Argent Wrote: Kat Wrote:I'm not sure if I could take Clu pwning Tron AGAIN in the movie-- it just bugs me, considering Tron is supposed to be THE big hero and THE big fighter tying the two movies together. Yet over and over again in T:L, despite the fact that he completely mows down anybody he fights, Clu beats him easily. Yet Clu's not really shown as a warrior character--he can ride a lightcycle, yes, and he runs the show behind the scenes for those who are warriors, but Clu's not shown as a super-fighter like Tron/Rinzler are supposed to be (otherwise why would he use Rinzler at all?). So how is it that Clu is always so easily beating Tron (besides the fact that Tron's lost a foot or so in height, lol)? However, the idea with Clu being at peace-- I could see this being a tie-in to the Ram death scene with Flynn from Original Tron, yes? As far as Clu pwning Tron goes, I probably didn't articulate that as well as I could have. I imagine it being more of a case of Clu having an unfair advantage for most of the fight - if this was a videogame, he'd have the invincibility cheat enabled. (That ties in with the idea we discussed in one of the other threads, that Clu literally couldn't be derezzed from within the system, being a 'protected file' of sorts.) Flynn embedding the necessary protocols to bypass Clu's protection in Tron's disc would level the playing field, and once it's down to pure combat skill, that's when Tron's edge in combat ability would come into play. What I really would want to avoid is anticlimax - Tron shows up on the scene, handily beats the pixels out of Clu, Clu derezzes, the end. Clu's supposed to be the big bad here, so a fight against him at the climax of the film ought to be suitably epic, IMO. That means that when the time rolls around for him to really cut loose in a fight, he needs to come off as a legitimate threat to the heroes.

Gotcha. I couldn't tell if that's what you were implying or not. Ties in, too, to whatever previous discussion(s?) we'd had here about why Tron doesn't just kill Clu outright when he has a chance, with the conjecture that maybe it's simply *not possible* from a system standpoint.

Argent Wrote:As far as keeping Rinzler around, I can see a few reasons for that. One is that Tron/Rinzler is more skilled than Clu in combat, even if he doesn't necessarily have Clu's sysadmin/cheat code advantage. Another is that Clu can't be everywhere at once, and it's good to have minions you can trust to take care of business when you're busy with other things. As a system watchdog application, Tron also had functions that were useful to Clu, like the ability to run a trace/track other programs (as demonstrated when Rinzler picked up Flynn's trail outside of the club.) There are also some purely psychological reasons for Clu keeping him around. The first is propaganda value. Tron was a hero, and while it didn't seem to be something that was discussed openly by programs on the Grid, I imagine there were rumors that Rinzler wasTron, and that Clu had repurposed him into a loyal minion. By making Rinzler highly visible, having him compete in deathmatches on the Grid and using him as an enforcer, he acts as a warning to other would-be rebels - 'See how I humbled even the mighty Tron, broke him to my will and made him my minion? You would be wise not to challenge me, or you'll suffer the same fate.' And it's an ego boost for Clu himself, for the same reason - he's taken his creator's friend, a dangerous warrior who would have done everything in his power to destroy Clu if he could, and made him over into an underling who'd never think to raise a hand against him. The whole Clu/Rinzler thing speaks volumes about Clu's character to my mind.

What strikes me re: your first paragraph is that in the lightcycle races, Clu finally brings out Rinzler. Like Rinz is the last resort when even Clu fails, so I think you're on track saying that in pure talent, Tron comes out on top (which is what I've always thought too, but I may, ahem, be biased ). Stuff like that is why I was sort of flabbergasted that Clu keeps beating Tron so easily. I mean, in the betrayal scene, Tron takes on and easily kicks the ass of several programs at once, yet Clu just grabs him and tosses him on the ground like it's nothing, when the rest of the film sort of seems to imply that Tronzler's where it's AT when it comes to fighting.

Re: second paragraph: I would think there's no doubt everybody probably knows exactly who Rinzler is. How could they not, with the same suit and all? (Hell, the fact that *I* missed it for the entire film is just because I evidently wasn't paying close enough attention in the beginning when Sam's shown with the action figures--though I far prefer having had the surprise rather than having spent the whole movie wondering when Tron was coming back. Kinda disappointed in Disney that they gave that away right away, really.) I just figured it was one of those things that everybody knows that everyone knows, but everybody also knows that you do NOT talk about it, and you especially do NOT say anything to Rinzler about it! (That figures into one of my stories, which might get posted soon since I finally got the movie from the library and can plug up the holes that were keeping me from finishing it.)

