Theflynnabides Wrote:Also, I'm getting tired of hearing "WE NEVER FOUND OUT WHY QUORRA WAS SO SPESHAL" SHE'S AN INDEPENDENTLY THINKING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE THAT CREATED ITSELF, HOW WOULD THAT NOT ABSOLUTELY REVOLUTIONIZE EVERYTHING

The reason people don't know that she's an independently thinking AI that created itself is because that fact was never enforced throughout the movie. It was explicitly stated like once, but it really kind of depended on the viewer having read the graphic novel beforehand.

Argent Wrote: If there is more to them than that, something that makes them a genuine civilization-wide game-changer, the screenplay didn't do a good job of conveying it. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on exactly how they would change everything.

THIS is why the LOST writers screwed up on. I think they were pretending to be Tron fans but never truly understood the mythos behind it. And they tried to pull a "George Lucas" with the ISOs. The odd thing is that the comic explained the ISOs differently than the film version.

Pilgrim1099 Wrote: Argent Wrote: If there is more to them than that, something that makes them a genuine civilization-wide game-changer, the screenplay didn't do a good job of conveying it. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on exactly how they would change everything. THIS is why the LOST writers screwed up on. I think they were pretending to be Tron fans but never truly understood the mythos behind it. And they tried to pull a "George Lucas" with the ISOs. The odd thing is that the comic explained the ISOs differently than the film version.

The thing that kills me is, like Mulder, I want to believe. I just kept thinking, "Come on, guys, give me something. I'm willing to meet you halfway." Flynn seemed to feel the ISOs were more important to humanity than the Grid itself.

Think about that for a minute.

The Grid, a miracle box capable of housing entire cities and supporting millions of people in a couple of servers in an arcade somewhere. A place where aging is slowed by a factor of 50. A possible solution to humanity's overcrowding problems, and an amazing simulator with the potential to spawn scientific and technological advances that could carry over to the real world.

And the ISOs are supposed to be more important than all of that.

After a build-up like that, is it any wonder that people were let down by the vague hand-waving when it came time to explain exactly what it was about them that would change everything, and how?

I think it would have worked if they'd come at it from another angle.

Imagine:

Kevin Flynn Think about it. Artificial intelligence - artificial life, man! - arising spontaneously out of the information moving through our computers! Quorra's the proof! And if it happened once, it could happen again - could be happening, right now - somewhere out there. When it does, those programs - those people - are going to need protection. People in our world won't want to believe. But when they see Quorra, they'll have to.

Now if they had dropped something like that into the script, I would have been content. Flynn thinks something like the ISOs can spring into being elsewhere, and knowing how people in the real world can be, he wants Sam and Quorra to lay the groundwork so that our eventual first contact with them doesn't end in tragedy? I'm totally good with that. It fits with Flynn's feelings of guilt over Clu and the ISO massacre, and it would explain why he's so determined to see Quorra safe, over and above any feelings he has for her as a person.

The problem is, they didn't. You can't even read this in from between the lines, because there's nothing between the lines to read. On this particular point, the screenplay falls flat. And given the importance of said point, that's a real problem. where to buy abortion pill abortion types buy abortion pill online

Kat Wrote:Right, what I was thinking. It seems to me Flynn's excited about more than just "wow, they're AI!" I mean, that's "cool," but I don't see either how it changes the world. I've always wondered... from the other side of the screen, what would an ISO look like? I mean, would a user look at one and say, "where'd this program come from? It doesn't seem to do anything. What is it, spyware?" and delete it? (So really, from that standpoint, what Clu did doesn't seem that bad, right? Because from an outside perspective, that's probably exactly what a user would want. Random programs popping up on your machine for no reason that seem to serve no purpose? Uh, no.)

Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking. When programs with strange filenames start turning up on someone's hard drive, using memory and CPU cycles and serving no real purpose you can see, I think "malware", and my first reaction is to say, "Better get rid of that."

