MovieChat Forums > Tron (1982) Discussion > Programs' 'deaths'

Programs' 'deaths'

posted 14 years ago by hornakapopolis
5 replies | jump to latest

I never really understood what the consequence was of a program's death during the games. What did that mean in the real world? Was it the equivalent of a program being erased? And if that's the case, after awhile regardless of any "security concerns" Dillinger might have told the programmers he had, wouldn't the accounting, personnel, or other non-tech related departments get fed up that they had lost access to files because their programs weren't that good at digital jai alai?

I'd understand Flynn being derezzed there would mean he couldn't get out, and that's really the point of the whole movie, but I never understood what the consequence was for the others.

[–] rooklaw 14 years ago

I always assumed those program's functions were taken over by the MCP or by a "red" program loyal to the MCP. So if the accounting program you created got captured by the MCP, the MCP would seemingly continue to do what that captured program used to do. Except the MCP would have total control over the program's function and could fudge numbers, if it so wished, without the user's knowledge.

At least that is what I assumed. As to why these captured programs were made to play games, I could never really figure that out. Other than maybe the MCP uses it as a scare tactic to make other programs renounce the existence of users. Sort of like how ancient Romans sentenced criminals to the arena.

[–] MonteCarloMan 14 years ago

I always took it also as those programs being erased permanently from the digital frontier since the MCP could not "appropriate" them voluntarily into it's own system.

[–] Paranoid_Obsessive 14 years ago

It's definitely a fear tactic, when you realize that it's explicitly stated in the movie that any program that choose to renounce their belief in the Users and agree to loyally serve the MCP will be allowed to do so. It's the ones who refuse who are sent to the Grid. Flynn was never given the choice solely because of who and what he was, and the MCP wanted to screw with him.

So the Games exist to scare captured programs into line. Serve the MCP or be forced into the miserable existence that is constantly wondering if the next fight is going to be your last.

It's definitely clear that captured programs stop communicating (like Alan mentions not being able to access Tron). Of course, considering that this was 1982 (not too long after the era when you could literally cause a computer to explode with the right (or wrong) sort of code), so it's entirely possible that none of the programmers were entirely aware why their programs stopped working, and just attributed it to weird network errors or glitches. Or maybe even executive-level tampering by their boss. They certainly weren't going to assume that the main management program of the company had gone AI and turned rogue, and was appropriating various other systems and hacking other networks for fun.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Biodigital_Jazzman 14 years ago

Towards the end of the movie, the MCP tells the "religious fanatics:"

"You will no longer seek to communicate with each other or with your superfluous users. You will each be part of me, and together we will be complete."