Disney is like a drug addict who tells you repeatedly that they're going to kick the habit, clean themselves up, and get right, only to turn around and spend the last of their cash injecting themselves with their drug of choice.
Disney can't quit the woke drug it's on, even though it's repeatedly told us it's going to start focusing more on the quality of its films and not be so gung-ho about injecting social commentary.
The latest entry into the "Tron" franchise is proof of this. "Tron: Ares" is, in my opinion, one of the most egregious examples of Disney's inability to stop making the same mistake over and over again, ruining its franchises by stripping them of their heart and soul and injecting modernity into them in a vain attempt to appeal to a much wider audience.
If you're one of my loyal readers, you could probably guess that I'm a fan of the movie "Tron" without me telling you. The 1982 film is about a man named Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), who designed video games and was a master hacker, who gets sucked into "the Grid," or the digital world, where he and a program named "Tron" are tasked with freeing the system from the mad AI "Master Control Program" and his evil program "Sark."
Today, "Tron" looks dated and maybe even a little tough on the eyes, but back in the day, the film was revolutionary in terms of graphical achievement. Moreover, the story was pretty interesting too, telling the story of an AI land under the control of an evil AI who punishes those who believe in the "Users" (humanity) with deresolution.
There's a lot of Christian allegory in the film, even if unintentionally. Users are seen as the creators in the Grid. Programs are humanity, Master Control Program is the Satan figure, and Flynn's descent into the Grid represents an incarnation that ultimately ends with him sacrificing himself for the programs.
But in between all of that, you have video game culture, gladiatorial games, light cycles that can appear out of a bar, and disks that you can throw to de-rez your enemies that return to you like Thor's hammer. "Tron" is, without a doubt, a film geared far more towards boys than girls.
In 2010, it finally got a sequel. The story follows Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the son of Kevin Flynn, as he attempts to solve the mystery of his father, who disappeared one day and never returned. Sam finds himself brought into the Grid, where he discovers an evil program named Clu has now taken over, and is trying to create "the perfect system." Sam finds out that Clu is a copy of his father that went awry, and through a series of events, discovers that his father had been trapped there, and together they must free the system.
While the film got a much-needed graphical update, it still stayed true to the "Tron" mythos. It added new elements like the "Isos," which were AI programs that manifested naturally from the system without needing to be created directly by a human. Sam ultimately takes over as CEO of Encom, his father's company, and Tron, who acted as something of an antagonist throughout the film, was redeemed and teased to reappear once again. Kevin Flynn sacrifices himself to save his son and the Grid, giving his character a satisfying ending.
We didn't need a third "Tron" film, but if we did get one, then the writers were pretty well set up with a direction for the story. From my perspective, these two "Tron" movies reminded me of "The Chronicles of Narnia." "Tron" was "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," with a man being sucked into a strange world where he must adventure to stop an evil entity controlling it and eventually be crowned king. "Tron: Legacy" gave me "Prince Caspian" vibes, where a young man who had his rightful position stolen from him must fight an evil tyrant to reclaim his kingdom and make things right.
All the writers of the third "Tron" movie needed to do was create their "Voyage of the Dawn Treader." Set out on an adventure that explores deeper into the Grid, unearths the mysteries that hide within it, and introduces concepts and characters that really bring out the themes of the story.
But Disney, needle-in-arm, decided not to do any of that, and completely tossed everything out the window to inject its modern obsessions into the franchise.
I'm not going to go too deeply into the plot because this isn't what the article is about. If you want to do that, go ahead and watch Nerdrotic's takedown of it, but I am going to highlight its more grievous mistakes.
Let's start from the top.
If you were hoping for an update on the Flynn family, then you're out of luck. Sam Flynn isn't in the movie at all, and is written off as just having abdicated his position as CEO, even after "Legacy" made it clear he was going to work tirelessly to change the world with his new companion, Quorra (Olivia Wilde), who is an Iso from the system. Quorra was supposed to change everything in the outside world, and it's hinted that there would be a major shift for humanity with Quorra now on the outside.
Disney decided to scrap her and her entire storyline, too.
Oh, and Tron, the program the entire franchise is named after? He's absent as well.
Instead, what Disney does is replace Sam Flynn with a diverse female girlboss who is now the CEO of Encom, and she's fighting against the white male CEO of an opposing corporation called "Dillinger." The plot doesn't even dive too deeply into the Grid, the place people have actually come to see adventures in, as it mostly stays in the real world.
The plot revolves around the Dillinger corporation trying to bring programs from the digital world into the real world so it can sell troops and equipment to the military. So, once again, we have a "Capitalism is the real villain" storyline.
So to sum it up, Disney took its male-centric brand, injected modernity into it to make it a movie for "everyone," then proceeded to nitpick parts of the Tron universe to piece together a movie loosely based on the events of the previous movies to create its own contrived plot about dueling corporations, girlbosses, and hardly any Grid time. While Jeff Bridges does return as Kevin Flynn for a five-minute cameo to solve the film's major macguffin issue, he shouldn't have even been there in the first place. He sacrificed himself for Sam and Quorra, but I guess that can just be shrugged off, too.
Disney's habit of ruining its own franchises to obey some sort of modern rule system is a sight to behold. Fans have made it clear they don't want it, not just with their voices, but with their wallets. "Tron: Aries" scored a box office global opening of $60 million, up against a budget of $180 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
If I had handed responsibility for the script to an AI, it would've pumped something out that's better than "Tron: Ares." The film was concocted through a need to satisfy a dying political ideological approach to filmmaking, not with the interest of creating a good film based on a beloved franchise. Not only does this film deserve to be ignored, but it also deserves to cost Disney a lot of money. It's an insult to the fans and the intelligence of its audience.
"Tron: Ares" is proof that the woke infection in Disney goes deeper than anyone might've thought, because even after mass layoffs and pruning, it's still churning out nonsense like this.
