The Abridged Script
FADE IN:
INT. FLYNN'S ARCADE
BRUCE BOXLEITNER talks to GARRETT HEDLUND.
BRUCE BOXLEITNER
This is your father's old arcade, which has been closed for decades but someone still pays the rent I guess.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Cool, I want to play a couple rounds of Dance Dance Revolution, can I borrow fifty bucks?
BRUCE BOXLEITNER
You may want to go play the Tron arcade game in the back. More people in the audience probably played the game than watched the shitty movie.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Alright, thanks.
(plays Tron)
Hey guys, possible Tron kill screen coming up. Guys?
GARRETT discovers a secret door behind the game which leads to a 1980-ERA COMPUTER using 2000-ERA TECHNOLOGY. Luckily, it has been running for 20 years without so much as a reboot or a broken fan.
A laser shoots GARRETT and he is transported into THE GRID. ZERO EFFORT is made to enhance the explanation for this offered by the FIRST MOVIE.
INT. THE GRID - IN DISNEY DIGITAL REALD IMAX 3D HOLY SHIT
GARRETT HEDLUND arrives and is instantly surrounded by A BUNCH OF GLOWING BLUE BULLSHIT.
BEAU GARRETT
Welcome to The Grid. You will now be forced to participate in pointless, arbitrary action sequences that the nerds in the audience will cream their shorts over despite the fact that when Michael Bay does it they call him a douche.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Sweet, it's just like the stories dad told me! I'm going to have to drive a light cycle along a confined grid, like a chess board! Then I'll have to outwit my enemies to defeat them!
BEAU GARRETT
Exactly. Except you can drive anywhere, the grid has multiple levels, your bike can jump, and you have weapons.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Damn, hours of using KTron to procrastinate on my CS Homework wasted.
BEAU GARRETT
To play, you'll have to wear this generic skintight outfit that will make it impossible for the audience to tell you apart from other characters.
GARRETT HEDLUND
It's not going to show everyone how little my dick is, is it? Because I saw pictures of this guy on the internet...
CGI JEFF BRIDGES approaches.
CGI JEFF BRIDGES
Hello Garrett. I am a Computerized Lookalike: Unfinished model. You may call me "C.L.U."
GARRETT HEDLUND
You look just like my father. When I drew a picture of him in Kindergarten with crayon, I mean.
CGI JEFF BRIDGES
I'm the bad guy. You can tell because I'm the only thing in the movie that isn't blue. Time to die!
GARRETT HEDLUND
Whatever you say, Polar Express.
GARRETT light cycles around, a bunch of CONFUSINGLY DIRECTED SHIT happens, and then GARRETT is rescued by OLIVIA WILDE.
OLIVIA WILDE
You must be Jeff Bridges's son. Come with me, I'll take you to his secret hideout, off the grid.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Oh good, so the bad guys can't follow us.
OLIVIA WILDE
Not on bikes. On airships, though, they totally can.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Oh. My dad's hideout must be really hidden then, huh?
OLIVIA WILDE
Nope, it's the only structure with lights out there.
GARRETT HEDLUND
This movie gave up trying to make sense the instant I evaded a cop just by turning my headlights off, didn't it?
OLIVIA WILDE
EyeCandy 2.1a does not compute. Bleep click whirrr.
INT. JEFF BRIDGES'S HIDEOUT
GARRETT meets his father, JEFF BRIDGES.
JEFF BRIDGES
It's good to see you son. I'm sure you and the audience have many questions, I will answer them using page after page of actionless expository dialogue.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Where the hell am I, Dad?
JEFF BRIDGES
It's like the Matrix, but the rules are even more arbitrary and it has even less to say. Years ago, I created this world the help of my CGI alter-ego, who turned evil one day. You'd think I'd have realized it when he turned red, but I was stoned off my ass at the time, man.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Why didn't you ever come home?
JEFF BRIDGES
I'm trapped here. If I try to get out, CGI Jeff will take my identity disc. It's the frisbee on your back that you use as a weapon, it also stores everything you know.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Great idea for a weapon. When I get out of here I'm going to start fighting off muggers by throwing my credit cards at them.
JEFF BRIDGES
If he gets the disc, he'll be able to leave The Grid and destroy humanity in his quest to make the perfect world.
GARRETT HEDLUND
An A.I. whose drive for perfection made it decide to eradicate imperfect humans, eh? Well that's just brain-meltingly original.
JEFF BRIDGES
Yeah well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
GARRETT HEDLUND
So what's the plan? How do we get out?
JEFF BRIDGES
We'll just hang out at my house for a few centuries until CGI Me kills himself or something. You have to stay here, he tricked you into entering the grid to lead him to me.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Then why did he try to kill me fifty times? That just happened, like twenty minutes ago.
JEFF goes to bed. OLIVIA shows GARRETT around the house.
OLIVIA WILDE
Over here is Jeff's custom lightcycle. It's the fastest one ever built.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Cool, sounds like the setup for an epic cycle race later in the movie.
