LWSrocks Wrote:About the games. One thing that can't be explained is the scene where that one kid at the arcade is playing light cycles, and see Sark.

I think those shots were meant to establish that a digital universe exists inside every piece of computing hardware, from corporate mainframes down to arcade games. Interestingly, it's also evidence that multiple copies of programs can exist independently of each other on different hardware.

As far as why we see Sark as the enemy rider, rather than Clu or someone like him (since it is one of Flynn's games), that is a little strange. From an out-of-universe perspective, I think it's because the filmmakers wanted to establish Sark as the heavy from early on, and showing a program with the hero's face as a villain might have confused audiences. In-universe, I can rationalize it by assuming that Dillinger hacked some of his own code into Flynn's original Light Cycles game code (under the guise of "polishing" or "improving" it or whatever), hence we see Sark as the opponent. YMMV, of course.

tronix lives Wrote:i thought you said you liked the film

I love the film.

But as I said before, you can love something while acknowleding its flaws. Sometimes discussing what you consider flaws with other people can be interesting, even enlightening. I think we're having one of those discussions now.

Byteman Wrote:Simply put, I think you have made too many assumptions. You might wanna go back and have a real good look at the first film again.

I have, thanks.

Byteman Wrote:Programs had intelligence, and even emotion before Flynn ever got digitized. His back and forth with CLU1 should have made that obvious. When Tron communicates with Allen at the IO tower, that should have been a second clue that programs and users talk to each other like two people. Tron, and other programs belief in the Users existed before Flynn digitized. Believing, or not believing in something takes intelligence.

The only time we actually see a User carrying on an actual back-and-forth conversation with a program in the real world are the exchanges between Dillinger and the MCP. When Flynn communicates with Clu, we see him typing commands into his computer... and then we cut to Clu's POV, where he "hears" those commands as verbal instructions from his User. The same is true when Alan embeds the code required to bring down the MCP in Tron's disc. It's all about how receiving instructions might look from the perspective of a program, if programs were living beings. Anthropomorphism and metaphors, not literal reality.

Byteman Wrote:Their "humanoid" form is likewise present before Flynn arrives. Proven by the Lightcycle race, and, again...CLU1. These are not metaphorical forms, they are genuine forms in a simulation world. Flynn even knows that CLU1 is in a tank.

A simulated world?

In an arcade cabinet, circa 1982?

Really?
That alone introduces so many plausibility issues, it makes the mind boggle. And the fact that the visual metaphor for programs within the computer are people covered in glowing circuit traces doesn't have anything to do with when Flynn's digitized. That's what they look like "from the inside", and that's what Flynn sees when he's on the inside.

Byteman Wrote:The light-cycle arcade machine has a picture of the MCP "armored cylinder" on it. That alone is proof that the computer world is a "space" filled with "things" that someone designed and not just a metaphorical interpretation of something the Human mind was making sense of. After all someone drew the thing and slapped it on an arcade before Flynn ever got there.

I'm inclined to write off the cabinet art as one of those minor continuity errors introduced by the prop department, tbh. I think what they used for that scene was the cabinet of the Tron coin-op, the one Midway released as a movie tie-in. (Either that, or the cab art was based on the quick glimpse we get of the Light Cycles coin-op at the start of the movie.)

In any case, it seems you're suggesting that Encom's programmers somehow created a simulated digital universe filled with complex 3D models, and someone there saw these visuals before Flynn was ever digitized and painted a likeness of them for the Light Cycles coin-op. Sorry, but I'm not seeing a lot of evidence in the film to support your interpretation of events.

Byteman Wrote:Flynn wasn't surprised at how the computer world looked, he was only surprised that he was actually there at all.

He seemed pretty surprised to me. I didn't see him commenting on the familiarity of things there, or instantly recognizing things besides programs that looked like people he knew in the real world (Tron, Yori) or objects from games he designed (lightcycles, Recognizers, etc.)

