Tron is cool because the world of Tron—The Grid—is so alien to us. The neon light motif is of course supposed to represent an electronic realm stylistically, but it does it so well that it truly gives an otherworldly atmosphere. The patterns on the characters, the outlines of objects, the gridboard of the light cycles. Do these neon markings have meaning or are they merely arbitrary? The idea is never covered in the movie, but that merely heightens the ambiance. The neon is ubiquitous and its function is apparent to the programs, and so no explanation is necessary; it is foreign to users, and so incomprehensible to them.
The inhabitants of the Grid, the programs, are also alien to us. While sentient beings, they have completely different objectives than us. Their definition of a good life is fulfilling their functions efficiently. RAM is an actuarial program. What actions does it take to perform his function? He doesn’t do math, he IS math.
And then there’s Tron, the defense program. As a program, he is inherently logical. But his programming was to stop unwanted activity between the programs. In this programming, he was designed to be righteous, to stop evil. Like the program said about him, he fights for the users. This gives him some humanity, and Tron becomes the literal and figurative link between the logical programs and the passionate humans.
He portrays this no better than when he fights against all odds to defeat the MCP, determination being a fundamentally human quality in this case. However, note that it is Tron, a program of this system, not Flynn the user, who resolves the conflict. This is despite the fact that Flynn is the main protagonist of the film with the main conflict. Even though Flynn has transcended physical reality to enter the cyber space, it is Tron who ultimately defeats the MCP. The problems of the Grid are rectified by an inhabitant of the Grid. Flynn helps, but immediately departs after the victory. Although he encounters incredible events, he is just a passerby to this strange neon world. Much like a space opera, the battle is epic, but it remains the conflict of a different universe.
