Tr2n

[Dogg Thang]

Well that's an easy one - nobody ever said when the arcade was actually shut. If I remember correctly, the reason he was running the arcade in the original was because he had been booted out of Encom. By the end, he was back in Encom so it's entirely likely someone else was running the place for him.

[anephric]

That's a given, since there are TRON arcade machines in there that Flynn obviously would've created AFTER the events in the first movie!

[Dogg Thang]

Yes but the first movie was 1982 but he didn't disappear until 1989 so I think people are taking it that the arcade shut in '89.

Does it say in the original that was actually set in 1982? The reason I ask is that there is a Journey track on the soundtrack called 1990s Theme. I've often wondered why it was called that unless they originally meant the movie to be futuristic. Those touch screen computers in it would have been pretty non-existent in 1982, I would have thought.

[Mayhem]

Yeah, the original film was set in 1982. I'll admit that if the arcade did shut in 1989 when Flynn disappeared, there shouldn't be an MK cabinet in there of course...

[Neon Ignition]

If the Mortal Kombat machine isn't a mistake and the arcade didn't close in 1989 when Flynn disappeared then the cleaner of the arcade should get prosecuted because they blatantly weren't cleaning behind the units and all that dust is a fire hazard!

Also, as much as I love the Boxleitner, Alan is a bit dumb as Flynn goes missing and it should be pretty obvious to him to think of where he might have gone so he also clearly didn't look very far when it came to investigating the disappearance. Still, hopefully he'll be in Tron 3 and kick some ass just like he did when the Shadows attacked Babylon 5... oh, wait...

[Dogg Thang]

Well it was clearly closed a long time. It wasn't still being used. But it could have closed in '92.

[gizmo1990]

I'm in two minds about a third film. As much as I love the universe I felt that the sequel concluded things very well and was a fitting end.

And also it has to be said that

->Open Spoiler<-

Bridges does such a good job with his part and brings such gravitas, he basically IS the franchise, that if he's not in the third then it would be a great loss.

[QualityChimp]

How lovely is Olivia Wilde in this? Just stunning.

Special note to Beau Garret though. When she enters the club, my eyes were fixed the the IMAX screen's image of her bottom. Smashing.

There can't be a red-blooded male who wasn't looking at exactly the same thing in that scene!

[randombs]

Let's not forget that Sweet Dreams kicked back in when he turned on the electricity.

You know what, maybe Clu did it? Maybe he sent MK into one of the arcade machines. MAYBE MK WAS HIS ORIGINAL MESSAGE TO HUMANKIND!

[Arashikage]

Well the way I see it is that the night Flynn went missing was in 1989. Cut to the future and Alan tells Sam that he received a page from the arcade and that the line there has been disconnected for 20 years. So technically even if Tron Legacy was set in 2011, 20 years prior would still make it 1991. That is at least one whole year before MK was released.

I bet it was on location test......yeah

[JohnMcL7]

One thing the game does absolutely perfectly that the movie didn't even attempt is get across the idea that these are computer systems and programmes, each with their own function. I love that they have names like spamfilter.exe and stuff like that. As each system is accessed, different messages pop up that make it feel really genuine. Really like that and it is something lacking in the new movie.

->Open Spoiler<-

I thought the same about the film initially in that I was disappointed there seemed to be no point to the grid as nothing there seemed to map to any sort of computer function. I think what they were trying to do is provide a visual concept of an evolutionary computing system as there's plenty of evidence they did get some computer expertise (the clever little reference to AIs being unable to beat human players at Go which is absolutely correct plus the various command lines used) and they make several references to evolutionary computing itself and concepts but I feel they didn't portray this side well.

In a genetic algorithm you need a way to represent your data and you also need a function which can evaluate how good or bad each potential solution is. The system kicks off by generating a large pool of random possible solutions, the fitness function is used to evaluate each one and then these potential solutions breed with each other, mutate and other similar functions to provide another generation of potential solutions which can be evaluated again. This process is repeated thousands and even millions of times, it can be stopped at any time and the best solution checked and then resumed if a better solution is desired.