Byteman Wrote: Even the MCP knew that Flynn would arrive in a "place" in the computer world if he digitized him.

Of course, but what does that really mean? A "place" in a computer is just a range of memory addresses. Flynn would still occupy a particular "place" within the Encom mainframe regardless of whether it was a Matrix-style sim or an ordinary computer.

Byteman Wrote: BTW...IIRC, there is nothing in canon that tells us how powerful the Encom hardware really was, and how it translates into real world computing. The digitizing lasers, and advanced touchscreens should be a big clue that in the TRON universe they are ahead of the real technology of the 1980's.

If computing hardware in the Troniverse was supposed to be so powerful that even arcade games like Light Cycles host virtual universes populated by fully-sentient AI constructs, the rest of the world would have been unrecognizable to us. Technology has implications, you know? Since we see programs "inside" the Light Cycles game, there are two possibilities - either even the most mundane computer in that world is supposed to have processing power far in excess of anything we know today, or they're just regular computers and videogames and there's another explanation for what we're seeing - like this "digital world" being a metaphorical representation of what's going on inside our computers.

As far as I'm concerned, that's a lot more plausible than megacomputers not only existing in the early 80's, being so commonplace that they're used for even the most mundane tasks. That's a premise which raises far more questions than it answers. (Like who in their right mind would create self-aware AI's just to use them as enemies in a simple arcade game, for starters.)

Byteman Wrote: I'd rather stick to presented facts. Fact, the digitizing Laser takes physical information, turns it into digital information, and stores it or transfers it to a hardware system (the Grid's). It can also take a digital information and turn it into something physical.

Alright, I'm with you so far.

Byteman Wrote:Fact, programs in the Tron universe are complex enough to survive in the real world. Both Grids had simulations of the real world that programs had to subject themselves to. In the first movie, it was the Solar Sailor Simulator, and the Sea of simulation environment. Possibly the whole world at large, since we do see clouds present. In Legacy it was definitely the entire Grid.

Those aren't facts, though. Those are assumptions, and I don't feel there's a lot to support them, especially in the first movie.

For one thing been using computer-aided design to create virtual models of things and simulate how they'd perform in the real world for decades. Airplanes, cars, spacecraft, you name it. That doesn't mean that these objects are modeled down to the atomic level - far from it. We couldn't model something like a car to that degree of detail even if we had a reason to, and there are vanishing few real world cases where we ever would have reason to.

Byteman Wrote:Since programs have an actual form,

You assume that they do. (And by "actual form", I'm taking it to mean you think they exist as simulated molecular templates, similar to the ones you'd get by scanning someone with the digitizing laser.) I see no evidence of that, and I don't think it would make much sense if they did. Even if I allow for the possibility of a virtual universe running sentient AI's, simulating the environment there down to the atomic level would require astronomical amounts of processing power for negligible returns. It's like assuming that because the cars in Gran Turismo look and handle realistically, the game is secretly calculating things down to the position of each individual atom while you're playing, or that you could export those cars via the digitizing laser and end up with actual drivable vehicles.

Byteman Wrote: and it can survive simulated real world conditions, then they can go into the real world. Just like a Human has an actual form, and can survive in real world conditions, can go into the simulated Grid.

A simulated object is just a representation of something that does, or can, exist. If it can survive under simulated conditions, it means that the real object it corresponds to would be able to survive under the corresponding conditions in the real world. It's not an atomic blueprint for making that object.

Byteman Wrote: I actually had a problem with this as well. It was so quick, and they don't really say why. My idea is that CLU2 does in fact have some of Flynn's "essence" or whatever you wanna call it...for the purpose of commanding the Grid. Something that grew during his thousands of years (grid-time) of ruling the Grid into something independent. Upon reintegration, Flynn simply couldn't contain the both himself and the (now) independent and fully realized essence of CLU2. I don't have much to support this, except maybe CLU2 initial lifelessness, and his later passion for conquest. Just my own idea.

