I ran across a Tron story on MSN.com today http://movies.msn.com/paralleluniverse/tron-legacy-sneak-peek/story/across-the-universe/?gt1=288140 and it was neat to see Tron on one of the main news sites already, but there was a line that made me wonder if they understood the world correctly.
Early in the story the author writes "...created a virtual reality in which Flynn and Bradley's digital avatars -- known as CLU and TRON, respectively -- battled for their survival in games created by the computer's Master Control Program."
By using the term "virtual reality" it made me think the author might be under the impression that the Tron world is just some computer program that the characters minds are put into, like in the Matrix, rather than an actual universe that exists as an result of the computer systems.
Anyway, that got me to wondering how I might explain the difference to family and friends as we get closer to the release of Legacy. I want them to understand the setting, as it is so much more interesting than a mere "virtual reality", but the difference seems hard to put into words. What is a good way to describe it all so that it can catch peoples imagination like it does mine (and all of ours on this site, presumably