Tron Ares

This is the third outting for one of Disney's most estoteric franchies. Like the previous two, this one seems destinated to be labeled a box office dud. The critics are mixed, praising some aspects and panning others. The audience is much more enthusiastic with an 88% rating last time I checked Rotten Tomatoes. As far as Trons go, this is a solid second place after the original. Tron deserves a whole treatment about its theme and world, but suffice it to say that this sticks true. Tron has always been a niche property. Disney hoped it would capture the Star Wars, action market. Disney only cracked that code by actually buying Star Wars, then Marvel. Tron was always something else though, a science fiction movie. It was a cerebral "what if" story that sought to reflect humanity back to itself by looking at us through the eyes of our own creations. Tron and Tron Legacy both became bogged down with complex world building and obscure plot points. Ares stayed streamlined towards a basic story of a program who experiences the real world and wants to live. Unlike so many movies these days, there is no origin story, no lengthy world building. The premise is straight forward enough that the opening credits take you through the idea of Ares coming to live through thousands or millions of iterations. The script tells you a lot of things happen off screen or between scenes. It doesn't spoon feed the how and why. It leaves room for the viewer to imagine. Mostly, it never tells you if Ares is the good guy or not. Sure, we know that the Billionaires are evil. But Ares is their creation. What will he do with his survival?

The music and visuals are up to the unique standards of Tron. In the first Tron, the programs are envisioned as human-like, beligigered office workers who reflected the personalities of their creators. Tron Legacy went for slick, inhuman programs, punctuated by over-the-top "sirens" and Zuse. Ares shows us very little of the grid nor their inhabitants. It establishes that. Grids are specific networks, relecting their owners. The orginal grid maybe was a human driven office network, while legacy was the new corporate Encom. Dillinger System's grid was sparse and the programs were ruthless, with inhuman voices. Much ink has been spilled on the awkwardness of Jared Leto's portrayal, which I thought made a lot of sense. His performance was similar to Star Trek's Data, bounciung between stilted when he doesn't understand, with humanity and perception peeking through. He is a person who has been constructed by mimicking.

All in all, I loved it. I would love to see more of the Tron universe. It has always been a very human story about what we care to create and what we imagine our creations would care about themselves.