Another one of those "riddles of the Grid... Grid... Grid...", as Castor would say. I'd kill for a look at Starlight Runner's mythology bible for T: L. I imagine we'd find a lot of answers for these questions there. (Or maybe not, but I can hope.) At the very least, I'd be interested in seeing what it has to say about some of these things.

Byteman Wrote: What does it mean? It's really too much for this topic. But to try and at least list one point. It would prove an intelligence outside of mankind. The written programs are still from man, they aren't "alien" like the ISO's. How huge is completely alien intelligence to you?

I can definitely see the significance of the ISOs in the abstract. They're something that would be huge to me personally - I'm intrigued by the idea of humans encountering nonhuman intelligence, computer or otherwise. But Flynn alludes to the ISO's reshaping the human condition without ever getting into the particulars of how. What, specifically, will they mean for humanity?

If you're interested in starting a speculation thread on that, I say go for it. Sounds like an interesting topic to discuss.

Byteman Wrote:All that real world stuff Sam did, was to show the audience that he is an athletic risk taker. That way they don't sit there and wonder how some kid is instantly so good at jumping light cycles, and parachuting like it's nothing in the computer world. Or leaping from disc-war box to box. Sam gets plenty of time to shine. You are just dead-set on discrediting and minimizing them all.

You're painting me as deliberately adversarial here, when that's hardly the case. I'm not "discrediting and minimizing" anything. Let me put this as bluntly as possible.

He's the protagonist, the guy I'm supposed to be pulling for. And I was.

I wanted to see him kick some ass.
To go into a fight and come out decisively on top. Not just "survive". Not just hold his own until someone else could come along to bail him out. To show that he can get the job done on his own. And a moment like that was planned, at a point in the movie I felt was dramatically appropriate, but it never ended up being filmed. And that was disappointing to me, because I felt that the movie would have been that much better for it. If squeezing it in would have meant trimming some of the BASE-jumping stuff, I wouldn't have had a problem with that. I didn't feel the film needed to justify Sam's athletic ability onscreen for me to take him seriously as a hero, and I'd rather have seen that battle play out onscreen as the culmination of his character arc.

Byteman Wrote:Appearing at the last moment and saving the day, would have ruined (and possibly prevented) Flynn's sacrificing himself for his son.

They could still have had Flynn sacrifice himself at the end, if that's the direction they wanted to go in. I just wanted to see Tron have a role to play at the climax. Even if it was something like Clu's carrier arriving at the portal while Flynn and Clu are trading dialogue, and the redeemed Tron showing up (sans helmet) to hold the bridge against the advancing legions of conscripts marching toward the portal while Flynn and Clu go at it, I'd've been more than satisfied. (Hell, I'd've been thrilled beyond belief.) It's sad to think that the last time Flynn gets to see Tron before dying is in his guise as Rinzler.

Byteman Wrote:It's a movie. Relax guy..gal?

I was pretty relaxed, last time I checked. I just enjoy discussing this stuff.

You don't need my permission for that, rimwall. I don't know what the rules here are with regard to cross-posting (if any), but as far as my personal feelings go, you should feel free to post anything to your thread that you feel is relevant to the discussion there.

Argent Wrote:You don't need my permission for that, rimwall. I don't know what the rules here are with regard to cross-posting (if any), but as far as my personal feelings go, you should feel free to post anything to your thread that you feel is relevant to the discussion there.

thanks Argent

rimwall Wrote: IsoLine Wrote:I mentioned the theoretical use of this technique by the MCP in a long gone thread about this same subject. The MCP was a smart cookie, so I think he could have found any number of ways to get Sark into an arcade game. if you could kindly provide a link to the thread. i would appreciate it i would like to ask your permission IsoLine to post this idea to my "nailing down the rules thread" on the off-chance the thread link is not in the archives then i will still attribute the original idea to you IsoLine - if you can give the go ahead for me to post it to the "nailing the rules thread"

