Disney Unveils Stunning New Footage From TRON: Ares

San Diego Comic-Con is just around the corner, and as part of its lead-up to its big panel on Saturday, Disney has released a new first look at the newest entry in its long-running sci-fi franchise, TRON: Ares.

TRON: Ares, set to hit theaters in the fall, is the first major film from Disney in this new, third era of the classic science fiction property. The series, as established by both the original 1982 TRON film and its 2010 sequel TRON: Legacy, traditionally takes place in what is known as the “Grid,” a glowing virtual world where humans can only interact with the world by embodying “programs,” effectively robots, and getting involved in all kinds of digital adventure.

But the upcoming film, set to be directed by Joachim Rønning and written by Geneva Robertson-Dworet, brings the franchise into a new stage, in which it is no longer just in the digital Grid that things get exciting.

TRON: Ares first earned fans’ attention back in 2020, when Disney announced it would be greenlighting the sequel to TRON: Legacy. Disney initially announced it in October 2010, mere weeks after Legacy’s release, planning to jump in with the third film to “continue right where we left off in the final action sequence of the movie, with Sam and Quorra on the run and Sam taking over the reins of his father’s company, ENCOM.” However, by 2015, the movie had been canned, with sources suggesting Disney pulled the plug on the movie as a result of the overall tepid response to its other big sci-fi tentpole at the time, Tomorrowland.

But in 2020, Disney once again announced a new TRON project would be happening, only this time not as a direct follow-up to the 2010 film but rather a standalone reboot. That script, which was finally locked after much production delay — from COVID to Hollywood’s recent strikes — remains in the hands of Robertson-Dworet, and still contains some elements of the abandoned Legacy sequel. For instance, one character that has stuck around through the franchise’s various iterations: Ares, an AI and all-powerful Program on the Grid that the upcoming film finds sent into the real world.

Per Disney’s synopsis, 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.” Starring in the film is an ensemble cast that includes Jared Leto as Ares, Evan Peters as Julian Dillinger, and Greta Lee as Eve Kim, with Jodie Turner-Smith, Cameron Monaghan, Sarah Desjardins, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, and Gillian Anderson rounding out the cast. Jeff Bridges also returns as Kevin Flynn, and Nine Inch Nails will compose the soundtrack.

TRON: Ares Trailer Description: Light Cycles, Neon Grid Lines, and a Grim Aesop in Style of a Tech CEO Keynote

Fans first got a look at the TRON: Ares with a teaser trailer back in April. But though the April trailer was just that — a teaser, a quick minute-long first glimpse, it was certainly not lacking in TRON’s world-famous visual spectacle. Lines of neon grid drawing polygons in broad computer-code strokes. Streamlined TRON-style lightcycles kicking up sprays of digitized concrete through a full-spectrum holo-lightshow. All that is present and accounted for in the new trailer, but now with much more story detail laid out for fans.

The new trailer begins with what sounds like a tech CEO’s keynote address. Evan Peters’ character Julian Dillinger takes the stage to an awestruck crowd and launches into an argument about how the future of A.I., artificial intelligence, is not about what happens in our digital landscapes but what happens in our physical ones. “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 then proceeds to show off to the cheering crowd his latest innovation, a seemingly omnipotent “ultimate soldier,” named Ares (Leto). Dillinger is momentarily cut off by Ares during his pompous presentation as the artificial program shows himself to be one jump ahead of the man supposedly in charge of him, balking at Dillinger’s order to attack “maximum strength” with the words “strength can be quantified.” The two tussle for a moment, and Ares deactivates the chip that Dillinger is using to control him. But after a brief moment of triumph, Ares finishes Dillinger’s sentence and turns back on the chip, to the delight of the CEO, who crowns himself the “father of gods and all of creation.” With that ominous bravado, Dillinger then lays out his plan to send Ares off into the world.

Ares’ journey to our world seems to take on a bit of a more deliberate path than Dillinger would like. As it turns out, while the CEO thinks he has an all-powerful avatar in Ares to mold into his image, Ares has his own, well, mission. The rogue program makes its way into the real world in search of, well, searching for a person. He’s not exactly sure what it is he wants, but Ares will “know it when he sees it,” and that is all that’s required for him to set out on his search. Kevin Flynn also makes a return appearance in the new trailer, in the Grid itself. Flynn famously confronts the Ares program in the past about this all-too-human notion of motive, asking: “A malfunctioning program that wants to live, why is that?”