The Theology of Tron

Some might call this post's title an oxymoron.  I mean, sure, there was some religious symbolism in Tron, like most sci-fi, but does it really amount to a full-blown theology?  Read further after the preview below to explore how deep this rabbit hole goes.

[Note: This trailer gives you a better feel for the slower pace of this film.  Trailer #3 is more exciting and more plot-revealing.]



First, a disclaimer: I've only seen half of the original Tron, but did get an in-depth summary of the movie on Wikipedia.  As bad as the original was, it didn't stop me from being there with a few pals (there was one gal, just FYI) to see the midnight showing Thursday night of Tron:Legacy.  I can't say I'm an avid fan, but I do like exploring theological themes in movies.  (My favorite films in this regard are the Matrix films and Last of the Mohicans; also, FYI).  As such, I focus entirely on Tron:Legacy in my commentary.

For those of you wondering if you should ever see the new Tron movie (I'll be honest, the original might be worth seeing once and only once), let me say this: the special effects are cool but certainly not mind-blowing, the action sweet but not stellar, the storyline is generally slow with sparks of action, and the music keeps pace (Daft Punk did an excellent, but not saving, job).  All in all I would give it a good but not great rating for a Sci-Fi film, and overall a barely above-average film (if you're patient and pay attention to the dialogue).  If I hadn't waited hours to see this at midnight, I probably wouldn't be so favorable.  Many a friend have called it "lame," and I can't really argue with them.  My one-word review: enjoyable. Whether you plan to see it or not, I will try to keep out all spoilers until after the "Spoiler Alert" notice.

The movie opens with a typical Father-Son archetype.  The Father (Flynn) is a Creator of an entire virtual world, and it's pretty clear that the Son (Sam) will follow his father there.  Surprisingly, the Son isn't herald as a messiah for a world that's clearly enslaved.  It appears he's there to rescue his father, which is an interesting theological twist.  As such, the world of Tron sees the Son as a way to the father in order to usurp the Father/Creator's power for their own.  Again, another interesting theological twist on the traditional Christian take.  In both theological schema, the son is used to gain access to the Father, yet for completely different reasons.

Now some will say that the Father/Creator isn't really God-like because he appears in human form within the (cyber)world he created.  Yet he did author the world by writing the code that produced it, before entering in as a character.  So there is a little Father/Incarnate Person motif within the character of Flynn himself, who, by the way, describes his creation as "more beautiful than I ever dreamed, more dangerous then I could ever imagine."

Of course, the main observation people will notice is visually with the stylized neon colors: orange/red equals bad guys, and white/blue equals good guys, with a whole lot of black.  That's a little simplistic when you consider that a lot of the city in Tron is white/blue even though it's ruled by bad guys.  With all the darkness, one wonders where is the light?  Where is the sun?  Apparently there's no program for that, as the first question a cyber-character asks about the 'outside' aka real world is, What's the sun like?  Do all of these people live in Plato's cave?  Are they all children clamoring in darkness?

There's also an interesting story of creation between the Father figure (Flynn) and a partner he created called Clue (a mirror-image of Flynn who doesn't appear to age).  As a partner in creation, is Clue an Adam-figure?  I would say No, because Clue is given powers almost if not completely equal to the Creator.  As such, I would say Clue is more like a Satan figure.  A plug for the movie, sums up the basic plot line: Creator creates a world with limitless possibility.  What happened?  "My creation turned against me."  Indeed, at one point Clue/Satan yells to the heavens, "Kevin Flynn  [aka Creator/God]!  Where are you now?"  Can you hear the echoes of Nietzche's "God is Dead" claim?

The Son, Sam, is different, too.  We're not the only ones to realize this: the Tron women who dress him for battle note that, "This one is different."  He asks, "What am I suppose to do?"  and the simple reply he gets is "Survive."  This advice is important insofar as it keeps him alive until he finds a truer purpose.  Indeed, Sam is a "user," not a program, and the innovation is both exciting and frightening for the plebian crowds.  (The Grid scenes of disc fighting and lightcycle racing are very reminiscent of gladiator sport.)

One interesting juxtaposition is the cyberspace world created within the computer system and the 'world out there' aka real world.  Listen to the voice over for this TV Spot - can't you see churches saying "in there is our future, in there is our destiny," speaking of within these church worlds or perhaps "in Jesus Christ"?



Later in the movie, from within cyberspace they talk about conquering/converting the world "out there," purifying it to perfection.  Doesn't it resemble some churches and their missional theology?  I think we're better off seeing the two worlds "in there" or "out there" as interconnected.

Also with regard to the two worlds: Creator/Flynn says "I kept dreaming of a world I thought I'd never see."  How often do Christians dream of the heaven or the Kingdom of God, a world we think we'll never see, except maybe after death or with the second coming?

***SPOILER ALERT***

The end of the movie has the Son (Sam) escape with the last "Iso," Quorra, a creature born out complete within the Grid/Inner Cyberspace without any User/Programmer behind her code.  She is now out in the real world, and it appears she will become a prophet for the age to come.  Sounds like a pseudo-Jesus figure, no?