Oh my God....If i can look for it later, that would be much appreciated LOL...It was before the new movie came out, that is part of when I remember. I don't really need credit for the idea, but we had the same conversation back then about the dichotomy of Sark being in the video game and then showing up in the Encom mainframe. I don't mind if you post the concept to the "nailing the rules thread".

opps double post

RenegadeProgram Wrote:I started reading through some of Argent's critique, and I think that some of you are missing a very basic fundamental difference between TRON and TRON: LEGACY which was spelled out several times by Joe Kosinski in interviews before Legacy came out, on several websites - the "grid" in TRON was not the grid in TRON: LEGACY. They are two different servers: The digital environment in TRON was inside the ENCOM 511; the digital environment inside of TRON: LEGACY was a secret server Flynn built in the basement of his arcade. Also, the programs in TRON all had users, and some dialogue by RAM clearly states that all types of programs were being snatched up by the MCP to play games on the game grid, if the MCP found them useful. The programs in TRON: LEGACY were more like SIMS, in that they were all created by Kevin Flynn's programming, except for the ISOS who just came to be due to a glitch in the system. So basically, all the programs in Legacy, except for the ISOS, had ONE user, Flynn himself. Also, the world inside the ENCOM 511, was just referred to collectively as THE SYSTEM, where as the collective environment inside Flynn's private server was collectively called THE GRID.

The ones on The Grid are not simulations. Merely programs written by a single programmer. We've assumed Kevin used some kind of mechanism such that all programs did not look like Kevin.

Also, while it was implied that the ENCOM 511 had an early version of internet access (maybe bulletin board type of access, since the internet wouldn't officially appear until years later), Flynn's secret server in TL did not have any internet access - it developed on its own, much like the Galapagos Islands, due to Flynn's repeated entries and exits into the GRID, until of course, he was trapped inside. Each time Flynn went in he helped develop his virtual world even more, programming modifications, and it's implied that there was some coding that took care of programming the changes itself.

Not sure it was implied that there was internet access. It sounds like you're referring to the MCP hitting up various corporations and eying governments to steal their programs. In 1982 this would really be unlikely. More likely was dial-up via modem which was what we saw Flynn doing from his place when he hacks in. The internet, at this point, is primarily governments and universities.

I'll read the rest of Argent's critique. While TRON: Legacy was not a perfect film, and while there were some things I didn't like about it, I think way too many people are forgetting the two different servers fact of the first film and this film, especially after the director and producer, Joe Kosinski and Sean Bailey, went to GREAT pains to explain this before and after the movie came out.

I think we understand that they're different systems. The problems become more basic than that. Programs interact relatively the same regardless of the OS or system they're on. Saying they're different systems is really insignificant to how they interact. The differences in the systems of 7 years may or may not be that huge. Consider that even though we're 7 years newer, we're looking at Encom's main server vs. some smaller deal Kevin's got in his arcade. Kevin's is likely more powerful but not necessarily by all that much.

EXODUS Wrote:The thing is, I've noticed this happens quite a lot with hugely popular stories like this. It's what I call DAN BROWN SYNDROME. And what I mean by DAN BROWN SYNDROME is that, when you read his books (or watch the films) they are full of plotholes & inconsistances, and yet for many people they're still really good stories. Has a general rule, when it comes to stories like this, I tend not to dwell TOO much on the flaws & weaknesses of the plot, and prefer just to sit back & enjoy the ride.

OMG! He could do the next.... oh, no, not going there, too painful.

Kat Wrote: Byteman Wrote:I'd rather stick to presented facts. Fact, the digitizing Laser takes physical information, turns it into digital information, and stores it or transfers it to a hardware system (the Grid's). It can also take a digital information and turn it into something physical. Fact, programs in the Tron universe are complex enough to survive in the real world. Both Grids had simulations of the real world that programs had to subject themselves to. In the first movie, it was the Solar Sailor Simulator, and the Sea of simulation environment. Possibly the whole world at large, since we do see clouds present. In Legacy it was definitely the entire Grid. Since programs have an actual form, and it can survive simulated real world conditions, then they can go into the real world. Just like a Human has an actual form, and can survive in real world conditions, can go into the simulated Grid. Real world conditions? Really? First time a program came out and had to confront taxicab-crowded streets, got a sunburn, encountered the police, met an angry dog, heard a screaming child, and gashed themselves on something and gushed blood, they'd wonder what the hell sort of world they'd come to...and that's just a small representation of all the things in the real world that are NOTHING like the Grid(s) that a program wouldn't know how to deal with...

