Recommendations of the Editorial team
Before Playstation became a term before Neo Kung learned before the Internet changed our lives and Chatgpt put the AI in “Paranoia”, there was “Tron”, The Disney film from 1982, which asked the burning question: What would be if Jeff Bridges were caught in a first generation video game?
The coarse, CGI-animated background and the scenes directly from “Battlezone” date the film and are the most convincing reason to look at it again. The creation was impressive: neo-futurist Syd Mead and the comic artist Moebius were the core team of the designer, Wendy Carlos composed the synthesizer-heavy film music. The plot-a former programmer is fighting an artificial intelligence that runs in a computer network Amok-was almost incomprehensible, the atmosphere typical of the Reagan era.
The cult status among keyboard jockeys, code monkeys and die-hard gamers was therefore inevitable. Fans demanded a sequel for decades until Disney’s management “Tron: Legacy” (2010) gave the green light. The latter put the world of the film into the early 21st century and gave the impression of seeing a full -length cutscene at every appearance of Bridges’ digitally rejuvenated age.
The best thing was that director Joseph Kosinski was able to test recordings, which he later used in “Top Gun: Maverick” and “F1”. Fifteen years have been several lifetime in tech culture and intellectual property-either a restart was overdue or the franchise should have explained and ended its goal. The mouse house opted for system update. But the game is over anyway.
“Tron: Ares” shows the flying Arc de Triomphe
“Tron: Ares”, the third part of the series, which has now been exciting for four decades, has a very stimuli. Everything acts like a luxury product – from the skin -tight uniforms of the next generation to the souped -up ducatis as a means of transport. The soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails booms powerfully. Greta Lee shows himself in Past Lives as a convincing action heroine – an unexpected but welcome turn. The characteristic light trails aesthetics unfolds in full strength. Anyone who has ever wondered what a Lightcycle race would look like on the streets of Vancouver will now receive the answer.
The same applies to the “Recognizer”, the tron equivalent of a Tie hunter who creates like a flying Arc de Triomphe over the city of Chaos. The franchise continues to love the 1980s – not clever, but passionately. However, this remains a tron film that is committed to mythology, which at best seems over complex and, in the worst case, nonsensical. If you are not interested in intrigues of the tech industry, dystopian digital worlds and terabytes in science fiction clichés, you will hardly be enthusiastic.
The plot itself – a security software system gains awareness, rebelled against his creator and fights into the real world – is manageable. But everything is filtered by the familiar grid made of gameplay meets genre spectacle, so that non-fans feel that their “user” constantly taps the command. Encom, the company behind the original “Was-Wenn-Wenn-Wenn-in-A-Arcade-Spiel-Veretzt” scenario, still exists-now under the direction of CEO Eve Kim (Lee), which the brand has developed together with its sister who has now died to a global group.
Jared Leto with the usual charisma and a rigid look
Eve wants to complete their work: the search for the so -called “permanent code”. The project of their engineers should bring digital creations into the real world. For the Kims, that meant stabilized unstable ecosystems and combat poverty; For her colleague Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), grandson of the original Tron villain Edward Dillinger, on the other hand, to supply the military-industrial complex with endlessly reproducible super soldiers. Julian created a prototype, modeled according to his grandfather’s legendary “Master Control Program”: Ares, named after the Greek god of war and played by Jared Leto with the usual charisma and rigid look.
But all creations that are materialized in our reality-Ares, his deputy Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith, imposing and precise) or state-of-the-art weapons-decay after 29 minutes to cyber dust. The permanent code should solve this problem. Decades ago, the breakdown programmer Kevin Flynn found its way to the permanent existence of digital entities and hid the code in his personal network. With the help of her boyfriend Seth (Arturo Castro), Eve starts looking, while her rival Ares is sent out to steal the code and destroy his carrier. The hunt begins.
Tron-og Jeff Bridges appears briefly
In short: Ares changes his opinion that Athena becomes the new Terminator figure, and the plot accelerates with rapid action sequences. Hasan Minhaj and Gillian Anderson act from the sidelines, while flashbacks to series history-especially to the Arcade worlds of 1982-pass by. Tron-og Jeff Bridges appears briefly and blesses the action with his characteristic Zen stoner-letters.
Director Joachim Rønning, once known for the kinetic survival thriller “Kon-Tiki” (2012) and now house director at Disney (“Pirates of the Caribbean”, “Maleficent”), staged persecution hunts with precision and energy. The fact that a progressive Woman of Color takes on the leading role in a global blockbuster should be a matter of course – but even in 2025 it is still remarkable.
Nevertheless, some questions remain open: Why is this nostalgia series revived at all? Does she actually contribute to the Disney balance? Why does Jared Leto look like Jesus in the end? How do the contradictory messages fit together-between criticism of artificial intelligence and the glorification of silicone-valley-driven future visions? Or does the whole thing only serve as a distraction between “Star Wars”, Marvel and other franchise projects? What amusement park attractions will result and will the Inspire Key Pass offer faster access? Is that just the beginning of further tron extensions? And above all: can someone imagine why we should still be interested in it?