TRUN ARES
OUT 10 OCT
THIS AIN’T YOUR DADDY’S TRON. WELCOME TO A NEW DIGITAL FUTURE
WORDS ALEX GODFREY
Left:
Computer program Ares (Jared Leto) is about to break into the real world.
TRON
INVENTED THE FUTURE. THE 1982 film, written and directed by prodigious talent Steven Lisberger, was lightyears ahead of its time, as pioneering as cinema gets, influencing and inspiring in equal measure. Following computer programmer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) as he found himself trapped inside software, fighting —and racing —for his life against programs, the film did well enough at the box office, but its legacy is infinite.
“Nobody had done what he did,” says Joachim Rønning, the director who, over 40 years on, has picked up the mantle. “I mean, talk about really nobody understanding what you’re doing,” he says of what Lisberger started. “It wasn’t even eligible for a [visual-effects] Oscar, because they felt it was cheating that he had used computers.”