Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-review by Professor Popinjay

!!!WARNING! POSSIBLE AND/OR DEFINITE MILD AND/OR PICANTE SPOILERS FOR THE FOLLOWING TITLES¡¡¡

• Tron: The Next Day (2011) [short]
• Tron: Ares (2025)

With the Blu-ray release of Tron-Legacy we got a short called Tron: The Next Day. This 11 minute video sets up a sequel in a very non-committal way, throwing us bones but with zero meat on them. We see Sam Flynn crashing ENCOM expos. Some hacker called ZackAttack is promoting a “Flynn Lives” campaign. Bruce Boxleitner is still hanging around.

We also get a bunch of “normal” people doing “real life” opinion polls, talking about Flynn-rumors and what not. One of these opinions comes from Mary Kate Wiles who played Lydia Bennet in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (2012) for which I did a Non-review back in July 2025; a fact I’m sure so many Tron fans reading this are just thrilled to know. <~Sarcasm. She seems like a fun kid though.

And guess who ZackAttack turns out to be! Go on! Guess! That’s right!!! IT’S POPCORN CO-WORKER!!! MERCIFUL GOD IN HEAVEN ABOVE!!! I thought we’d seen the last of good ol’ Walter Disney! Well, turns out they (gnomes) honored him by giving his character an actual human non-derivative name! It’s Warren F. Harding! Just kidding! It’s Roy Kleinberg! Not as funny as Warren F. Harding but it’s better than being called Popcorn Co-worker for 28 years straight!

“Tron: The Next Day” does everything but come out and say a sequel is in the making and if the intention was to generate a buzz, no one saw this, tucked away in the blue-ray special features as it was.

In 2016 we got a game called Tron: Run/r that actually looks freaking cool, simple as it is. So far as I can tell there is no story, per sé. You just play as a program trying to GTFO of the grid.

In 2023 we got Tron: Catalyst, an isometric platformer/beat-‘em-up videogame with a story so completely disconnected from anything else in the Tron universe it’s not really worth mentioning. It was a bit repetitive but comfortably short.

Finally 2025 rolled around and Tron: Ares trailers hit the screen. Someone in the theater said “Do we really need another Tron?” to which I replied by activating the red circuitry lighting I had previously installed into all my clothing for just this occasion. I didn’t care that we were there to see the Downton Abbey Finale, I WAS READY FOR TRON!

Needless to say, I was excited. I wanted another Tron ten minutes after the last one. I didn’t think I’d have to wait another 15 years. And it looked like they were going to bring programs into the real world!

Then Jared Leto popped up, looking like a mix between cyberpunk Jesus and cyberpunk Count Dracula. “Oh….” I thought, “Jarred Leto’s in it… grrrreeeeeeaaaat.” <~more sarcasm.

Leto is not well liked. Recounts of his exploits on movie sets depict him as rather obnoxious and unprofessional. Personally, I don’t care to get into actor’s lives off screen so I’m happy to see this regardless but I can’t help but wonder why Disney continues to work with this guy. I think his involvement with anything causes most theater goers to turn up their noses. Then again, maybe that’s why they wanted him for this part. He’s a rebel. He probably re-edits movies to his own liking and replaces the soundtrack with songs of his choice just like I do, cuz we’re rebels. Granted, I don’t send dead cats to my co-workers.

I went to the theater at noon on Monday and sat an unreasonable distance away from the other two theater-goers who were also sitting as far away from each other as possible even though they were right next to each other. It was weird. I imagine one of them went to select his seat when buying tickets, saw an empty theater save for one taken seat and thought, “I’m going to make a new friend!” But then he got there and no one else came and it was a girl and he doesn’t know what to say to girls so they just scooted away from each other and sat in awkward silence. This is the stuff I think about while waiting for the movie to start.

Finally after 45 minutes of advertisements and trailers for other Jared Leto films, Tron: Ares began. It was rad.

I’ve read complaints and I won’t fault them. Most negative observations about any modern film are usually pretty valid, each having been purified and tempered through the crucible of internet scrutiny. I totally get it. Stories are complex entities often with minute problematic details, many of which go unnoticed until the masses pick it apart with a fine toothed comb.  But it was fun and it looked cool. So I’m happy. What can I say?

I personally didn’t find Leto disagreeable in the role. Frankly, it was Arturo Castro as Seth Flores with his stupid dad-jokes that began to grate. Levity is great and necessary but his whole character seemed tacked on for the sake of comic relief. Nothing tacked on ever works… ever!

I loved Ares’ fascination with Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and the fact that he latched onto the phrase “I am fearless, therefore I am powerful” which he then applies to himself as motivation to do the right thing. THAT was phenomenal!

The orange tree which Eva Kim and Seth un-digitized into the real world was a funny homage to the orange that was digitized as a test run of the digitizer in Tron 1982, but it raises some questions. Was there an orange tree growing somewhere in the computer world? Had this tree grown from the orange digitized in 1982? In 43 years would there be orchards upon orchards of orange trees growing on the grid, all spawned from that first orange?

I do wish we could have seen Cillian Murphy continuing the Edward Dillinger Jr. role, but Evan Peters was tolerable as Julian Dillinger, an up-till-now unheard of son of Edward. I’m actually really glad they just added a new character instead of trying to replace Cillian Murphy with a look alike. It bugs me when I’m expected to overlook a recasting. It always feels like we’re getting the cheap version, like when they replaced Rachel Weisz with Maria Bello as Evelyn O’Connell in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emporer… actually that whole movie felt like the cheap version.

Greta Lee as Eve Kim was solid enough acting-wise. I do believe she didn’t have a whole lot of character development. Some of it was blurted out rapid fire by Ares, but that equated to telling-not-showing which is always a no-no in cinema. I would have appreciated a bit more demonstrations of who she was through situations to help me care about her character. As it was, she almost seemed like a stand-in avatar while the writers thought of someone more interesting to insert into the part… except they forgot. Not Greta’s fault.

I didn’t fully grasp why Kevin Flynn was in the old nostalgic grid Ares went to. The reasoning seemed contrived. Nevertheless, it was nice to see Bridges in the part again and the 80’s style old grid was pretty cool even if the scene there was short-lived. It would have been cool to see some original programs in the original costumes. What if an earlier version of Tron needed to come into the real world and help the protagonists somehow? That would have been amazing!

I did miss Daft Punk doing their thing but their music really fit well on the grid. Most of Ares takes place in the real world and Nine Inch Nails was an interesting transition. They seem to have a somewhat electronic sound and yet there’s also a visceral “organic” quality to their score as well. It’s a fascinating treatment handing the reigns of the film score to a singular band. I’m actually surprised I’m into it, having reveled in score composers and orchestral music for so long. I suppose it’s not a new practice though. Afterall, Vangelis did the music for Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner. Toto did Dune in 1984. Interesting! Now I have a new rabbit hole to dive into.

Expectations are extremely high when it comes to what we say “yay” or “nay” regarding entertainment. I know a lot of what does or doesn’t get into a film is dependent on producers who reside in their high towers wallowing around in money and really have no business putting their fingers in art and innovation. Meanwhile, true visionaries, like Kevin Flynn or director Steven Lisberger, who are passionate about their craft, find their work undermined and their soulful creation de-evolves into a soulless cash grab. Maybe such a thing has happened to Tron Ares and maybe people are right to criticize it. But as I sat, practically alone in a desolate theater, Richard Simmons clinging to me with an unsettling look of admiration, the themes and visuals before me put a smile on my face. My sense of excitement and wonder was real, and well worth the price of admission.