Forever fighting- Rinzler, Alan and Tron’s return
There’s a lot of interesting takes on Rinzler out there, here’s mine.
I can’t fully accept the idea of Tron being Rinzler forever. Both because my heart couldn’t take it and that’s just not who Tron is. People forget how he’s such a force of pure good and virtually unable to give up.
As wonderfully tragic as Rinzler is as a concept you can’t tell me he wasn’t fighting every solitary second of the reprogramming, of the virus, the brainwashing, all of it. You can do all of this to him and you can make him forget who he is on the surface but you cannot stop his desire to do good- you can’t keep him from fighting - especially after making him a weapon. (Something done by both Sark and Clu)
The idea hadn’t originated by me but his should is not only by the damage but from this subconscious battle. Clawing his way back to the surface. That’s why he’s in the games or on a task or guarding because any god damn second you leave him on his own Tron is going to try to break free. Distract, fight, kill, no rest.
I sort of love the scene in the sea because of this, Flynn fundamentally breaking something in his new coding enough for him to fight clu and his color returning to neutral in the sea. JUMPED at the opportunity to break out the minute he gets it. I don’t think he had fully, I see it more as punching his hand through the shell. There’s a crack in the armor but he’s not wholly free.
While I don’t believe Rinzler is a separate person from Tron- as it’s still him at the end of the day just… hurt. (there was a post awhile back comparing him to a werewolf I agree with) I also don’t think he’d just magically be himself again with no problems.
He’s going to be fighting Rinzler (himself) for the rest of his existence. It is going to haunt him for a long long time. These things he did. Horrible things he can’t fully remember, programs missing he’s sure he had a part in. It’s complicated. I really think it was a flash bang of regaining consciousness .
Legacy doesn’t really do the mirroring that 82’ does however I’d argue that Rinzler can also mirror Alan in this case!! Alan had been on the board for a long time, he’s never officially out of the company he’s just been silenced. He quips here and there but he has to control himself or otherwise he is out like that. It seems like he’s caught in just as much a leash as Rinzler, and he’s fighting it too. His funding of Flynn lives, his activity in forums, his constant attempts to reel sam in — this man is out of his mind trying to restore some kind of morality to the company. Justice -> really is a driving force and connected thing between him and Tron.
By the end of the film he’s freed in a similar way, he’s the head now and can speak a bit more freely. He’s learning to grief and repairing his relationship with Sam and Roy just as Rinz is supposedly free.
I just- again “pure hero” isn’t just a title projected onto Tron it’s textually true especially in the world of the first film.
This became more about Tron than Rinzler as his own entity but the point still stands. I talk about the dynamic more in a older post where Rinzler really gives me attack dog vibes and I didn’t want to rehash that, instead giving a new perspective. And talking about a connection I don’t think anyone’s talked about (or I’m stretching)