Tron Legacy: Alternate endings
The scene: Towards the end of Tron Legacy, the overly zealous perfectionist program CLU has built an army of rectified programs, placed them on his command carrier along with many tanks, planes, and other vehicles. The digitization laser in the basement of Flynn’s arcade is active, and CLU has Flynn’s identity disk, which contains the code needed for CLU to manifest in the real world. CLU intends to bring his army to the real world, to make it ‘perfect’ as he has done to his own world.
I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, as visually spectacular mindless fun. But in the days since, I started thinking: what would have happened if the protagonists of the movie had failed to stop CLU?
Option 1: Nothing happens.
The digitization laser is not capable of materializing objects that won’t fit in the available space, or that mass more than a few hundred pounds. The software that controls it is already programmed to shut down the portal after a time. It may also plausibly shut down the portal if the laser’s capabilities are exceeded. The carrier and invasion force CLU commands certainly exceed what the laser can materialize. Presumably, when the carrier reaches the portal, the beam will simply shut down, locking CLU, Flynn, and everyone else in the grid. It’s possible that CLU would insist on going through first, in which case he’ll materialize, but his army will fail to follow.
Option 1a: The laser attempts to materialize the invasion force anyway.
Assume the laser control software wasn’t programmed with any sanity checks on mass or size. In this case, it will start translating the invasion force into the real world. Very rapidly it will run out of reactant mass, blow fuses, overheat, or simply run out of room, and shut down. This ends up as the same case as above, with the portal shutting down, the only difference being the first few feet of the carrier’s prow appearing in Flynn’s basement.
Option 1b: The laser intelligently scales the invasion force to fit in the mass and space limits.
Alternately, instead of lacking basic sanity checks, the laser digitization system could be quite cleverly programmed. When presented with an object too large to materialize, it intelligently scales the object to the available space and mass. CLU’s carrier appears a few feet long, crewed by near-microscopic warriors. The invasion comes to an abrupt halt as they are unable to get the basement door to open.
Admittedly, this is pretty unlikely. Square-cubed laws suggest that a human scaled down to insect size would have major physiological problems, and it wouldn’t make much sense for the matter-digitization system to arbitrarily rescale objects. It just makes for a hilarious image, however, of CLU and his army being trapped in the basement, slowly realizing that Flynn’s world is vastly larger than they expected.
Option 2: Ignore mass/energy limitation.
Let’s ignore for the moment any mass limits on the materialization process. The digitization laser is effectively a magic portal to the grid and can’t really be reconciled with existing technology or the laws of physics anyway. If it’s a magic door, we’ll treat it as a magic door, and assume no limits on how much mass can pass through.
We still have the problem of available space. The carrier will start to appear in the basement of Flynn’s arcade and immediately crash into the walls. Either it will smash through the foundation, bringing the building crashing down, or it will shatter and fill the room with debris, crushing the laser apparatus and the computer running the grid. Now not only has CLU failed to get his invasion force into the real world, he’s destroyed the hardware that his own world depends on.
Option 3: Assume the matter can manifest outside.
What if we can work around the limited space for materialization? Maybe Flynn has a second laser set up on the roof for some reason. Maybe the laser in the basement can fire through the wall and materialize objects outside. Perhaps CLU goes through first, realizes that there’s not enough space for his invasion force, and spends a bit of time moving the laser setup outside. And as before, assume that mass and energy throughput of the digitization system are not an issue. CLU reactivates the digitization laser, and his carrier, with all his troops and vehicles, appears in midair. And then immediately crashes to the ground as a heap of glowing debris.
The laws of physics in the grid appear to be very different from those in the real world. Throughout the move we see things happen that can’t be done with anything like real technology. Materialization of matter out of thin air, disintegration of matter back into thin air, force fields, vehicles that fly with no apparent means of lift. This can all be excused on the grid as the laws of physics there are arbitrary, but there’s no reason to believe that the digitization laser is even capable of translating grid technology into working real-world analogues.
So the carrier materializes, gravity takes over, and it crashes to the ground, crushing several city blocks. Dazed and injured programs crawl out of the wreckage, and soon discover that their little plastic sticks no longer summon light cycles or airplanes, and their disks are just harmless plastic toys. The dazed army is rounded up by the authorities, many of them eventually ending up homeless or in mental institutions.
Option 4: The portal works the way CLU expects.