OLIVIA WILDE
Nah, you're just going to ride it into town and then give it to a robo-hobo.
(hands Garrett keys)
Go talk to Michael Sheen. You can find him by following the sound of overproduced techno music, Daft Punk is making a distracting cameo in his club right now.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Daft Punk? Those are the guys who sampled the Kanye West song, right?
OLIVIA WILDE
...I hate your entire generation.
GARRETT drives into THE CITY and finds MICHAEL SHEEN.
INT. MICHAEL SHEEN'S CLUB
MICHAEL SHEEN acts like an IDIOT and talks to GARRETT.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Nice performance, Sheen. I guess David Bowie was too busy to be in the movie, what with releasing albums recorded seven years ago and all.
MICHAEL SHEEN
Pay no heed to my extremely untrustworthy appearance, as it turns out I am actually extremely untrustworthy! I've told the bad guys you're here! Now watch as I dance around with my glowing cane that also shoots lasers and I pretend is a guitar Jesus Christ this movie is fucking stupid.
BAD GUYS appear and fight. OLIVIA WILDE shows up with A BLUE LASER SWORD and everyone battles, including a BLACK-AND-RED BAD GUY with a double-bladed RED LASER SWORD.
GARRETT HEDLUND
You know your movie is in trouble when you're ripping off The Phantom Menace for ideas. This is wizard.
JEFF BRIDGES
Behold! It is I, your maker! Watch as I use my totally awesome godlike power to turn lights off AS IF WITH SOME KIND OF MAGICAL SWITCH-LIKE DEVICE!
JEFF rescues OLIVIA and GARRETT, but gets his FRISBEE stolen.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Dad, your MacGuffin disc! Now what?
JEFF BRIDGES
We have no choice but to get to the portal and shut down CGI Jeff from the outside, ignoring the fact that time moves slower in here so even if you shut him down right away it will probably be like 30 years or something. Pretty much your original plan that I shat all over.
GARRETT HEDLUND
All you needed to decide to leave The Grid was to lose your disc? Why didn't you just destroy the thing years ago?
JEFF BRIDGES
Because it looks totally super cool! That's way more important than seeing my son again! Shit man, you've been in this movie for over an hour and haven't figured it out yet? If something is cool-looking, it is important!
OLIVIA WILDE
We can get to the portal on this lightrail sailboat thingy.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Really, we're doing the solar sailer scene? That's the point in the first movie where everyone gives up and changes the channel.
JEFF BRIDGES
Of course, what would a sequel be if it didn't repeat every single flaw in its predecessor?
They SAIL toward the portal, only to discover CGI JEFF BRIDGES piloting his own AIRSHIP toward the portal as well.
INT. CGI JEFF BRIDGES'S AIRSHIP
CGI JEFF BRIDGES gives a speech to his ARMY.
CGI JEFF BRIDGES
Muahahaha! Nothing can stop me from taking over Earth, now that I have an army of robozombies! A few thousand guys with no special powers should be able to take on the entire planet, right?
JAMES FRAIN
I sure hope the laser that teleports all of us into the real world is in a big open field and not, for example, a super-tiny room in a basement!
Meanwhile, JEFF, GARRETT, and OLIVIA sneak onto the ship and attempt to recover JEFF'S FRISBEE from JAMES FRAIN.
GARRETT HEDLUND
Give me back the disc.
JAMES FRAIN
Okay. Here you go.
GARRETT HEDLUND
That's it? A couple stormtroopers and a pussy are the guards of the thing that we established earlier is the most important object ever?
JAMES FRAIN
Yep. Do you want a carrying case for it or anything?
JEFF, GARRETT, and OLIVIA escape on a SHIP, CGI JEFF BRIDGES chases them.
EXT. THE EXIT PORTAL
Everyone arrives at the PORTAL TO EARTH.
JEFF BRIDGES
Garrett, take Olivia and get back to Earth! She's the key to something or other that matters!
CGI JEFF BRIDGES
No! Garrett, think of what you'd leave behind! Your world is so boring, our world is in super high-resolution 3-D!
GARRETT HEDLUND
Yeah, making what is essentially a black and white movie in 3-D is like giving a silent film 7.1-channel surround sound. Fuck off, Final Fantasy.
JEFF destroys CGI JEFF MATRIX-STYLE so GARRETT and OLIVIA can escape.
JEFF BRIDGES
Huh. Guess I should have done that like twenty years ago.
(deletion)
INT. FLYNN'S ARCADE
GARRETT and OLIVIA talk to BRUCE BOXLEITNER.
BRUCE BOXLEITNER
I'm glad you're safe, Garrett. And I'm really glad I get another scene in a movie showing in an actual theater! So, how was it in there?
GARRETT HEDLUND
Alright I guess. The special effects were okay, but it wasn't as good as the first movie.
BRUCE BOXLEITNER
Are you an idiot? Go download Tron and watch it with someone who's never seen it, see how long you can last before apologizing in embarrassment and shutting it off.
OLIVIA WILDE
Okay seriously, what the fuck am I even made of now?
END