And I’m going to be just as annoying as I was the first time because it is such a fantastic exploration into the film. I’m a sucker for character study and for world building so I’m living my best life.
Anyways here’s some information on programs and their belief in users that absolutely has me
So circuitry is implied to be Vestigial, which … program evolution??? I guess it’d be more updates etc. It implies they serve no real “purpose” but are just a part of them… except that the movie and the novel show that circuits aren’t completely useless like a extra pinky bone or something. Again they are basically mood rings shining bright when excited, dim when scared etc and uh- the deleted scene. They have use just not a major function I suppose.
While we’re on program religion, with my last post pertaining to the grid I mentioned it being literally intrinsic. Here’s some passages on that RIP Crom you have some good world building 🙏
Clu 1.0 you don’t deserve what you got baby we should stop ignoring you you’re great. It also makes me sad as while clu 2.0 isn’t the same program (or even function) he likely started out similar to him. “Dogged and relentless” a optimistic and persistent young program eager and passionate about making the system a better place :(
Oh wow this is all so GOOD (I should really not read these excerpts very closely because I am trying to read the novel myself and I really want to experience it as intended, but your observations are so GOOD)
One thing I notice about the circuitry patterns is… they are never really explicitly talked about, or called anything, in the 1982 movie?
They do resemble circuits, yes, but circuits are a part of hardware and these designs are a part of software. They’re a detail of visual interface (not User-interface, because Users aren’t really intended to see them, but program-to-program communication, as you point out)
As far as I remember from the movie, “circuits” are mentioned only as a reference to parts of the computer system that they live in.
“they never built a circuit that could hold you”
“a lot of cold circuits”
and I think even
“can be reached by this circuit” (in the deleted scene, where Yori is using a circuit-pattern on Tron as an analogy for a path they will have to travel through in the computer)
The novel is so good I can’t help but share and ramble but I also completely recommend reading it on one’s own, luckyily I think I share so much random exerts out of context that it doesn’t spoil the larger experience.
I don’t think they ever mention it by name in the movie because there’s no real need? To programs it’s just an innocuous part of living, just a regular part of the body (just like they don’t react to the arena, they’re used to it) and Flynn is probably too embarrassed to ask.
I think circuits can mean a great many things in-universe- theres several types and figures and meanings. Like location, transportation etc
However the novel does call the markings circuits too! Like above “His blue circuitry was muted with fear” (bottom of page 7) theyre also sometimes called “light lines” but that’s more in the fandom than the novel (I think it’s in the novel but only once or twice and usually by Flynn as another way to describe them)
It’s sort of like how someone will say “be back in a cycle” but can mean anything from a minute to to their version of a year (someone mentioned they think that saying cycle is slang and easier than specifying something like “nano cycle” each time)
Yeah it’s fascinating! I find it both strange and also weirdly logical that programs would have words with so much ambiguity (programming languages are usually not very context-dependent I think) (BUT humanoid programs could be very good at using context as a part of their language, especially if they have additional, more direct communication under the surface, as well as the language that we see)
