I know, I know, it's been done. But I wanted to know, "If the world is going to end, which author or Hollywood hero would I have to stalk down and offer up everything I own (including my Boba Fett frosted beer mug) for them to save us all?"
I'm pretty smart, but I figured I'd ask for your guys' help on this. Every week I'm going to have a match up for you to vote on and by the end of this experiment I'll know who I'm gonna call. This week will be a match up between Jeff Bridges (Kevin Flynn from Tron), Bruce Boxleitner (Tron and Alan Bradley from Tron) and Lance Guest (Alex Rogan from The Last Starfighter). I know a lot of you are saying "who the hell is this Lance joker?". Well, if you don't know I'm begging you to do whatever you need to do to watch The Last Starfighter and find out, for the laughs if nothing else. Plus, who wouldn't want to see some dude get recruited to save the universe because he's the local arcade junkie? So anyway, please vote, I'd hate to see the last vote tallied tell me that Neo was the best.
4.19.2010
4.18.2010
The cake isn't a lie, and it tastes good
So we just sat through both The Last Starfighter(1984) and Tron(1982), in that order. In each movie I think there were two focuses:
1. The methods of identifying and the transfer of our hero to another fantastic place, or plane of existence, whichever the case may be.
2.The consequent social situations. Including how the situation was handled in each movie and what that handling said about the heroes.
Considering the time period, I'd say they chose right. The first was needed to provide a plot and story that it was plausible for a gamer hero to emerge and succeed in. The second adds another dimension to the gamer hero and ironically makes the hero more human, a motif that still persists today.
1. The gamer hero was a relatively new concept for mainstream culture and it was necessary for the story to be interesting yet maintain incredibly abstract situations' "acceptability" in pivotal moments. The introduction in Tron of the laser that turned objects into code and spat them back out again as real made the entire story possible. Without it, Flynn(Jeff Bridges) would've never been able to explore the crazy, logical, and digital world of programs and data, much less had a chance to drop some major pwnage on the MCP. Without the sweet arcade game Starfighter(that was apparently free since Rogan needed a loan for school yet played it all the time) in the middle of nowhere from The Last Starfighter, Alex Rogan(Lance Guest) would have never been able to prove himself worthy to some seemingly benevolent opportunist named Centauri who apparently only wants to obtain the reward for finding "the one" as it were. The madness needed a method and those that were utilized made the madness imaginable, grabbing a tangible spot in our conscience.
2. The other thing I noticed was that there were two different social situations that evolved around each protagonist. In the Last Starfighter, Centauri used a Beta Unit to clone Rogan and take his place at home so that no one would know whats going on. They even used this fact for comic relief with Rogan's brother and girlfriend. It was comically ironic with his whole community in the dark yet the maintained presence of his family and friends also served to create more suspense by the time the resolution third of the story arc came around. With Tron, however, there were two gamer heroes: Flynn as himself and Tron who was seen as a hero vicariously through his user, Alan. In addition, the two heroes were as physically and figuratively dissimilar as can be, yet they were foils for each other til the end as they worked together. This not only depicts the gamer hero as a possible future mainstay, but simultaneously suggests two ways that a gamer hero can originate from and assume their role as such. It should be interesting to see in December if(and I expect how) Tron: Legacy will continue to mark milestones in the evolution of the gamer hero.
p.s.: What do you think is the meaning of the "messenger" or guide that aids in the transfer in the protagonists' reality? There was Centauri the benevolent mad hatter of military recruitment in Starfighter and there was the MCP doing the transfer and RAM doing the guiding in Tron, but I'm asking in general, not just them.
1. The methods of identifying and the transfer of our hero to another fantastic place, or plane of existence, whichever the case may be.
2.The consequent social situations. Including how the situation was handled in each movie and what that handling said about the heroes.
Considering the time period, I'd say they chose right. The first was needed to provide a plot and story that it was plausible for a gamer hero to emerge and succeed in. The second adds another dimension to the gamer hero and ironically makes the hero more human, a motif that still persists today.
