By Jillian Coddington
It’s 1982. The 70s are fading out and hair is getting bigger. Colors are getting more neon. CDs are just becoming a thing, but they’re not common or cheap enough for everyone to own them. Michael Jackson’s new album Thriller is released, including some of his most popular songs. Star Wars is going strong, having just released Empire Strikes Back a couple years prior. But you know what else was released in 1982? Tron.
With the digital age being on the rise, and technology becoming better and more accessible by the day, there’s a lot of questions about what it could mean. One of them being: “How will computers change?” The original Tron highlights how computer programs can learn from themselves, and eventually get to the point of taking over humankind. The main antagonist is a program called “Master Control,” which ends up having enough access to other companies that it’s able to completely take them over. Countering Master Control is Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), and Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner), who have their own issues to deal with. Bradley creates a program named Tron, with the intention to monitor other programs for company security—but this just won’t do for Master Control, who kicks Bradley out of access. Lucky for Bradley, Flynn was still hacking into the company’s system after having been fired, despite it being his games that the current CEO stole in order to make boatloads of money. While trying to hack into the company’s system, Flynn taunts Master Control, and ends up pissing him off enough that it activates a laser to shoot at Flynn, then bringing Flynn into what’s known as “the Grid:” aka, the video game world.
From there, Flynn faces many trials and is hunted for being a “User,” which many programs treat as a deity and can sometimes even communicate with. However, Master Control is hunting all those who believe in Users, and even more so the Users themselves. Flynn manages to join forces with Bradley’s program, Tron, to break out of the games Master Control has them playing. Eventually, he destroys Master Control and returns to the real world.
Now, this is a music magazine, so I’ve gotta say something about the music. Since this is an older movie, there’s not actually a whole lot of music, especially where the characters have active dialogue. The music that is briefly played is far more orchestral than what we now associate with the Tron series. There are the occasional musical stings that sound like computers, electricity-zaps, sparks, or even noises that sound like a fax machine or dial-up would make. There are also moments that blast me back to playing the original SEGA Sonic games. It wouldn’t be until Daft Punk came on the scene for the next movie that the technologic setting matched the music.
28 years later (which is a title for another movie’s sequel, funnily enough), Tron: Legacy is released. It has the same basic plot of “real world guy gets sucked into digital land,” but this time, sort of on purpose. Kevin Flynn has mysteriously disappeared, after having finally gotten the recognition for his games and becoming the owner of the company– leaving his young son behind. This son, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), ends up growing up to be a delinquent who couldn’t care less about the company he inherited, and only interferes by pulling malevolent pranks (such as releasing their new programs for free so they can’t capitalize them) about once a year. Alan Bradley is still around, and gets a page from Kevin that he then tells Sam about, causing Sam to go investigate his dad’s old arcade. Kevin managed to recreate the laser that got him sucked into the Grid in the first place, resulting in Sam also activating said laser. Sam gets brought into the Grid (looking much better now that Kevin has entirely redone it to parallel the streets of real-life),and gets placed in the games, much like his father was—except this time, there’s an audience. Turns out, his father’s program, CLU (Jeff Bridges but digitally augmented to appear younger), has taken over the grid. CLU was created to be an exact replica of Kevin Flynn so that while he was in the real world, CLU would still be working with Tron in order to create the perfect Grid. CLU takes the idea of a perfect world too far and completely overthrows Kevin, trapping him in the Grid. The rest of the movie is spent fighting off CLU for Kevin’s memories, keeping CLU from going into the real world, and trying to send Sam back to the real world. In the end, Kevin sacrifices himself to destroy CLU, but considering we all thought Tron was dead (only to find out CLU reprogramed him), I wouldn’t bet too much on Kevin actually being dead.
