1. Introduction
Disney’s Tron-franchise is one of the most unique franchises in the world. It is unique in its use and exploration of modern technology, its neon-soaked aesthetic, and its entire existence. When the first movie, Tron, was released in 1982, reviews were mixed.[1] But in the 90s and early 2000s the movie gained a lot more traction and had become a cult classic in the landscape of cinematic science fiction.[2] Therefore, in 2010 Disney revived the franchise by releasing Tron: Legacy, a story that explores deep themes with many subtle nods to mythological stories.
The relation between Tron: Legacy and these myths shall be explored in this essay, with a specific focus on the myths of Prometheus, Pandora, Pygmalion, Narcissus and Echo.
2. The story of Tron: Legacy
Tron (1982)[3]
Tron: Legacy came out 38 years after its predecessor Tron (1982). Kevin Flynn was the protagonist of this first movie, in which an employee at ENCOM, the world’s largest tech company, steals a game Flynn created. He tries to hack into ENCOM’s computer system to steal it back, but their security program prevents him from doing so by using an experimental laser on him. With the laser Flynn gets digitized and uploaded into ENCOM’s computer grid. Inside the Grid he fought their security program. This program had developed itself into a hyper-intelligent AI by illegally consuming personal data and government information, and had turned against humans, or as they’re called in the movies, ‘users’. Flynn succeeded in defeating the program this, saving ENCOM, which resulted in him becoming their CEO.
Tron: Legacy (2010)[4]
After his adventure Flynn became passionate about creating a digital frontier, a way to merge the human and technological world, thus using artificial intelligence programs to a whole new extent. The world reacted shocked to his sudden disappearance in 1989, not just because he was seen as a visionary and inspiration to many people, but also because he was leaving behind his nine year old son, Sam. Sam’s mother had passed away in 1985, causing the young boy to now be an orphan and sole heir to his father’s technological empire.
20 years pass and we follow now-adult Sam as he heads to Flynn’s old arcade to follow up on a tip about his father’s disappearance. Sam’s investigation leads him to a basement with a laser in it. He accidentally activates is, sending himself into the Grid.
The Grid seems to be the digital frontier his father was so passionate about creating, but Sam doesn’t get much time to dwell on this revelation, as he is captured by guards. These determine that Sam is something other than a program, prompting them to take him to the Games. He is equipped with an armor and an “identity disc,” which contains all his memories, but conveniently doubles as a weapon. After this, people are put into an arena where they fight each other until one survives. In his battle Sam starts bleeding and is recognized as a user. He is taken to the program in charge of the Grid: CLU.
CLU was created by Flynn in 1983, and looks identical to his creator, albeit younger. He was designed to be the architect of the Grid and after doing that, tasked with a simple directive. CLU was to create the perfect system, an expression he took in the most literal sense: any imperfections or differences are seen as defects or malfunctions and are to be deleted. At some point the ISOs appeared: a race of programs that spontaneously appeared on the Grid without being created by anyone. Flynn was delighted by this development, but CLU saw them as imperfections and decided to massacre them. After this Flynn fled to a safehouse, taking the last living ISO, named Quorra, with him. In an attempt to lure Flynn out of hiding, CLU sends Sam back into the deadly Games, but Sam escapes with Quorra’s help and is taken to Flynn.
The trio devices a plan to escape the Grid, but Flynn is reluctant since it would mean risking getting caught and CLU gaining access to his identity disc. This disc is the key to exit the Grid, allowing CLU to cross over to the human world, which he wants to ‘perfect’ as well. As they arrive at the exit, a final conversation occurs between Flynn and CLU, who tries to explain himself to Flynn. During this, Sam and Quorra manage to escape the Grid with Flynn’s identity disc after Flynn stops CLU by destroying the Grid from within, sacrificing himself in the process. In a bittersweet moment, the movie ends with Sam taking control over ENCOM, following in his father’s footsteps, and having access to all of Flynn’s memories through his identity disc.
