“TRON: Ares”: A Spoiler-Light Review

The Grid. A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they traveled through the computer. Ships, motorcycles. With the circuits like freeways. I kept dreaming of a world I thought I’d never see. And then, one day… I got in. — Kevin Flynn

They finally got it right. TRON: Ares is so good and the soundtrack is AWESOME! I was a pre-teen when I watched the original TRON, a 1982 action sci-fi film that was one of the first films from a major studio to use extensive computer graphics. Only 20 minutes of computer animation was used in the first film and mostly in scenes that show digital terrain, or patterns, and vehicles such as light-cycles, tanks and ships. The computers used at the time could not perform animation, so the frames had to be produced one by one. TRON was one of the sparks that led me to major in computer graphics at Pratt Institute a several years later. That BFA program at Pratt was also one of the first.

TRON: The Rise of Virtual Reality — 1982

The inspiration for TRON occurred in 1976 when animator Steven Lisberger looked at a sample reel from a computer firm called MAGI and saw Pong for the first time. Lisberger became fascinated by video games and decided to make a film incorporating them. He was aiming to make a searching statement about the relationship between humans and the machines they create. TRON presents a story about a computer programmer/video game developer named Kevin Flynn who is beamed into the virtual world of his computer, where he is forced to survive against a villainous “Master Control Program” by playing video games against other enslaved programs. In the computer world, these programs are presented as human avatars with glowing circuit covered tracksuits and helmets.

TRON can also be viewed through the lens of David Harvey’s analysis of postmodernism, particularly his theories on space-time compression and the rise of flexible accumulation in late 20th-century capitalism (pre-Bitcoin). The film’s premise of being “beamed” into a computer, and the resulting rapid traversal (teleportation) between different parts of a virtual or digital world exemplifies the postmodern experience of shrinking distances and speeding up time. Space-time compression creates a sense of an “ephemeral and schizoid character” where the world is flattened and history is less relevant, replaced by the immediate and the virtual, a phenomenon that TRON visually represents. This film is a commentary on the changing nature of human identity in a world where technology blurs the lines between the real and virtual, the physical and digital, and where identities are formed through human-machine interaction.

Tron: Legacy — 2010

Tron: Legacy hit theaters after a massive viral campaign that I participated in. The campaign provided TRON fans with virtual Easter eggs and sub-plot lines for specific scenes and characters. The campaign built upon the original story of Kevin Flynn and online game play helped younger viewers grasp the meaning and significance of the TRON story world. Hosted on the Flynn Lives website, the “Arcade Aid Challenge” involved identifying video game references hidden within a large, pixel-art cityscape. An alternate reality game or ARG titled Flynn Lives was designed to promote the film. A fictitious organization ran the website that contained several news articles that explain what happened plot-wise between TRON and TRON: Legacy.

Movie trailers revealed that Flynn’s son, Sam, has discovered that his long-lost father was trapped inside of the meta-universe he hacked into 25 years earlier. Interest in creating a sequel to TRON arose after the film garnered a cult following… but it took Walt Disney nearly 30 years to do this. The visual effects were cited as the central highlight of the film. However, the story fell short of many fans’ expectations. Basically, it was mostly surface polish and very little substance. At the time, I felt that more time was spent on marketing than on writing and character development. In my opinion the 2010 version was forgettable except for the soundtrack by Daft Punk.

TRON: Ares — 2025

You move fast, you leave stuff behind. — Kevin Flynn

Note: Most of the following is spoiler-free but, to be on the safe side, go see the film first before reading.

TRON: Ares takes place fifteen years after Sam Flynn attempted to revive his father Kevin from the Grid. The introduction and first scene catches viewers up on recent events such as the fast proliferation (and fear) of artificial intelligence. The plot centers on an AI program named Ares that is sent from the digital world into the real world. However, despite the film’s central theme, the production team stated that they avoided using AI in the development of the visual effects for the film itself (allegedly due to public backlash). The story explores the clash between humans and AI, as Ares seeks answers and a different kind of life beyond its programming.

AI bots awakening to the realities of human limitations are a trope almost as old as 1927’s Metropolis that feautres a robotic, possible AI-driven maschinenmensch who eventually questions the men who made it. Decades later, sci-fi involving AI has reinforced the idea that giving computers human-like intelligence ends poorly for humans. The writers and makers of TRON: Ares attempt to flip this trope but it remains to be seen if this message is heard or understood. The idea that a ‘sentient’ AI can become more empathetic than its maker is dubious when you consider issues such as algorithmic bias. But, hey, it’s just a movie, right? What the movie’s makers got right was the story and character development. David Rooney, writing for The Hollywood Reporter, said TRON: Ares honored the franchise’s roots while taking “significant steps forward.”

Another interesting flip is the choice of Jodie Turner-Smith as Athena (also named for a Greek warrior). Her AI-based character is #2 under Ares (Leto) who we learn is the “Master Control Program” or MCP. Historically, MCPs are villains and it is no different in TRON:Ares. Ares and Athena are AI trained to do the bidding of their master. We see a lot of keyboard typing from humans but once these AI models are launched they can learn without further coding. We even see them learning from data to make better decisions throughout the film. As Jodie Turner-Smith is a Black actress, the play on ‘master’ vs. ‘slave’ in the TRON series is an interesting one. Some might say this is problematic. However, as Black people are not a monolith, her presence in the film highlights a much bigger issue.

Representation is important and I appreciated the casting of Turner-Smith in TRON: Ares (as Athena), as well as seeing a more diverse cast than in previous films from the franchise. I was hyper-aware of the historical, social and political implications. Athena’s AI (Turner-Smith) is an anomaly, meaning its presence and role deviates from what has happened in the past. This role confronts previous racial and gender classification systems.

AI tends to see race in restrictive, oversimplified ways that can reinforce racial stereotypes and color lines and/or lead to the mis-categorization of people. AI models conceptualize race in terms of neatly defined and fixed categories. — Stanford University HAI

In the film, Athena is an AI and, in the real world, AI holds the potential to deepen racial inequalities. A recent study revealed that commercial gender classification systems have the lowest accuracy on darker-skinned females. Researchers note that many AI systems, e.g. face recognition tools, rely on machine learning algorithms that are trained with biased data have resulted in algorithmic discrimination. However, AI can also benefit more diverse communities. A recent symposium explored the idea that human and machine intelligences are “co-producing new ways of knowing and sensing, with the arts serving as a critical lens to examine this entanglement.” Events such as this one creates opportunities for change.

Overall, I really enjoyed TRON: Ares and I may even watch it gain in a theater before its run ends.