Kat, that you've labeled Tron as a Mary-Sue is interesting. Would you label a character like Samurai Jack similarly?

Jack is a do-gooder, but he's seen to struggle with it at times. I always thought that it gave that character a heroic depth that many other hero characters lack. may Tron too. There's so little material in the Tron Universe, so it makes it hard to evaluate...

You've never heard of Samurai Jack...?

Try Google and YouTube

I think we can safely asume that Betrayal is no longer canon after seing the last episode of Uprising , where it is revealed that TRON did not escape with an injure in his shoulder, instead he was captured by Dyson.

However there's still a question that no other Legacy material other than betrayal has answered, Why did the Isos suddenly stopped coming from the sea of simulation? In Evolution CLU nukes their cities destroying the Isos that already existed , but it's never explained what stops the sea of simulation from creating more programs.

Also, maybe it's just that making fun of Self inserts and bad characters in fanfics for years has altered my sue detector, but I don't see how Tron could be a Mary sue, it's true that he beats easily all of his opponents and even CLU's deadliest soldier is no match for him , but Mary Sues don't have the problems Tron has , so far :

- He was taken to a new server (probably without his agreement) and away from his love , Yori
-His need for the Users allowed CLU to begin his dictatorship on the grid , because he keet waiting for Flynn to come back and give him orders
- Despite easily beating four Black Guards he gets defeated fairly easily by CLU
-Get's a mortal wound that keeps him from actively fighting
-Get's repurposed into Rinzler
-Get's beaten AGAIN by CLU


I may be wrong, but mary sues usually dont deal with epics amounts of crap like Tron has

I think all we have between TRON: Betrayal, Uprising, and Legacy are different formats, and TOO much attention to detail.

So Flynn's computer is shown as having a monitor in Uprising and a flattop touchscreen in Legacy.
First, both convey the idea of a secret computer lab underneath his arcade. They don't need to be exactly the same. Second, we are not told when that shot took place. Maybe he upgraded between his disappearance and that particular shot in Uprising.

So in Betrayal Tron is shown with an injury to his shoulder escaping on a lightbike. In Uprising we know he escaped with the help of a sentry named Cyrus.

First, both images conveyed the idea that Tron wasn't derezzed or repurposed right away, which is the important thing.
Second, we don't know when the image in Betrayal happened. We are led to believe that it happened right after the coup, but we don't have anything positive. It could easily have happened AFTER Cyrus helps Tron escape.

If you want to get really nitpicky, in Betrayal the lightcycles rez up differently from Legacy, and Tron's circuitry is different in Uprising than it is shown in Betrayal. I say again, I believe both Betrayal and Uprising are canon, and these minor differences in detail are due to different formats and visual styles.

LORD_Z3DD Wrote: Pilgrim1099 Wrote: I like to point out on one comment of your's about TRON being taken to a new server. I actually believe he was COPIED over to Flynn's server and this took place in the mid-1980s where TRON was still being used in ENCOM's system up through 1989 and probably continued on past that point. Which means that TRON was already up to his peak to the hardware limit of Flynn's server since he disappeared in 1989, while ENCOM Tron keeps upgrading past that. And that even means ENCOM TRON (the original) would be more powerful than the "Rinzler" version. If you are okay with it I would like to discusse this pion in another thread, because i feel it would take the discussion too away from kat's point in this discussion ( the discrepancies between Betrayal and Legacy)

That's totally cool with me. Go for it!

I saw Flynn throughout Betrayal not as a jerk, and not as wasting time, but as failing to get his priorities on the grid and IRL straight.

He doesn't think the gridbugs are as much of a problem as they really are. He thinks Tron, Clu and Shaddox can handle it, when they really can't unless they follow Clu's plan and wipe out the Isos, which Flynn obviously doesn't want to do. (I believe they did establish that the problem was that the Grid was built to handle a certain amount of traffic-programs Flynn wrote- and wasn't making an easy transition to the new numbers of Isos. Eliminate the Isos, gridbug problem eliminated.) He when in the Real World, Encom takes up time he could be spending with Sam, and actually seeing the problems in the grid. I really think that Flynn simply had his priorities messed up and didn't see the problem the Isos were causing as as big of a problem as it was. His awe of the ISOs and having to deal with crap at Encom (Flynn wanted to do something in India and the board was against it, so he was fighting them the whole time) blinded him to other issues that he could have handled easily.

