It’s been close to over two years since Joseph Kosinski’s Tron: Legacy came out in theaters, and while most movie-goers have long since forgotten about this spectacle of blue and orange flashing lights and it’s ridiculously over-hyped soundtrack, as a fan of the series and of science-fiction in general I can’t just let this film slink away into box office obscurity without saying my piece. It’s taken me awhile to condense my thoughts on this film, what I like and what puts me off about it, And I think I’ve drawn it back to the essential linchpin of what irks me the most.

Disney films, for better or worse, are not known for morally ambiguous motivations or conflicted characters. There are good guys and bad guys, with predictable motivations in every scene of a Disney film constructed to foster sympathy or build contempt for these clearly defined and never confused characters lying on either one side or another of the two color spectrum of morality.

What throws me the most about Tron: Legacy is that one of the main protagonists of the film and in fact the essential line of continuity between Legacy and it’s 1982 predecessor surprisingly isn’t all that good of a person at all. In fact, he’s kind of a bastard.

In Tron: Legacy, there are heroes and there are villains. And then there’s Kevin Flynn.

Reason #1: The Grid vs The Grid 2.0

Now at this point you might be saying, “Woah there, why would you go and say a thing like that about Kevin Flynn? He invented the Grid, and he’s played by Jeff “The Dude” Bridges. What’s your deal?”

And to this I would say that I don’t have any beef with The Dude, cool your jets. What I do have a problem with is how a selfish, fickle, dangerously conceited if talented computer programmer is portrayed as a wise clear-minded future monk/martyr when his realization of fault and his move towards repentance and redemption comes all too little and late to make any substantial difference.

To get to the root of why Kevin is the cause of all the misery in Tron: Legacy, We have to trace back to the origins of his ambition and vanity. We have discern the purpose of the Grid in the first film as compared to that of the one seen in Tron Legacy.

At the end of the original Tron, We see Kevin Flynn has cleared his name of wrongdoing and been appointed the CEO of ENCOM. Edward Dillinger, the human antagonist of the first film, is presumably imprisoned and Kevin’s friends are appointed as chairs of the board of directors. Smiles and high-fives all around. But Kevin’s time in the ENCOM’s computer system changed him, so much so that he became obsessed with creating one of his own, his own “personal digital frontier”.

The problem is is that this goal to create a new grid is inadvertently the impetus of all the bad shit that goes down in Tron: Legacy, purely out of Flynn’s misguided understanding of what the Grid is and what it should be.

The Grid from the original Tron, though woefully outdated by today’s standards, was not an intended creation but rather an inadvertent product of creativity flourishing out of the mundanity of a corporate computer network. Think about it. The main appeal of Tron was that it opened up the idea of this fantastical world of pulsing circuitry and sentient programs operating behind an otherwise dull and boring office environment. As lively as the place was, every program had a job to do that connected tangibly to their human counterparts in the real world. Actuarial programs, Password protectors, you name it. My point being that the original Grid wasn’t a product of genius or design, but the spontaneous representation of a system with purpose.

Flynn’s Grid has a purpose, but that purpose is so single-minded to “create the perfect system” that it works counter-intuitive to the qualities that made the original grid so exciting and appealing. It’s a facsimile of creativity, an isolated space where spontaneity is gutted and replaced by a sleek and meticulous, although sterile and mundane design. The black space with a cool blue lined grid and craggy mountain tops hardly leaps out in appeal to the imagination when compared to the colorful geometric strangeness of the original. But the differences are more than cosmetic. Flynn’s Grid is cut off from any connection to the real world outside of his personal console in the Arcade. Thus, the programs in this Grid have no purpose or role outside of Flynn’s creation. This world isn’t so much a product of purpose but rather it is an exercise in vanity. The programs that come out of this system are exclusively his own, puppet performers in Flynn’s private reenactment of the real deal. And out of all of these, there is no puppet more tragic than the one Flynn chose to create in his own image.

Point #2: CLU2: A reflection of Flynn’s Vanity

If there were ever a prime example of Flynn’s hubris, it would be CLU 2.

It’s understandable how people would think that CLU is the real villain in Legacy. He’s powerful, he’s cruel, hell bent on world domination, and he has that creepy uncanny valley look about him.

But being the antagonist of a film is not synonymous with being the villain. CLU is just directly positioned to oppose the advancement of Sam Flynn’s goal, which is to rescue his father and leave the Grid. He’s a deterrent to that goal, but he isn’t the root of the problem. CLU was Flynn’s first creation in the space of his new Grid and intentionally designed to resemble his creator. The plan was that when Flynn eventually had to leave the Grid to take care of his real world duties (like rearing his young son Sam), CLU would step in to temporarily assume his creator’s role.

Why wouldn’t Flynn just leave the Grid in the hands of Tron, who has proven in the past to be a capable leader in communicating between the programs and the real world? Obviously Flynn didn’t want to leave anything to chance, sentient programs working and providing on their own and all.

It’s made strongly apparent in the film that CLU’s megalomanical ambitions are only a product of Flynn’s stunted perception of what “the perfect system” is. CLU’s flaw in character is a result of Flynn’s fault in design.

Flynn has no intention of recognizing the accomplishments of his creation. No matter what CLU does, he is not Flynn’s son. After all that CLU does to ensure the stability of the system in his static conception of “perfection”, CLU is little more than a custodian to clean up Flynn’s messes while he is gone, a caretaker until the day Sam grows old enough to assume the throne. But even this wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back, as Flynn not only emphasizes the insignificance of his creation, but embrace it’s obsolescence as well.

Point#3: Planned Obsolescence: The purge of the ISO’s, Clu’s usurpation, The True Betrayal

The final nail in the argument that Flynn is a callous short-minded jerk who doesn’t care for his creations is in his action of embracing the very thing he was trying to get rid of. Spontaneity.

The Isomorphic Algorithms represent everything that Kevin Flynn was essentially trying to suppress. A spontaneous race of sentient programs more advanced than anything Flynn had seen or created in his entire life, composed of a sophisticated DNA-like coding that enabled them functionality and abilities beyond any other program. Flynn embraces their discovery, and this act seals the fate for everyone involved in the Grid.

Flynn created CLU to in turn create the perfect system, a system dominated by design and without “fault”. By embracing the ISO’s, who are a spontaneous product of the system, Flynn inadvertently makes CLU’s goal an unobtainable one. That is, if CLU wants to achieve his prime directive of a perfect system by eliminating room for error and spontaneity, he would have to go up against his own creator for control of the Grid. Which he does. Gaining control of the Grid, killing off and purging the system of the ISO’s, and exiling his former master to the most inhospitable fringes of network, CLU becomes a despot. Out of resentment for his creator and the supposed allowance of imperfection that comes with his humanity, CLU orchestrates an elaborate campaign 20 years in the making to leave the Grid and conquer the real world.

So, to summarize in conclusion:

Kevin Flynn creates a new Grid to play host to his own personal designs and essentially play God.

To further this end, Flynn creates a program in his own image (CLU2) to facilitate his goal of achieving a “perfect” system, snuffing out spontaneity and replacing it with a sleek but otherwise mundane design.

Flynn has no intention to pass control over the Grid to his creation completely, instead reserving that right for his son Sam over his “son” CLU.

Flynn then embraces the spontaneity of the ISO’s, and in doing so renders CLU’s primary mission of a “perfect” system unobtainable and his existence obsolete, thus prompting him to rebel against his creator and become a tyrant out of resentment.

In short, he’s an asshole.