Disney’s TRON: Ares Showcases AI Threat in Latest Footage

The San Diego Comic-Con is almost upon us, and major studios are still coming forward with the big announcements in preparation for the show. Case in point: Disney is teasing a presentation at SDCC by releasing the first trailer for TRON: Ares, a new installment in the franchise.

TRON: Ares, which is directed by Joachim Rønning, introduces a new chapter in the sci-fi universe that promises to carry the story out of the virtual grid. The premise of this latest entry will be to bring the TRON story into the real world for the first time.

TRON: Legacy last carried fans back to the Grid in 2010. The film starred Garrett Hedlund as Sam Flynn, the son of the original TRON lead character Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges). Near the end of TRON: Legacy, Sam saves the day by stopping a Grid overlord called Clu (a copy of Kevin Flynn’s image) from merging the digital world with the real world and destroying both. Sam is also helped in the rescue of Clu and the Grid by an ISO named Quorra, played by Olivia Wilde.

An original script for TRON 3, which was set to chronologically follow the events in TRON: Legacy, was prepared by Legacy co-writers Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitagawa and officially greenlit by Disney in October 2010. The screenplay was to show what happens to Sam and Quorra after Sam takes over his father’s company, ENCOM. The follow-up to TRON: Legacy was officially cancelled in 2015, as the news of the announcement had come soon after the poor performance of another sci-fi film, Tomorrowland, also hit theaters.

Disney later re-imagined the concept as a reboot in 2020, but not as a continuation of TRON: Legacy. The reboot, as planned, kept many of the elements from the previously penned sequel TRON 3 and kept Ares, an advanced artificial intelligence program and a lead character in past drafts of the third TRON movie. The first major teaser trailer for the TRON: Ares hit theaters and home releases last year. The project has had a bumpy ride over the years as it experienced a series of delays and a couple of Hollywood strikes recently to throw a wrench into its production plans. Despite all that, TRON: Ares is now officially completed and primed for release later this year.

Disney announced: “TRON: Ares follows a highly sophisticated Program, Ares, who is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind’s first encounter with A.I. beings.” The film stars Jared Leto as Ares with Evan Peters as Julian Dillinger, and Greta Lee as Eve Kim. The supporting cast will also include Jodie Turner-Smith, Cameron Monaghan, Sarah Desjardins, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, and Gillian Anderson. Jeff Bridges, who played the key role of Kevin Flynn in the earlier films, will also return to the franchise. Industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails composed the score for TRON: Ares.

TRON: Ares Trailer Release Teases “The Ultimate Soldier”

The first trailer was released in April this year with signature TRON graphics and visual effects, but did not hint at the story. Expectations were that the release would have to wait until Comic-Con for an official look at TRON: Ares, but a new trailer arrived to ramp up the hype before SDCC.

The first frame of the teaser comes to a surprised-looking tech crowd. Julian Dillinger takes the stage to thunderous applause in a space that’s reminiscent of a tech product launch conference. “So much talk of AI and big tech today. Virtual worlds, what are they going to look like? When will we get there? Well, folks. We’re not going there. They are coming here,” Dillinger begins.

The tall figure in black continues as he puts his hand on a control box with a glowing orb inside it. “I created him in the virtual world. I am bringing Ares, the most advanced, self-learning Program ever designed.” Dillinger introduces Ares to the crowd, but not as the audience will get to see in the real-world sequences. The program appears as a humanoid graphic that looks like an agile ninja out of the blue box.

The TRON: Ares trailer uses Julian Dillinger to establish the corporate villain of this reboot. Dillinger is loud, brash, cocky, and sure of himself to the point of seeming power-drunk. In a moment of showboating in the trailer, he points out the special qualities of his creation: “He’s biblically strong, lightning fast, and supremely intelligent. And if he is struck down on the battlefield…” — Julian Dillinger pushes Ares, and the construct falls on the stage in front of the assembly — “…I will simply make you another.” It’s all an extension of the bad-guy ethos. A corporate megalomaniac who feels he has everything figured out.

On cue, the trailer throws a wrench into his preposterous and self-righteous predictions. Turns out the program was not created as he’s convinced, but got a consciousness of its own and has found a purpose that is independent of its creator. He is “searching for what he knows but cannot define,” the narration goes. What Ares found is the latest internet buzzword — “hope.” The philosophical interrogation of the creation that wants to know more about the wider world and why it just wants to “be” is a dramatic concept first echoed by TRON’s original Kevin Flynn in the trailer, “A malfunctioning program who wants to live, why is that?”