I didn’t play arcades games or video games, so I don’t really know much about the world that the original “Tron” attempts to capture. What “Tron” as a franchise means is hard to determine, too. Evidence at the Disney Store indicates  movie doesn’t have the full backing of the Disney marketing team.  That will hardly matter to the fans of “Tron,” and if you’re looking for a hard-driving techno science fiction adventure where the good guys win against evil corporate executives, “Tron: Ares” is a rowdy ride worth taking.

Tron ⭐️⭐️⭐️

“Tron” tells the story of software and video game programmer, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), who inadvertently becomes digitized into the grid of a software game program.  Flynn had formerly worked at ENCOM as a programmer, but the current senior executive vice president, Ed Dillinger (David Warner) had used the Master Control Program (MCP) to steal Flynn’s work to submit as his own. That lead to Dillinger’s rapid rise at the company while his former co-worker, Kevin Flynn, has been reduced to running a video game arcade. In his spare time, Flynn uses the program CLU to hack into ENCOM’s system, searching for a way to prove Dillinger’s dastardly deeds.

The MCP is a program with a mind of its own. It begins to blackmail Dillinger, aided by another Dillinger program, Sark.

Flynn was not without his friends. In the real world, Flynn is best friends with Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner). who is now dating Kevin Flynn’s ex, Dr. Lora Baines (Cindy Morgan).  One of the things that Baines does with a colleague is digitalize an orange. In the Grid, Flynn meets Bradley’s counterpart,  Tron, the program  Bradley developed to monitor communications between the MCP and the real world as well as Lora Baines’ input/output program Yori. They team up to defeat the MCP (voiced by David Warner), the program Sark and the User Ed Dillinger (Warner) to  restore freedom to the system.

Good triumphs and Flynn returns to the world and after Dillinger’s plagiarism is revealed, becomes the CEO of ENCOM with Bradley and Baines happy to be working together again.

The original “Tron” was released in 1982. Written and directed by Steven Lisberger, despite its success, albeit as a cult classic, it took decades for a sequel to come through. “Tron” was like every arcade video game player’s dream, entering the game world and winning the battles, except high scores in this virtual world of the Grid leads to success in the real world. Today, its usage of computer animation is worth noting as the beginning of a historic change in the film industry.

Tron: Legacy (2010) ⭐️⭐️⭐️

“Tron: Legacy” benefits from the presence of both Boxleitner and Bridges, but you have to wonder what happened to Cindy Morgan. She was reunited with Boxleitner in a mock news conference (2 April 2010) to help promote the release of “Tron: Legacy” as part of a Wondercon activation event. (That’s when WonderCon was still in San Francisco.) But there are also some young stars for the younger generation, the handsome Garrett Hedlund who plays Kevin Flynn’s son, Sam, and Olivia Wild as Quorra, his love interest.

The film begins in 1989, which is seven years after Kevin Flynn became CEO of ENCOM. A widower, one day, Kevin rides off and doesn’t return. Fast forward 20 years and his son, Sam (Hedlund) is the primary shareholder and an irresponsible young man who has no desire to follow in his father’s corporate footsteps. After an event that shows us how unfit Sam is for corporate life, Alan Bradley posts bail and tells him something alarming. First, that he, Alan, still has a pager and second, that the pager has a message that comes from Kevin’s video arcade even though the arcade has been shuttered for two decades. Sam investigates and wanders into the basement where a laser suddenly disintegrates him, digitalizing him and importing him into the virtual reality of the Grid.

Disoriented, he is captured and sent into the Games where like an electronic gladiator, he must battle a masked computer program called Rinzler. Rinzler realizes that Sam is human and takes Sam to Clu. You might remember CLU was integral to the original Tron and while it is a real programming language (developed by Barbara Liskov and her students at MIT in 1973 and getting its name from the concept of a CLUster), in the Tron world it stands for Codified Likeness Utility. In the original color-coding of Tron, CLU had yellow circuitry color. Blue is the color of the “good” or benevolent free programs. The programs under the control of MCP or essentially evil have orange or red circuitry. This is important because it plays out in “Tron: Ares.”

Rinzler takes Sam to CLU, but CLU is now Clu and not a good guy. Clu attempts to kill Sam in a Light Cycle match, but Sam is rescued by Quorra (Wilde)  an apprentice of his father.  Quorra takes Sam to meet his father, now older and bearded. Kevin has to explain why he disappeared to his son, but also what happened to CLU and Tron. While working to perfect the computer system, he appointed his CLU program and Bradley’s security program as the systems co-creators. The trio discovered that there were naturally occurring isomorphic algorithms (ISOs). Kevin things the ISOs are miracles, a race of programs that spontaneously evolved on the Grid, like having kids without having sex. Clu wanted to destroy them. During this battle, Clu betrayed Kevin and killed Tron, but also prevented Kevin from leaving the Grid when the portal between the Grid and the real world was closed. Yet traveling between the two world can only be done with Kevin’s identity disc which is why Clu, not Kevin, summoned Sam.

There are a few surprises that I won’t reveal here, but in the end, Sam, with Quorra, returns to the real world via Flynn’s Arcade. He backs up and deactivates the system. He tells Bradley that he will assume control of ENCOM and names Bradley chairman of the board. Sam then sets off on his motorcycle with Quorra.

Cillian Murphy appears as Edward Dillinger Jr., the head of ENCOM software design team and the son of the former Senior Executive, Ed Dillinger (David Warner, 1941–2022).

