I JUST NEED TO YELL ABOUT THIS
One of the things I'm super fascinated by is the difference in nature of Eve's digitisation vs. Julian's.
When Julian digitises Eve and she ends up on (in?) the Dillinger Grid, she very much has an appearance that falls more in line with her being a User. She's got almost a Flynn vibe to her (also kind of mixed with that of Legacy's Sirens) complete with the white of the Users we're so familiar with. And her disc reflects that, being the bright blue-white and looking nothing like the programs' discs (which I think is a neat touch because even Flynn's disc in Legacy appears to the eye as nothing special despite him being the Creator iirc.) Eve's disc is gorgeous imo.
But Julian's is a whole different story.
Julian doesn't initially begin his own digitisation. I mean, he does, kind of; he has to initiate it in the end and step into the beam, but It's almost like the idea wasn't really his in the first place. At least that's how it reads to me. This is how I interpret the Julian scene(s) toward the end of the film. Agree or disagree, that's up to you.
He's standing by the laser control terminal as the news reporters are covering what has gone down and how the blame is being put on Dillinger Systems, but the screen flickers without any User input, acting with a mind/will of its own, and who should it be restoring but a certain program—
Julian even looks at this when it begins running like tf is going on here but with the long arm of the law threatening to close in on him, he's not really thinking about it too much.
Truthfully, I don't think he really understands the implications of that. Certainly not in the heat of the moment. He's being hunted by the police, blamed for all the destruction Athena has wrought (rightfully so) and with Elizabeth having been murdered by Athena, he's likely on the hook for that too. It's looking dire and he can feel the noose tightening around his neck.
Maybe had he had the chance to stop and think, he might recognise that program name from his grandfather's legacy. Maybe only Ed Dillinger Jr. would have picked up on it and that's just Dillinger history he's unaware of.
Maybe he wouldn't. Sark in all the OG media I've seen was just Sark. His name wasn't an acronym for anything that we were ever told about. This is the first I can recall ever seeing SARK in the sense that it stands for System Analytics and Reporting Kernel.
But regardless, there's clearly a ghost in the machine. Maybe Ed Dillinger Sr isn't well and truly gone after all. Maybe there's some other shit at play and that's why Julian's inheriting the legacy.
I know Legacy doesn't really have too much bearing on this film, but with the Flynn Lives ARG info and the Tron: The Next Day short that was released with the DVD, we know Ed Dillinger Jr was in contact with his father whose username had MCP_ in it. I don't remember the small string of numbers. 7XX? Whatever. I think that has to be foreshadowing something.
It would be super fucking fascinating if the song Shadow Over Me was actually about Julian/Sark in the end.
Here I stand, indiscreet, obsolete
Now I know for sure
Poisoned thoughts infiltrate, eradicate
Now I know for sure
I know what I am, I know who I am
And I know what I have to do
I know what I am, I know who I am
But what if everything is true?
I got a shadow over me
I am not what I appear to be
And I know that you believe in me
And it feels so real, and it feels so real
Idk I get some mad Julian vibes here. If the shadow's Dillinger Sr, the poisoned thoughts are his transformation into Sark, and once he slips on that identity disc he'll 'know who he is'...?
ANYWAY, I GOT LOST ON A TANGENT.
Going back to Julian proper now and the scene—once that runs, Julian's laser systems begin to take on a life of their own, but with the Dillinger Grid just taken down by the ENCOM team to stop Athena and her army, the system needs to be rebooted.
And that's when Julian springs into action, running his command prompts to bring the laser systems back online. He reboots the laser systems, reverses the transfer, and steps fearfully into the beams, digitising himself.
Then when he gets to Dillinger Systems' Grid? Oh, wow, it's a mess. Nobody is there to oversee his arrival. Unlike Eve, his clothes did not change at all from what he was wearing. He has no circuitry, no bodysuit, no armour. Granted, Eve's circuitry didn't blaze until her identity disc was connected to her port, but still.
The identity disc that is created for him is not his. Not really. It's not the disc of a User. It's Sark's identity disc from the OG film, and if that initial prompt and the voice of the MCP saying "...Sark..." when Julian approaches is anything to go off of, that's Sark's backup restore loaded onto that disc that is going to merge with Julian's own identity whether he wants it to or not.
Also the way the MCP voice says Sark's name when he reaches for it is like exactly the way it is said when the MCP is pushing all its functions into Sark's corpse at the end of the OG film to use his body to protect him.
Julian's 'acceptance' of that identity disc is PAINFUL. Eve didn't have that kind of visceral reaction when she got hers. Just a sudden jarring return to consciousness so to speak, but she wasn't hurt. Julian screams.
I wonder if they'd spin this like a Rinzler/Tron type situation. Or if Julian's rage and grief is just going to mesh nicely with Sark's personality.
Is this kind of going to be like repurposing but for a User? With this disc, what kind of permissions will he have? The MCP should not* exist anymore, so unlike original Sark, he serves no master.
Will he be able to do to the Grid what Clu could only manage if he obtained Flynn's disc? Can he get into other systems? If he can get into ENCOM's system somehow is that going to force them to do something similar and grab a backup of Tron??
Are Sam and Quorra gonna step in? Are we maybe going back to Legacy's Grid somehow??