In 1982, audiences were invited to go on a sci-fi fantasy adventure in which a programmer, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), determined to find proof he’d been cheated by a former co-worker, found himself digitally deconstructed and reconstituted within the very computer system he was exploring. This film, TRON, directed/written by Steven Lisberger (Hot Pursuit) and starring Bridges (Starman), David Warner (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze), Bruce Boxleitner (Kuffs), and Cindy Morgan (Caddyshack), would ultimately flop at the box office and rise as a cult classic. Twenty-eight years later, director Joseph Kosinski would rekindle audiences’ imaginations with legacy sequel TRON: Legacy, building upon what Lisberger began, infusing even more philosophy and religion into a story that’s, ultimately, about fathers and sons. Now, in 2025, 15 years since Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) took to the Grid to find his father, audiences aren’t asked to follow a Flynn into a new digital frontier, a creation of series opponent Dillinger and its quest for permanence and meaning. This film, TRON: Ares, directed by Joachim Rønning (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil), follows in its predecessors’ footsteps by not only failing at the box office, but pushing the bounds of technological understanding through an exploration of human connection. Now on digital and coming to physical formats, the latest adventure in the TRON series brings with it over 30 minutes of behind-the-scenes materials across five featurettes for fans of the series to expand their understanding of it.
In the time since Sam Flynn and Quorra (Olivia Wilde) escaped the Grid and Clu’s (Bridges) clutches thanks to the sacrifice of Kevin Flynn, ENCOM changed hands to a brand new CEO, Tess Kim (Selene Yun), who pursued Kevin’s vision of a physical world uplifted through the convergence of digital invention. As competition, Dillinger Corps has been seeking the same, albeit through a less altruistic vision, opting to create tools for the military that can increase profits and dominate markets. Both current CEOs, Eve Kim (Greta Lee), Tess’s sister, and Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), hunt for the same solution to a shared problem: achieving permanence for their digital constructions. When Eve seems to discover the means by which to cross the 20 minute threshold each digital construct possesses, Julian sends his Master Controller program, Ares (Jared Leto), to collect her and the data, but Julian doesn’t realize that through Ares’ trainings within the Dillinger Grid and collective experiences in the real world, Ares longs to exist and do so beyond the control of Julian and anyone else.
The following home release review is based on a HD digital edition provided by Walt Disney Home Entertainment.
It’s important to note that I’m in the bag for these films. I find Legacy to be the best of the bunch in the way it weaves philosophy, religion, and technological exploration together alongside Daft Punk’s stirring score and some fantastic stunt work. The original is engaging for what it is and the recent 4K UHD edition improves upon the then-groundbreaking animation. Ares, however, shouldn’t be discounted for the way it doesn’t directly follow the events of Legacy, but for the way it moves outside of the Flynn family to center the series villains and their perspectives. Doing so makes Ares less of a direct sequel and more of a continuance, allowing for some changes that seem non-canonical until one remembers that this is not following ENCOM, but a very different company lead by individuals with a different moral compass. Things look and feel similar because this is the world of TRON, sure, so there is a familiar visual language, but the reason for it is far more baked into the narrative: Ed Dillinger (Warner) stole Flynn’s games to get promoted, so it makes sense that what we see within the company he created would continue said IP theft. That we see Julian actually hack ENCOM confirms this suspicion as the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, reaffirming that the Dillingers, for all their actual talent and intelligence, can’t seem to conceive of anything without taking from the Flynns. So while it may seem unimaginative how similar the programs from one film to another function or are depicted, it actually continues the existing thread that the Dillingers lack the ability to even conceive of bio-digital jazz and, therefore, are perpetually going to be trailing ENCOM as a result. Copying something may provide a shortcut to completion on a project or install a foundation sooner than building from scratch, but it also means that there’s no learning, no use of imagination, and, as a result no ability to reckon with or perceive something like a program developing a self. How could it when The Maker is absent individuality themself? This aspect is one of the biggest reasons why this departure for the series is so compelling; Dillinger is destined to fail before it all begins as a result of his inability to create, only copy and control.
In light of how the current era is grappling with information control from media and the influx of artificial intelligence-made slop masquerading as truth, an expectation forms that a TRON film might have something to say on the matter and, yes, I do agree that there’s a solid opportunity for Jesse Wigutow’s (It Runs in the Family) script to do that and it’s noticeable that such a statement is absent. However, this speaks more to audience expectation than filmmaker intention. Here, rather than exploring the dangers of A.I.-based military action, the film tangentially continues a plotline from Legacy brought about by the introduction of Quorra’s ISOs (isomorphic algorithms) that appeared organically within Kevin and Clu’s “perfect system,” thereby injecting the TRON series with a question about life and creation, a choice that transitions Kevin Flynn from mere User to Creator having provided the perfect conditions for spontaneous digital life to spring up. Within Ares, we’re given Leto’s (The Suicide Squad) Ares, a program designed by Julian to be his Master Controller (a throwback to Ed’s own MCP that served as the nemesis for Kevin in TRON) and warrior, but who, through his repeated deaths and rebirths, evolves beyond his digital space as he grows curious about organic life. Rather than this being a malevolent force like the original MCP or even the MCP’s acolyte Sark (also played by Warner), Ares feels tenderness toward life and doesn’t want to be a warrior anymore. While this is likely an excuse by the filmmakers to ensure that the film has a protagonist we can root for just twisted from a perspective we haven’t yet had (even if it appears rote in the enemy-turned-ally narrative trope). If my read on Julian as perpetuating the Dillingers’ habit of IP theft, then Ares is part Flynn and the questioning of purpose runs through his digital veins and explains a great deal about both the deviation from Julian’s plan (A.I. tracking outside of programming is less realistic and more of a storytelling tool) and the interest in meeting Kevin (as a creation to their creator). Unfortunately, amid the very cool set pieces that integrate digital weaponry of the Grid into the real world and reimagine one Grid invading another, the things that make the film profound are often left to the side, leaving style to take over where substance should carry. This, combined with strange narrative choices like making Dillinger Corps a 40-year-old company suddenly, raises a great deal of questions the audience shouldn’t be distracted from while seeking to answer them. Like why the heck is Edward Dillinger (Cillian Murphy) running ENCOM in Sam’s stead in Legacy if there was a whole other company he could’ve been running and why isn’t Edward included here if Ares invokes the Dillinger family? Distractions abound.