Returning to the Creator/Satan, Flynn/Clue dichotomy, I found it really cool that in the end Flynn the Father saves Sam the Son from Clue the Anti-Christ by absorbing him into himself.  Many Christians will often talk about Jesus taking on the sin of the world.  What about God taking on the sin of the world?  That's really what we're saying, after all, if we are to also claim Jesus as the Son of God, or rather, God Incarnate.  Flynn the Father uses his power to produce/send out his creation, and then he uses his power to absorb it all back into himself, thus destroying it.  But not without planting a seed in the new world, a "shoot of Jesse" if you will, in Quorra, an original digital creation now living as a sentient being in the 'real world.'

So what do you think?  There's plenty of other themes I didn't touch upon yet, including identity disks, the light beam connecting the 'heavens and the earth' almost a la Sauron in LotR, the outpost away in the mountains from the city, Flynn's Zen practice [best line of movie: "Sam, you're really messing with my Zen thing."], and what about Tron himself?  What do all these things represent/symbolize?

Dead Already

The opening theme to the movie American Beauty is called "Dead Already" by Thomas Newman.  For the record, I really like his stuff.  I had a recent revelation that I'd like to share you (cyberspace).

Now, it's no secret that Kevin Spacey's character is dead when the movie starts, and we find out the how/why/when/who/etc. as the movie progresses.  Yet here is my perhaps-not-so-groundbreaking-theory: the very-much alive Stacey we see throughout the movie is, actually, already dead: dead to ambition, to his true life's purpose, to living life the the full.  Can we say the same about ourselves or someone we know?  What would it take to 'wake them up inside' that they might no longer move dream-like through their 'waking life'?

As with much of American Beauty, there is dual-imagery and multiple interpretations for its myriad of themes.  It deserved the AA Best Picture award, and it deserves more in-depth commentary here.  But that's all I have time for right now after writing my Tron piece.  I'm hoping that writing a post about a movie made 10 years ago is honor enough in itself.

Done!

I finished my last seminary class today.  Wahoo!  We had a very interesting discussion about how to resist the overarching corporate-consumer narrative of our culture.  As with much of my seminary career, there were few answers but a lot of good questions.

I don't officially graduate until May 2011, but with no more classes perhaps now I will write more regularly on this blog... here's to a new year and a new future.

Enlightenment v. Romanticism as seen in JRR Tolkien

I was readying a somewhat interesting but very lengthy review of the Lord of the Rings, particularly the Two Towers, when I came across this section (see below; view webpage here).  I think the author, David Brin, makes a good point: that in opposition to Feudalism/Monarchy rose Capitalism/Democracy with the Enlightenment leading the way.  Yet the sterile nature of industry, equal access, free markets, etc., led to a counter-rebellion, or the Romantic movement.  One may see these two sides continue to battle it out in our secular, postmodern culture, between those who see wonder in "harder" science and those who find wonder in "softer" myth. 

[...]almost from its birth, the Enlightenment Movement was confronted by an ironic counterrevolution, rejecting the very notion of progress. The Romantic Movement erupted as a rebellion against the rebellion.
In fairness, it didn't start out that way. The first Romantics stood with their Enlightenment predecessors against feudalism and clericalism and welcomed the French Revolution as a step toward a kind of utopian universal brotherhood. Even today, men like Thomas Jefferson stand as icons of both Enlightenment and Romanticism.
But this changed when the industrial revolution hit full stride. Suddenly, where once gentry and clergy ruled, there were arrogant new powers striding about. An entrepreneurial bourgeoisie. A new intellectual elite of science. And a clanking, noisome ruction of impudent machinery.
Even democracy began to seem less classically pure when it was taken off a pedestal to be practiced for real by farmers, shopkeepers and a rising middle class, all of them arguing, wheedling and conniving amid an incredible din.
Temblors began splitting a chasm between Romantics and Enlightenment pragmatists. The alliance that had been so formidable against feudalism began turning against itself. Trenches soon aligned along the most obvious fault line, down the middle -- between future and past.
In this conflict, J.R.R. Tolkien stood firmly for the past.
Calling the scientific worldview "soul-less," he joined Keats and Shelley, Sir Walter Scott, Henry James and many European-trained philosophers in spurning the modern emphasis on pragmatic experimentation, production, universal literacy, progress, cooperative enterprise, democracy, city life and flattened social orders.
In contrast to these "sterile" pursuits, Romantics extolled the traditional, the personal, the particular, the subjective, the rural, the hierarchical and the metaphorical.

 The article/review is entitled J.R.R. Tolkien - Enemy of Progress, and goes at length to detail the ways in which Tolkien was a Romantic and used many literary cliches to entrench traditional story-telling, both in his day and now today with Peter Jackson's trilogy.  I still very much enjoy the movies, but am also seeing them in a more understanding and critical light.  

Fear and Trembling and Stupefying

I just 'pinched-hit' today for someone by teaching on Philippians 2:12-18. In 2:12 Paul mentions the phrase "fear and trembling" when talking about working out salvation. This phrase was made famous by Soren Kierkegaard, and after teaching through it this morning, I'm still 'working it out' myself.