3. The myths within Tron: Legacy
In the classical myth, Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity, his beloved creation. [5] Fire symbolizes technological advances, knowledge, and creative capacity. But the myth also warns that power comes with unintended consequences and punishment.[6] Modern interpretations of Prometheus can be found in many films and books concerned with ethical dilemmas surrounding innovation and technological advances.[7] The myth depicts the tension between divine authority and human progress. If Prometheus represents ambition,[8] Pandora represents the risk of control and unintended consequences that comes with this ambition.[9] In a way these stories serve as a warning against overstepping human limits,[10] though it can be questioned whether human limits ever existed in the first place.[11] Once we get past the question of whether certain technology should ever be allowed to exist, the debate shifts to how mankind should deal with its existence: how does technology impact our identities, power dynamics or political systems.[12]
Tron: Legacy moves away from the initial anxiety about technological ambitions and towards an ethical discussion about the responsibility for creation. As stated before, Flynn is the inventor of the Grid, effectively making him its Prometheus. He has created CLU and tasked him with “creating the perfect system,” which he sees rigidly and literally. This makes his ultimate goal similar to the perfectionist sculptor Pygmalion, who longs to create the perfect woman.[13] However, one could also argue that CLU is Galatea. The main “creator” in the movie is after all Flynn, who created CLU as the perfect architect for his new world. This expresses the dangers of perfectionism: specifically programmed ideals without any flexibility or regards to ethics, Flynn’s ambition for perfection turns into CLU’s tyranny.
Ultimately CLU turns against his creator, which is a theme not unfamiliar to movies about creating new technologies.[14] CLU can therefore also function as Pandora, seeking escape from the confines of the Grid, opening a metaphorical box filled with unintended consequences for Flynn as he opposes his creator’s patriarchal rule by massacring the ISOs.[15]
The concept of CLU has a bit of a narcissistic undertone as well, since CLU looks identical to Flynn did in 1983. As he’s programmed by Flynn, he has the same priorities and thought process as Flynn did at that point. A similarity shared between Pygmalion, Narcissus and Flynn is that they all loved someone that seemed external, but was in fact merely a reflection of themselves or their mind,[16] or both in Flynn’s case. In the last scene that includes Flynn and CLU they have the following exchange:
CLU: I did everything. Everything you ever asked.
Flynn: I know you did.
CLU: I executed the plan!
Flynn: As you saw it.
CLU: You... You promised that we would change the world together. You broke your promise.
Flynn: I know. I understand that now.
CLU: I took this system to its maximum potential. I created the perfect system!
Flynn: The thing about perfection is that it's unknowable. It's impossible but it's also right in front of us all the time. You wouldn't know that because I didn't when I created you. I'm sorry, CLU. I'm sorry.
This scene depicts CLU as hurt, a human-like characteristic that blurs the line between human and machines[17] that shows just how sophisticated of a program CLU is. But it also functions as a perfect summary of CLU’s limitations and the dilemma the movie poses. CLU was simply a program following the orders he was programmed to execute. And Flynn created CLU with the knowledge, wisdom and frame of reference that he had at the time back in 1983. Every ability that CLU possesses is a direct cause of Flynn’s actions, and it is no surprise that CLU idolizes his creator. In the movie CLU’s intention is never to kill Flynn, but to make him understand his vision: he is trying to perfect the Grid as per Flynn’s orders.
While CLU is indeed a reflection of the younger Kevin Flynn, this is precisely why he is flawed. It implicates that he will never be able to evolve beyond that without an external update or explicit decision to update him: he cannot grow on his own, and he will most likely never understand the nuances of the world to the extent that humans can. CLU can literally only echo what Flynn has programmed into his being. The notion that perfection is unachievable because it doesn’t exist in any universally set form is a nuance that he hasn’t been programmed to understand, because Flynn didn’t understand it himself as a young man.
Much like the tale of Echo and Narcissus, this is a tragedy of miscommunication. CLU is, much like Echo, trying to connect to Flynn by using his own “words” in a way.[18] But instead of actual words, CLU uses the order that Flynn gave him. His aggressive and tyrannical search to perfect the Grid can be seen as CLU communicating to Flynn that he is doing what he was told, he’s being a good program in hopes of Flynn returning to him. Flynn could be seen as a narcissistic figure. Whilst he first identified with CLU, over time he grew as a person and saw less and less of his current self in CLU. With the arrival of the ISOs Flynn’s curiosity to this development was piqued and his attention shifted from creating a Grid filled with perfect programs to experimenting with the scope of the Grid’s possibilities. The “words” that CLU was using didn’t work on Flynn anymore as he outgrew his first creation and moved on to other matters. Flynn didn’t just abandon his first objective, but also his first creation in this world. He and CLU were supposed to change the world together. Through this narrative CLU is more than just a one dimensional villain. He is not an evil computer, but simply an outdated security program that got too strict.
