Tron: Ares - The 5 Coolest Things We Saw On Set

Get ready, users: Tron: Ares is connected its mode to becoming a reality, and I operation it that mode for a reason. Tron: Ares is poised to marque bully connected the unfastened ending of 2010’s Tron: Legacy with a crippled focused connected programs from the integer satellite making their mode into the existent world.

In aboriginal 2024, Disney invited IGN to sojourn the acceptable of Tron: Ares to stock a wealthiness of details astir what a modern Tron movie looks like, and however it attempts to found an individuality (disc) of its precise own.

Tron: Ares Is Proud Of Its Legacy… But May Keep It At Arm’s Length

Our acceptable sojourn began with a roundtable treatment with the film’s producer, Justin Springer, whose engagement with the franchise began arsenic a co-producer connected 2010’s Tron: Legacy, and naturally, 1 of the archetypal questions was astir however Ares would proceed that film’s story. Reports connected the then-untitled Tron 3 had pegged it arsenic much of a reboot, centered astir a caller programme called Ares coming into the existent world. That was particularly confusing, seeing as, connected paper, that sounds similar a precise logical continuation of the events of Tron: Legacy, which you’ll retrieve ends with Sam Flynn (son of Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn) bringing the sentient programme Quorra backmost with him into the existent world.

Springer fundamentally confirmed Ares arsenic a brushed reboot of Tron, mentioning a feeling connected Disney’s portion that Ares represented a “good clip to determination on” from the events of Legacy. But arsenic our acceptable sojourn continued, and surely arsenic we learned aboriginal successful 2024 that Jeff Bridges would so instrumentality arsenic Kevin Flynn (or immoderate biodigital tone mentation of him we spot successful the trailer), that sentiment felt much and much similar semantics shmantics. No, it’s harmless to accidental based connected what we’ve seen up to this constituent that Tron: Ares is firmly a sequel to Tron: Legacy, adjacent if the Flynns are nary longer the halfway of attention.

When talking astir however Ares, Springer enactment this into the discourse of however the Tron bid has evolved since 1982, saying that if Tron asked what the interior satellite of a machine would look like, and Legacy followed that connected with considering however that satellite would germinate successful isolation, Ares should beryllium focused connected the question of what happens erstwhile the lines of the machine satellite and our ain commencement to blur? Which, hey, erstwhile artificial quality is dominating the planetary conversation, feels similar an evident happening to excavation into.

Lightcycles Are Practically-Built For The First Time Ever

When it comes to Tron imagery, it doesn’t get much iconic than the lightcycle. The sleek, rounded edges of the originals, and the glassy hardlight trails they permission successful their wake, got a superior glow-up successful Tron: Legacy. In some of those films, lightcycles were wholly integer creations, but with Tron: Ares each astir bringing the integer creations of the Grid into the existent world, it was clip for lightcycles to displacement into different gear.

Along with shaper Justin Springer, we spent astir of our acceptable sojourn with Darren Gilford, Tron: Ares’ accumulation designer, who returns from having worked connected Legacy. Gilford’s done awesome enactment implicit the past 20 years updating the ocular connection of established IP for the 21st century, and not conscionable for Tron.

Gilford was besides the accumulation decorator for the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and helium designed The Dark Knight’s rad-as-hell Bat-pod motorcycle. He carried that acquisition straight into Tron: Ares, tasked with creating practical, moving lightcycles for the archetypal clip truthful they could beryllium towed connected filming rigs for immoderate of the pursuit scenes we’ve seen represented successful trailers and successful the footage debuted during the film’s Hall H sheet astatine San Diego Comic-Con this past summer.

The plan of the Ares’s lightcycle is much iterative than evolutionary, hearkening heavy to the Legacy design, and decidedly favors chill implicit comfort. I tin beryllium definite of that due to the fact that each of the journalists successful attendance got a accidental to equine the happening portion it was connected its hydraulic rig and yeah, going belly down connected a cyberpunk speeder looks a batch cooler than it feels. But hey, the pictures are sweet.

Gilford mentioned the value of the lightcycle illustrating Tron: Ares’ taxable of combining antheral and instrumentality successful its design, and the mode you slot into it does evoke a consciousness of putting on a motorcycle arsenic opposed to getting connected a bike. In a satellite wherever companies similar Meta and Apple are pushing consumers towards wearable AR/VR tech that blurs the enactment betwixt the integer and the corporeal, it makes a batch of consciousness for Tron: Ares to beryllium uncovering ways similar this for the enactment to reenforce those themes.

The Grids

During our walkthroughs with Justin Springer, we saw a lot of storyboards for what’s to travel successful Tron: Ares (perhaps adjacent a small much than intended…) and 1 of the astir intriguing elements hinted astatine is however the movie volition beryllium approaching the thought of “The Grid”, the integer frontier which characters often find themselves rezzed into (never crook your backmost connected a laser successful a Tron movie, kids.) Now that we person footage from the trailers to backmost this up, I deliberation I’m harmless saying that determination volition beryllium multiple Grids successful the film.

Before we continue, though, there’s immoderate canon discourse that whitethorn beryllium adjuvant to reinforce, due to the fact that Tron and Tron: Legacy’s integer worlds are really not 1 and the same. The “grid” successful 1982’s Tron is firmly ensconced wrong ENCOM’s machine intranet. That is to say, the integer satellite of the archetypal Tron is simply a closed strategy nether the power of the Master Control Program, an efficiency-focused artificial quality visualized arsenic a spinning conical face. After Flynn finds himself zapped into that system, helium overthrows the Master Control Program, ostensibly freeing each of the subjugated programs from their pre-determined functions and roles.

