okay, I know the danger of trying to play the Oppression Olympics, yeah, someone’s always got it worse, and that shouldn’t pit us against each other when we know we’re all the victims of the real enemies… yeah absolutely
BUT It’s still always a little bit disorienting to watch a movie
(either unrealistically written, or just set in a very different time)
that’s trying to show characters in a bad situation, and it’s like… 500 times better than anything you’ve ever experienced
I mean.
Ok, TRON makes some really hard hitting points about corporate greed and corruption
and yet. the guy who’s portrayed as the victim of all this corruption…
…he owns his own business. His own freaking arcade! With his name on it in huge lights! With his apartment right above it!
which is doing great, no hint that he’s hurting for income– or even that he dislikes working there– nah we see him playing games in there like he’s got his absolute damn dream job…
But hey.. he’s the victim, because if his ideas hadn’t been stolen, he could be CEO of a corporation.
Yeah. I mean.
Ok I get it. He could be doing better. He got screwed over.
BUT I’m about as sorry for him as I am for…
…well, for when I see employees in cubicles.
Sure, I know, cubicles are supposed to mean corporate dystopia. Because the alternative is…
well, the alternative is everyone gets their own private office, right? with a roof and real walls and windows and…
…oh, LMAO.
I get that this was the 80s. But from my perspective here in the 2020s, the alternative is open floorplan, zero privacy ever, working at one long counter alongside a dozen other people and….
(HEY LOOK they even captured that! That’s Yori’s job! See? Look at her all zombified at work, THAT’S how to make me realize a character’s got it bad!)
(I love this movie, but…. I will follow my own heart in which characters to sympathize the most with, ok.)
It’s not  necessarily “boohoo I’m not CEO” but more the principle of the matter of having work you spent so much time on (he’d sneak in late/stay late working on them to his own admission) and all of that going to waste when someone else takes credit. I think he’s more mad about the principle- it’s not fair and he’s right to be pissed.
You also got to keep in mind it’s not “you made video games you’re now CEO” it was basically used as a jumping off point for Dillinger- he still had to climb the ladder, it just gave him a jumpstart - the rest was his own ruthless corporate shark act. As for the end where Flynn replaces him almost imedidently- it think it’s sort of symbolic/metaphoric like a lot of the rest of the film- it’s justice served, karma.
I’ve never been a office worker but I’ve been to my dads work… it truly is like endless rows of cubicals across the whole floor and they’re SHORT- there’s no walls except like offices, meeting rooms , bath and break rooms it is bleak and never ends … I’d take the arcade thank you 😭
* also sorry to hear that modern “trendy” offices are “you get a table and everyone staring forever” as a introvert that sounds like hell
Oh yeah, agreed on all this. Totally do sympathize with being angry as hell that someone else took credit for one’s own work.
it’s just like… there’s places where it feels like the movie’s trying to make the point of showing in the scenes how bad this screwed Flynn over, and yet it never manages to make me actually feel that because it keeps (from my viewpoint) showing his life as 100% awesome.
and yeah… I know from an objective viewpoint how bad it must’ve felt when workplaces went from private offices to not-so-private cubicles. But YEAHhh it’s still hard to feel that on a personal, visceral level when I’ve never worked anyplace where cubicles didn’t sound like a joyous fantasy dream)
