'm not sure if this times out, but is it possible "last night" refers not to the night *before* the board meeting and prank, but to the same night? That at 7:00 pm (when the Nikkei index opens on the east coast, I think, and they referenced an opening bell) Sam perpetrated his prank and got arrested, after that Alan got the page. He goes to Sam's home and waits until 3 or 4 am when Sam arrives and they chat, Sam goes to the arcade, then when Alan's barely gotten home to sleep, he gets paged again? Or maybe the OS-12 rollout was at midnight (9 on west coast)? Because Alan is discussing the mundane matter of OS-12 and such at the board meeting, and that just doesn't seem likely to me, if he's already gotten the page.

I definitely think it's the same night. And that's the way I've written it. Sam gets home from jail, Alan's at his place, he maybe dilly-dallies a bit but then goes to the arcade, and yeah, poor Alan can't catch a break when it comes to sleep, apparently. There is that part where he's talking to Flynn about base jumping and refers to "two nights ago, on Encom Tower" but I think we agreed here that that's probably just a figure of speech or a mistake on the part of the writers-- I don't think Sam really waited two days either and that's not what they imply (but then, it would seem that many things they imply in the film, they contradict later, so who knows).

I think Alan HAD already gotten the page at that point, but like I said, if he wasn't concerned enough about it to go over there right away, then he probably wasn't concerned enough to act abnormally. I do think they really meant it when *he* referred to "two days ago."

As far as time, we've discussed that here as well. I'm pretty sure that yeah, the meeting was right when the Nikkei opened (so, 7 p.m. PST). They're supposed to go live probably shortly before the opening, and Mackey says something like "we have to ring that bell!" That means we have a lot of time to fill during the film. Especially since, if it's already completely dark at 7 p.m. (actually before, since it's already completely dark when Sam's on the way there, so let's say completely dark at 6:00 or 6:30), then it's probably late fall. So that means the sun isn't rising until probably at least 7 a.m. or so? And we know you can spend hours in the Grid and it'll only take like 10 minutes out here, so Sam's probably not at the arcade more than an hour total. So we need to fill time between him getting arrested (which seems to happen between 7:00 and 7:30 p.m.; if his little board meeting fiasco is going on at the same time he's on the roof) and about 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. So how long does he spend in jail, vs. how long after Alan leaves debating with himself whether to go over to the arcade, etc.?

Tzigone Wrote:Well, we've already established that I don't think he did wait two days. At most, he waited one, but I think that might not even be the case. I think it quite probably he got the page after the meeting, then went directly to Sam's and waited for him. It does technically qualify as "last night." If not that, then he got it one night before the meeting. And it makes more sense that he's at Sam's place in the early AM that way.

I thought he said he got the page two days ago, though? I'm going to have to go back and find the dialogue again, I guess.

Tzigone Wrote:I guess Alan's actions, motivations, etc. just make so much more sense to me if he thought it possible Flynn was still around. I really don't think sending Sam on a wild goose chase to his father's old arcade in the hope that it'll somehow make him want to do what Alan wants to do or address his emotional issues makes any sense. There's no reason at all it would work. He'd show up, say "everything is as it always has been - I'll just be as I always have been." .

I think that's just the different interpretation, then (and one of the ways it's easy to disagree on X Y and Z in the films, IMO). Like I said, I see Sam as avoiding everything to do with his dad, probably because he knows it will trigger emotions he doesn't want to deal with (after all, he doesn't even have keys to the arcade). Alan has to know that too, so he would think it's a good way to lean on Sam. I mean, if he thinks Sam is going to find something specific (something neither the police nor he himself ever found, in 20 whole years), why wouldn't he say so? Or go with? If you think this thing holds water, you've been waiting 20 years for news of your friend, wouldn't you want to be there to find whatever you think is waiting? Or at the very least, wouldn't you *insist* Sam go instead of planting some seeds and then walking away and hoping they sprout?

(I have yet to figure out where the page even CAME from. If the number has been disconnected for 20 years, then it's probably been reassigned at least once and possibly multiple times. So how could a page come from it?)

Tzigone Wrote: I thought he said he got the page two days ago, though? I'm going to have to go back and find the dialogue again, I guess. No, he said "Sam, I was paged last night." Of course, he also said "“Hear you did a triple axel off of her a few hours ago” in the same conversation, which definitely lends weight to 24+ hours ago that he got the page, I acknowledge. The only "two" reference to time I recall was Sam's about the base jumping and we both know that's not strictly correct. It had to have been <20 hours ago by Sam's time-passage. But I guess if he thinks of it like crossing time-zones, then maybe midnight makes last night and then having dinner with Flynn and being sent to bed means it's night-time again and so he calls that two... okay, it really doesn't work out, I know. Edited to add: I just remembered another reference Alan said "two nights before he disappeared" about Flynn in the same conversation that he Sam about the page in.

You're right. (I don't own the film, but I do have a fic with that dialogue in it and I went back to check.) I must've been thinking of the thing where he refers to Flynn coming over two nights before he disappeared. Hrm. I'm inclined to say it was still the previous day-- say, if the meeting/Sam's prank is on Tuesday, and he and Q ride off into the sunrise on Wednesday morning, then Alan got the page on Monday. But, that could just be an assumption of mine because of the way *I* talk-- if I haven't been to bed yet, then it's still "tonight," even if it's 4 a.m., y'know? But not everybody does it that way, and we don't know if Alan does.