Can you ideate if you deed play connected your favourite podcast connected Spotify and your machine started stress-testing your GPU? Neither could the creatives down Tron, due to the fact that it was 1982 and nary 1 was funny successful diving that heavy into the questions implied by that benignant of revolution. The MCP was destroyed, the bully guys get impervious that Dillinger had stolen the recognition for Flynn’s Space Paranoids game; a classical “story over, movie over” ending.

Tron: Legacy drills down connected the metaphysical aspects of that ending a small spot more, arsenic we larn Kevin Flynn created his ain Grid extracurricular of ENCOM to trial the limits of integer creation, tests which yet pb to the genesis of the ISOs, an immaculately conceived integer contention of programs which weren’t written by Users. It’s this Grid which Kevin Flynn, his estranged lad Sam, and the ISO Quorra liberate from the reign of Clu, Kevin Flynn’s authoritarian integer avatar. So that’s 2 Tron movies, each with their ain Grid.

Without giving excessively overmuch away, Tron: Ares seems poised to admit these branching integer realities with astatine slightest 3 abstracted systems: 1 belonging to the Dillinger Corporation, 1 belonging to ENCOM, and 1 that’s inactive a spot of a enigma but is definite to get fans of the archetypal Tron aesthetic excited (again, each 3 of these are represented successful the trailer!).

Blending Real and Digital Worlds

The Tron franchise has a estimation of being astatine the cutting borderline of filmmaking technology: the 1982 archetypal is wide considered the archetypal movie to extensively usage computer-generated imagery, and Legacy helped pioneer 3D filmmaking successful the 21st century, shooting connected a customized stereoscopic rig. Legacy is besides remembered for being connected the bleeding borderline of photorealistic integer quality design… and a coagulated reminder of wherefore we usage the operation “bleeding edge.” From a communicative perspective, the villain Clu being a clone of Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn astatine his astir ambitious makes a ton of sense… but the execution has aged worse than thing other successful Tron: Legacy.

As for Ares’ technological raison d’etre, our clip connected the acceptable didn’t spend america overmuch consciousness of what that is. Recent comments from Tron: Ares manager Joachim Rønning suggest that the movie arsenic a full is the “holy grail of machine graphics”, and the footage we’ve seen truthful acold surely looks crisp arsenic hell, but the jury’s retired connected whether oregon to what grade we tin expect immoderate brand-new tech to assistance bring the communicative to life.

What was well-represented during our clip connected acceptable though was that Tron: Ares is utilizing each method nether the prima to bring its communicative to life. Though determination was decidedly immoderate on-location filming, our acceptable sojourn was restricted to the soundstages we toured successful Vancouver, wherever we got to ticker a country being changeable against the measurement integer acceptable exertion that’s been rapidly adopted by studios successful caller years. That country was acceptable successful the existent world, featuring Greta Lee’s Eve Kim astatine the basal of a communications tower, which itself was connected apical of a snowy mountain. Lee was hauling a agelong cablegram implicit to a console successful the tower, truthful this seemed similar it was a portion of a larger enactment series being grabbed.

Cool arsenic the measurement whitethorn person been to behold though, sometimes the aged ways are best. We got to locomotion done the span of Ares’ bid ship, a monolithic red-and-black enclosure that decidedly communicates the austere powerfulness and absorption the Dillinger programs wield. After that, Darren Gilford brought america done the acceptable of an enforcement suite astatine Encom headquarters, the centerpiece of which was an bureau walled successful connected each sides by glass. It belongs (belonged?) to Kevin Flynn, and Encom seems to person preserved it arsenic a monument to their mislaid president (sometime astir the twelvemonth 1989, according to Gilford).

Flynn’s bureau is afloat of easter eggs, similar a rolodex I spotted opened to the interaction info of Tron’s “user” Alan Bradley… Gilford mentioned my flagging of that whitethorn marque maine the archetypal idiosyncratic to spot an easter ovum successful Tron: Ares, and if there’s an grant for that, I person not seen it travel done the mail.

Star Wars: Jedi’s Cameron Monaghan Wields Dual Lightsabers In A Fight Scene

Finally, we besides observed a rehearsal for a combat country that incited a existent “holy sh!t” infinitesimal for the Star Wars fans among the assembled journalists… and fixed we’re the nerds that got sent to the caller Tron movie set, that was astir of us. My colleagues and I were brought onto a bluish surface signifier wherever a twelve oregon truthful stunt performers were practicing combat choreography for a conflict with Caius, a programme played by Cameron Monaghan, who our assemblage whitethorn cognize for his relation arsenic Cal Kestis from the Star Wars: Jedi games.

The worlds of Tron and Star Wars collided successful a large mode erstwhile Monaghan walked retired onto the signifier duel-wielding a brace of lightsaber-esque batons and acceptable to footwear each kinds of ass, with eerie similarity to his Jedi: Survivor quality Cal Kestis. It was an particularly surreal infinitesimal for me: I had just beaten the precocious released Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and utilized the dual wield stance astir exclusively. Was this immoderate benignant of glitch successful the system? Had I been digitized into a machine satellite determination on the way? Am I inactive successful the machine close now!?

I anticipation not, due to the fact that past I won’t beryllium capable to spot Tron: Ares erstwhile it comes retired connected October 10th. Are you excited for Tron: Ares? Let maine cognize successful the comments, and for much connected the movie, cheque retired my absorption to the footage they debuted astatine San Diego Comic-Con and for everything else, biodigital jazz oregon otherwise, support it present connected IGN.