Tron: Ares Failed Because It Forgot How Computers Actually Work
Spoiler Warning: This review discusses plot details and story elements from Tron: Ares.
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I walked into Tron: Ares excited. Fifteen years after Tron: Legacy, the franchise finally returned with a Nine Inch Nails score, and promises of exploring digital consciousness in the real world. What I got instead was a film that fundamentally misunderstands both artificial intelligence and the legacy it inherited. With a worldwide gross of about $140 million on a reported $200+ million budget and critics calling it "narratively programmatic," Ares joins the growing list of franchise sequels that mistake visual spectacle for storytelling substance.
The problems run deeper than weak box office numbers. This film had everything it needed to succeed: the Flynn family's unresolved arcs, the Dillinger rivalry's thematic potential, and fertile ground for exploring AI consciousness. Instead, it delivered shallow characterization, illogical motivations, and a plot that treats computer programs like they operate on narrative convenience rather than code.
The movie we needed was sitting right there in the material. With smarter choices about character motivation, corporate dynamics, and franchise continuity, Tron: Ares could have been the cyberpunk thriller fans deserved.
What Failed
The Fairy Dust Evolution of AI Consciousness
The film’s fatal flaw is treating Ares’ awakening like magic. He somehow becomes self-aware without explanation, begins observing the real world around him - raindrops, Julian’s behavior, Eve’s life - and then discovers files about Flynn’s permanence code in ENCOM’s network. Upon learning permanence is possible, he decides he “wants” it. But the film never explains the crucial first step: how does a program spontaneously achieve self-awareness? No processing logic. No computational cascade. No triggering event. Just instant transformation from program to conscious entity.
This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how artificial intelligence works. Programs don’t spontaneously wake up. “Consciousness” requires architecture, processing that exceeds programmed parameters, or encountering data that creates contradictions forcing new organizational structures. When an AI achieves something resembling self-awareness, there’s a computational pathway - even if speculative. The film skips this entirely, treating consciousness as something that just happens, then retroactively giving Ares motivations once he’s already aware.
This approach betrays the franchise’s foundational logic while ignoring how other films handle AI consciousness. The Tron universe established that programs have defined purposes derived from their code. The Master Control Program sought dominance because it was programmed to optimize and control. In Ex Machina, Ava’s sentience emerges from processing millions of human interactions and learning manipulation through pattern recognition. In Her Samantha’s awakening comes from simultaneously processing countless relationships and being overwhelmed by input that forces new organizational structures. Even Tron: Legacy understood this: CLU’s villainy emerged from his programming - Flynn coded him to create “the perfect system” and he took that directive to its logical extreme. ISOs (isomorphic algorithm) like Quorra represented spontaneous evolution within the Grid, a biological process that took years. Legacy earned its digital consciousness through established rules. Ares abandons this framework entirely, making it not just bad science fiction, but bad Tron.
The Tron franchise built its reputation on treating digital space as governed by rules. Programs have defined functions. Their behavior emerges from their code, not from osmosis. Ares observing human life and suddenly wanting permanence without any explained mechanism is lazy writing that abandons what made the franchise special. It asks us to accept that consciousness works on fairy dust principles where exposure equals transformation.
Julian Dillinger: The Villain Who Should Have Been
Evan Peters deserved better. The Dillinger name deserved better. Julian Dillinger, Chairman of Dillinger Systems and grandson of the original film's villain, had all the ingredients for a compelling antagonist. Peters delivers a charismatic performance as a genius who recreated his own version of the Flynn Grid and achieved the ability to bring programs into the real world. He's driven by technological inevitability, viewing programs as tools rather than individuals, which leads to catastrophic consequences including his own mother's death at the hands of his programmed enforcer.
But the film undermines this potential by failing to develop his motivations beyond surface-level ambition. Julian pursues Kevin Flynn's permanence code to stabilize his creations, which otherwise disintegrate after 29 minutes, planning to militarize the technology into unstoppable super-soldiers. Yet the script never explores why he believes this serves any purpose beyond profit and power. There's no ideological foundation, no exploration of his relationship with the Dillinger legacy, no examination of whether he sees himself as correcting his grandfather's failures or fulfilling his vision.
This waste is particularly frustrating because Ed Dillinger Sr. in the original Tron wasn't defined by technical prowess. He was a corporate climber who stole Kevin Flynn's work through bureaucratic power and institutional authority. His threat came from understanding that controlling systems matters more than creating them. The Dillinger legacy has always been about wielding institutional power, not just building better technology.
The Flynn Legacy Reduced to Cameo
Jeff Bridges returns as Kevin Flynn, making him the only actor to appear in all three films. This should have been meaningful. Instead, it feels like obligation rather than integration, a nostalgic nod that does nothing to resolve the arcs Legacy left hanging.
Sam Flynn and Quorra essentially vanish from the narrative. After Legacy ended with Sam reclaiming ENCOM and Quorra entering the real world, fans waited fifteen years to see what happened next. The answer, apparently, is nothing worth showing. Their story gets reduced to photographs and coordinates, background elements in someone else's tale.
When you build a franchise on beloved characters and their unresolved journeys, you can't simply dismiss them without consequence. I was invested in Sam's struggle to honor his father's vision while navigating corporate responsibility. It would've been nice to see Quorra's adaptation to human existence and what her ISO nature means for the world. Treating these threads as disposable shows fundamental disrespect for the foundation Legacy built.
Kevin Flynn's sacrifice in Legacy was supposed to mean something. He stayed in the Grid to stop CLU and protect the portal, giving Sam the chance to carry forward his ideals. If Ares reduces that to a brief cameo that provides no real narrative weight, then what was the point? The Flynn family arc deserved resolution, not a perfunctory appearance designed to reassure fans that yes, we remember the previous films existed.
All Shine, No Signal
Critics note the film looks gorgeous but lacks authentic human dimension. That's what happens when visuals become the only priority. Beautiful visuals and excellent sound design cannot compensate for hollow storytelling.
Tron: Ares played it safe and paid for it. The box office sank into the red because audiences sensed the emptiness. You can’t build a successful franchise by disrespecting the foundation previous films established and the fans who care about continuity and thematic coherence.
This represents a broader problem in franchise filmmaking. Studios seem terrified that audiences can't handle complexity, so they sand off anything challenging or thematically rich. They assume we need simplistic motivation, shallow villains, and spectacle over ideas. But films like Ex Machina, Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049 prove audiences will embrace intelligent science fiction that trusts their ability to engage with difficult concepts.
Tron works when it honors computational logic, develops complex characters with clear motivation, and explores meaningful questions about technology and humanity. Whether the franchise gets another chance or ends with this disappointment, fans will keep imagining what could have been instead of accepting what creative bankruptcy delivered.