Kat Wrote:But that's the thing-- how can he NOT know? Toward the end of T:B, every time he goes there Tron has to save him from some catastrophe (still haven't figured out, btw, exactly what those catastrophes are-- we're shown Tron throwing a disc at falling stuff, etc., but it's never really clear what he's "fighting" against or what causes it. Do gridbugs show up and bust up buildings? Do they attack people?). And you can't tell me Tron/Clu/Shaddox haven't *told* him what's going on, or tried to tell him, and apparently he just blows them off. How could be possibly be so clueless as to NOT know how serious it is? The first thing they show us on the Grid is Flynn and Tron barely escaping a major infrastructure collapse. Tron's like "holy crap we almost died" and Flynn's like "woohoo, that was fun!" Tron points out to him that there's a problem, and Flynn pretty much says "nah dude you can take care of it, see ya!" I mean, I know it's all up to interpretation, but as for me, I can't see any way he would NOT know what's going on unless he's completely stupid, which means he is IGNORING the problem. That's cold, man. And even worse? Clus the only one who wants to fix it. Even Tron-- our hero Tron, you know, the guy who fights for freedom and justice and the Grid Way and all that? The good guy?-- just wants to keep waiting for Flynn to fix it. He's willing to watch his world literally fall apart around his ears, possibly watch programs die, all because (like Alan, later) he's carrying a torch for a guy whose ethics are a bit sketchy. (And that's just Flynn in the digital world. The way he behaves in the "real world" is another thing altogether.) Anyway, I feel like I'm hijacking the thread too and going off on tangents-- though I guess you could argue that personality discrepancies might technically be on-topic here? Dunno-- so I'm not going to argue the point much further, but suffice it to say-- yeah, I think there are problems with the story for sure.

I think the fault lies between the editorial of the T:B comic and Disney. Lack of communication to get their facts straight. It's not the "character's fault" that they behave this way, it's the writer(s). They're the ones that's pulling strings/writing the story and how airtight the plot and development is, depends on their skill and professionalism to get. it. right. The writer is responsible for getting the characterization right. And in a sense, it is also the editor's fault (Marvel Comics) for not cracking down enough on the writer to clean things up.

Personally, Tron: Betrayal should have been a large one-shot paperback with more than 60 pages of story. Maybe even up to 100. But no, it was a two-parter consisting of two 22-page comics which adds up to about 44 pages including advertisement.

Sso02V Wrote: Kat Wrote:The first thing they show us on the Grid is Flynn and Tron barely escaping a major infrastructure collapse. Tron's like "holy crap we almost died" and Flynn's like "woohoo, that was fun!" Tron points out to him that there's a problem, and Flynn pretty much says "nah dude you can take care of it, see ya!" I mean, I know it's all up to interpretation, but as for me, I can't see any way he would NOT know what's going on unless he's completely stupid, which means he is IGNORING the problem. That's cold, man. And even worse? Clus the only one who wants to fix it. Even Tron-- our hero Tron, you know, the guy who fights for freedom and justice and the Grid Way and all that? The good guy?-- just wants to keep waiting for Flynn to fix it. He's willing to watch his world literally fall apart around his ears, possibly watch programs die, all because (like Alan, later) he's carrying a torch for a guy whose ethics are a bit sketchy. I think it's not so much that Flynn is ignoring it, but he's jaded by what he's seen. He knows these programs are just as capable as Users are in the real world, and that they can solve their own problems. He just doesn't realize that they don't know that. He's too busy being in awe of it all that he forgets to be God when they need him.

This is exactly what I think happens. Flynn both sees the potential of these programs to handle it themselves, and is so in awe of the world he found and built that he can't really see that they DO need his help in this instance. Top that off with trying to run a massive corporation in the Real World, and he is constantly being pulled in two directions. When the ISOs manifested, it was really more than he could handle at the moment. He just couldn't see it, and there really was nothing he could do outside of CLUs "Nuke 'em and forget about em" plan. So even if he DID see the problem for what it was, I don't see what he could have done about it aside from what he did: Resign from Encom to spend time with his son (another thing he didn't have nearly enough time for) and work on the Grid. But it was too little, too late.

I'm so glad someone posted this thread. I have to admit, I've only barely skimmed Betrayal - there were so many problems with it, that I couldn't pay it close attention, and I basically mentally tossed it out as soon as I was done reading it.

First and foremost, as had been mentioned above, is timing. The timeline just does not work for me, because I find it so inexplicable and contradictory to the movie. But actual events and characterization are a problem, too.

I'll quote and respond to the things that bothered me most.

Emergence of the Isos. In Betrayal, Flynn/Clu call Tron and show him a video of the first Iso emerging from the Sea, wearing a regular black Grid suit. In T:L, Flynn and Clu see a whole bunch of them walking from (somewhere), dressed in primitive robes.

That bothers me. Actually, specifically that are from the sea bothers me, when in the movie Flynn says they weren't from anywhere.

In Betrayal, Flynn leaves Encom to try to restore some order to his personal life. In T:L, they make it look like he was with the company until he disappeared.