Whereas the original film “Tron” was disqualified from the Best Visual Effects category because the Academy felt that using computer animation was “cheating,” this sequel was notable for its usage of CGI to de-age both Bridges and Boxleitner. The original “Tron” did get nominated for Best Costume Design and Best Sound. The visual effects on “Tron: Legacy” took two years and ten companies to create. The film only received an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound Editing.

“Tron: Legacy” gives nods to the original but also fulfills the dream of every computer/video game nerd: A seemingly impossibly beautiful girl from the Grid joins the hero in the real world, riding off into the sunrise of a new day on a motorcycle.

Tron: Ares ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The word “Ares” should give you a hint to how this is going to go. Ares is the ancient Greek god of war and war is about to break out. The year is 2025, fifteen years after Sam’s adventure in the Grid, but Sam isn’t back. In the intro, we learn that Sam has left ENCOM. ENCOM is now helmed by Eve Kim (Greta Lee). ENCOM and its rival, Dillinger Systems, are trying to bring digital constructs from the Grid into the real world, but there’s a major problem. These constructs, from structures to vehicles to humanoids, can only sustain their form and powers in the real world for 29 minutes. At which point, the constructs crumble or “deresolution” (“de-res”).  ENCOM and Dillinger are searching for the permanence code that will help them break the 29-minute barrier.

We see the deresolution problem at Dillinger Systems as its CEO, Julian (Evan Peters),  is both dishonest and desperate. He sets up a high level investor meeting, but times his impressive demo to usher the executives out before everything, including his perfect soldier Ares (Jared Leto) deconstructs into black dust. His mother, Elisabeth (Gillian Anderson) doesn’t approve of this deception. But Julian is also programming malware. He sends Ares and his crew into the ENCOM mainframe in search of the permanence code and damaging the ENCOM grid.

Where is Eve? Eve is with her bestie Seth (Arturo Castro) at Kevin Flynn’s decades old remote station in Alaska going through floppy disks searching for the permanence code while Ajay Singh (Hasan Minhaj), the chief technology officer of ENCOM is holding down the company fort. When she discovers the permanence code, Eve constructs an orange tree. Now you’ll see why I mentioned the orange in the original “Tron.”

At this point, I’m thoroughly distracted. Why build an orange tree in the snow-bound clime of Alaska? Oranges are notoriously delicate and not suited for cold climates. It would have made more sense to have an apple or a plum tree in Alaska or to change the location to the desert. The second thing I found distracting was that Ares has a beard. Kevin Flynn in “Tron: Legacy” also has a beard, but why would a program?

In any case, Ares and his crew break into the real world for 29-minute intervals, searching for Eve and the permanence code. The programs destroy buildings and vehicles without remorse, splitting up vehicles with their red light ribbons. Although Eve has saved it on a memory stick, when cornered, she destroys it. The directive Julian gives to Ares forces a break. Ares has already shown compassion, refusing to leave behind an injured member of his crew during the cyberattack on ENCOM’s mainframe. Ares elects to betray his creator, but by allying himself with Eve, he has put himself up against Julian and Ares’ misnamed teammate, Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith).  While Athena was the ancient Greek goddess of war, she was also the goddess of wisdom. This iteration of Athena is not wise; she believes, “We were given an order; it was our purpose.”  In Los Angeles under an ICE-y siege, that lines hits differently than it would have in 2024.

Ares search for the permanence code brings him into contact with Kevin Flynn who brings a moment of Zen quiet as he muses that the permanence code is really about impermanence–one life and one chance.

The casting of this “Tron” film dives into diversity, particularly in the casting of the leaders of ENCOM, although the protagonist remains a White male, although a super-intelligent program. Leto does gives Ares a nuanced portrayal of rising realization of feelings. Oscar-winner (Best Supporting Actor for “Dallas Buyers Club”) Leto is Cajun and has stated that his maternal grandfather is part Spanish. Arturo Castro is Guatemalan. The Los Angeles-born Lee is South Korean American. Davis, California-born Minhaj is Asian Indian American. His parents are Muslim. Turner-Smith is a British actress whose parents were from Jamaica.

If “Tron: Legacy” was a gamer’s dream, then “Tron: Ares” is part gamer’s nightmare and a logical progression in the Tron series. “Tron: Legacy” already gave us a Grid denizen, Quorra, existing in the real world. “Tron: Ares” doesn’t tell us what happened to Quorra, or, and I might have missed this in the expositional intro, if Quorra and Sam ended up together. There’s no sign of Alan Bradley and his Tron. Boxleitner was not involved with the filming of “Tron: Ares” (neither was Murphy who played Ed Dillinger Jr.). “Tron:Ares” is less reflective and thoughtful than the two previous films and rocks more like a roller coaster ride, driven by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (Nine Inch Nails) pounding music. Reznor and Ross won a Golden Globe and an Oscar in 2011 for Best Original Score for the film “The Social Network.”  Norwegian director Joachim Rønning is comfortable with action-adventure tales, having directed the 2017 “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” and it doesn’t hurt to have an Oscar and Golden Globe-winning Dude on board for nostalgia and another Oscar-winning actor as a computer program finding his sensitive side.

Be sure to stay for the mid-credits scene. There’s villainy afoot in the future.  I saw it in IMAX and wished I’d seen it in 4XD.

“Tron: Ares” premiered in Los Angeles on 6 October 2025 and will be released today, 10 October 2025 by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.