Didja Notice?

As ZackAttack walks past a pillar at 00:25 in the video, there is what looks like a magazine advertisement for the Space Paranoids video game taped onto it. There is also a Tron arcade game against the wall.

In his final video message, ZackAttack says that he has been communicating the Flynn Lives message for the past 3 years (though the text of the newspaper article "Flynn Lives Hacker Arrested", detailing the arrest of hacker Matthew Roth, suggests that the organization's presence has been felt all the way back to the year of Flynn's disappearance, 1989).

A number of newspaper and magazine headlines show up in video clips and on ZackAttack's bulletin board. The legible ones read: "Missing Billionaire Presumed Dead: Investigators Officially Call Off the Search for Kevin Flynn February 3rd 1991", "Kevin Flynn Presumed Dead", "Following Flynn: ENCOM's New CEO Has A Tough Road Ahead", "Dillinger Systems Releases Personal Spreadsheet Maker", "Dillinger Systems on the Rise", "What's Next for Dillinger Systems?", "Flynn Lives Hacker Arrested", "ENCOM's Beloved Son Gone Missing", "Follow the Money: 'Isolated Thinker' Covers All Legal Fees for Matthew Roth", "Flynn Dead? ENCOM Moving On", "A Decade Without Flynn", "Flynn Jr. Disrupts ENCOM Event!" (from the Center City Times), "Alan Bradley Upstaged!", "Sam Flynn Crashes Stockholder Gala: Hundreds Watch in Shock as Sam Flynn, Son of...", "Sam Flynn's Leap of Faith", and "Youth in Revolt!"

The actor portraying Roy Kleinberg is Dan Shor, who played Ram in Tron. Roy's nickname is listed as Ram in his interview here, so he is obviously the writer of the Ram program Flynn met in the original system. Roy is listed as the Lead Programmer at ENCOM from 1977-1990.

In a media interview, Alan Bradley reveals that Flynn took to calling him Tron, after the security program he wrote, and the nickname stuck with him for years.

It is left unclear in Legacy and here in this short film, whether Alan is aware of the existence of the digital world. In the interview mentioned above, Alan says it is "weird" that Flynn had taken to calling him by the name of his security program, Tron. However, this comment may be just a smokescreen by Alan; it seems more likely that, given the friendship that seems to have developed between them after Flynn's return from the system in Tron, that he did tell Alan about it. Later in the video, Alan greets ZackAttack by saying, "Greetings, program," suggesting he is aware of the digital world; Roy, however, does not seem to be aware of the digital world because he asks Alan, "Why do you think Flynn gave you the cool nickname?" (In the non-canonical Tron 2.0, Alan is definitely aware of the world of the system.)

In the newspaper article "A Decade Without Flynn" (presumably written in 1999), seen at 4:56 in the video, the unknown author of the piece speculates, rather strangely, on what Flynn's fate has been the past 10 years, hypothesizing he might be "...finishing up a much deserved break after creating some of the greatest video games ever made, sipping from a beverage that smells like tanning lotion. Or he may be under the control of a foreign government, eating strange cuisines and voluntarily not showering. Or he might have been trapped inside a computer by a program of his own creation..." The content and tone of the article almost sounds like it could have been ghost-written by Alan...

The man being interviewed on the street at 5:07 in the video is wearing a t-shirt with the image of a classic Recognizer on it.

At 8:23 in the video, Alan takes a handful of popcorn out of Roy's bowl, a callback to the scene in Tron where Roy asks him if he can have some of his popcorn!

When Alan tells Roy it's time to shut down Flynn Lives, Roy asks, "What about the page at the arcade? I'm not giving up now." It sounds as if Roy has not yet been let in on the fact that the page Alan received in Legacy was from Clu, not Flynn.

In November 2010, Marvel released a series of "Tronified" variant covers for several of its comic book titles. At 9:21 in the video, the Tron variant of Invincible Iron Man #33 is seen hanging on the wall behind Roy.

As Roy and Alan exit the Flynn Lives bunker, a TV set in the room turns itself on for some reason! It makes no sense story-wise, but it does lead the viewer into the live news coverage of Sam's arrival at ENCOM to address the board for the first time.

What I call the "epilogue" of "The Next Day" is a 40 second clip included as an easter egg on the Tron: Legacy Blu-Ray disk (US Edition). In an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) conversation (though, for some reason, it is called an ILC connection here), two individuals exchange a few brief lines of text. The first speaker is identified only as EDJ_0431, most likely Edward Dillinger, Jr. The second is MCTRL_751, which may stand for Master Control. Could this be a new or reborn Master Control Program? The voice that accompanies the MCTRL text lines is very similar to that of the MCP from Tron and also uses the MCP's trademark sign-off, "End of Line". However, EDJ addresses the speaker as Dad, suggesting it is Edward Dillinger, Sr.  

Memorable Dialog

Flynn took to calling me Tron.wav

the Flynn Lives virus.wav

Flynn lives in all of us.wav

Greetings, program.wav

Isolated Thinker.wav

Junior earned his place.wav

sign me up, Tron.wav 

don't underestimate him.wav