By: Nicholas Varga
As time passes on, technology becomes more and more complex, advanced, innovative, and constantly evolving due to modifications being made. These technological changes are constantly altering the way society interacts with each other on a daily basis. People are using more technological items and features than they have in the past due to the advancements in today's society. People are exploring new ways in which they can expand technology, whether it be through a driverless car, or a house that can take care of itself with zero human interaction. When people wake up the first thing they usually do is use their phone. This just shows one of the many ways people depend on technology. This rapid expanse of technology is both a good thing to people and a harmful quality as well.
Technology provides people with telecommunication capabilities and connections across unbound lengths. Although, it also has an effect on people that robs them of their human nature and treats them as machines. Another such way technology has benefited and affected people is through films or movies. Movies affect the way technology advances and how it is used through the role of science fiction. Science fiction plays a big role in how people can see or imagine what a futuristic or post humanistic world looks like. This type of science fiction is called cyberpunk. There are many movies focused around the idea of cyberpunk and futuristic society and one such movie is Tron: Legacy.
In Tron: Legacy, there can easily be distinguished a relationship between cyberpunk and the built environment of the movie. In the movie, as Sam Flynn enters the world of Tron, the buildings, streets, vehicles, etc. are replaced by profound technological advancements alluding to a futuristic society. He is currently looking for his father and stumbles into this world where technology rules and people do not. He is later captured and arrested by police and is expected to partake in government standards of captured victims. He is expected to fight in a deathmatch on futuristic vehicles. He is given futuristic clothes as well as a disc/weapon to fight with. He then enters the game to find his father and leave the world of Tron alive. He encounters various life forms and machines that he has never seen before in the real world and a society like no other. Cyberpunk's main objective is to create a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a combination of low-life and high tech. As a result, the society becomes entirely technology based where programs run everyday life leaving out the humans and making way for post humanism. This brings forth ideas of AI, virtual worlds, and less human involvement. When Sam enters the virtual, dystopian world of Tron or The Grid, he sees that there are people running around the streets in poverty trying to escape from the law. They are trying to flee due to what the people of Tron have in store for them. The people of Tron are AI and are not real. There are only two actual humans in the film and the rest are computer programs. The built environment of the world explores a reality where there are no more humans left and only for post-humanism and the dawn of the age of artificial intelligence. AI is completely running the new virtual world with no human involvement. The buildings, cars, and people are evolved by technology leading to a futuristic world.
The world we live in has shaped these stories presented in the films due to the characteristics of our society. Our society dreams of making godly technological advancements and bettering our society to a place of order and social stability. Technology is already a driving factor in our society by having social media (our means of communication), machines making products, and tech controlling our infrastructure. People believe today that the world or society can change through the use of technological advancements. The world of Tron embodies that idea. The idea of science fiction created by our society modeling the idea of a futuristic society where technology dominates, is how we as people view the future.
The film is alluding to that as time goes on technology is bound to change. This change is bound to affect us as people and society as a whole. The movie shows a world known as the Grid where the world is set up as a program. The film is showing the idea of a possible future for people. This introduces the ideas of futuristic vehicles that can fly, people that can pixelate into different forms, teleportation, and many more. This will change the way we live because our lives will become dependent on technology to complete everyday life. This will affect the planet due to how much waste is being emitted by these machines and how much renewable and nonrenewable materials are being used. This will also affect the planet’s space availability and the cities that are already present.
The aesthetics in TRON prove that to be true. In the world of TRON or the grid, the setting is a dystopian futuristic world on the verge of fluctuation of war. The high tech environment of new tech and flashing lights invokes a sense of accomplishment, but also terror to the people. The world itself is governed by strict laws. People must obey codes and laws to survive or else perish. The streets of TRON are barren due to that no one wants to risk their lives to leave. The only source of light comes from the neon glow of a futuristic tech world or else everything would be dark without power. People here have to fight for their freedom because society only favors a select few. These ideals by the superior people in TRON are reflected in the architecture. The buildings all follow the same style of structure as if it were placed in a totalitarian environment the favor technology over people. They all show the same geometric pattern and lighting qualities as everything else in the film. The people or programs also share the same fate. The world itself is trying to become one unified program where all parts of a whole are similar without distinction from the clothing to the equipment to the architecture of the grid.
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