A Non-review by Professor Popinjay
!!!WARNING! POSSIBLE AND/OR DEFINITE MILD AND/OR PICANTE SPOILERS FOR THE FOLLOWING TITLES¡¡¡
- Tron: Uprising (2012)
- Tron: Legacy (2010)
- Tron: The Next Day (2011) [short]
- Tron: Identity (2023) [interactive e-book]
- Tron: Ares (2025)
The animated series “Tron: Uprising” would come out on Disney XD (😆?) in 2012 but would take place chronologically before “Legacy”.
In “Uprising” we learn that the Tron program (again voiced by Boxleitner) was not immediately captured by Clu as we might have assumed, but was at first severely wounded and, like Flynn, also went into hiding. There he would become mentor to a new character, Beck, voiced by Elijah Wood.
This is where it gets funny to me. Beck is a character who finds this powerful ring-like device, we’ll call it a disc this time. This ring-like disc is a powerful weapon that ultimately corrupts its user. Naturally Beck decides he must destroy this disk-like ring thing and the only way that can be done is by subjecting it to the volcano-like beam of the energy welder its Lord of the Rings. That’s what I’m saying. It stars Elijah Wood and it’s Lord of the Rings.
I’m using a heavy dose of hyperbole but that is the gist of the one and only season. Derivatives aside, it’s actually pretty epic and heavier thematically than most shows on Disney XD were at the time. I loved it and wanted more. Paul Ruebens, as the antagonist Pavel, was fantastic, like no other part he’s played before. He was absolutely insane! He reminded me of Kefka from Final Fantasy VI (or FFIII here in the states).
If the character designs in Uprising remind you of Aeon Flux that’s because Robert Valley worked as character designer on both shows. Lots of impossibly tall and skinny characters with chins that could cut glass.
Of course, Tron (the character) was to be eventually captured and reprogrammed by Clu in accordance with what we see in Tron: Legacy but unfortunately “Uprising” was cancelled and the story never made it that far.
Finally we get to Tron: Legacy, the actual movie that came out in 2010. Kevin Flynn, living in exile in the digital world, has therefore been missing in the real world for 20 years. What has he been doing this whole time? Well according to “Tron: Identity” (a highly acclaimed kind of “choose your own adventure” virtual novel that must be more interesting than it looks in its promotional videos) Kevin was trying to keep the remainder of the ISOs safe. But by the time we get to Tron Legacy they’re all extinct… or so we are led to believe.
Meanwhile, Kevin’s son Sam has grown into a strapping young lad who finds his dad’s lab and gets inadvertently zapped into the computer world. Kids, am I right? Sam is eventually introduced to a person who looks exactly like Kevin Flynn did 28 years ago. It doesn’t take long for Sam to realize what the audience knows, this look-alike is not his father. Clu has remained the young vision of Kevin Flynn and Sam would be his new bargaining chip.
Meanwhile, THE Tron has been captured and reprogrammed by Clu. Now called Rinzler, Tron is virtually undetectable as Tron and completely indistinguishable from all the other programs covered with orange glowing circuitry; not intentionally, mind you, they just didn’t do a very good job of pointing him out nor differentiating him. Or they were trying to keep his identity secret for a big reveal. Either way, no one cared.
Did Tron get derezzed in the first half hour of the movie? No, but it was easy to think so because everyone looks the same. Has Tron ever been overly significant in this entire franchise which is named after him or has it all been about Kevin Flynn? Why are these films called Tron?
Regardless of its slightly convoluted supplements and tie-ins, Tron: Legacy is a dang good movie. Ironically the cgi representation of Clu made to look like a young Jeff Bridges didn’t turn out as well as anyone hoped. Frankly, he looks downright silly.
What they (gnomes) should have done is have bearded Jeff Bridges play Kevin Flynn and a shorn Jeff Bridges play Clu. That would have worked fine! Get Beau Bridges and Lloyd Bridges in there too just for good measure!
Aside from Clu, the film looked amazing and was super exciting. To think these effects were achievable (aside from Clu) because of digital frontiers pioneered by this very franchise almost 30 years prior is awe inspiring (aside from Clu).
It’s been said, this film is basically a huge music video for Daft Punk. I’m just fine with that. Now I have an excuse to post my Daft Punk Lord of the Rings parody at the end of this article.
Daft Punk made a buttload of music for Tron Legacy, a hefty portion of which didn’t even make it into the film. It wasn’t that it was rejected, they just made too much of it. They clearly enjoyed themselves. I love that! The fact that Legacy is so music driven fills a major void I experienced with the 1982 film. Did I mention, when I edited the first Tron film to my liking, I also added my own music choices? Yeah, I was a rebel.
MAJOR SPOILER WARNING FOR TRON: LEGACY NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS!!!
If you, for some crazy reason, are reading this without having seen Tron: Legacy, you’ve probably deduced the ISOs are not extinct (at least one remains) and she gets into the real world. This is the big reveal at the end of Tron: Legacy, oddly harkening to the mention of the “Tron Legacy” code from the de-canonized comic “Tron: The Ghost in the Machine”.
Despite Qora, the last ISO, being a benevolent character who just wants to experience the real world, the notion of computer-born sentient beings entering the real world brings with it a myriad of wonderful and terrifying possibilities which begged to be explored in a sequel.
Also, what happened to Cillian Murphy? He had basically a cameo as Edward Dillinger Jr. and then disappeared.
Did Tron: Legacy do well enough to merit a sequel as a financially lucrative prospect? Obviously not. And yet, this is Walter Disney we’re talking about. The Popcorn Co-worker himself! Okay, not THAT Walter Disney. I mean Disney the company.
“Not enough fans? That’s nothing seventeen dumptrucks full of money won’t solve”, says Disney. Do we still have Jared Leto on speed dial after The Haunted Mansion? Audiences LOVE that guy! Tell him to get his ass in here and save our franchise!
Now, as promised, submitted for your approval:
Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity 
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