The Zen of Tron! Review of new Tron Legacy movie from Disney

I went to see Tron: Legacy on Saturday night in Leeds. I love sci-fi movies anyway, but I went particularly because the founder of the Zen Peacemakers, Bernie Glassman, was involved as a consultant for 'mythic' material in the planning stage. He's a friend and informal Zen teacher for some time to Jeff Bridges, which provided the link. Going to the cinema this month has now a double Bernie Glassman element: the film involved him, and the Ben and Jerry's icecream in the foyer includes chocolate fudge brownies from the Greyston Bakery outside New York, founded by Bernie to employ homeless and other local excluded people...

I won't give a summary of the movie, plenty of other online reviews do that already. I found the film a good watch, great special effects (and I only saw the 2D version, so 3D must be amazing), and the leading actress was so beautiful I couldn't help falling for her (which was the aim, I think!) The script is a little less satisfying, with places where it loses the momentum of the story, or just seems flat, and although I appreciated what new director Kosinski was trying to achieve, I'm not sure he managed to pull all the strands together. As a movie, ignoring my Zen interest in it, I'd give it overall a 3 of out 5, with the special effects maybe pushing it up to a 4. Definitely worth watching if you like sci-fi.

The Zen myth underlying it recalls Ben/Obi Wan Kenobi from the first Star Wars. A Zen-master-like figure who's taken to living as a recluse, feeling unable to really do anything to make the world better. This being 'stuck in Enlightenment', stuck in a peaceful state, is found in lots of old Zen stories. Through the film, Jeff Bridges' character Flynn is forced to re-enter active, meaningful life, to do something, and ultimately to reintegrate the aspects of himself which he's been dividing from himself. (Zen is "closing the gap between yourself and yourself" as one Japanese master put it)

There's also a strong storyline of planned perfection-vs-spontaneous unexpected beauty, embodied especially in the character of Quorra, played by Olivia Wilde. She's a Fifth Element-like being, like Milla Jovovich's role in that movie. Flynn initially tried to create a perfect world. before discovering spntaneous, emergent life was much more lovely and fascinating... but his perfectionist alter-ego, Clu (also played by Bridges with youthful CGI), isn't impressed and tries to restore perfect order to the Tron world, and aims to come and restore perfect order, Nazi-like, to our imperfect human world too.

There are many more Zen elements and other mythic resonances (Quorra playing the Chinese Go game surely has echoes of Miranda playing chess in Shakespeare's play TheTempest?? And Flynn-Bridges does make a good Prospero, giving up his disk/his magic powers at the end!)

Overall, I think Tron: Legacy will be enjoyable for anyone interested in Zen, Buddhism and similar things, because it's fun to notice how they are woven into the storyline and the acting. And it's beautiful to look at. Although I wish the writers and director could have pulled it together more, they've made an entertaining movie.

Chris Zangtsal Starbuck,
Zen Peacemakers Community

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