Yes, absolutely. All the media circus and "fate of the company" talk most definitely indicated that Flynn was the driving force behind the company at that time. As a side-note here, I have problem with Flynn having screwed up his personal life that way. It seems to me that in the movie he is an attentive father, tells his son bedtime stories, they have an easy and good relationship, etc. And he also seems to have been very heavily involved in the Grid and what was going on there right up to the day he disappeared.

Tron somehow escapes from Clu in Betrayal.

Yeah, I'm just ignoring the animated series for the moment. I think it complicates matters and is done solely because they need Tron in a Tron series.

In T:L, it's implied that Clu simply goes bad because he's on a power trip and sees the Isos as imperfection, and he attacks Flynn for little reason. In Betrayal, it seems to be shown that the Isos did indeed bring some sort of instability to the system and Clu is angry because he is the only one trying to fix it, and Flynn's rarely there (and when he is, he actually doesn't do anything). Clu seems far more justified in Betrayal.

Very true. It's very annoying. I think the ISOs only manifested the night he told Alan about them, honestly. Also, in the movie, Flynn talks about his night-work and says he was at the grid "all those nights". He gives speech about how "in there" is the future. It makes no sense that he's not there, not doing things. And when Clu attacks Flynn in the movie he talks about imperfection, and he does so again when he talks about invading the real world. And the real world isn't causing him any problems. Clu is just trying to create perfection, and they aren't it to him. Neither are we.

My own contribution on this would be (as I mentioned in another thread) Zuse's utter lack of differentiation in T:L and Betrayal, where he was supposed to be in his normal persona and not the same flamboyant bar-owning self he is in T:L. They completely ignored the fact that Zuse became Castor to disguise his former identity.

Great contribution, because that makes no sense at all. I do agree that the club, personality, and name are all new.

Oh, I think I remember. In T:L, it seems like the Isos were discovered right before Flynn disappears-- he went to Alan saying he had some big revelation, and he tells Sam about "a miracle: the same night he disappears. But in Betrayal, it seems to be several years between the emergence of the Isos and Flynn's disappearance.

As I've said, this is probably my biggest peeve. Others probably matter more (particularly the characterization of Flynn), but this is the one that bothers me most.

Betrayal states that the ISOs started emerging from the Sea, and that Flynn was informed of it. The way I see it, to have one previously unknown life form appear out of nowhere like that would have been quite a surprise to everyone (a ‘miracle’ he called it). But to see HUNDREDS of them appear EN MASSE out of no where in a HUGE GROUP? I don’t think anyone on the Grid was really expecting THAT to happen, least of all him (“You seeing this?”). In my opinion, that look of surprise on his face when he sees the group walking towards him isn’t because it’s the first time he’s seen them, it’s because he’s never seen SO MANY OF THEM TOGETHER at once.

That doesn't work for me, because he checks the symbol on the arm. More importantly, IIRC (I'll check when I get a chance), because we are shown this visual at the same time we are being told they manifested. Showing the first manifestation (and I think it might have been a one-time event, but don't have strong feelings) is the most logical thing to do there.

Another discrepancy between T:B and T:L that it has taken me this long to notice: Flynn's house. ... I just tell myself maybe he and Sam moved some time after Jordan dies (and I've seen one person who seems to take the tack that it's actually Flynn's parents' house we're seeing in the film), but...

I actually did think either Flynn moved in with his parents or his parents with him after Jordan died. Since his leaving after Sam went to bed seems routine, someone would need to be there to watch Sam every night. Given the room, though, I'd say Sam definitely lives there. And is still living there after Flynn's disappearance.

However there's still a question that no other Legacy material other than betrayal has answered, Why did the Isos suddenly stopped coming from the sea of simulation?

I did wonder if they were a one time occurrence. That maybe all were manifested at one time and then some of them started walking and met up with Flynn. That, of course, disregards the sea of simulation altogether.

Like someone else said, the graphic novel gives some interesting new angles, but raises a hell of a lot of questions. And, quite frankly, makes Flynn look like a big asshole, in a lot of ways.

Agreed. I find the Betrayal depiction of Flynn to be very little like the Legacy depiction.

The other problem T:B brings up is: T:L never mentions gridbugs or problems. Does that mean the problems DID stop after Clu gets rid of the Isos, and therefore he was right? (I don't think that's what the film means to imply

I don't think it did, either. Flynn was so optimistic talking about the Grid in the 80s, like perfection was in-reach, and then in 2010 his retrospective is that they were "jamming, building Utopia" and it sounds very much to me like Flynn thought things were going great (and so did Clu?) and then the ISOs manifested and Flynn did a sudden about-face, realized he'd been pursuing the wrong things, saw value in them and what they could give the world and totally changed what his view of "perfection" was or should be. And Clu couldn't process/accept/agree with that changed viewpoint. He was too inflexible, too locked-in to the old view.