Thursday, September 18, 2014

Ultron: Legacy

Marvel recently released the official synopsis to next year's super sequel, Avengers: Age of Ultron.  In the film, Tony Stark accidentally creates Ultron, an artificial intelligence bent on destroying mankind!
I liked C-3PO better in yellow.


I'd like to point out that this is not the first -tron problem that Tony Stark has dealt with.  In the first Iron Man film, Obadiah Stane tries to steal the Iron Man technology and take over Stark Industries.  Pretty straight forward, until you consider the actor cast as Obadiah Stane: Jeff Bridges.

"I just want my Creedence tapes, man..."

In 1982, Jeff Bridges starred in a science fiction film called Tron.  In it, Bridges plays Flynn, a genius software engineer who had some successful video games stolen by a character named Dillinger, who ended up becoming CEO of a major tech company whereas Flynn lost his job.  In the process of hacking Dillinger's files to prove he created the video games, Flynn gets turned into a computer program where he meets another program that bears the likeness of Dillinger, and that goes by the name of Sark.



Hmm... Dillinger is Sark and "Sark" is "Stark" without the "t" and Jeff Bridges tries to steal intellectual property from both Sark and Stark-- coincidence?  I think not!  After doing some careful research involving deep, spiritual meditation and a strict diet of chocolate peanut-butter ice cream, I can now reveal the true connection between Tron and Iron Man.

First, it's important to clarify the characters at play here:


Kevin Flynn = Obadiah Stane 

Ed Dillinger/Sark = Howard Stark (Tony Stark's father)


If you ignore facial hair, this all makes perfect sense.


When they were younger, there was some dispute between Flynn/Stane and the elder Dillinger/Stark, and Tron is Flynn/Stane's version of that conflict.  Flynn/Stane believed that he hadn't received enough credit for his innovations, sabotaged Dillinger/Stark's computer system, and then took over the company.

But here's the catch.  Even in Tron, with a very biased portrayal of Dillinger/Stark, has him being a bit of a genius-- after all, he creates the Master Control Program (MCP), a form of artificial intelligence that threatens to take over the computer systems on both sides of the Cold War.  Even if it was an accident, Dillinger/Stark created something that was more advanced than anything that had come before.  Plus, his company had developed a way to transport physical objects directly into a computer program-- also crazy ingenious.  Maybe Dillinger/Stark didn't create some popular video games, but he created technology that was actually much more significant.

All the circuits are made out of cotton candy, too.

At the end of Tron, we see Flynn/Stane taking over the company after unveiling evidence of Dillinger/Stark's IP theft.  But I think this is more the Flynn/Stane fever dream being presented.  The real story is that Flynn/Stane, recognizing Dillinger/Stark's inventive genius and value to the company, opted to use the evidence to blackmail Dillinger/Stark.  Dillinger/Stark remained the titular head of the company, while Flynn/Stane became the operative head of the company, pulling strings behind the scenes.

One of these two men isn't smiling.

But Flynn/Stane's plan unraveled once Dillinger/Stark died in a car crash.  Instead of being given control of the company, Flynn/Stane is passed over in favor of the young Tony Stark, who's even more ingenious than his father.  After repeated face palms that ultimately leave him bald, Flynn/Stane, having now lost his leverage, starts plotting the demise of Tony Stark... which leads us to the events of Iron Man.

Their slacks are sewn together in this picture.

But wait-- there's more!  In Iron Man 2, Ivan Vanko claims that Howard Stark stole credit for his invention, the arc reactor.  Though Nick Fury disputes that claim, saying daddy Stark co-invented it, it provides evidence to the idea that Dillinger/Stark is a dirty, thieving bastard, even if he's ingenious in his own right.

He also stole Vanko's clothes.


Anyway, now that we know what's happening in the upcoming Avengers sequel, it's become clear how the Tron roots continue.  After the events of the first Avengers movie, Stark has been looking to create an artificial intelligence to help protect the world from alien invasion or whatever.  Having delved into his father's past, he must have found evidence of the MCP that got out of control.  Being the cocky bastard that he is, Stark decides to fix the MCP by mixing it with the Tron program that had helped deactivate it previously, and he uses that AI to control his new army of robot protectors.  But the MCP can't be suppressed so easily and co-opts the Tron program, turning itself into Ultron, the machine willing to kill humanity in order to save it!

The future will be worn with sensible shoes.

So, okay, Tron had an official sequel in 2010 with Tron: Legacy, but it was a load of crap.  I'm much more interested in watching the continuing real Tron sequel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Excelsior!

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