astercontrol:

What did Ram hear?

so, we see this scene quoted pretty often.

But… when, exactly, did Ram actually hear “the new guy” asking about Tron?

Before this, Flynn had talked to Ram twice. First time, Tron was there too. That conversation consisted of:

-Ram tells him to be careful of the forcefields

-Ram tells him he’s a guest of the MCP and will have to play games

-Flynn says he plays games great & is not worried

Second time, Ram was there alone doing tricks with his disk when Flynn came in.

That conversation consisted of:

-Flynn compliments Ram on the skill with his disk

-Ram tells Flynn his name & previous job

-Flynn tells Ram his name and that he doesn’t remember much

-Ram assures him it’ll come back

No one mentioned Tron in either of these encounters.

In between them, while Flynn is walking in line with a lot of other new conscripts (presumably on the way to training), he does ask about Tron:

-Who’s that?

-That’s Tron. He fights for the Users.

But that exchange was with another conscript we never see again… as far as I can tell, Ram is nowhere nearby.

So, I’m guessing that line, “the new guy was asking about you,” is in reference to a cut scene, and no one ever got around to taking it out.

There is a mention on the wiki that there was originally going to be a scene about Ram helping train Flynn. I can imagine Flynn would have asked Ram about Tron during that.

Watching through the scenes again, I don’t see any reason that training scene couldn’t have happened offscreen in the time between them.

And because the reference to it still remains in canon dialogue, I’m gonna take that scene as canon.

(Dunno what I’ll do with that, but it’s good to have it in my database anyway just in case.)

ALT

Ok that makes lots of sense. I think I do remember that from the novel…

And I did notice, when watching the scene where he and Ram tell each other about themselves… at the end, right before he gets taken away, he LOOKS at Tron’s part of the cell and acts like he really WANTS to ask about him.

I imagine at this point he remembers seeing Tron there last time, and got enough of a look at him to know that that was the same guy he saw fighting while he was on the way to training

(though didn’t yet get a good enough look at his face to see how much he looks like Alan, ‘cause we know he’s surprised when he sees that later)

It’s strange that they would cut the part about Flynn asking Ram about Tron, without cutting the part where Ram says he was asking

BUT, I can also imagine that Ram is extremely sensitive to the needs of others

and totally noticed that Flynn was asking about Tron with his eyes and body language, even though he didn’t get a chance to ask out loud

(always helping prepare for future needs, that’s Ram)

<3