Sam Flynn

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Sam Flynn is the main protagonist in TRON Legacy. He is the son of TRON protagonist Kevin Flynn.

Biography
SPOILER ALERT!!!

Pre-Legacy
Sam was born in 1983 to then-famous video game creator and ENCOM CEO Kevin Flynn and architect Jordan Canas. In 1985, his mother was killed in a car accident, leaving Kevin to raise Sam on his own. Due to Kevin's absences from the real world, a large part of Sam's childhood was spent in the company of his father's parents, who raised him in his place. In July 1989, Sam's father was on the verge of a major discovery when he disappeared without a trace, leaving Sam once again in the care of his grandparents. Sam was only seven when his father disappeared. Legally, Sam is the largest shareholder of ENCOM (a fortune which he inherited from his father when he vanished).

Flynn Lives
After two decades, the 27-year old Sam turned to extreme stunts at ENCOM events such as base jumping, motocross and parachuting. On April 2, 2010, he crashed the ENCOM Press Conference by jumping out of a helicopter and releasing a parachute with the numbers "89" printed on it. He flew over the crowd and landed right behind the ENCOM stage, taking off in an SUV waiting nearby.

Every year to mark the anniversary of his father's disappearance, he performs a daredevil stunt and a prank on ENCOM. According to Alan Bradley, Sam does this as a reaction to the pressure of following in his father's footsteps as well as to get people to pay attention and look deeper into the disappearance of his father.

TRON Legacy
On the anniversary of his father's disappearance, Sam broke into ENCOM Tower and hacked the company's mainframe. He leaked the company's newest operating system, the OS 12, onto the internet and then proceeded to leap and parachute from the top of the tower. He was caught by the police after first colliding with a lamp post and then attempting to escape the scene by riding on top of a taxi.

When Sam was released from jail he returned to his apartment to find Alan Bradley waiting for him. Alan told Sam that he had received a message on his pager from the telephone number of Flynn's Arcade, and that the number had been disconnected over 20 years earlier. Reluctantly, Sam headed over to his father's abandoned arcade to find an office hidden behind a TRON machine, complete with a digitizing laser. He then inadvertently triggered the digitzing laser and found himself transported into the Tron System.

Once in the system, he was captured by a Recognizer and taken to participate in the games. He then defeated two opponents before being bested by Rinzler, who spared him when he recognized him as a user.

Sam was taken before Rinzler's master, CLU, whom he believed to be his father until being told otherwise. He was then pitted against CLU and several of his enforcers in a Light Cycle duel. Sam's team was outmatched until Sam began to turn the tables on CLU's team, although they were soon whittled away until only Sam remained.

The arena match was interrupted by the surprise arrival of Quorra, who burst onto the arena floor in her Light Runner and escaped with Sam. She drove him deep into the Outlands to a hidden safehouse and surprised him further by introducing him to his own father, Kevin Flynn. Kevin explained that the reason he was unable to return to the real world was because the portal that leads back to the real world had closed soon after CLU had betrayed him and Tron under the belief that Kevin had abandoned his mission to create the "perfect system".

When his father refused to take the chance to reach the portal before it closed, Sam commandeered his father's old Light Cycle and ventured back into Tron City to find an ally that Quorra had thought might be able to help. He was soon recognized by Gem (a Siren from the Game Arena) who took him to see Castor at the End Of Line Club. Charming at first, Castor soon played his hand in a double-cross, withdrawing when Black Guards attacked the nightclub in a bid to recapture Sam. Quorra again made a surprise appearance, adding her combat skill to Sam's in holding back the Black Guards, albeit succumbing to their blows in the process. Kevin also arrived on the scene, just in time to protect Sam and allowing the younger Flynn to carry the incapacitated Quorra to safety. Just as they stepped in the elevator to leave and the doors began to close, a surviving Black Guard grappeled Kevin's Identity Disc from his back.

Fleeing the city in a Solar Sailer, Sam learned that Quorra was an ISO, a spontaneously manifested program with free will that was the breakthrough Flynn spoke of years earlier. All conversations were silenced when it became apparent that their course intersected with a giant carrier ship, the "Rectifier". Stealing aboard the enormous vessel, the trio soon learned that Clu's purpose was to use Kevin's disc to launch an invasion on the real world. Quorra allowed herself to be captured, leaving Sam and Kevin to foil Clu's plan. Sam retrieved the disc and was able to rescue Quorra in the process. The three then fled in a captured Light Jet.

Clu, Rinzler and a quartet of Black Guard pilots pursued them in Light Jets of their own, leading to a protracted battle over the Sea Of Simulation. Sam fought off their flank attacks using the tail gun of their larger craft. The Black Guards were systematically eliminated from the fight while the escapees' Light Jet gradually succumbed to CLU and Rinzler's onslaught. Just when the craft began to fail under critical damage, Rinzler remembered his long-forgotten purpose of protecting the users after flying over the escapees' Jet and seeing Kevin looking back at him, and turned his attack on CLU.

When Sam and the others finally reached the portal, they were again confronted by CLU, who had defeated Rinzler. Sam attempted to attack him, but was effortlessly swatted away. Quorra stepped in to protect him, urging him to the portal while Kevin faced CLU alone. At the urgance of his father, Sam was forced to leave him behind when Kevin sacrificed himself to save both his son and Quorra.

Sam escaped the Grid with Quorra and found himself back in the basement of Flynn's Arcade. He copied data from the Grid onto a microdrive and paged Alan. Sam declared to Alan he was now ready to take over ENCOM and promoted him to chairman of the board. Exiting the arcade, he found Quorra waiting for him next to his motorcycle and together they rode off to show Quorra her first sunrise.