Throne Legacy

[Daisy Hughlett]

TronLegacy (stylized as TRON: Legacy) is a 2010 American science fiction action film directed by Joseph Kosinski from a screenplay by Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, based on a story by Horowitz, Kitsis, Brian Klugman, and Lee Sternthal. It serves as a sequel to Tron (1982), whose director Steven Lisberger returned to co-produce. The cast includes Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner reprising their roles as Kevin Flynn and Alan Bradley, respectively, as well as Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, James Frain, Beau Garrett, and Michael Sheen. The story follows Flynn's adult son Sam, who responds to a message from his long-lost father and is transported into a virtual reality called "the Grid", where Sam, his father, and the algorithm Quorra must stop the malevolent program Clu from invading the real world.

Interest in creating a sequel to Tron arose after the film garnered a cult following. After much speculation, Walt Disney Pictures began a concerted effort in 2005 to devise a sequel, with the hiring of Klugman and Sternthal as writers. Kosinski was recruited as director two years later. As he was not optimistic about Disney's The Matrix-esque approach to the film, Kosinski filmed a concept trailer, which he used to conceptualize the universe of Tron: Legacy and convince the studio to greenlight the film. Principal photography took place in Vancouver over 67 days, in and around the city's central business district. Most sequences were shot in 3D and ten companies were involved with the extensive visual effects work. Chroma keying and other techniques were used to allow more freedom in creating effects. Daft Punk composed the musical score, incorporating orchestral sounds with their trademark electronic music.[7]

Tron: Legacy premiered in Tokyo on November 30, 2010, and was released in the United States on December 17, by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Disney vigorously promoted the film across multiple media platforms, including merchandising, consumer products, theme parks, and advertising. Upon its release, the film received mixed reviews from critics, who criticized the story and character development, but praised the performances of Bridges and Sheen, the visual effects, production design, and soundtrack. It was a commercial success, grossing $400 million during its worldwide theatrical run against a $170 million production budget. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Sound Editing at the 83rd Academy Awards, but lost to Inception. Like its predecessor, Tron: Legacy has been described as a cult film. A standalone sequel, Tron: Ares, is scheduled to be released on October 10, 2025.[8][9]

In 1989, Kevin Flynn, who was promoted to CEO of ENCOM International seven years earlier,[N 1] disappears. Twenty years later, his son Sam, now ENCOM's primary shareholder, pranks the corporation by releasing the company's signature operating system online for free. ENCOM executive Alan Bradley, Flynn's old friend, approves of this, believing it aligns with Flynn's ideals of free software. Nonetheless, Sam is arrested for trespassing.

Alan posts bail for Sam and tells him of a pager message originating from Flynn's shuttered video arcade. There, Sam discovers a hidden basement with a large computer and laser, which suddenly digitizes and downloads him into the Grid, a virtual reality created by Flynn. He is captured and sent to "the Games", where he must fight a masked computer program named Rinzler. When Sam is injured and bleeds, Rinzler realizes Sam is human, or a "User". He takes Sam to Clu, the Grid's corrupt ruling program, who resembles a young Kevin.

Clu nearly kills Sam in a Light Cycle match, but Sam is rescued by Quorra, an "apprentice" of Flynn, who shows him Flynn's hideout outside Clu's territory. Flynn explains that he had been working to create a "perfect" computer system and had appointed Clu and security program Tron as its co-creators. The trio discovered a species of naturally occurring "isomorphic algorithms" (ISOs), with the potential to resolve various natural mysteries. Clu, considering them an aberration, betrayed Flynn, killed Tron, and destroyed the ISOs. The "Portal" permitting travel between the two worlds closed, leaving Flynn trapped in the system. Clu sent the message to Alan hoping to lure him into the Grid (though Sam serves his purpose just as well) and reopen the Portal for a limited time. Since Flynn's "identity disc" is the master key to the Grid and the only way to traverse the Portal, Clu expects Sam to bring Flynn to the Portal so he can take Flynn's disc, go through the Portal himself, and impose his idea of perfection on the human world.

Against his father's wishes, Sam returns to Clu's territory to find Zuse, a program who can provide safe passage to the Portal. At the End of Line Club, the owner reveals himself to be Zuse, then betrays Sam to Clu's guards. In the resulting fight, Flynn rescues his son, but Quorra is injured and Zuse gains possession of Flynn's disc. Zuse attempts to bargain with Clu over the disc, but Clu betrays him and destroys the club along with Zuse. Flynn and Sam stow away aboard a "Solar Sailer" transport program, where Kevin restores Quorra and reveals her to be the last surviving ISO.

