After watching the new TRON: Ares, I decided to go back and revisit the original Tron and then eventually Legacy. I was afraid this first one wouldn’t hold up on rewatch, but I honestly think I liked it more this time. I understood it more this time and thus, got more into the storyline.

Speaking of the story, that’s what’s often criticized when it comes to the Tron series as a whole. I’ve personally never really seen that though. It’s not incredibly deep or anything, but still very interesting to me. Even before the movie actually enters the video game world, I’m intrigued. It’s about a guy named Kevin Flynn, played by Jeff Bridges, who gets his video game programs stolen from him and so tries to recover the information that will prove that he was the original creator. While it’s not all that deep, Flynn establishes himself as a character you empathise with just because of this, and so you actually care about his mission to recover the data.

Once the actual plot kicks into play, which really isn’t too long, is when things start to get really interesting. There’s suspense before they enter the world of Tron, and almost like a stealth mission, which is right up my alley. Once they actually do enter the world of Tron though, is when everything iconic about this movie comes into play. There are brief scenes of the video game world before Flynn enters it, but once he enters it, we are automatically introduced to a world unlike anything from any other movie ever made. It’s so unique that it’s practically impossible not to remember it.

The main reason it’s so unique comes down to, obviously, the visual effects. They are incredibly dated, which is why a lot of people don’t like this movie, but undeniably like nothing else from the time. It’s a perfect look and design for a world that takes place inside a video game, and especially seeing how it evolves in TRON: Legacy makes this film even more satisfying. It’s really hard to describe the visual effects themself, but what I’ve come up with is that it kind of looks like what an unrendered CGI animation would look like today. It’s oddly appealing to look at (at least for me), and makes it hard for me to take my eyes off the screen.

Even adding onto the visuals aside from the visual effects, I really love the design of the world and the designs of the vehicles, costumes, and, I guess you could call them, weapons, though they aren’t strictly used as weapons. I’m talking about the stuff used in the action scenes. The standout design in the series is definitely the Recognizers. They are incredibly iconic, and are always used in effective ways in the Tron movies, in particular, they always give off a sense of doom for the characters when they’re around.

The other standout is definitely the Light Cycles. They are just wicked awesome, and have by far the best action scenes in both this and Legacy. Even for how dated this original Tron movie is, the main action sequence with the Light Cycles is still exhilarating and a blast to watch from beginning to end. It was so creative, not only because of how fun it is to watch, but because it also feels like it’s straight out of a video game. I do really like the sequences with the tanks and Recognizers though too. Speaking of action, there really isn’t a whole lot of it in this film, but what we do get is pretty cool.

When it comes to my negatives with Tron, I really only have two and they aren’t much of a dealbreaker at all. The first one is that the characters really don’t have much depth to them at all. Kevin Flynn is the same way a little bit too, but he can kind of get away with it because he’s just an interesting character in general and Jeff Bridges is fun to watch. However, everyone else is kind of hard to get around. What I mean specifically, is that a lot of the characters are just “there,” and you never really fully grasp their motivations or why they are doing what they are doing. It makes it hard to care about them on a truly deep level.

The other negative I have is something that was definitely fixed for me with a rewatch, and that is that this film can definitely be hard to follow at times. The first time I saw it, I treated it as a sort of “go with the flow” kind of film, so I still enjoyed it, but could easily see this being a dealbreaker for a lot of people. But like I said, after rewatching it, I fully understand the story now, and I also think both of the sequels, even Ares, help make this film more digestible when it comes to this.

Those two negatives are quite honestly dealbreakers for me a lot of the time, but I don’t come to the Tron movies necessarily for story or character depth; I come to the Tron movies for the incredible visuals and, of course, at least with Legacy, the score.