Joachim Rønning
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Connections, in both directions
Now two Norwegian filmmakers have created a compelling new drama about the voyage of Kon-Tiki.
(If it ends up winning, it'll be the first Norwegian movie to take home an Oscar since the original Kon-Tiki, a documentary Heyerdahl and his team filmed en route, scored a statuette in 1951.)
Leto commands the often hyperbolic storyline as a modern cyber-punk Pinocchio with a dash of the friendlier Terminator and a splash of Star Trek’s Data.
…the script itself alludes to both Frankenstein and Pinocchio…
One of the producers of TRON: Ares likened the film’s concept to Pinocchio because the puppet evolved to become a person.
…than it is about Ares’s Pinocchio-esque transformation into a real boy.
…a predictable mashup of Pinocchio, The Terminator and Robocop…
…heavy-handed references to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus” (1818) and “Pinocchio?”
Rain proves especially inspiring for these digital beings, a nod perhaps to Roy Batty and his tears.
Several scenes rely on the sensation of rain to awaken the artificial, but my thought when I was watching was "I've seen Blade Runner too".
Is “Tron: Ares” derivative of “Blade Runner” (1982)…
Will we need to replicate Rick Deckard to take down rogue replicants? I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Directed by James Cameron
influenced TRON: Ares (2025)
Themes Plot Characters
The film echoes themes from Terminator 2: Judgment Day…
There is nothing distinct about his motivation that we have not seen from Terminator 2 and beyond.
He plays Ares with intentional simplicity and dryness as if this is his turn to fill Arnold Schwarzenegger’s shoes as The Terminator from T2.
TRON: Legacy (2010)
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
influenced TRON: Ares (2025)
Themes Visuals Music Plot
…the actual story is refreshingly simplistic, though fans of Tron: Legacy may be disappointed at the lack of follow-up…
Tron: Legacy had places of outlandish glee, and while sometimes that was prompted by Michael Sheen's Castor it was often prompted by the spectacle.
The Tron: Legacy soundtrack was by Daft Punk and the original was scored by legendary synth pioneer, Wendy Carlos.
With passing nods to the original scores by Wendy Carlos (Tron, 1982) and Daft Punk (Tron Legacy, 2010), the twenty-four tracks, four with vocals, weave with confident deftness throughout the film.
In 2010, a sequel was finally released called Tron: Legacy. The second movie saw Kevin's son, Sam (Garrett Hedlund; Mudbound), looking for his long-lost father and, like his father before him, getting sucked into the Grid.
Much like Daft Punk, who composed the Tron: Legacy score, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ industrial rock band turns out to be an amazing fit for this universe.
I was reminded of Glen A. Larson’s short-lived Automan (1983–84), a TV series heavily inspired by the VFX of Tron that followed the adventures of a crime-fighting A.I. hologram…
…(remember O.G. cosplayer Tron Guy or the TV show “Automan?”)
Shifting the digital people and machines of the Grid into present-day America does not achieve the same effect, and leaves Ares feeling more inspired by Terminator than Tron.
…leading to the film becoming a battle of machines reminiscent of James Cameron’s Terminator pictures – right down to their exploration of consciousness and fate.
…the “Terminator” and “Star Wars” franchise…
He plays Ares with intentional simplicity and dryness as if this is his turn to fill Arnold Schwarzenegger's shoes as The Terminator from T2.
…who takes to her mission like a souped-up Terminator…
Leto commands the often hyperbolic storyline as a modern cyber-punk Pinocchio with a dash of the friendlier Terminator and a splash of Star Trek’s Data.
There is no argument against the beauty of the film, like Tron: Ares; for some, visuals will be more than enough to overcome narrative weaknesses.
Avatar: Fire and Ash may be the only 2025 film that could rival it in that department.
We’re only two months away from a third trek to Pandora in AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH, but they’re releasing another follow-up, which now cements another trilogy, though this series started long before James Cameron’s blockbusters.
…much like how The Matrix (1999) works, when you see the virtual world displayed as nothing but lines of green code to those in the real world.
Before The Matrix, there was “The Grid.”
Kon-Tiki, though never overtly stealing, mirrors the most effective aspects of films like Cast Away, Jaws and Mutiny on the Bounty.
…with vehicles that resemble scraps from James Cameron's Avatar more than Tron.
…although unlike Legacy the boom for that format, post-Avatar (2009), has significantly waned.
The script by Jesse Wigutow (from a story by Wigutow and David DiGilio) freely nods to sources like Frankenstein and Robocop, but when original Tron star Jeff Bridges shows up for what’s effectively a one-scene cameo, the memories he summons of another inspiration, Starman, prove jarring.
…a predictable mashup of Pinocchio, The Terminator and Robocop…
The story immediately brings to mind classic tales of obsession like Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, about a man trying to pull a ship over a mountain.
While Jurassic World Rebirth and Tron: Ares took forever getting their plots into motion, Trachtenberg hits the ground running in Badlands and quickly delivers exciting cosmic action.
If you do not mind an extremely derivative and predictable installment that feels like “Prey” meets “Tron: Ares” (2025) meets “Guardians of the Galaxy” (2014), then “Predator: Badlands” is worth the price of a matinee.
Michelle Pfeiffer puts a venomous twist on her line readings as the duplicitous and quite simply awful Queen Ingrith, and the great Warwick Davis from “Willow” and “Return of the Jedi” is the fantastically named Lickspittle, who is a kind of mad scientist for Queen Ingrith.
We’re never offered the Sam Raimi Spider-Man moments of seeing what an average person in the city feels about the event, making the real world feel just as artificial as The Grid.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
influenced TRON: Ares (2025)
Themes Characters
In fact I've seen Blade Runner 2.
Jared Leto brings the cold, robotic intensity he showed in Blade Runner 2049…
…a dubious CEO in the anticlimactic “Blade Runner 2049” (2017)…
Since then we’ve gotten two Avatar films, hundreds of hours of Marvel and Star Wars, The Fall, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Love Witch, and the entirety of Wes Anderson‘s career.
When one of the giant, metallic Recognizers materializes and hovers over the film’s nameless (but Vancouver-ish) metropolis, the camera lingers on the moment, making the device look both solid and threatening in ways alien to similar moments in the Transformers films.
There are sequences in Tron: Ares that almost compel one to defend it, much like Speed Racer.