There is also a rich literature that explores narrative literary and cinematic works featuring dystopias (Booker 1994, Baccolini and Moylan 2003, among others). This dark side of utopia has been discussed theoretically by a number of cultural critics, each focusing on a different root cause of societal disjunction: Friedrich Nietzsche on the relationship of science and religion, Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin on the relationship between popular culture and the degradation of society, and a number post-Marxist writers who approach dystopia as a critique of capitalism, among other individuals and approaches. While the concept of «utopia» was coined by Sir Thomas More in his book of the same name in 1516 and has been explored since that time in numerous artistic works, dystopia as an idea primarily emerged in the literature of the twentieth century. The two Tron films lie among a long literary history of science fictional dystopias – worlds in which human attempts to create a perfect society (utopias) have instead ended in society’s degradation. The sequel’s soundtrack achieved critical attention and also mainstream popularity, attaining a high position of number four on the Billboard 200 charts during its fifth week of release (Billboard Chart Archives 2012) and a nomination for Best Score Soundtrack Album for Visual Media at the 54 th Grammy Awards (54 th Annual Grammy Awards and Winners 2012). Twenty years later, when Walt Disney Pictures began work on the long-anticipated sequel Tron: Legacy (film released in the United States in 2010, DVD in 2011) in the mid-2000s, the score was also of utmost concern: one handed to the French electronic dance musician duo Daft Punk. While some critics were underwhelmed by the cohesion of Tron's plot, critics and viewers alike were dazzled by the film's costumes, special effects, and score – an orchestral/choral/synthesized composition from American electronic music composer Wendy Carlos. Tron quickly became a cult classic and has been cited by animation pioneers as vastly influential on the development of subsequent animation technology and style (Thompson 2010), despite being overshadowed at the box office by other science fiction classics released in the same year, such as Blade Runner and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Released at the dawn of the personal computing era, Tron (1982) brings its programmer protagonist Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) and its viewers into a dystopian world inside a computer mainframe. It is yet another pyrrhic victory for Tron, a computer program champion who fights for the human Users against the megalomaniacal Master Control Program of the ENCOM computer mainframe. The figure in blue sighs, then holds up his disc in triumph. The disc hits him squarely in the chest, and he explodes into a blaze of orange light, his particles dissolving into the air – «derezzed». His disc flies through the air, a blue beam of neon light against the darkness of The Grid. The man in blue blocks, dodges, and then hurls his disc in one swift motion at his adversary. The larger, orange-clad man moves, launching his disc at the smaller figure in blue. Each holds a Roman-style discus with matching glowing electric patterns. Tron legacy soundtrack analysis full#Both are dressed in full body suits and helmets encrusted in lines of light – one man's orange, the other, blue. Two humanoid figures stand facing each other across a sparse geometric plane.
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