If, like me, you were hoping for something deeper in the text versus subtext, unfortunately, the bonus features won’t really satisfy in that regard. What they will do is demonstrate the work that went into making the film, including a surprising amount of practical sets and stunt execution. For a general exploration of the film, check out the 12-minute “The Journey to TRON: Ares” as members of the cast and crew share their thoughts on the franchise and the film while informing the audience a bit about the making of the project. The story goes that a previous third TRON film was being developed and fell apart only to be saved by Leto and turned into Ares, but none of this is covered here. Instead, it’s just the usual odds and ends about how they all came to the franchise and how they adapted what was into this. The seven-minute “Lightcycles on the Loose” featurette is a mix of talking head interviews and on-set footage as we learn how the production integrated real machinery (electric Harley Davidsons, for instance) with digital artistry to create the motorway chase sequence that ends with Eve hitting Jodie Turner-Smith’s (A Big Bold Beautiful Journey) Athena with a lightcycle and Eve and Ares meeting for the first time. Building off that, the six-minute “The Artistry of TRON: Ares” dives just a little deeper into the stunt work including letting us get a look at the various ways in which the production blended the visual style of TRON with the natural world. This means taking a brief look at the ENCOM hack, the lightcycle chase, and Athena’s invasion of the ENCOM office. Unfortunately, other than a couple mentions of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the artists representing Nine Inch Nails who score the film, as special guest pilots in the Recognizer sequence, we don’t get much on that sequence or any other mentions of the fabulous extensions of the tech displayed in Legacy that served as the basis for what we see here. If you dig the vibes of the cast, and Lee (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; Past Lives), Turner-Smith, Peters (American Animals), Bridges, and several of the supporting cast have solid chemistry, make sure to check out the five-minute “Cast Conversations” which pairs up members of the cast to talk about and react to the project. There’s quite a bit of overlap in what Leto says in this featurette and others, which suggests that a great deal of the bonus features are curated from limited sources. One could infer this as being a result of the lack of box office support considering the available features on the prior two films. The final feature is a five-minute guided easter egg hunt titled “The Legacy of TRON,” which is, admittedly, quite a bit of fun for new and old fans alike. Additionally, there are three brief deleted scenes, including one that’s a funny cameo of Lisberger, but that’s it. No commentary track, no in-depth discussion of the script.
Look, I’m not going to be begrudge anyone who didn’t enjoy Ares or any of the other two TRON films. They are not for everyone and, yeah, each have moments that can feel like a slog. I’m biased, to be sure, considering how the Daft Punk Legacy score is one of two pieces of media that made a brief-but-extensive and scary hospital stay more bearable. I can also see how Ares feels like a film that should’ve been an answer to the moment that is the problem of A.I., but it doesn’t appear, in any way shape or form, to have been constructed as a vehicle for that. Rather, it feels like a middle child of a trilogy in which it sets forward new questions while positing potential answers for old ones within the same framework that the previous two films did. Which is to say that neither film sought to explore, identify, vilify, or uplift digital technology as much as invite audiences to consider the way that they view the tech they use and their perception of reality, all while asking poignant questions about meaning, creation, and connection. To that end, Ares does this fairly well, feeling far more like a child of Legacy than a spawn of TRON. Because of this, those who dig what Ares accomplishes, such as I, find ourselves longing to see what comes next, mid-credit sequence or not, because the possibilities are fascinating. And that’s kind of what these films are all about — the possibilities.
End of Line.
TRON: Ares Special Features*:
- The Journey to TRON: Ares: Go on a personal journey with Jared Leto, director Joachim Rønning and other cast and crew members for an in-depth making-of look showcasing the stunning visuals, incredible stunts, cool (but heavy) costumes, and next-level sets of TRON: Ares. (11:41)
- Lightcycles on the Loose: Join director Joachim Rønning as he peels back the layers of one of the most action-packed sequences in the film. Discover what ILM and the artists who grew up loving the franchise contributed, and what other iconic film the sequence pays homage to. (6:57)
- The Artistry of TRON: Ares: Director Joachim Rønning and actor-producer Jared Leto sit down to discuss their journey creating TRON: Ares. The pair unpack key moments and the striking visual, sonic and artistic philosophies that drive the storytelling both in and out of the Grid. (6:17)
- Cast Conversations: Join the cast in candid conversations as they reflect on stepping into character, memorable on-set experiences, funny anecdotes and personal insights. Get a glimpse of the off-screeHi [NAME], n camaraderie that shines in their electric on-screen synergy. (4:55)
- The Legacy of TRON: Decades after TRON first took the world by storm, and with TRON: Legacy in between, there’s loads of nostalgia to mine for TRON: Ares. Catch some clever Easter eggs and noteworthy cameos as this enduring franchise continues to leave its mark. (5:12)
- Three (3) Deleted Scenes (2:17)
*Bonus features may vary by product and retailer
Available on digital December 2nd, 2025.
Available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, DVD, and 3-film DVD collection January 6th, 2026.
Available on Disney+ January 7th, 2026.
For more information, head to the official Walt Disney Studios TRON: Ares webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews, streaming
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