- “Have fun, sweetheart.”
- ―Dr. Lora Baines
Dr. Lora Baines, later Lora Bradley, is one of the main protagonists in Disney's 1982 film, Tron. In the Tron 2.0 timeline, she dies, but plays a large posthumous role in the story, though in the Tron: Legacy timeline, she is still alive.
Appearances[]
Tron[]
Although Lora's age and background are not known, she is first introduced as a computer scientist (and perhaps physicist) working directly for Walter Gibbs, the founder of ENCOM. Lora works in the digitization lab at ENCOM. She learns from her then-boyfriend (and later husband) Alan Bradley, that his access has been cancelled, due to a security breach within ENCOM. Lora is immediately suspicious that a former boyfriend and ex-ENCOM employee Kevin Flynn, may have been behind the security breach.
It is Lora who decides to warn Flynn that Ed Dillinger, the CEO of ENCOM, knows about the attempts to hack in to ENCOM. When Flynn admits that it was him, Lora convinces her skeptical boyfriend that Flynn's motives are honest and ultimately creates the team that will defeat the MCP by offering to drive them into ENCOM, so Flynn can hack access into the MCP to locate evidence that his video games were stolen by Ed Dillinger.
Lora breaks Flynn into the digitizing lab, where he is digitized by the MCP and taken to the world on the other side of the screen. While in the system, Lora's alter ego is named Yori and is likewise in a relationship with Tron, reflecting their real world counterparts.
Although Kevin Flynn is clearly still in love with Lora, he respects that she is no longer with him, although he does express his feelings for Yori, her counterpart, while in the digital world, despite the fact that she is in a relationship with Tron, introducing her to the "User" concept of a kiss.
Later, a less formal Lora is seen, clearly still with Alan Bradley, and as Kevin Flynn is introduced as the new CEO of ENCOM, the three are clearly good friends, bonded by their experience together.
Tron 2.0[]
As the preceding story for Tron 2.0 begins, Lora and Alan announce that they are having a child in May 1982 and ask Flynn to become the godfather of their child (which he agrees to).
This event is believed to be very shortly after the setting of the first film. Lora's son Jethro Eugene Bradley is born, possibly the couple's only child, in December 1982.
In 1984, Lora discovers that there are serious problems with the digitizing process that cannot be sorted out at the time with their limited knowledge of computer technology now that the MCP has gone. In 1988, Lora Bradley develops the Math Assistant One Audio application - MA1A, which is a generic voice-interactive application to front-end a research tool.
In 1990, Kevin Flynn leaves ENCOM as Gibbs Jr. (believed to be Walter Gibbs' son) takes over, but Lora and Flynn stay in touch. In 1994, what is believed to be the digitizing laser misfires in the Lab. Lora is fatally wounded in the accident.
Although Lora's death at this point provides some of the plot elements with respect to her son Jethro's relationship with his father, it is Lora's "continuance" in Ma1a, which becomes Ma2a shortly after her death that is the most significant plot continuance mechanism.
Although there is no specific suggestion in the game Tron 2.0, it is suggested via rumor that by 1996, Ma2a, the upgrade to Ma1a, is showing traits similar to Lora. It is also suggested that the voice of Ma2a is very much like Lora's and some plot elements with Ma3a suggest that Lora's spirit lives on inside the computer in Ma3a.
The Next Day[]
In TRON: The Next Day, a short film released as an Easter Egg on the TRON: Legacy Blu-ray edition, Lora is alive in 2009/2010 and is seen with Alan at an industry event for ENCOM.
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