Assume that the digitization laser isn’t limited in how much matter it can materialize. Assume that the invasion force appears outside where there’s room. Assume that the technology from the grid somehow still works in the real world. CLU gets his carrier and his entire assault force, and sets out to conquer the world. He will, of course, quickly be defeated.
Consider what CLU has to work with: perhaps ten thousand brainwashed foot soldiers, armed with deadly Frisbees and shock sticks, and wearing highly visible glowing uniforms. For vehicles, he has aircraft roughly equivalent to WWII fighter planes, slow-moving tanks with ludicrously bad targeting systems, motorcycles that leave glowing walls behind them, and a giant floating target of a command carrier. Against modern military technology, he doesn’t stand a chance. His airplanes can’t match modern fighter jets in either performance or beyond-visible-range capability. His tanks are have trouble hitting large, slow-moving targets at close range. Few if any of vehicles can drive off-road. And every single piece of military equipment he own glows brightly, making his force the easiest thing to spot on the battlefield.
The National Guard alone could probably have the whole thing mopped up in an afternoon.
We can forgive CLU for having no idea what he’s up against. He’s probably expecting Flynn’s world to be similar to his own, a single glowing city with an easily dominated population. He may have had a rough globe of the real world to point at as a goal, but obviously had no idea what it actually represented. The actual size and scale of the real world would probably horrify him, as would the fact that his entire world is the creation of a lone inventor working in his basement. We can also understand our heroes being desperate to try and stop him, since even if CLU’s plan can’t possibly succeed, the attempt is at the very least going to shut down the portal and trap them in the grid.
It has been suggested that CLU’s plan was actually not to try and get into the real world, but to get out into the Internet and run free across the global network. While that would be a far more plausible idea, I didn’t see any indication that CLU was aware that a global computer network even existed, or that he could or even wanted to reach it. CLU seemed to think that the portal would take him physically to Flynn’s world, and needed Flynn’s disk precisely because it contained the data required to translate CLU into physical form.
Conquering the world by spreading through the Internet and taking over key systems was basically the plan of the MCP from the original Tron. It was also part of the muddled and half-finished plot from the Tron 2.0 computer game. In retrospect, the plot from Tron 2.0 isn’t all that bad. It was unfinished and confusing, but made a bit more sense than CLU’s sudden desire to take over the world. Of course, neither CLU nor the various adversaries from Tron 2.0 come close to the original MCP in terms of screen presence and projected menace, or competency in terms of their long-term goals.
I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, as visually spectacular mindless fun. But in the days since, I started thinking: what would have happened if the protagonists of the movie had failed to stop CLU?
Option 1: Nothing happens.
The digitization laser is not capable of materializing objects that won’t fit in the available space, or that mass more than a few hundred pounds. The software that controls it is already programmed to shut down the portal after a time. It may also plausibly shut down the portal if the laser’s capabilities are exceeded. The carrier and invasion force CLU commands certainly exceed what the laser can materialize. Presumably, when the carrier reaches the portal, the beam will simply shut down, locking CLU, Flynn, and everyone else in the grid. It’s possible that CLU would insist on going through first, in which case he’ll materialize, but his army will fail to follow.
Option 1a: The laser attempts to materialize the invasion force anyway.
Assume the laser control software wasn’t programmed with any sanity checks on mass or size. In this case, it will start translating the invasion force into the real world. Very rapidly it will run out of reactant mass, blow fuses, overheat, or simply run out of room, and shut down. This ends up as the same case as above, with the portal shutting down, the only difference being the first few feet of the carrier’s prow appearing in Flynn’s basement.
Option 1b: The laser intelligently scales the invasion force to fit in the mass and space limits.
Alternately, instead of lacking basic sanity checks, the laser digitization system could be quite cleverly programmed. When presented with an object too large to materialize, it intelligently scales the object to the available space and mass. CLU’s carrier appears a few feet long, crewed by near-microscopic warriors. The invasion comes to an abrupt halt as they are unable to get the basement door to open.
Admittedly, this is pretty unlikely. Square-cubed laws suggest that a human scaled down to insect size would have major physiological problems, and it wouldn’t make much sense for the matter-digitization system to arbitrarily rescale objects. It just makes for a hilarious image, however, of CLU and his army being trapped in the basement, slowly realizing that Flynn’s world is vastly larger than they expected.
Option 2: Ignore mass/energy limitation.