The genetic algorithms can also easily be adapted to multiple processor systems which each processor managing its own colony with migrations at certain times between the colonies to maintain genetic diversity which stops a colony peaking too early.

Genetic algorithms are in use and can offer massive advantages in practice particularly for the so called 'NP Hard' problems such as timetabling which . Conventional computing so far has no efficient solution for this type of problem (and probably never will but it's unlikely anyone will ever prove it) but genetic algorithms can solve this problem significantly faster than conventional algorithms. The problem with genetic algorithms is that they need to be carefully tailored to the problem at hand as there's many different factors that can be set but it's not necessarily obvious what's right to use. Mutation for example governs how likely it is a potential solution will randomly change part of itself between generations, this is useful to have as it can prevent colonies becoming stagnant. Too low and it will have too small an affect and cause colonies to prematurely converge on a sub-optimal solution but set too high and the population goes nowhere as it's essentially just random.

If you look at the Grid in Tron and what Kevin Flynn had talked about such as revolutionising medicine and similar then think about evolutionary computing it starts to make a lot more sense (to me anyway). Flynn and CLU create the Grid and fill it with basic elements (such as gravity) and problems from the real world to produce a sort of visual genetic algorithm to try and solve a variety of problems which can then be applied in the real world. CLU, as a resident intelligence can guide the genetic systems as required including latterly competition to improve the original systems. Quorra fits in as presumably starting off with a 'broken' DNA implementation with the evolutionary systems eventually producing a fully functional and flawless model of the human.

It does fall apart a bit with the translation into the human world, I'd have preferred if Quorra was simply a model that Sam could have copied to a memory stick when in the real world and used that data to resolve medical problems rather than her physically transferring into the real world. Similarly I'd have preferred if the plot was for CLU to try and get access to the internet Skynet sort of style using highly optimised systems to take over the rest.

It's possibly looking a bit too deeply into it but it does make more sense to me.

John

[Dogg Thang]

There's good stuff there but I think it's much simpler than that in some places. Because when you get into things like gravity, they were in the first movie in what was a 1982 company computer network. Thing is, we know there aren't little people running around in computers - it's simply a visual anthropomorphic representation of computer concepts.

But the difference between what we saw in Tron and Tron 2.0 and the new movie is that Flynn's system in the new movie seemed to be designed for one purpose only - to exist. So it doesn't need spambots and real system functions. It was to house an AI experiment. So, unlike the first movie, it makes sense that these programmes are existing more like people than systems with clearly defined functions.

Oh, and on

->Open Spoiler<-

Quorra, that's a leap of course but not really a massive one from the idea of dismantling someone, putting them inside a computer and then recreating them again, which with today's tech would seem about as likely as when Batman rehydrated the United Nations. Kevin Flynn clearly believed Clu could make it to the other side. Also, it's something that only occurred to me much later but Kevin Flynn's dismantled bits might still be part of that machine. Quorra could effectively be made from Flynn senior's biology.

[Darwock]

The way I see it, much as I love it the original movie was a daft idea for kids - as widespread understanding of computers has grown, it looks more and more silly. The program someone writes becomes a little person that basically has free will in how to execute it's orders? They couldn't introduce that again in the sequel, the world has changed and it would just be laughed out of the cinema. So they didn't mention anything at all about what the other world is... just that it's another world and you get there through a portal. If you missed that one line right at the beginning, you would never even know it was all supposed to be happening inside a computer.

[Neon Ignition]

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/48194

Apparently theres 3 new scenes filmed for the DVD with the 3rd one alluding to Tron 3

[Super Grover]

Not seen the film yet.

However, I am looking forward to seeing what type of transfer it makes to BluRay. Fingers crossed it will be stunning.