1. The gamer hero was a relatively new concept for mainstream culture and it was necessary for the story to be interesting yet maintain incredibly abstract situations' "acceptability" in pivotal moments. The introduction in Tron of the laser that turned objects into code and spat them back out again as real made the entire story possible. Without it, Flynn(Jeff Bridges) would've never been able to explore the crazy, logical, and digital world of programs and data, much less had a chance to drop some major pwnage on the MCP. Without the sweet arcade game Starfighter(that was apparently free since Rogan needed a loan for school yet played it all the time) in the middle of nowhere from The Last Starfighter, Alex Rogan(Lance Guest) would have never been able to prove himself worthy to some seemingly benevolent opportunist named Centauri who apparently only wants to obtain the reward for finding "the one" as it were. The madness needed a method and those that were utilized made the madness imaginable, grabbing a tangible spot in our conscience.
2. The other thing I noticed was that there were two different social situations that evolved around each protagonist. In the Last Starfighter, Centauri used a Beta Unit to clone Rogan and take his place at home so that no one would know whats going on. They even used this fact for comic relief with Rogan's brother and girlfriend. It was comically ironic with his whole community in the dark yet the maintained presence of his family and friends also served to create more suspense by the time the resolution third of the story arc came around. With Tron, however, there were two gamer heroes: Flynn as himself and Tron who was seen as a hero vicariously through his user, Alan. In addition, the two heroes were as physically and figuratively dissimilar as can be, yet they were foils for each other til the end as they worked together. This not only depicts the gamer hero as a possible future mainstay, but simultaneously suggests two ways that a gamer hero can originate from and assume their role as such. It should be interesting to see in December if(and I expect how) Tron: Legacy will continue to mark milestones in the evolution of the gamer hero.
p.s.: What do you think is the meaning of the "messenger" or guide that aids in the transfer in the protagonists' reality? There was Centauri the benevolent mad hatter of military recruitment in Starfighter and there was the MCP doing the transfer and RAM doing the guiding in Tron, but I'm asking in general, not just them.
The Last Star Fighter & Tron
Tron and the Last Star Fighter have two very different depictions of the gamer hero. In The Last Star Fighter the gamer hero is Alex Rogan a poor lower class individual living in a remote trailer park in California. This particular type of gamer hero can be labeled as underdog hero. This type of hero "underdog" can be traced back to many ancient tales such as Aladdin, and Robin Hood. This type of gamer hero is always overlooked and under appreciated, but in the end it the underdog hero always ends up saving the day and getting the girl( which is exactly what happens at the end of The Last Star Fighter only with more cornyness). Throughout the movie Alex is faced with many obstacles in his path that leave him questioning his abilities to be a Starfighter. When Alex is taken to the starfleet base by Centari a clone replaces his role back home this is a new concept to the gamer genre, it is like Super man having a clone of Clark Kent around all the time to further ensure thet no one finds out the truth about his identity. I found that this movie appeals to a more childized version of the gamer hero not found in Tron but in game movies like The Wizard.
In Tron there are two different gamer heros. One hero by the name of Flynn who owns his own arcade and is an avid hacker, and one hero by the name of Tron(who is actually the character Alan who works for major corporaton run by the MCP). Tron and Flynn are two entirely different catagories of the gamer hero. Flynn is different because he is actually a user transported into the system via some super lazer that de-materializes things, Tron is not an actual person but a program designed by Alan to take down the MCP and establish a non-governed free system to all users. This movie appeals to a more broader audience than The Last Star Fighter because programmers and tech related people can relate to everything thats going on in the movie. Tron is much more of a tech-based movie adding to a newer generation of gamer heros such as hackers, but they still remain relevant in the classic example of a hero rising up against authority.
In Tron there are two different gamer heros. One hero by the name of Flynn who owns his own arcade and is an avid hacker, and one hero by the name of Tron(who is actually the character Alan who works for major corporaton run by the MCP). Tron and Flynn are two entirely different catagories of the gamer hero. Flynn is different because he is actually a user transported into the system via some super lazer that de-materializes things, Tron is not an actual person but a program designed by Alan to take down the MCP and establish a non-governed free system to all users. This movie appeals to a more broader audience than The Last Star Fighter because programmers and tech related people can relate to everything thats going on in the movie. Tron is much more of a tech-based movie adding to a newer generation of gamer heros such as hackers, but they still remain relevant in the classic example of a hero rising up against authority.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Get This S#!$ On The Fly
Posts
All Comments