Discs-Of-Tron_ Wrote:i like Argent's idea, buuuut, Tron had no discs when he fell into the sea. be cool to see him "acquire" a disc then go to town!

Y'know, it occurs to me to wonder if the reason Tron was able to overcome the rectification was because he no longer had the discs. If he hadn't lost them, would they have "kept" him as Rinzler, like, the discs being reprogrammed to the Rinzler identity and attached to his system kept him in constant contact with the reprogramming? And then losing the discs and being without them for a period of time (probably longer than he ever had before, since previously he'd probably only had them off briefly for fighting and even then was at least in physical contact with them most of the time) meant that re-coding wasn't hanging over his head and he was able to get past it finally? Or perhaps the discs were even destroyed in their fall from the tower, hence why he was able to regress to Tron? I have no idea if I'm explaining this in a way that makes sense. I promise it makes sense in my head. (Short story: it was all about the discs, man, and without them he was free)

(I'm not saying I think this is the case, or even that I want to think it was the case--I'd rather think Tron's just that awesome that he overcame repurposing, period-- but it is one possible interpretation, one that seems more and more valid the more I think about it, and if Disney didn't mean it that way then I think they probably should've had him keep the discs and overcome the reprogramming anyway so there was no question...)where to buy abortion pill abortion types buy abortion pill onlineabortion pills online abortion questions cytotec abortion

Argent Wrote: Discs-Of-Tron_ Wrote:i like Argent's idea, buuuut, Tron had no discs when he fell into the sea. be cool to see him "acquire" a disc then go to town! D'oh! You're right. Any scene that has Tron turn up to fight at the end would need him to get his hands on a disc in order to work. I imagine that this could be worked around, though. (And as I'm thinking about it, I kind of like the image of Tron striding out of the Sea of Simulation cradling a new disc in his hands, one that had somehow been spawned by the sea itself, the way the ISOs had been before Clu went and poisoned it.)

I think it would make him epic to grab someone else's disc too. I mean, i guess we don't really know entirely HOW discs work, but there must be *something* about them that makes them personal to a program, and it could be that they don't work so well for someone else. So if Tron can grab somebody else's and still kick ass with it... that must make him uber-awesome. And why didn't the second disc he acquired disappear when its owner de-rezzed? Just because Tron had hold of it?

(with a new, Sea-spawned disc, I'd imagine that would mean a sort of new identity for Tron, rather a reversion to his old self. Not sure how I feel about that. It would have good "new start" overtones, but I think they'd have to make a big deal out of it and make some significant changes to him to justify putting that in, and I liked Tron as he was. Now I think it might make a good fanfic, dealing with that in terms of Tron having a sort of change in his way of thinking. He'd maybe be a lot less black-and-white, a bit more jaded, etc. and it could be fun to explore as a writer, but I don't know I'd want Disney making that canon or anything.)

Although the interesting thing is that we could have Tron coming out of the Sea right after he goes in, with a new disc, to kick Clu's ass.... and then we could find out that Alan came to the arcade after Sam, found his way down to the office (although if I remember right, the Tron game goes back to its place on the wall and closes off after Sam, right, so they'd have to have Alan find it standing open), and installed updates to Tron from the outside.... now THAT would be awesome. Might be a bit less believable, though, unless they could come up with a good reason for Alan to start poking around on this mystery computer and think "ah, what the hell, here's my program, let's update it!" Could they work in some way for him to look at the syslog and figure out Sam and Flynn are in there fighting for their lives, and him decide to help?

