Tron: Legacy & Law

A couple of days ago I finally got around to seeing "Tron: Legacy," the sequel to the 1982 cult classic from Disney that you might say was the Patient Zero for an entire generation of films using CGI effects. For those who never saw the original movie (my friends and I loved it as kids) it centered on a computer whiz named Kevin Flynn, played by a young Jeff Bridges, who gets trapped inside a game he created and has to fight his way out by assuming the role of one of the game's characters. In addition to making you never look at those little guys you're controlling in your video games the same way again (while you can just shut the game off and walk away, it's apparently life and death for them) "Tron" was one of those rare movies you walked out of thinking that you'd never seen anything quite like it. It wasn't a great movie by any means, but it broke a whole lot of new ground both in terms of the way it was made and the future it predicted in which man and machine would be able to achieve some level of symbiosis. It set the stage for the world envisioned, villainized and cranked to 11 in "The Matrix."

It only makes sense that "Tron: Legacy" plays like the entire man-in-machine and man-in-video-game prophecy, as well as the CGI technology initially spawned by the original, coming full-circle. The movie has the feel of a promise fulfilled. It's stunningly beautiful to look at; to their credit the production designers created a completely immersive and seamless computerized world that's a feast for the senses, from the digital sets and costumes which take on the quality of Art Nouveau to the brilliantly inspired score from Daft Punk. Like its predecessor, it's not a truly great film -- it gets too bogged down in silly metaphysics and quasi-Eastern-religious overtones -- but it's an unbelievably cool film, once again the kind of movie you've never seen anything quite like.

One of the most impressive tricks "Tron: Legacy" utilizes might be called a CGI Time Machine. As almost 30 years have gone by since the release of the original "Tron," the filmmakers needed a way to recreate Jeff Bridges's avatar within the computer, "Clu," who is obviously immune to the aging process -- and they couldn't use Bridges himself. Or could they? In the end, they were able to use Bridges for the character -- sort of -- and the digital wizardry they pulled out of their hats proves just how far computer graphics have come in three decades. The effects engineers digitized Bridges's face, made a 3D mold, took images of it from every angle, adjusted it so that it appeared as young as Bridges was in the original film, then used CGI to affix it to a body double used within the film. The virtual "face transplant" is the same basic technique used to turn actor Armie Hammer into twins in "The Social Network." To see it on-screen, to know that the face of the young Jeff Bridges is nothing more than computerized fakery, is just mind-blowing. It's creepy how convincing the effect is.

What the digital Bridges reminds you, though, is just how real virtual reality has become. And that got me thinking about a fledgling field of the law: virtual law, real world legal issues applied to and derived from the computer generated world.

Think about it, millions of people now live at least part -- and sometimes more -- of their lives online, playing games like World of Warcraft or completely submerging themselves in the world of the Sims or Second Life. Within these alternate universes they create art, spend money on products and property, forge relationships, work and play; and if you think it's a ludicrous proposition that such entities -- existing only in cyberspace -- can be subject to the purview of our very real court system, you're just not using your imagination. In fact, it's already happening.

A number of law suits have been filed, over the past few years particularly, by very real plaintiffs alleging copyright infringement, trademark violation, contract default, theft and more, all in the virtual world. The law as we've known it for years has had to evolve as quickly as the technology that's consistently presenting it with new challenges. As advances are made to VR technology -- as that simulated digital realm becomes more and more real -- you can be sure the lives we lead there will become more valuable to us, and we'll want to fight to keep them secure. And that will mean the creation of laws aimed at protecting the rights of our "avatars" and the implementation of already existing real-world laws within the virtual arena. What we're talking about here isn't simply a case of the courts cracking down on, say, clever entrepreneurs who hope to use new technologies and social networking to create loopholes in the law -- like the federal indictment unsealed last week against three online poker sites. No, this is more wide-reaching and impactive -- and more delicate, esoteric and up for interpretation; it's the place where futurism and the law meet.

Along those lines: Well-known scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil once predicted that it was only a matter of time before machines evolved to the point where they would be granted not simply rights but acceptance as sentient, spiritual beings. That's still a ways off, but the reverse of that -- real flesh-and-blood creatures jacking into computers and being granted the same rights within the simulated world that they're afforded in the organic world -- well, that's already just about upon us.

At the end of "Tron: Legacy," Jeff Bridges's uncannily youthful avatar in the digital universe, Clu, raises an army of programs with the goal of marching them into the outside world and taking over -- the implication being that he knows those virtual creations have as much power in the real world as they do in the virtual one.

Turns out, he's right.