SaviJ8SciHon5: Tron: Legacy

"The Recognizer"

Definition:

Recognizers: the vehicles that attempted to stop the light cycles from escaping the game grid by "stomping" on them, and one of these vehicles was also the type of machine that Sam Flynn "resurrected" with his user powers.
CLU: (Codified Likeness Utility) is a program created by Kevin Flynn to oversee the development of the Grid, and the primary antagonist of the movie.
Human(Reproductive) Clone: A genetically identical copy of a human.
Teleportation: the transfer of matter from one point to another, more or less instantaneously.
Virtual Reality: Computer-simulated environments simulating physical presence in places.

Summary:

Sam Flynn, a rebellious 27-year-old, is haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his father Kevin Flynn, a man once known as the world's leading video-game developer. When Alan Bradley receives a page from Flynn's Arcade, he notifies Sam. Reluctantly following the tip, Sam finds secret doorway behind the arcade's Tron game which leads him to a hidden workshop. He begins searching through his father's computer and unknowingly activates a ray which transports him into the digital world. As the confused Sam takes his leave and steps out onto the Grid, he is spotted by a Recognizer, and the programs within assign him to the Games. With the help of the fearless warrior Quorra, father and son embark on a life-or-death journey across a cyber universe -- a universe created by Kevin himself that has become far more advanced with vehicles, weapons, landscapes and a ruthless villain, CLU, who will stop at nothing to prevent their escape in order for himself to enter to the real world.

Discussion:

Within the movie, there are multiple scientific aspects. To begin, CLU, Codified Likeness Utility, is an example of Human Cloning. Kevin Flynn originally intended CLU to be an assistant in the building of a "perfect reality." Even though, CLU is an exact physical copy of Flynn, he lacks the thinking process of a human. When he realizes that Flynn allowed a new species, the Isomorphic Algorithms (aka ISOs), to enter the Grid, he comprehends them as a flaw to perfection and wipes out their whole race (program genocide). Is that the reason we proscribe cloning? Because, even though the clone may look like a human, it fails to think like one. Additionally, the movie brings up teleportation. When Sam enters the workshop, he unknowingly activates a digitizing ray. This ray teleports Sam into a new dimension. This experience he has is closest explained by virtual reality. Virtual reality allows the person, to psychologically experience a new scenario without leaving the current one. In the movie, the concepts of teleportation and virtual reality are fused. Rather than staying in the present world, Sam is teleported into this new "scenario" or virtual reality. Besides the amazing music and visual effects, the reason I chose this movie was because I enjoyed the overall science-fiction theme. Furthermore, it showed multiple examples of "events" that can be supported with scientific evidence.

Questions:

Will we ever reach a time where human cloning will become legal? And if so, what would be the circumstances, knowing the topic is extremely controversial.
What are the setbacks to human teleportation?
Is there a way we can create a new world (a concept acknowledged in many sci-fi movies as well as movies like The Chronicles of Narnia) that runs parallel to ours?

Citations:

Memodata Corporation. "Tron (Video Game) Definiton." SensAgent. Memodata
Corporation: Online Encyclopedia, Thesaurus, Dictionary definitions and
more. , 2009. Web. 7 Jan. 2011. .
http://images.hitfix.com/photos/515718/Sam-Flynn-is-found-by-a-Recognizer-in-Tron-Legacy_article_story_main.jpg
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/images/users/uploads/8073/tron-legacy-best-poster.jpg
http://blog.mousekingdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/TronRetro.jpg

Comparison between the 2010 poster and 1982 poster for Tron: Legacy (right) and Tron (Left)

SaviJ8SciHon5