Argent Wrote: My personal feeling has always been that in terms of pure skill, Tron/Rinz is the supreme badass on the Grid. I imagine Clu's no slouch either, but not on the same level. If we go with the 'protected file' theory, Clu's big advantage would be that he's pretty much invulnerable, barring someone changing his permissions from the outside or bypassing them somehow from within the system (not likely, unless your name is Flynn.) So for Clu, fighting on the Grid would really be like playing a videogame - just something that he does for entertainment and to challenge himself, with no real danger of death, and Rinzler on call to deal with any programs that somehow manage to survive. The other possibility is that Clu's just so overpowered that he can trounce anyone on the Grid in a straight fight with one hand tied behind his back, including Tron. I've never been too keen on that interpretation, though. (I guess I'm biased, too - hey, the series is named "Tron", not "Clu". >.> )

That could work, because I got the impression Clu was sort of "wha? I'm off my cycle? This dude's not actually, like, winning, is he? Dammit, get out Rinzler!" He was sort of floored/in disbelief that he and his team didn't just easily clean up in the lightcycle game.

But yeah, I refuse to believe the other interpretation, that almost seems to be "yeah, Tron's cool, but at the end of the day he's just another guy." Makes the whole thing pointless then, IMO. Now mind you, I hate Mary Sues, but I'm 99.9% okay with the fact that Tron pretty much is one. If he can't kick everybody's ass, then I kinda wanna climb out of the sandbox of this franchise and go home. Sometimes you just need a hero, period. That'd be like finding out Luke Skywalker's nothing special, man. Go ahead and destroy my little world, Disney... *sniffle* When it comes down to it, yes, dammit, I want mah Good-Guy Tron, thank you.

Argent Wrote:Maybe grabbing that second disc from that sentry he trashed in the flashback compromised Tron - if being in contact with that disc provided a vector for Clu to get at him through it, somehow, or weakened his resistance... Given the movie's Zen overtones, the idea that Rinzler letting go of his identity discs (which symbolize the self) led to him rediscovering his original nature is powerful stuff. I don't know how much of that was intended and how much we're reading into it, but it really resonates on that level.

One of my short stories deals with how rectification works, and proposes that the process finds any weaknesses the program may have and uses that as a sort of "chink in the armor" to get through. Hence why Clu has a hard time with Tron-- he's pretty self-composed. (also would mean it'd probably be pretty easy with that unstable program on the Reco, or maybe he was too out-there for it to even work, hence why he got sent to the Games instead) I can't remember if I posted that one in the fanfic section or not, though. I don't think I did, because I wasn't sure if it'd be a popular notion that programs might have mental instabilities the way humans do. Although it makes sense-- any program is only as good as its coding, just like we're only as good as our personalities and neural pathways/brain chemistry.

Along the lines of your 2nd paragraph, it also has strong Christian overtones as well, and probably other religions could also be tied in; the idea of letting go of whatever you're holding onto and see if you could perhaps become something better.

Argent Wrote:As far as why the second disc didn't derez, that poses some interesting questions. I've always thought of programs in the system as code residing in RAM, with the disc being roughly equivalent to the folder on the hard drive where it's stored, along with any associated settings and logfiles ("Everything you do or learn will be recorded on this disc".) Completely derezzing a program who has their disc on them at the time appears to take out the disc as well. (I guess not only is the running copy crashed, but it's also deleted from the HD.) But what about programs who get derezzed in mid-throw? Is the disc still intact? Can a program be restored from this backup if you get the disc to the right person or place in the system? Now I'm imagining code janitors at the arena whose job is to come out after the matches and dispose of discs and code fragments from derezzed programs...

Personally I'd rather that a program's disc de-rezzes with them... that makes the most sense to me in the way I see the universe working. However, I know someone had posted a gif of that whole sequence once and it looked like when Tron grabs the other guy's disc, there's a flash when he touches it, and at the time we had conjectured whether that meant the disc sort of "synced" to him... if it in essence became "his" disc, then that could explain it didn't de-rez? (I think they could get away with him grabbing someone else's disc a second time though simply because it had indeed already been established that he COULD. Might be a nice dichotomy though that this time, it's followed by him getting his "self" back instead of losing it.)

