I was invited to Disney's "Comic-Tron" party held during the San Diego Comic-Con and was fortunate enough to get the chance to speak with Steven Lisberger, the director of the original Tron, about topics such as technology, the "global village," and how Tron: Legacy addresses such issues. Read on...
Brent Sprecher: I was really interested in what you said yesterday [at the Tron: Legacy press conference] about how technology is hopefully supposed to bring everyone together and yet, in so many ways, it can separate you. Had you felt that even way back on the original Tron or was it more hopeful then?
Steven Lisberger: It was there, but we weren't looking for it. You know, you'd walk into a room and there would be one person who was lost, facing that way, away from everybody else, and that was the guy on the computer. So, the signs were there. 'Hey, we're in the room.' There's four of us here, but one of us is facing the other way... But back then it was an adventure, you know. He was, like, diving into the frontier.
Brent Sprecher: So, what is hopeful about it? How do you turn it around?
Steven Lisberger: You turn it around because, as long as you go into the digital with the idea that you're gonna find something that you can use in the analog real world, as long as there's some connection back around, you're good to go. But, you can't go in there and just check out of the other one.
Brent Sprecher: You hear so [much] less about the "global village." That used to be the catch-phrase for internet connectivity, but you don't really hear that anymore, people don't say that.
Steven Lisberger: No, I think there was a global megatropolis. It turned from a village into Mexico City. You know, it got too big, too fast and we couldn't really keep track of it.
Brent Sprecher: So, as far as you know, does Tron: Legacy address the hopefulness of it?
Steven Lisberger: Tron: Legacy deals with—definitely deals with—you know, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) has to reconnect with some of the idealism of his father (Jeff Bridges). Not all of that idealism, because even his father couldn't handle that. But, if he could get some of it back and then add his youth and his abilities and take charge of it, that's a good thing.