In 1982, Disney released a science fiction movie not about aliens invading Earth or about humans going into space but about humans going into a computer world and seeing what that experience would be like. When Tron came to theaters, it was considered a financial failure by Disney and part of the budget was written off… but critics were giving it rave reviews as being visionary, interesting, and something like nothing the world had ever seen. The movie is considered a “cult” classic and is beloved by millions, despite Disney seeing it as some sort of weird blight on their record of movie making history.
Fast forward to 2010 and Disney finally released the sequel Tron Legacy. Legacy did much better in theaters but didn’t do quite as well with critics, at least not universally. The reviews were all positive with the special effects and overall look of the film but most of the hits came to the character development, which seemed to take a bit of a backseat to the visual spectacle that Legacy ended up being. Fans reacted much more positively to this film, though, and were far more interested in seeing where Disney would go with this franchise now that it had gotten a shiny new coat of paint and one of the best soundtracks (by Daft Punk) ever.
An animated series called Tron Uprising was released to keep fans’ hopes up and to continue the story, this time completely from the program’s perspective, and give all of us a tale that was interesting enough to make us beg for multiple seasons… multiple seasons that would lead into a new sequel that we knew would be coming up. Sadly, only a single season of Uprising ever came out and we just sat with mouths open wondering what went wrong. We wanted more.
What did Disney do to capitalize on this? They waited 15 years and refused to make a sequel, forcing Hollywood’s worst actor’s to push the sequel forward and make a disaster under the Disney banner.
Let me take you through the journey of the creation of Tron Ares.
The sequel, originally under the working title TR3N, was greenlit by Disney in 2010, was going to continue the story of Sam Flynn and Quorra as they explored the relationship between themselves and Quorra being in the real world (and whether or not she wanted to stay). Some rewriting of the story happened between 2010 and 2013 and Bruce Boxleitner (who plays Tron) stated that filming could begin as early as 2014. When Disney’s 2015 Tomorrowland bombed in theaters, TR3N was cancelled outright.
WHY WAS AN UNRELATED MOVIE INVOLVED IN THE PROCESS OF TRON? The two were completely unrelated and Disney really shit the bed right at this moment. This is the exact moment that proved Disney can’t be trusted with big properties.
In 2017, Jared Leto (who thinks he’s an A-list actor but he’s mid B-list at best) became a producer and the lead character of Ares for a “soft reboot” of the new sequel now called Tron Ares. There were conscious decisions not to bring back anyone from the original two films other than Jeff Bridges because of the idea that it would be too much “fan service.” The film lost about half it’s budget after being in theaters and has been given positive reviews for its visuals, just like Legacy, but not much more.
This is where the meat and potatoes of the problem comes in for Disney.
How in the world can you screw up the simplest franchise in the world? It is dead simple to win with Tron. DEAD. SIMPLE.
I have been a super fan of Tron since the beginning. I saw Tron in theaters, I own both Tron and Tron Legacy, and I continue to hope for the best for the franchise as a whole. When Tron Uprising came out and was running on TV, I thought there was a big plan for a long term franchise with Tron and we would be seeing Tron in multiple forms of media for decades: movies, TV, books, video games, TTRPGs, toys, etc. I was ready. Then Uprising was cancelled and Disney went quiet. Absolutely no news about TR3N until the rumors about Jared Leto started popping up.
Jared fucking Leto? It’s Morbin’ Time Jared Leto? The literal embarrassment of Sony and the joke of the filmmaking industry Jared Leto? THE butt of the joke Jared Leto? Disney handed over the keys to Tron to Jared Leto?
I can say, in all honesty, that I don’t think I’ve enjoyed a Jared Leto project. Morbius was NOT good. Haunted Mansion was not good. Despite everyone pointing to his Joker, he was not a good Joker and I hope he never returns to that role. Blade Runner 2049 is not a good movie (I also hate the original). One of the saddest things I’ve discovered is that I was extremely interested in the upcoming Masters of the Universe movie but he’s playing Skeleton, so I’m now highly concerned the movie is doomed to fail because he’s involved in it. Jared Leto isn’t the lead, so maybe there is some hope for it.