Argent Wrote:I think part of where I'm coming from on that is the way I look at the Sea of Simulation. From the way it's been presented - and this is purely my interpretation of things, not suggesting this is canon - I get the feeling that the Sea itself is alive, this expanse of energy and code that embodies the essence of the Grid itself. I imagined Tron emerging with a disc that had been (re)created for him by the Sea as something similar to Arthur receiving Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake, a scene symbolizing that the spirit of the Grid itself has embraced him as its defender (along with the whole 'emergence from the sea = rebirth' thing.) I wasn't really imagining any major changes in personality (though the thought of Tron gaining free will in the manner of the ISOs from the experience is something that would be interesting to explore), though it would have provided an excuse to revise his appearance a bit - maybe add a little more circuitry to his suit to suggest the original Tron design, a sort of visual representation of his true self coming to the fore. (Or along the same lines, have him stride ashore wearing/clutching an oldschool disc in the classic Tron vein to represent that...) .

So you're thinking he gets his old disc back, not that he's given a new one? It does beg the question of where his original disc is. The two he has--are those his original and the one of the guard he de-rezzed? Read a fic once in which Clu had taken his original and given him new ones... which makes sense to me, as it seems Clu would want to get rid of anything tied to his old identity. Give him new discs with only the info you want on them, and that would probably be the safest way.

Re: the Sea: yeah, I've got a story for that too (no, I really might have one for everything), though it's new and only has a couple paragraphs, and I'm not sure it'll go anywhere (it's promising to be long, and I have never had the patience for long). But one part involves the "poison" Clu put in the Sea-- in this story, it turns out that what he put in was some sort of anticorruption agent (since he thought the ISOs were some sort of anomaly or corrupt information/programs). Since, of course, they weren't, this doesn't do any good as far as Clu's concerned, but it does explain why A. Tron doesn't die when he falls in, and B. his circuitry switches back AFTER he hits the water rather than when his loyalties change-- because the Sea has cleaned out the rest of the reprogramming. So, yeah, I think we're at least somewhat thinking along the same wavelength as far as the Sea is concerned.

Argent Wrote: I had considered something along those lines when I was thinking about ideas for a new ending. I really like the idea of involving Alan, and I could easily see him heading to the arcade. (The way the movie plays things gives the impression that Alan knew more than he was letting on. I mean, if you received this page from an old friend who disappeared years ago under mysterious circumstances, you're going to send your friend's son to investigate and not look into it yourself? Only if you already know what's there, and you want him to be the one to find it.) The main problem I had with that one was selling the audience on the idea that Alan would be able to figure out what was going on within the system in a way that felt convincing, and have him respond in the nick of time without it seeming too much like deus ex machina. So I settled for the idea of Flynn bringing him into his confidence and revealing what he was doing with the Grid in the coda instead. It's not as dramatic, but I thought Alan ought to be in on things somehow. .

I have always been very bothered by Alan's line when he's talking to Sam at Sam's apartment, and Sam says "you act like I'm going to find him in his office" and Alan says "wouldn't that be something." That's just not the response I'd expect, and the words and his delivery make it sound like he DOES know something. But if he knew, why wouldn't he have tried to get Flynn out years ago? (There's a story for that too, lol). And it bugs me that he gets a page, but waits until the next day to investigate. No doubt he had at least gotten the idea from Flynn that that pager is important--if he still sleeps with it, then he must still believe that if he gets a page on it, it's something urgent. So he waits a day? WTF, Alan? Plus it doesn't look like he even knows if Sam goes to investigate. Now it could be he knows Sam well enough to know that if he plants a seed, Sam's just going to HAVE to go check it out. But as it stands, Sam blows him off, Alan leaves, and Sam only goes to the arcade later.

Unfortunately I think you're right about my Alan scenario, though... I'd forgotten we were only working with like ten minutes' worth of time in TRW (The Real World) which isn't really enough for him to show up, find the office, read over the syslogs and possibly figure out what's going on, and then do something. If it were at least half an hour, I could work with it, but not ten minutes. (Although I think there was a LOT of deus ex machina going on there anyway, from Flynn showing up at EOLC, to Tron's regression, to Flynn deciding to reintegrate with Clu anyway.)

Argent Wrote:That makes perfect sense to me. The abilities and quirks programs manifest as people ought to reflect aspects of their code. I think the only story I've read of yours here was "Ernie", which I enjoyed - if you've posted more fiction here or elsewhere, I'd love to check it out.