Growing up, I only ever really appreciated this movie for its visuals, but after watching the original again for the first time in years, the difference is insane. The original’s costumes look like they’re made of cardboard with glow sticks glued on, and the bikes are arguably the most basic of geometric shapes. Meanwhile, Legacy is artful in how it juxtaposes black/white settings with the neon blue (almost white) color of the heroes, and the orange of the antagonists. I mean, just look at the difference:
And don’t even get me started on the atrocity that were the original bikes:
Anyway. Music! Tron: Legacy’s soundtrack was entirely done by Daft Punk. Who is Daft Punk? Well you’re about to find out. Daft Punk was a up-and-coming duo from France, featuring of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who started out just working house parties with electronic dance music under the name Darlin’ (a critics review calling their music “daft punky thrash” would later inspire their name change) in the 90s. As they got bigger and started releasing albums, their music changed as well, changing the music scene at the same time. They’re known for never showing their faces on camera, having the visage of robots instead, and playing music that brings computers to life. Personally, my first introduction to Daft Punk was a compilation cover by Pentatonix (ironically enough, an a capella group), but you may know their songs “One More Time,” “Get Lucky,” “Digital Love,” and of course, the soundtrack for Tron: Legacy. They’ve worked with multiple artists such as Kanye West, Skrillex, and Deadmau5, ultimately changing the pop and techno scenes for the better. However, in February 2021 they released a statement that they had broken up—Daft Punk was no more. They were cryptic about reasoning originally, only releasing a vague video about it. However, later on, Bangalter revealed in interviews how the line between humanity and computers needs to remain separate, and that technology should remain a tool. Concerns over the use of AI contributed to Daft Punk breaking up.
As for the soundtrack they created for Tron:Legacy, I think it’s a masterpiece. The only use of an orchestra is in very emotional moments, and even then it’s only as an accent to techno beats, manifesting as long rising notes. Moments of heavy conflict are emphasized with drum beats that are slowly layered with synthesizer notes that get faster, louder, or even change keys based on the scene. Sometimes, long bass notes would be the base of the music while the synthesizer plays shorter notes to build tension, and other times the shorter notes would be the base while the long bass notes emphasized moments in the scene. Daft Punk even has a cameo in a nightclub, with an entertaining moment where they change the music to be more energetic and jumpy to match the fight going on. As soon as the fight ends, it’s back to the orchestral themes with heavy drums to emphasize the sudden shift.
Where is Daft Punk now? Well, they’re still making music. Bangalter especially remains in the music scene, but has shifted to composing music for a new ballet, Mythologies. Bagalter says that he likes the challenge of being confined to the orchestra pieces, just him and the scoring paper without amplification. Technological music can be explored in great depth since new sounds can be made from practically anything—orchestras, not so much. Guy-Manuel seems to be laying low though, seeing as I couldn’t find much about him other than his continued solo acts in the techno music scene.
The Tron series continues, even 15 years later. This time, a new band is composing the soundtrack, and a highly sophisticated Program is coming into the real world. Tron: Ares was announced in 2023 by Disney, and is set to release later this year in October 2025. Despite the release date coming closer, not much is actually known about the story or the cast. There’s not many pictures or even a trailer out yet. We do know that Ares is the embodiment of the Master Control program from the original Tron and that a descendant of the original CEO (Julian Dillinger played by Evan Peters) will be involved somehow. The few confirmed roles include Jeff Bridges coming back as Kevin Flynn, Jared Leto playing Ares, the Program being released into the real world, and Greta Lee playing a programmer.
The band composing the soundtrack is not one I would expect to take a job like this: Nine Inch Nails. They only have two permanent members in the band, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who create the music, then bring other non-permanent members on stage to play the music live. I know them for songs like “Closer” and “The Hand That Feeds,” but apparently they’ve already worked on a soundtrack before, the one for Gone Girl. Their music is what I would call techno-rock. It’s got the heaviness of rock with the sounds of techno. Their most recent single, “ISN’T EVERYONE,” is a rather slow and emotional song that leans a bit more into the techno aspect of their genre. I’m definitely excited to see how their style may reflect the story. I think they’ll do well with the pacing of the movie, creating both exciting music and slower pieces for lulls in the story or emotive moments.
Basically, if you haven’t seen the Tron franchise before, you should go fix that. The original 1982 Tron really is a relic of its time and is worth a watch, but Tron: Legacy is gorgeous visually and has amazing music. I can’t wait to see if the 15 year difference will live up to the 28 year gap between the first two films with the release of Tron: Ares.