Kat Wrote:Although. I still don't know that's a good thing. Why are humanity and ISOs going to meet up (unless you mean within a computer environment, in which case I'm sure even Quorra won't stop us from going in guns blazing and taking over rather than working in harmony with whoever already lives there; humanity is too stuck on a manifest-destiny mindset to ever do otherwise, I think--what's that Ray Bradbury book about Mars?)? What would bringing them to our world accomplish, except to add more individuals to an already-overpopulated planet? They'd still have to be capable of something pretty damn special to justify bringing them over...

Yeah, I was thinking that something ISO-like might eventually arise in another computer system somewhere, not in the real world. When that happens, you'd want someone out there who could recognize them for what they are instead of saying, "Hey, this system's filled with malware - I'd better reformat the HD and reinstall the OS."

In that scenario, Flynn telling Sam to take Quorra with him wouldn't have been so much to get her out into the real world so much as to make sure she would survive, period. Being at ground zero when Flynn reintegrated with Clu might well have destroyed her - it certainly did a job on the area surrounding the portal.

Admittedly, I'm reaching with all this. The problem for me is that characters who are positioned as "special" or "chosen ones" with some nebulously-defined "power to change the world" almost always descend into cheese. Usually they end up getting trotted out at the climax of a movie or series, where their poorly-explained superpower manifests in a blinding display of deus ex machina to save the day. And I like Quorra too much for that. She's a strong, sexy female character with a great personality. By pushing the whole "she'll change the world because she's SUPAR SPESHUL" angle, they've written her into that "deus ex machina gimmick character" box, with all the baggage that comes with it. Now whoever's responsible for the sequel is stuck with the unenviable task of dealing with that. The character deserves better, IMO. So yeah, I'm casting about for some kind of workaround, something that would explain her importance to the audience's satisfaction without entering the realm of the utterly lame. (I definitely don't want it to be one of these cases where she has some quasi-mystical power to talk with and control digital devices in the real world or something "because she's digital!", and that's exactly the kind of thing I'm afraid we may end up with. : / )

(Maybe we ought to take this discussion over to the sequel ideas thread?)

DarthMeow504 Wrote:Here's a hint: There is NO magic, no mystical explanation for anything.

Just as an FYI: Since your post came on the heels of me explaining how much I dislike "chosen one" characters with poorly-defined, quasi-mystical superpowers, I just thought I'd throw in that Neo wasn't one of the characters I had in mind when I was writing that. : ) (The character who exemplifies that for me is actually Elizabeth, aka "Elizardbeth", the half-alien hybrid from the original V series, if you've ever seen it.)
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Argent Wrote: Kat Wrote:Right, what I was thinking. It seems to me Flynn's excited about more than just "wow, they're AI!" I mean, that's "cool," but I don't see either how it changes the world. I've always wondered... from the other side of the screen, what would an ISO look like? I mean, would a user look at one and say, "where'd this program come from? It doesn't seem to do anything. What is it, spyware?" and delete it? (So really, from that standpoint, what Clu did doesn't seem that bad, right? Because from an outside perspective, that's probably exactly what a user would want. Random programs popping up on your machine for no reason that seem to serve no purpose? Uh, no.) Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking. When programs with strange filenames start turning up on someone's hard drive, using memory and CPU cycles and serving no real purpose you can see, I think "malware", and my first reaction is to say, "Better get rid of that."

Y'know, that's what I've always wondered. If you've been "in there," then you know programs are like people... you'd probably never run AdAware again, never delete an unneeded program, never reinstall, etc. Your machine would get so bogged down it's not even funny... especially if you throw thousands/millions/however many ISOs in to the mix! It'd sort of be a nightmare.

And of course like you said, security problems galore because it'd be a hacker's dream: "here's a weird exe file. Well, but it might be an ISO, better not delete it! Gee, where'd my bank info go?"