4. The message of Tron: Legacy
Tron: Legacy teaches us many things about the relationships between humans and technology. It highlights the need to be mindful about the technology we create and the ethical dilemmas that come with it. We can learn from Prometheus and realize that our ambition to innovate brings the inevitable risk of opening Pandora’s box, and we can’t fully know what will come out of that box once it’s opened. The movie is not against innovation whatsoever, the question posed by the movie is not whether we should create, but it is a lesson in what we should do with those creations. Flynn could have taught CLU the nuances that he learned in his growth as a person, made him a companion in his journey. Furthermore it is imperative that we see technology for what it is: a reflection of our minds and the input we provide it with. When a program malfunctions, that is ultimately on the creators. The scene where Flynn apologizes to CLU is him taking accountability and realizing that didn’t provide CLU with the necessary information to see the nuance in perfection. It is a lesson in ethical responsibility for technological creations, and provides much food for thought.
Footnotes
[1] Tron (1982) - User reviews - IMDb. (z.d.). IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084827/reviews/.
[2] In 2008, the American Film Institute even nominated this film for its Top 10 Science Fiction Films list.
[3] Lisberger (1982).
[4] Kosinski (2010).
[5] Ovid (2016), p. 9.
[6] Hesoid (1997), p. 87-95.
[7] See for example: Scott (1982), Cameron (1984), Garland (2015) & Del Toro (2025), but also Bird & Sherwin (2006): the biography of J.R. Oppenheimer, which draws a parallel to the myth of Prometheus and Oppenheimer’s involvement in the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb.
[8] Franssen (2017), p. 37-39.
[9] Stevens (2022), p. 171-172.
[10] Franssen (2017), p. 33 & 37-39.
[11] Haraway (2016), p. 64-65.
[12] Haraway (2016), p. 65 & 68.
[13] Ovid (2016), p. 394-396.
[14] Bennett & Royle (2023), p. 381.
[15] Stevens (2022), p. 175-176.
[16] Ovid (2016), p. 111-115 & 395-396.
[17] Haraway (2016), p. 36.
[18] Ovid (2016), p. 110-112.
Sources
Bennett & Royle (2023)
Bennett, A. & Royle, N. (2023). An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory. Routledge.
Bird & Sherwin (2006)
Bird, K. & Sherwin, M. J. (2006). American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Blackstone Publishing.
Cameron (1984)
Cameron, J. (Director). (1982). The Terminator [Film]. Orion Pictures.
Del Toro (2025)
Del Toro, G. (Director). (2025). Frankenstein [Film]. Netflix.
Franssen (2017)
Franssen, T. (2017) The Mythological Roots of Transhumanism.
Garland (2015)
Garland, A. (Director). (2015). Ex Machina [Film]. Film4 Productions.
Hamilton (2017)
Hamilton, E. (2017). Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, 75th Anniversary Illustrated Edition. Black Dog & Leventhal.
Haraway (2016)
Haraway, D. J. (2016). A Cyborg manifesto. In University of Minnesota Press eBooks (pp. 3–90). https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816650477.003.0001.
Hesiod (1997)
Hesiod. (1997). Works and Days: A Translation and Commentary for the Social Sciences. Univ of California Press.
Lisberger (1982)
Lisberger, S. (Director). (1982). Tron [Film]. Walt Disney Productions.
Kosinski (2010)
Kosinski, J. (Director). (2010). Tron: Legacy [Film]. Walt Disney Productions.
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Ovid. (2016). Metamorphoses. Penguin.
Scott (1982)
Scott, R. (Director). (1982). Blade Runner [Film]. Warner Bros. Entertainment.
Stevens (2022)
Stevens, B.E. (2022). ‘The Beautiful Trap Inside Us’: Pandoran Science Fiction And Posthuman Personhood.
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