Thanks. I have bits of one other story here, and I think that's it... it didn't get very far and probably won't, but it's been fun to write and I really like it for some reason, perhaps because the main character is so unlike others I usually write (I don't know that I've ever before written a character with absolutely no redeeming qualities). This is it; it's Tron-inspired in that it takes place from a program's POV but doesn't actually take place in the Tron universe, though for fun I did write a little side part where Effigia tries to hack into Encom and meets up with Tron... let's just say it doesn't end with success for her. http://www.tron-sector.com/forums/default.aspx?a=top&id=424789

Vaporware Wrote:Not sure if someone touched on this notion already. I actually like the ending, but it could have benefited had a little more explanation. It was the End after all. Secrets are supposed to be revealed. So... ---------------------------------------------------------------- Imagine we're back at the catwalk. it splits and Clu pursues Kevin to retrieve the "master' disc. Clu knocks down Kevin (maybe Kevin makes a sort of Obi-wan Kenobi act of non-resistance). Clu grabs the faux disc. Clu realizes that the disc bogus and throws it to the ground. ***Divergence*** Instead of immediately running for Sam and Quorra, Clu raises his own disc to strike down Kevin permanently. Sam Shouts "NO!" from the edge of the Portal. Kevin braces himself for the final blow. Clu says "you made yourself the god of this world. You and I know that the Gods can die!" Suddenly Clu's disc is grabbed from his hands by Redeemed Rinzler/Tron, who has dropped from above. Clu turns enraged and attacks his former henchman. Clu fights Tron hand-to-hand without a Disc. Clu manages to knock Tron down (Remember Clu is big *and* tough, he can physically overpower Tron. He's also angry as hell. We can also expect that using Clu's disc causes Tron some disorientation). Tron is knocked to the ground in front of Kevin. As he gets up, Tron grumbles "I wish you hadn't create him as a protected system program." Kevin says "You are *BOTH* protected programs. Clu picks up Quorra's Disc off the catwalk. He holds concentrating on it. The blue-white of Quorra's disc fades and is replaced by Clu's own goldenrod. Clu says "See? I can defeat and rectify any one of you." The blade flares to life and he charges Tron with a yell. Back at the Portal, Sam says 'We've got to help them!" Quorra says "No, I promised your father that I would take you home!" She then shows the master-key disc to Sam. He begins to understand what has to happen On the Catwalk, Tron body-checks and flips Clu over him and Kevin. Clu twists as he falls. He lands on the far end of the catwalk in a crouched three-point position. Tron stands tall between Clu and Kevin. Clu puts a nasty smile on his face and says "Maybe you'd like this back?" He throws the disc. Tron realizes that the Clu's attack is not aimed at He or Kevin, but at Quorra. Tron leaps from the catwalk and barely intercepts the disc but appears to have been struck - Tron falls downward into the sea of simulation, his condition is unknown. Quorra and Sam enter the Portal Clu smirks and walks past an apparently impotent and helpless Kevin Flynn. As he passes he sneers "where is your power now, creator?" Kevin breathes "no." Clu leaps to the portal. Kevin stands up. Clu climbs towards the portal Kevin shouts "NO! No one else dies for me!" Kevin puts his hands down to the ground and begins Reintegration ***end divergence*** We all know how it ends. ---------------------------------------------------------------- See? you get to see redeemed Tron in action. Some secrets are explained. Overall movie continuity is intact. Of course if they had the time and money to give us such an ending, they probably would have given us Sam's fight on the command carrier. That's the feeling I get about this film. The story is too short... I think they probably ran low on time money to fully actualize the story.

If we're changing stuff, though, can we make Tron his proper size, so Clu ISN'T big enough to overpower him (Boxleitner's got a couple inches on Bridges, remember)? Though we've also seen Tron's got some martial arts moves which means the size difference shouldn't matter that much anyway.

I would think that of the two, anyway, Tron would be the one more pissed at this point. Clu wants a disc, sure. Tron's pissed because he's spent a thousand cycles doing abhorrent things because of Clu, pissed at himself for not killing Clu in the first place, pissed because Clu's trying to kill his friends AGAIN.

I just want more Tron ass-kicking-ness, really. I mean, it's Tron, man. Still dunno what they were thinking, not making Tron more about, well, Tron (though I guess I could argue they did a bit with the original too).abortion pills online http://www.kvicksundscupen.se/template/default.aspx?abortion-questions cytotec abortion