Argent Wrote:Yeah, I was thinking that something ISO-like might eventually arise in another computer system somewhere, not in the real world. When that happens, you'd want someone out there who could recognize them for what they are instead of saying, "Hey, this system's filled with malware - I'd better reformat the HD and reinstall the OS." In that scenario, Flynn telling Sam to take Quorra with him wouldn't have been so much to get her out into the real world so much as to make sure she would survive, period. Being at ground zero when Flynn reintegrated with Clu might well have destroyed her - it certainly did a job on the area surrounding the portal. Admittedly, I'm reaching with all this. The problem for me is that characters who are positioned as "special" or "chosen ones" with some nebulously-defined "power to change the world" almost always descend into cheese. Usually they end up getting trotted out at the climax of a movie or series, where their poorly-explained superpower manifests in a blinding display of deus ex machina to save the day. And I like Quorra too much for that. She's a strong, sexy female character with a great personality. By pushing the whole "she'll change the world because she's SUPAR SPESHUL" angle, they've written her into that "deus ex machina gimmick character" box, with all the baggage that comes with it. Now whoever's responsible for the sequel is stuck with the unenviable task of dealing with that. The character deserves better, IMO. So yeah, I'm casting about for some kind of workaround, something that would explain her importance to the audience's satisfaction without entering the realm of the utterly lame. (I definitely don't want it to be one of these cases where she has some quasi-mystical power to talk with and control digital devices in the real world or something "because she's digital!", and that's exactly the kind of thing I'm afraid we may end up with. : / ) (Maybe we ought to take this discussion over to the sequel ideas thread?)

I never was sure that Sam taking Q to the real world WASN'T just about saving her life... if it hadn't been for Clu's intervention, if he'd been eliminated as a threat, I dunno if she would've gone along with the Flynns or not, or that they wouldn't have taken her only so as not to leave her behind. Would be interesting to get the writers' take on that.

I do think she could've stood on her own "I am cool and kick ass" merits. And I think it could've worked just fine to just let it rest on the "dude, they totally just spontaneously came about, now that is cool" premise, and making it a "Sam and Quorra are going to change the world by continuing his dad's work" (which would be what, some sort of digital Peace Corps?) rather than making it sound like something more. But I agree with you that trying to make it more was a bit over the top. Especially since the ISOs are supposedly so automatically wise and stuff, but Quorra seems pretty normal. She can whoop ass, but she spends at least part of the movie deferring to Flynn's "wisdom" as she says, and never does display any of her own, unless you want to count the somewhat-disputed (and IMO, impulsive; she and Sam are two peas in a pod) distraction of Rinzler. I mean, even after helping Sam defy his dad and get to the city to find Zuse, she still is surprised when Flynn goes after him.
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@darthmeow but in that moment, he was speaking as a father, not a scientist. Being human, he is allowed to feel that way, having been separated from his son for so long. Anything else would have made him a man of stone.order abortion pill abortion pill buy online where to buy abortion pillwhere to buy abortion pill ordering abortion pills to be shipped to house buy abortion pill online

On the other hand, look at Inception. This movie was highly complex with its 5 levels of storytelling. However, most people understood this movie and it was a great success. At least my friends and me understood it entirely and we all had the same opinion this was the best film of 2010 (Legacy started in January). Beside some stupid Avatar kids who mourned at the IMDB forums Inception is shit because they did not understand it and it had plotholes (it has none). Though everything is explained and completed in the film if you pay attention.


The outstanding success of PotC 4 could be a bad, a very bad sign for TR3N.
Disney is not going to put 150 millions into a highly detailed and rather complex movie again which only grosses 400 million if they can spend 200 million on some random PotC sequel with a mediocre story and making 1 billion.

Darth Tronage Wrote:I don't believe the general audience lacks intelligence or is mentally lazy. I just think that most people go to the movies to escape reality and to go on a cheap adventure driven vacation. Most people work jobs that require using their head all week long and want to mentally unwind when being entertained. They want to escape their mundane lives and not have to see a movie multiple times to understand it. I don't mind movies that require me to do a lot of thinking but most people I know, just want a clear straightforward movie plot. If they want something complex they will buy a book.

I think you rather overestimate the american audience, which tends to in fact be dumb and anti-intellectual as a whole. That's a large part of why T:L did better with overseas audiences.