Beau Garrett appears as Gem, one of four programs known as Sirens. The Sirens operate the Grid's game armory, equipping combatants with the armor needed to compete in the games, while also reporting to Castor.[26][27] Serinda Swan, Yaya DaCosta, and Elizabeth Mathis depict the other three Sirens.[28] Jeffrey Nordling stars as Richard Mackey, the chairman of ENCOM's executive board, and Cillian Murphy makes an uncredited appearance as Edward Dillinger, Jr., the head of ENCOM's software design team and the son of former ENCOM Senior Executive Ed Dillinger portrayed by David Warner in the original film.[29] Daft Punk, who composed the score for the film, cameo as disc jockey programs at Castor's End of Line Club, and Tron creator Steven Lisberger makes an appearance as Shaddix, a bartender in the End of Line Club.[19][30]

Shortly after hiring Kosinski, Bailey approached screenwriting duo Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, who accepted for being self-described "obsessed about Tron." Horowitz later claimed the challenge was to "homage the first movie, continue the story, expand it and take it to another place and open up space for new fans," and Kitsis claimed that the film would start a whole new mythology "of which we're only scratching the surface."[37] Horowitz and Kitsis first created a story outline, and developed and fine-tuned the plot with Bailey and Kosinski across a period of two days in La Quinta. The writers also consulted Lisberger, to view Tron's creator input on the story.[38] Lisberger gave his blessing, particularly as he has a son the same age as Sam, which Kitsis stated that "was like we had tapped into something he was feeling without even realizing it."[39] The Pixar team contributed with rewrites for additional shooting after being shown a rough cut in March 2010,[40] which helped in particular to the development of Sam's story line.[41]

Horowitz revealed the film would contain many light cycle battles, and asserted that the script for the scenes were "incredibly detailed," and involved an intricate collaborative process.[38] For the disc game, Horowitz and Kitsis wrote a rough draft of the scene, and sent the script to Kosinski; he summarized his perspective of the sequence's visuals to them.[38] "He described them as these underlying platforms," said Horowitz, "that would then coalesce and then the way you would go from round to round in the game is you defeat someone, they kinda come together as you see in the movie."[38] After giving his intake, Kosinski sent various sketches of the scene to the writers and would often revise the script. Kitsis thought that illustrating the character's stories to be the most difficult task in writing Tron: Legacy.[38] The writers collaborated with the creative process throughout production, which was helpful especially considering the difficulties of describing in a tangible way a digital world that "in its very nature defies basic screenwriting conventions."[39]

Plans for creating Tron: Legacy began to materialize in 2005, when Walt Disney Studios hired screenwriters Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal as writers for the film. The two had recently finished writing the script for Warrior.[42] According to Variety columnist Michael Fleming, Klugman and Sternthal felt "that the world has caught up to Lisberger's original concept."[42] Klugman said of the precedent film: "It was remembered not only for story, but a visual style that nobody had ever used before. We are contemporizing it, taking ideas that were ahead of the curve and applying them to the present, and we feel the film has a chance to resonate to a younger audience."[42]

In 2007, Disney began to negotiate with Joseph Kosinski to direct Tron: Legacy. Kosinski admitted that at the time, he was not keen on the idea but it later grew on him as time progressed.[43] Kosinski was involved in a meeting with Bailey, president of Walt Disney Pictures. "Disney owns the property, Tron," Bailey stated. "Do you know it? Are you interested? What would your take be? In a post-Matrix world, how do you go back to the world of Tron?"[43] Kosinski wanted to embrace the general ambiance of the film and wished to not use the Internet as a model or use a formula emulative of The Matrix film series. As neither individuals were in equal agreement on choosing a perspective to conceive the film, Kosinski asked Bailey to lend him money in order to create a conceptual prototype of the Tron: Legacy universe, which was eventually presented at the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con International. "So, we went into Disney," he recalled, "and I told them, 'We can talk about this all day, but in order to really get on the same page, I need to show you what this world looks and feels like. Give me some money and let me do a small test that will give you a hint for a couple minutes of it, and see what you think.'"[43]

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