The fullness of what it means that God is working out our salvation within us, both the willing and the doing, is only now hitting home.  The jury's still out in my court over predestination, but I have to say that mainly there is a lack of evidence we're just not seeing.  Today I have been blessed to see how God has been at work in my life over the past few months.  In the spirit of the movie "Memento" and Kierkegaard's own "Life must be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards," here I go.

I taught today because Mark was preaching.
Mark was preaching because Debbie was sick.
Mark agreed to preach because he already studied the text earlier that week.
Mark studied the test earlier that week because he was filling in for me leading that bible study.
I was able to brief him for the study on the lesson's text because I led a study earlier on the same text.
The only reason I was leading a study on THAT text was because I "happened" to be on fall break from my seminary class that usually prevents me from even attending the study.
I was only taking that seminary class because all other options didn't work out.

From the very beginning, even before what I've written above, God was 'working it out' that Mark would be able to preach within 24 hours of being called upon.  That's stupefying. 

Is it possible that God has orchestrated your life so that you are where you are right here, right now?  Is there some greater purpose God is preparing for you, right here, right now?

Using another Kierkegaard phrase, "the strength of the absurd" rests in believing that God is at work beyond our seeing, beyond understanding, beyond even our comprehension.  Reason and knowledge alone won't get us there.  It takes faith in some form - sometimes a leap, sometimes an itsy-bitsy step - but always willing to believe beyond what we see.

Goma

This summer I'll be heading to the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) to the town of Goma on the North side of Lake Kivu, next to the border with Rwanda. I just set up our Goma blog where we're fundraising and will be posting photos of our trip and information about the region:

www.gomateam2010.blogspot.com

The Origins of Bevo

Some people who know me (and many more only know me) know about my screenname Bevo82 or BevoBevans. Now I will reveal to you why I have these names. (Gasp!) I know, I know - I should really be trademarking these names or selling the rights, but I'm a nice guy and believe in an open, free society. :)

The "82" is simple: I was born in 1982.

The "Bevans" comes from when my mother called me "Evans-Bevans" as a kid. Ok, ok - she still does sometimes.

And now for the Bevo - the short answer is it's the name of the Texas Longhorns Mascot (I was born and raised in Austin, TX, and my Dad went and taught law there at UT... it was years later when my sister Lea went to Tampa that I woefully admitted the original "UT" was the University of Tampa, not Texas or Tennessee - which has the uglier orange, and many of my friends who are TN Vol fans would agree - and if you go to ut.edu you will notice it's Tampa, not Austin, which is utexas.edu. OK - random asides are OVER!)

But for the long answer for how on earth Bevo was named, I refer to the ever-prescient Wikipedia Article on Bevo, and this passage in particular:

[begin quote]

Origin of the name Bevo

"Bo" made his first public appearance at the halftime of the 1916 Thanksgiving Day football game between Texas and archrival the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (later Texas A&M University), a game in which Texas defeated the Aggies 22 - 7.[8] Following the game, Ben Dyer, editor of the UT campus magazine The Alcalde, referred to the mascot as BEVO.[9] It is not known why he chose this name, though various theories have been put forth, including that Texas A&M had a hand in naming the mascot.[9]

The best-known tale has been called into question.[9][10] The legend claims that the name came about due to an incident of vandalism led by students of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas.[11][12][9] It is true that in 1917, four Texas A&M Aggies kidnapped the longhorn and branded him with "13 - 0", the score of A&M's 1915 win over Texas.[9][12][10] Texas students are rumored to have retaliated by changing the steer's brand to Bevo, as is sometimes claimed.[9][10] However, there is actually evidence that Bevo was fattened up and served at a football banquet in 1920, due to the fact the university did not have the money to take care of him and he was not tamed to roam the campus.[9][10] The Aggies were fed the side they had branded and presented with the hide, which still read 13–0.[9][10] Since Ben Dyer had used the term one year previously, this would mean that the A&M prank could not have led to the name.[9] Another story states that it is possible the editor had Bevo in mind, which was a near beer.[9]

Another potential source of the BEVO name was the one reported in The Daily Texan, the student newspaper of UT: "Through the 1900s and 1910s, newspapers ran a series of comic strips drawn by Gus Mager. The strips usually featured monkeys as the main characters, all named for their personality traits. Braggo the Monk constantly made empty boasts, Sherlocko the Monk was a bumbling detective, and so on. The comic strips were popular enough to create a nationwide fad for persons to nickname their friends the same way, with an 'o' added to the end. The Marx Brothers were so named by their colleagues in Vaudeville: Groucho was moody, Harpo played the harp, and Chico raised chicks when he was a boy. Mager's strips ran every Sunday in newspapers throughout Texas, including Austin. In addition, the term 'beeve' is the plural of beef, but is more commonly used as a slang term for a cow (or steer) that's destined to become food. The term is still used, though it was more common among the general public in the 1910s when Texas was more rural. The jump from 'beeve' to 'Bevo' isn't far, and makes more sense given the slang and national fads of the time."[9]

[end quote]

Both stories are quite good, and I'm most impressed by the inventiveness of the first and the sociohistorical research of the second.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did :)