Ambiguous Script Writers are ambiguous. It's been one of my long-standing arguments here that some of the stuff in the film that we don't "get"-- like stuff that seems to be a reference to other stuff that we never see or is never explained, or stuff like this-- seems to be a case of that thing where you're writing, and YOU know in your head what you mean and what you think the backstory is... but that doesn't mean your reader knows, so what makes sense for you is confusing for them because you don't explain it fully. IOW, to you it may be natural that Alan says X and Sam says Y, or Flynn does Z, or Quorra gets A look on her face, because you have an idea of what's going on in their heads to make them say/do/look like that... but the audience hasn't a clue what your reasoning was, so they have no idea what's going on.

(I notice stuff like that because I used to do that in my own writing all the time, and I still do have to watch carefully to make sure I'm not-- my mom would read something I wrote and be like, "but I don't understand why Bob does this" and I'm like "It's totally because he thinks Jim is an android in disguise!" and she'd be like "but you didn't say that...")

Tzigone Wrote:I love the Alan/Sam dynamic from Legacy. I'm not quite sure what I think it is, really. I mean, in 2010. I have a good grasp on what it was when Sam was a kid, I think. But how often do they see each other and how much do the communicate. I imagine any distance between them is Sam's doing. I like the character, but (like the original trio) there's a lot of filling-in-the-blanks that we have to do for ourselves. How much of a loner is Sam? Does he even have any friends at all? Did he used to? How does Alan feel about the life Sam is living? By the way, is there a thread for discussion on Sam or the Sam/Alan relationship dynamic? .

Sorry, I just noticed this from your initial post. Sam. Oh, Sam. I love poking around in Sam's head. I like poking a bit at Sam-and-Alan too. Okay, in reality I write way too damn much introspective stuff on everybody. (Except Quorra. I've tried to pick apart Quorra and i just have a hard time. I dunno if it's that they didn't give us enough to go on, or what.)

Anyway, as far as Sam goes-- I'm actually working on an exercise where I do get into everyone's head and figure out how they think, what their motives are, what their past is, etc. Still working on Sam at this point because he is, IMO, the easiest (also because I have a personal fic where an OC of mine got to know him in college, so I really dive into his character with her descriptions of what he's like now vs. her flashbacks to their college days so I guess that's a big part of why I've got so many fleshed-out ideas about the guy). But I've seen a lot of different interpretations of him as well that I think could also work with what we're given.

A hopefully-quick rundown of my interpretation is that he was probably a pretty outgoing kid until his dad disappeared-- then between his own conflicted emotions (being left without a dad, the uncertainty, the difficulty of possibly thinking it was his fault), other kids prying or treating him like a pariah, counselors and teachers picking at him and trying to get him to "talk about it", etc. he probably withdrew. Grew up antagonistic and stand-offish-- likely kept away from other people, maybe acted like a douchebag to keep them away from him, maybe got in some fights. I imagine it was like a vicious cycle-- the more he pulled away and acted like a jerk, the more people avoided/disliked him, so the more he pulled away and acted like a jerk, etc.

I don't imagine he ever properly dealt with the fallout of his dad's disappearance-- didn't want to face it, kept it inside, etc. So somewhere in there is probably still a kid who just wants his daddy, even though the outside is grown up. Probably conflict between an inner juvenile "what did i do wrong to make my dad go away" and an outer adult "It wasn't my fault and he was just an asshole" mindset (there is that part where Flynn yells at him and you see Sam regress about 20 years-- my dad just yelled at me "Dad I'm sorry"). Hence why I tend to imagine he just avoids the whole subject as much as possible still.

Personally I think he was always pretty stand-offish. For one, I think he inherited the Flynn tendency to bend the rules, question everything, push against authority, etc. All that is just exacerbated by the shit that has happened to him. He's a dark version of Flynn at that age, I think-- same attitude, just that Flynn was more outgoing and chipper, like they're two versions of the same character with different experiences. I imagine he looks down on stupid or shallow people. Hasn't made many friends 'cause he hasn't found many people worth bothering with/opening up to. Romantic relationships, forget it-- just another way to care about someone who'll leave him; one-night-stands maybe although I sort of figure he may've even given up on that after college or so. Somewhere inside he may also be dealing with a bit of a low self-esteem issue-- again because of the fallout of "my dad left me", with other stuff piled on top to make it worse, like not getting on with other kids and, again, the downward spiral of "I act standoffish, they don't like me, I act more standoffish, they like me even less, so I act MORE standoffish..."

Then I add other stuff just for fun: he used to smoke but finally quit in college, he messed around with playing guitar back around high school or so, he used to have longer hair, etc.


But that's MY build of Sam. I know someone else who takes the tack that back when he was younger, he did the fast-car/hot-chick thing, which I could possibly also see even if I don't bat for that team personally-- not sure what that person's backstory on Sam's reasoning is, but if you ask me, in Sam's case it's not because he's shallow, it's because living the hard-and-fast life probably takes his mind off of other things and such.

For fic? Basically archiveofourown, fanfiction.net, the ones listed here, and what I'd already found at the Tron Legacy livejournal. I don't think I turned up anything new from this post.