- calendar_today August 29, 2025
Comic-Con Sneak Peek: TRON: Ares New Trailer Analysis
San Diego Comic-Con is just days away, and to help hype its keynote ahead of the event, Disney dropped a new trailer for its latest film, TRON: Ares. The sci-fi adventure, helmed by director Joachim Rønning, is the newest addition to the classic franchise, and it looks like it will continue the series in a new direction by bringing the story into the real world.
The last time audiences visited the digital landscape of the Grid, it was in 2010’s TRON: Legacy. In the sequel to the original TRON, Kevin Flynn’s (Jeff Bridges) son, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), saved the Grid and the real world by preventing the Grid’s monstrous program Clu from uniting both and causing a digital world crash in the real world. Sam is also able to escape the Grid with Quorra (Olivia Wilde), a special isomorphic algorithm (ISO) that Clu sent to kill. However, before she could do so, Sam and Quorra escaped together.
At one point, Disney announced that the third installment in the franchise would pick up where Legacy left off, with the company’s approval coming back in October 2010. Titled TRON 3, the story was set to follow Sam and Quorra’s exploits as Sam took over the company that his father built, ENCOM. However, the franchise’s continued development fell by the wayside and was officially canceled in 2015, reportedly as a result of the lackluster box office performance of another Disney sci-fi film, Tomorrowland.
That wasn’t the last word for TRON, though, as the studio decided to pick up the franchise again in 2020, but as a standalone reboot, rather than a direct sequel to Legacy. Some of the material from previous scripts carried over, including the presence of Ares, a major artificial intelligence (AI) entity that was in earlier drafts of TRON: Legacy and earlier installments of the TRON series. After enduring some additional delays from the pandemic and the most recent Hollywood labor strikes, TRON: Ares has finally finished filming and is ready for release.
“The Grid is the old world,” Disney writes in its official synopsis. “TRON: Ares follows a highly sophisticated Program, Ares, who is sent from the digital world into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking the first time mankind encounters AI beings.” Jared Leto stars as Ares, and he’s joined by Evan Peters as Julian Dillinger and Greta Lee as Eve Kim, while Jodie Turner-Smith, Cameron Monaghan, Sarah Desjardins, Hasan Minhaj, Arturo Castro, and Gillian Anderson also star. The late Jeff Bridges will reprise his role as Kevin Flynn, while the music for TRON: Ares will be handled by industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails.
Looks Like He Has a Blade to Be Ruthless With, Trailer Shows
The first trailer, which was released in April, did an excellent job of capturing the look and feel of the TRON universe, complete with familiar elements of gliding neon lines, high-speed lightcycles, and vibrant vistas within the digital world. However, the trailer provided little insight into the plot of the movie itself, beyond the film still that showed an older Flynn standing by a mirror, with a potential image of his younger self appearing within.
The new trailer that was released this week, on the other hand, maintains all of the eye-catching aesthetics of its predecessor, but provides a little more context into the motivations of the story. The trailer opens in what looks like the set of a tech industry keynote. Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters) takes to the stage and makes an ominous statement to his audience: “So much talk of AI and big tech today. Virtual worlds, what are they going to look like? When will we get there? Well, folks. We’re not going there. They are coming here.”
Dillinger then goes on to reveal his “ultimate soldier” and shows Ares to the audience. Ares quickly proves that he is, in fact, the “ultimate soldier.” He even echoes his creator’s braggadocio by asserting, “He’s biblically strong, lightning fast, and supremely intelligent. And if he is struck down on the battlefield…” — at which point, Dillinger smashes Ares down into the floor of the stage set — “…I will simply make you another.” The exchange gives Dillinger’s character a corporate villain vibe, as one who believes he is the master of technology and AI.
The trailer may also be misleading, however, as Dillinger and the viewers might both think that Ares belongs to him and that he can do as he pleases with him, but Ares is seemingly on a mission of his own. The AI program runs off in a single-minded quest for something he does not quite understand, but that he must find. It could be a tease for a more philosophical turn from the film, and Flynn himself is soon shown in the digital world asking himself, “A malfunctioning program who wants to live, why is that?”
Fans of the original TRON films may be here for Bridges as Flynn, but Leto’s performance as an AI character that attempts to breach the gap between the digital and the real worlds should add a layer to the franchise’s exploration of the concepts and limitations of the intersection between man and machine. The trailer also doesn’t fail to give fans the nostalgic aesthetics of TRON, with Rønning’s direction showing a mix of futuristic techscapes and more grounded environments of the real world. Paired with an atmospheric score from Nine Inch Nails, TRON: Ares has the potential to be both an action-packed return to the series and a philosophical deep dive into the concepts of AI self-autonomy and human ethics.
Fans have been waiting over a decade for the return of TRON, but it is finally nearly here. On October 10, 2025, theaters will once again be lit up by the neon-lit grandeur of TRON: Ares.
