CLU 2.0

CLU 2 (Codified Likeness Utility 2.0), referred to in-film as simply CLU, is the main antagonist of the 2010 film, Tron: Legacy. He is an artificial intelligence program that was created in 1983 as an exact duplicate of Kevin Flynn. He is based on an earlier hacker program that Flynn wrote: CLU.

Tron: Legacy
By the year 2010, Clu had taken complete control of the Grid, fashioning the digital frontier into his own interpretation of perfection. However, he felt trapped inside the electronic reality, and desired to break out into the physical world so he could perfect it as well. For that, he needed to acquire Flynn's identity disc, and have someone open the portal from the outside. Clu sent a message to Alan Bradley, attempting to lure a new user into the Grid. While the arrival of Sam Flynn was unexpected, it proved more fortuitous, allowing Clu to exploit Kevin Flynn's love for his son more effectively than the friendship towards Bradley might have been. When Sam was caught attempting to escape the Disc Wars arena, he was brought before Clu, whom Sam at first assumed was his father. The program interrogated the user, examined his identity disc, then revealed his true identity before dismissing him.

In order to draw Kevin Flynn's attention, Clu had Sam placed in the Light Cycle Grid, pitted against four sentries and Clu himself. After a brutal battle which derezzed all of Sam's team, Clu was set to deliver the final blow when Flynn's confidante Quorra broke into the Light Cycle Grid in the Light Runner and rescued Sam instead. Clu returned to his Command Ship to await Sam's, or Kevin's, next move.

Some time later, Jarvis reported that the location of Flynn's Safehouse had been traced from Kevin's light cycle found abandoned in the city. Clu investigated the safehouse personally, but found the area deserted and returned to the city in pursuit of the Flynns. After a tip-off was received, Clu's forces were sent to capture them at the End of Line Club. The assault failed to catch the users, although it did prove successful in causing Kevin's identity disc to fall into the hands of Castor, the club's enigmatic proprietor. Clu claimed the disc, and with his prize in hand, set off to the portal to complete his plan.

While Clu addressed his assembled forces and told of his plan to invade the physical world outside the system, the heroes infiltrated his Command Ship and retrieved Kevin's disc. When they escaped in a Light Jet, Clu, with Rinzler and four Black Guards, set off after them in small personal light jets of their own. The smaller craft were whittled away by the superior firepower of the escapees' larger light jet, however their strength in numbers eventually wore it down. Clu would have emerged victorious had it not been for a sudden betrayal by Rinzler. He was unsuccessful at shooting them down, but ultimately reached the portal first after stealing Rinzler's spare Light Jet Baton and leaving Rinzler to plummet into the Sea of Simulation.

Confronting the trio when they arrived, Clu justified his actions by saying that he had done simply as Kevin programmed him to do, venting his frustration at being abandoned and forced to run the Grid on his own. Flynn accepted Clu's arguments, but explained that the perfect world does not exist. Furious with this revelation, Clu attacked Kevin as Sam and Quorra headed for the portal. When Clu attempted to follow them, Flynn prevented his escape and reintegrated the program into himself. Clu was derezzed as the pair reintegrated.

Side: Sora
Upon Rinzler's return to the Throneship, CLU is given his Identity Disc, which displays both Sora and his Keyblade. Seemingly pleased, CLU returns the disc to Rinzler as he looks out towards the city.

After an encounter with Xemnas and Young Xehanort, Sora finds himself in the Disc Wars arena. As he studies his surroundings, CLU appears before him with Rinzler at his side. There CLU confirms that he was the one who turned Tron into Rinzler in the first place, but he agrees to turn him back into Tron in return for the Keyblade. When Sora refuses to comply, CLU states that he'll have to take the Keyblade from him by force. Rinzler attacks Sora, and the two battle.

After their skirmish, Sora manages to free Rinzler by stabbing him with the Keyblade, allowing Rinzler to remember his past as Tron and his previous encounter with Sora in Space Paranoids. This angers CLU who attempts to liminate Sora with his disc, but Rinzler knocks Sora out of the way and is hit by the disc instead. The disc then ricochets off the walls of the arena and hits the floor directly in front of Rinzler, creating a massive hole underneath him. As the program falls, he desperately reaches for Sora's hand. After watching these events transpire, CLU determines that he'll have to deal with Sora later and heads off to retrieve him.

Side: Riku
After he is apprehended by a group of Black Guards, Riku finds himself on the Light Cycle track. CLU appears behind him with a pair of guards, and he forces the young Keyblade wielder to participate in a Light Cycle battle. After Riku manages to take out some of the guards on their cycles as well as the summoned Commantis, Riku blows up a wall with his lightcycle and manages to escape.

When Riku accompanies Sam Flynn, his father Kevin, and Quorra to the Portal, he finds CLU waiting for them. CLU accuses Kevin of breaking his promise that the two of them would change the world together, and he summons the Commantis to demonstrate the applications at his disposal. Riku battles and defeats the Nightmare Dream Eater, after which CLU tells Kevin he has created the perfect system. Kevin corrects CLU and tells him he has no knowledge of what perfection truly is because he did not know what it was when he created him. He apologizes to his creation only to be kicked violently and knocked to the ground, and Sam attacks CLU to avenge his father. The program effortlessly tosses him aside, and Riku and Quorra come to Sam's aid.

Hoping to save his son, Kevin tells CLU to remember what he came for: his identity disk, the key that would allow him to escape the Grid and enter the real world. CLU closes in on Kevin and takes the disk, but when he examines it and sees that it is truly Quorra's, the antagonistic program desperately tries to reclaim Kevin's by leaping to the other side of the bridge. Sam and Quorra reluctantly leave Kevin behind on his orders and open the Portal to escape the Grid, and Riku blocks the path to the Portal so that CLU cannot follow them. Kevin then sacrifices himself to eliminate CLU, by reintergrating with him, which caused a massive explosion.