I watched TRON (1982) and TRON LEGACY (2010) back to back and I want to tell you what makes a TRON plot:
A counter-culture hacker has a strained relationship with the ENCOM tech company. They sit at a desk (with their back to a big laser) to poke around a computer system, then get lasered into cyberspace by a rogue intelligent program that has taken charge of its program society through militaristic cyberviolence. The hacker is briefly forced to play deathsports (video games) before fleeing into a cyberworld they don't understand, joining forces with anti-fascist cyberallies while constantly on the run, trying to get to a big glowing cyberbeam in order to get home and also defeat the rogue ai's cyberplan to spread its cybercontrol to human society. There's a cyberguy named Tron who -and this is essential- is only important to the plot once. Profit-driven tech leaders get deposed. The visuals are state-of-the-art and indulgently weird, often beautiful but also confidently overreaching their capabilities. Philosophical questions of life and meaning are raised but never explicitly explored in dialogue, though messages are ripe for extrapolating. Jeff Bridges is there and he's a pretty chill cybergod.
They should make a new one every 15 years or so forever.
