As our last family hoorah for the New Year weekend, hubby and I took the girls to see Tron Legacy. Yes, it was totally THEIR choice, NOT mine. I am a totally girlie girl and nothing about Tron Legacy seemed appealing to me. I couldn’t really believe the girls wanted to see it but then again, they watch Disney and Disney pretty much brain washes kids into wanting to see what ever they are advertising.
Long story very short, Tron Legacy is actually a sequel to the original Tron. It picks up the story seven years after the first one with the movie begining in 1989. Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges)an innovative software engineer and the CEO of ENCOM International, creates a new “digital frontier” called The Grid, a virtual domain existing inside his computer. He figures out a way to teleport himself into the computer and exsists between the virtual and real world until things go bad and he disappears.
The movie flashes forward twenty years later and we find Kevin Flynn’s son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund) troubled by his father’s disappearance. As the story continues, Sam gets sucked up into the computer and figures out that is what happened to his father long ago. After a quite a bit of special effects with really cool looking motorcycles and flying objects,the quirky story line unfolds.
Sam is reconciled with his father inside the computer game (The Grid). Of course Sam wants to return to our world with his father, but his father is hesitant because his “identity disc” contains the information that Clu (the program he created to create perfection) now wants to invade OUR world. (Whaaat? Yeah total Stek Trek stuff!)
Puzzled by his father’s hesitation, Sam asks: “Don’t you want to go home?”. His father answered him so profoundly that I sat up in my chair, he said: “Sometimes life has a way of moving you past wants and hopes”. WOW!
At the end of the movie, Sam’s father sacrifices himself so that Sam and one of the female computer programs can go back into our world. (Ok I totally did not get how the program girl turned into a real human, but I digress.) Just before the end of the movie, Kevin speaks to Clu,(the program he created “in his own image” to create perfection) and says: “Perfection is standing right in front of you and Perfection is unknowable and for good measure–Perfection is not what we are striving for”. WOW!
As I sit on the brink of a New Year, I am challenged and convicted to evaluate my priorities. Society tells us that we need the perfect family, with the perfect job, perfect house with the perfect cars in the garage and the perfect electronics and furniture inside. Let’s not forget the perfect kids and perfect finances.
In the movie, Kevin Flynn’s search for perfection is the mechanism of destruction. He grew up during his 20 years trapped on the Grid and realized his mistake. He stated: “I screwed up chasing after perfection.”
Jesus challenges us to really evaluate our life focus and allow life to move us beyond our wants and hopes towards what is really important.
Matthew 6:19-21 (The Message)
19-21″Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.
(This post is part of a weekly meme hosted by Shell over at Things I Can’t Say. Click the photo above to read other folks’ hearts.)
It's amazing how we can learn profound lessons in the most unexpected of places.
Matthew 6:21 is what we have up on Malachi's wall… such a good reminder!
Shell is right. Sometimes we learn things when we least expect it.
I am sure your girls were happy to show that Disney can teach something profound
!