People are really tired of reboots. I am really tired of reboots when reboots don’t need to be done. Tron didn’t need a reboot. Tron Ares isn’t a good movie. I went into my viewing really wanting to like the movie. I spent the entire movie really wanting to like it. When the movie ended I asked myself if I liked it and I had to come to the conclusion that I didn’t and that it was because it wasn’t a good movie. I am a die hard Nine Inch Nails fan and the soundtrack is excellent. In fact, the soundtrack is the best thing about the film, but beyond that… The visuals were great but the story was bad, Leto was bad, Evan Peters was bad, the premise was bad, and I don’t think anything could have saved that movie beyond it being a direct and correct sequel to Legacy.
The biggest roadblock to good movies are executives. Executives that are too stupid and are paid too much.
I could fix Tron… hell, the four escaped monkeys in St Louis could fix Tron. I could fix Tron and not only can it be fixed but it NEEDS to be fixed. It also needs to be fixed by someone who isn’t connected to Disney directly. I want it fixed so badly, I’ll even tell you all how to do it.
First and foremost, get Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, and Cillian Murphy back under contract and get Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to do the soundtrack. Write a sequel to Tron Legacy, ignoring Tron Ares COMPLETELY. Since elements of the original story were integrated into Ares, the story will have to change, so here’s the story I’m suggesting (TR4N):
Quorra has been living in the real world and isn’t really finding her place in it. Sam has been trying to help her find a place but has also been creating an Encom Grid to help provide her a purpose. Edward Dillinger Jr. has been building something bigger: an army of militant programs. Dillinger plans for a hostile takeover of Encom’s systems to gain access to a printer that will allow programs to enter the real world, currently controlled by Encom. Sam takes Quorra into the new Grid to show her the potential she has to turn it into something great and fulfill Kevin Flynn’s original vision.
Agents for Dillinger breech security and introduce the army into the new Encom Grid to have them get to the portal where they can be printed into existence. As Quorra, now the Grid Administrator, is building the Gird in her own image, she discovers this intrusion and is forced to join with Sam and her own volunteer program army to battle the intruders to prevent giving them access to the portal.
The Dillinger army is whittled down but they do get printed into the real world, along with several of Quorra’s army (including Quorra and Sam), where they complete their battle in the real world for the fate of the world.
I’ve eliminated the permanent code. I’ve kept things mostly in the Grid, which is where Tron is supposed to happen in. This is a sequel to the movie that everyone wanted a sequel to and I’ve brought back the characters everyone was interested in seeing in the movie.
The next step is to produce and release a TTRPG. TTRPG, for those not in the know, is a table top roleplaying game. This will allow people to create their own adventures in this new Grid (or the Legacy Grid), as many as they want, and become more engrossed in the world that was created by my TR4N. Any expansions for this can tease at or be directly related to future things that will come from the Tron franchise from this point on.
After that, we start getting authors to write novels in this universe. What stories can they tell without using the real world? How big is this new Grid? What flaws didn’t Sam know about when he created it? What things is Quorra corrected or molding in her image? When the direction of the franchise has a solid view of where it’s going, what can the authors start including in their stories from there?
Next: video game (or series of video games). Action game? Yes. RPG? Yes. Both in one? No. I’m talking multiple video games doing different things. One can relive the events of the movie, or can play along side the movie… or you can avoid the movie all together by having original adventures entirely. Why not do what the novels and TTRPG are doing and tell original adventures? You can create a video game franchise off of this, too? In fact, we could possibly even continue the franchise AS a video game franchise and then Disney wouldn’t have to worry about having to produce giant movies often. The key here is NOT to do first person only content because of how many people cannot play first person content (myself included).
What comes next? Well, this is where I’d start plotting the next movie (TR5N). TR5N, TR6N, and TR7N would be envisioned as a standalone trilogy and could or could not involve Sam and Quorra directly. At this point we don’t need the Legacy characters to continue but we could continue to use them if we’d like. The possibilities are endless and are completely open.
Would you want to see a trilogy about just the Grid? Does the real world need to keep intruding? Does the Grid evolve to the point it needs so many resources it is in direct conflict with the real world? Does Kevin Flynn’s Legacy statements of our worlds combining start coming true with our world and the Grid slowly merging?
I’d love to hear from you on this at emeraldspecter – at – gmail – dot – com.
Thanks for reading.