However, you hit on a point that many seem to overlook or want to deny, which is the fact that Legacy wasn't escapist enough. In many ways, it was in fact anti-escapist.

TRON showed us a different world, a beautiful world of light and color and digital smoothness, a place almost too perfect to be real, a place where the ordinary limitations of the physical world do not apply. A world where giant structures or powerful equipment can just be summoned or vanished in mere moments. A world where limitations of space, resources, materials, and most other physical constraints are no more. A place where if you imagine it, then engineer it, it becomes real. We hate the MCP naturally, because we're shown this world of limitless possibility, a dream come true, and it's turning it into a nightmare. Imposing restrictions and limitations on what could be free and limitless. We as the audience not only want to see that world freed to embrace it's potential, we want to go there. We want to leave our dreary, dull world behind and go to the other world where everything is beautiful and anything is possible. When the credits roll, we want more. And are willing to watch it again just to immerse ourselves in that world.

Legacy treats it's Grid with contempt. Even by it's creator it's viewed as a prison and a waste of time, a distraction from what the film judges important which is time with his son. The message is "don't pursue your dreams, that's silly and childish, focus on your family and regular life". It's a "stop dreaming and get responsible" message, akin to "get a haircut and get a real job". Except given the amazing possibilities of the Grid, it's basically like telling the next Jimi Hendrix to put down the guitar and go to law school instead. It's a completely anti-escapist message, and that's why it was so disappointing even to fans who otherwise liked the film.

The design and plot decisions all reinforced the basic "forget the Grid and focus on the real world" message. The Grid was only there to be escaped from, and at no point did the film ever do anything to portray a more positive side to the Grid. Even in Flynn's home, or the outlands outside the control of Clu, it remained stark and barren with no hint of the wondrous beauty of the first film. Everything was done to make the Grid as dreary and unlikable as possible, even down to making it rain. Why in the name of fuck would it need to rain in a digital simulation? What purpose does it serve? And why wouldn't Clu edit that out right away as one of those imperfections he was so intent on destroying? For that matter, why would there be alleyways with garbage or homeless bum programs? Again, something that would have quickly been eliminated by perfection-driven Clu and only existed to make the Grid seem like a nasty, unpleasant place.

And to nail it home, they diss the Grid and Shiva system as yesterday's news to focus the "hope" angle on the ISOs, which were never adequately explained or demonstrated in any way to be anywhere close to the potential of the Grid. But regardless of what we are thinking and feeling ("wait, a whole world inside a computer box? An entire completely customizable city with unlimited resources in a single outdated server? Holy shit wow!") we're told to forget all that and concentrate on the vaguely-defined ISOs instead. We're told to care about them without ever being given good reason to.

Avatar, for all it's hatred from some fans, worked because it built a compelling alternate world the audience wanted to be part of --and it allowed it's plot to reinforce that feeling. People wanted to go and live on Pandora. People wanted to be part of that amazing, beautiful world and they cheered for those that were fighting for it. They went to see it again and again because they wanted to immerse themselves in that world. Whatever the plot might have lacked (and yeah, it was pretty paint by numbers stuff) didn't matter in the face of that beautifully rendered and compelling setting. A deeper or more complex plot would have only gotten in the way, Pandora was why people loved Avatar.

TRON was that way, too. It's not as if the original film had a very deep or complex plot either, really the story is rather lean and straightforward, much like that of Legacy. But that didn't matter to the audiences who fell in love with it. What mattered was the amazing world that was put on display for us. A world which left us wishing we could go there. An escapist dream of a better place.

In the midst of an economic grind, with the shallowest cultural landscape in living memory, an escapist vision would have sold. But Legacy was focused on escaping the world it created to get back to the crapsack real world. That was a message no one wanted, not fans nor regular audiences. And that's why, despite everything else it had going for it, Legacy was a disappointment bordering on failure.

Give us a truly escapist TRON film in the spirit of the original, and it will be a hit.

No offense, Kat, but you can keep the meat and dirt world if you like it so much. I'll be punching the first ticket out of this shithole I can find.