A program couldn't survive because stuff is noisy and they might get a booboo?

Well, it's a good thing they don't have to fight for their lives in deadly combat in noisy arena's...oh wait a minute.

Anyways...

None of those "confusions" create gravity, or atmospheric pressure. They don't create oxygen or an active radiant EM environment or any other major environmental qualities. Nothing you listed has anything to do with whether or not conditions are right for survival. They aren't germaine to the environmental conditions I was clearly talking about.where to buy abortion pill ordering abortion pills to be shipped to house buy abortion pill online

I agree with Kat. Heck, most people can't survive in the Real World. LOL It's a dog eat dog world out there... Better know how to play cuz the game has changed. LOL

Icon57 Wrote:Flynn defines the isomorphs as a new form of life. They're sentient. Programs are limited; Clu2 and Flynn proved that in their dialogue at the end of Legacy.

But couldn't you just explain that as Clu being like one of those people who never gets over being immature/their mind never expands into critical thinking? I know people like that, and yes, you could describe them as "limited," but not in the way you're using here, I don't think.

Byteman Wrote: Kat Wrote: Byteman Wrote:I'd rather stick to presented facts. Fact, the digitizing Laser takes physical information, turns it into digital information, and stores it or transfers it to a hardware system (the Grid's). It can also take a digital information and turn it into something physical. Fact, programs in the Tron universe are complex enough to survive in the real world. Both Grids had simulations of the real world that programs had to subject themselves to. In the first movie, it was the Solar Sailor Simulator, and the Sea of simulation environment. Possibly the whole world at large, since we do see clouds present. In Legacy it was definitely the entire Grid. Since programs have an actual form, and it can survive simulated real world conditions, then they can go into the real world. Just like a Human has an actual form, and can survive in real world conditions, can go into the simulated Grid. Real world conditions? Really? First time a program came out and had to confront taxicab-crowded streets, got a sunburn, encountered the police, met an angry dog, heard a screaming child, and gashed themselves on something and gushed blood, they'd wonder what the hell sort of world they'd come to...and that's just a small representation of all the things in the real world that are NOTHING like the Grid(s) that a program wouldn't know how to deal with... A program couldn't survive because stuff is noisy and they might get a booboo? Well, it's a good thing they don't have to fight for their lives in deadly combat in noisy arena's...oh wait a minute. Anyways... None of those "confusions" create gravity, or atmospheric pressure. They don't create oxygen or an active radiant EM environment or any other major environmental qualities. Nothing you listed has anything to do with whether or not conditions are right for survival. They aren't germaine to the environmental conditions I was clearly talking about.

SOCIAL survival. Why do little kids need to be watched constantly? Because they know nothing about the world nor how to survive it. They don't know that you don't walk into traffic or grab running chainsaws or jump into campfires or drink bleach or go into the ghetto at 2 a.m. wearing a blingy Rolex. Neither would programs, because they have never experienced those things. By sheer dumb luck and some quick thinking, some programs could survive. Others would fall victim to the things that plenty of humans who DO know better still fall victim to. The point is that you're saying the Grid is enough of a real-world simulation that it teaches programs to survive the real world, and I'm saying it's nothing like the real world because there are a billion harmful things in the real world that programs know nothing about and therefore have not learned to survive. For heaven's sake, enough programs would walk onto a beach and get distracted enough by all the skin showing that you could walk up behind them and shove a knife through their gut before they got done gawking long enough to know you were there! The Grid is NOTHING like the real world.