Let’s ignore for the moment any mass limits on the materialization process. The digitization laser is effectively a magic portal to the grid and can’t really be reconciled with existing technology or the laws of physics anyway. If it’s a magic door, we’ll treat it as a magic door, and assume no limits on how much mass can pass through.
We still have the problem of available space. The carrier will start to appear in the basement of Flynn’s arcade and immediately crash into the walls. Either it will smash through the foundation, bringing the building crashing down, or it will shatter and fill the room with debris, crushing the laser apparatus and the computer running the grid. Now not only has CLU failed to get his invasion force into the real world, he’s destroyed the hardware that his own world depends on.
Option 3: Assume the matter can manifest outside.
What if we can work around the limited space for materialization? Maybe Flynn has a second laser set up on the roof for some reason. Maybe the laser in the basement can fire through the wall and materialize objects outside. Perhaps CLU goes through first, realizes that there’s not enough space for his invasion force, and spends a bit of time moving the laser setup outside. And as before, assume that mass and energy throughput of the digitization system are not an issue. CLU reactivates the digitization laser, and his carrier, with all his troops and vehicles, appears in midair. And then immediately crashes to the ground as a heap of glowing debris.
The laws of physics in the grid appear to be very different from those in the real world. Throughout the move we see things happen that can’t be done with anything like real technology. Materialization of matter out of thin air, disintegration of matter back into thin air, force fields, vehicles that fly with no apparent means of lift. This can all be excused on the grid as the laws of physics there are arbitrary, but there’s no reason to believe that the digitization laser is even capable of translating grid technology into working real-world analogues.
So the carrier materializes, gravity takes over, and it crashes to the ground, crushing several city blocks. Dazed and injured programs crawl out of the wreckage, and soon discover that their little plastic sticks no longer summon light cycles or airplanes, and their disks are just harmless plastic toys. The dazed army is rounded up by the authorities, many of them eventually ending up homeless or in mental institutions.
Option 4: The portal works the way CLU expects.
Assume that the digitization laser isn’t limited in how much matter it can materialize. Assume that the invasion force appears outside where there’s room. Assume that the technology from the grid somehow still works in the real world. CLU gets his carrier and his entire assault force, and sets out to conquer the world. He will, of course, quickly be defeated.
Consider what CLU has to work with: perhaps ten thousand brainwashed foot soldiers, armed with deadly Frisbees and shock sticks, and wearing highly visible glowing uniforms. For vehicles, he has aircraft roughly equivalent to WWII fighter planes, slow-moving tanks with ludicrously bad targeting systems, motorcycles that leave glowing walls behind them, and a giant floating target of a command carrier. Against modern military technology, he doesn’t stand a chance. His airplanes can’t match modern fighter jets in either performance or beyond-visible-range capability. His tanks are have trouble hitting large, slow-moving targets at close range. Few if any of vehicles can drive off-road. And every single piece of military equipment he own glows brightly, making his force the easiest thing to spot on the battlefield.
The National Guard alone could probably have the whole thing mopped up in an afternoon.
We can forgive CLU for having no idea what he’s up against. He’s probably expecting Flynn’s world to be similar to his own, a single glowing city with an easily dominated population. He may have had a rough globe of the real world to point at as a goal, but obviously had no idea what it actually represented. The actual size and scale of the real world would probably horrify him, as would the fact that his entire world is the creation of a lone inventor working in his basement. We can also understand our heroes being desperate to try and stop him, since even if CLU’s plan can’t possibly succeed, the attempt is at the very least going to shut down the portal and trap them in the grid.
It has been suggested that CLU’s plan was actually not to try and get into the real world, but to get out into the Internet and run free across the global network. While that would be a far more plausible idea, I didn’t see any indication that CLU was aware that a global computer network even existed, or that he could or even wanted to reach it. CLU seemed to think that the portal would take him physically to Flynn’s world, and needed Flynn’s disk precisely because it contained the data required to translate CLU into physical form.
Conquering the world by spreading through the Internet and taking over key systems was basically the plan of the MCP from the original Tron. It was also part of the muddled and half-finished plot from the Tron 2.0 computer game. In retrospect, the plot from Tron 2.0 isn’t all that bad. It was unfinished and confusing, but made a bit more sense than CLU’s sudden desire to take over the world. Of course, neither CLU nor the various adversaries from Tron 2.0 come close to the original MCP in terms of screen presence and projected menace, or competency in terms of their long-term goals.