76. TRON: Legacy

Title: TRON: Legacy
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Year: 2010

Summary: In 1989, Kevin Flynn, software engineer and the CEO of ENCOM International, disappears. Twenty years later, his son, Sam, now ENCOM's primary shareholder, takes little interest in the company beyond playing an annual practical joke on the board of directors. Sam is visited by his father's friend, ENCOM executive Alan Bradley, urging Sam to investigate a message originating from Flynn's abandoned arcade. Upon entering the arcade, Sam reactivates the long dormant power supply, as well as a vintage juke box. As Journey's hit song Separate Ways plays, Sam discovers a Tron arcade game, which draws his interest. Attempting to play the game with the quarter given to him by his father the evening he disappeared, the machine ejects the coin, causing Sam to discover gouges in the floor which reveal a secret passage. Following the passage and discovering his fathers secret office, Sam unintentionally teleports himself to the Grid, a virtual reality, in the "ENCOM 511" supercomputer, created by his father.

On the Grid, Sam is sent to compete against a masked program called Rinzler; who, having realized that Sam is a User, takes him to CLU, a duplicate of Kevin Flynn who acts as the Grid's ruler. CLU nearly kills Sam in a Light Cycle match; but Sam is rescued by Quorra, an apprentice of his father's, who conveys him to his father outside CLU's territory. There, Flynn reveals to Sam that he had been working to create a "perfect" computer system and had appointed CLU and Tron, a security program created by Alan Bradley, as its co-creators. In process thereof, Flynn discovered a series of "isomorphic algorithms" (ISOs), which carried the potential to resolve various mysteries in science, religion, and medicine; but CLU, considering these an aberration, betrayed Flynn, captured Tron, and destroyed all of the ISOs, with the sole exception of Quorra. Meanwhile, the "I/O portal" permitting travel between the two worlds has closed, leaving Flynn a captive; whereafter CLU sent the message to Alan, to get Sam ( "A new piece on the board").

Against his father's wishes, Sam returns to the Grid to find Zuse, a program promised to provide safe passage to the I/O portal. At the End of Line Club owner Castor, reveals himself to be Zuse and betrays him to CLU's guards. In the resulting fight, Flynn rescues his son; Quorra is injured; and Zuse gains possession of Flynn's 'identity disc'. Knowing the disc works as a master key to the Grid, Zuse attempts to bargain with CLU; but CLU simply takes the disc and destroys the club. Flynn and Sam save the injured Quorra and stow away aboard a solar sailer, where Flynn restores Quorra.

Aboard a massive warship, Flynn recognizes Rinzler as Tron, reprogrammed by CLU, while CLU announces his desire to invade the material world. Sam thereafter reclaims Flynn's disc; whereupon CLU, Rinzler, and several guards pursue the protagonists in Light Jets. During the pursuit, Rinzler remembers his former identity as Tron and destroys CLU's Light Jet. CLU uses Tron's Light Jet to escape while Tron falls into the Sea of Simulation, where the colored lights on his armor revert to their original color.

CLU confronts the protagonists at the I/O portal, where after attempting to reason with CLU, Flynn absorbs him, destroying themselves as well as CLU's army and warship, while Sam and Quorra transfer themselves to the real world.

In Flynn's arcade, Sam backs up the system on his USB flash drive, and having deactivated it offers to take control of ENCOM and name Alan chairman of the board. Quorra meets Sam outside, and the two depart on his motorcycle; Sam to show Quorra a sunrise en route.