Disney is taking fans back to “the grid” with the highly-anticipated Tron: Ares, the third installment of the franchise behind the 1982 groundbreaking classic TRON and the 2010 sequel Tron: Legacy. With this film coming 15 years after its predecessor and a whopping 43 years after the original, many may be wondering if it’s necessary to watch the first movie.
The original TRON followed a video game designer named Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), who becomes sucked into the world of a mainframe computer system where he encounters a number of different programs, including TRON (Bruce Boxleitner). While the effects are considered groundbreaking now, it was disqualified for Oscar consideration since the use of computers, back then, was seen as “cheating.”
Tron: Ares director Joachim Rønning recently spoke with Screen Rant and revealed that they brought back the original “Retro Grid” from the first film, with (Jared Leto) interacting with Flynn. He said that though TRON looks “rough,” adding, “it was very important for me that we didn’t polish it,” which is why fans must watch TRON.
Fans Need To See The Original TRON Graphics To Appreciate How Far We’ve Come
tron 1982 lightcycle bike race
For anyone who sees the original 1982 TRON and was born in either the late 20th Century or the early 21st Century, the graphics might seem jarring, to say the least. It was one of the first films ever to use computer-generated imagery (CGI) and it paved the way for so many subsequent breakthroughs in visual effects.
It’s also possible that fans coming into this movie unaware of its predecessors could be quite confused by the “rough” graphics during the Retro Grid scenes. For those unaware of the franchise’s CGI origins, it may be befuddling to see these antiquated graphics after seeing such sophisticated effects throughout the film up to that point.
Tron: Ares Does Have Connections To Other Original TRON Characters
Two characters in Tron: Ares are connected to the original TRON — Gillian Anderson’s Elisabeth Dillinger and Evan Peters’ Julian Dillinger, the daughter and grandson, respectively, of Ed Dillinger (David Warner), an executive at ENCOM, the company Kevin Flynn worked at. Anderson revealed in an interview that Elisabeth is the “moral compass” of the company while trying to keep her son in line.
Understanding ENCOM’s role in the first film will likely help viewers follow this family lineage in Tron: Ares. Still, there are plenty of questions heading into Tron: Ares, like how Kevin Flynn managed to survive Tron: Legacy, and if there is the potential to continue this four-decade story through another sequel.
That all depends on how fans show up for Tron: Ares when it hits theaters next weekend.
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