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Tron: Uprising was sleek, smart, and visually groundbreaking. It was a continuation of the Tron universe that gave fans everywhere exactly what they wanted.
Unlike Disney's Tron: Legacy, this animated series actually put Tron himself back at the center of the story, while also pushing the limits of animation and storytelling. And yet… somehow, almost no one remembers it.
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I can fix you. Make you perfect again. If you join us. Join Clue
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I'd rather stay like this forever than be a puppet of a tyrant. This is Tron Uprising. It's a sleek, smart, and visually brilliant continuation of the Tron
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universe. It also features the one thing Tron legacy overlooked, having Tron actually be a
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part of the story. And yet, despite being exactly what Tron fans wanted and pushing the boundaries
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of what animation could offer, no one seems to remember it. Next time we meet, I choose the locations
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The original Tron premiered in 1982, a story of a hacker who gets sucked into a computer
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and joins the battle for resistance against a fascist regime. The film was a technical marvel and a commercial failure
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People just weren't ready for the idea of computer animation. Cut to 2010, and Disney decided to push forward
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with a legacy sequel aptly titled Tron Legacy. This film was also a visual masterpiece that pushed the boundaries of what computer animation was capable of
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At this moment, the key to the next frontier is finally in our possession
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And tragically, it also struggled to perform at the box office. For most people, that's the extent of the Tron franchise
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Two entries that came and went. But what they don't realize is there's actually an extended world of media produced about the grid
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Multiple video games, comics, and novels. But for those sacred few that studied the dark magic of the depths of the grid, there's a definitive work
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Tron Uprising. The show, created by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, the screenwriters of Tron Legacy, ran for a total of 19 episodes on Disney XD
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The plot centers around a young program, Beck, played by Elijah Wood, who is being taken under Tron's wing and taught how to lead a newly developing rebellion against the authoritarian Clue
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This might sound boilerplate, but the show takes this fairly basic high concept and makes it sing
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It develops and evolves both the characters and the world of Tron to previously unseen heights
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You special I saw what you did tonight You have a gift Beck Arguably the biggest creative risk the show takes nothing about it happens in the real world The narrative transpires exclusively within the grid
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It's age-appropriate, yet mature, action-oriented, yet philosophical, and has an aesthetic all its own
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The show also features a stellar voice cast of actors you'd normally never see in an animated show
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Mandy Moore, the previously mentioned Elijah Wood, Lance Henriksen, Paul Rubens, Trisha Helfer
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and of course, Bruce Boxleitner, as the titular Tron all bring a gravitas and grounded nature to the objectively over-the-top
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story setting. Despite Tron Legacy failing and Uprising obviously solely being produced as a
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stopgap to attempt to build continuing support for the franchise, Tron Uprising doesn't fall
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into some of the more myopic tendencies that animated spinoffs of live-action properties fall
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into. The show is a great on-ramp to the franchise. It's a standalone story which, frankly, delivers
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more on the themes and visuals than its bigger budgeted 200 million dollar cousin does a young
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program decides clue must be stopped his name is back could he be the next tron uprising walks you
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into the world and very succinctly shows you why it's so fun to be a tron fan and also how weird
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the universe can get the show is avant-garde exciting and complex in a way the movie just
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doesn't have time for one of the main reasons why tron uprising has stood the test of time
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is its visual identity. The show doesn't look like anything else produced before or since
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And who's the person who's most chiefly responsible for that? Robert Valli
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The Canadian illustrator who was nominated for an Oscar for his short film Pear Cider and Cigarettes in 2016
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set much of the style and energy of the show through his character designs
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Sure, Spanish artist Alberto Mielgo built much of the aesthetics of the world
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and animation style, but it was Robert Valli's elongated anatomy, Egon Sheely's influenced faces, and Peter Chung-esque legs that gave the show its life
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The way Valley breaks down a face into polygonal shapes and abstracts the representation of the human body
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makes it feel so much more appropriate to the genre than the live renditions Sure of course you don get here without Steven Lisberger original classic but when you really sit and think about it the programs should have abstracted human aesthetics
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not just people in gray-spanatic suits with circuit boards drawn on them. Valley's interpretation of Tron
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is the apex of what the character was supposed to be in his initial appearances
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Much like its live-action cousin, the Tron Uprising story is part legacy narrative
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inspired by the Batman Beyond mold and part Spartacus tale. You have your wizened original hero
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a looming existential threat, and a new hero that needs to take up the mantle and fight back against the rising tide of injustice
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I need you to help me carry on that name. Show everyone that as long as Tron lives, there is still hope
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We're treated to an extended cast of supporting characters, expansions on Clue, his henchmen underbosses
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and real development about the political conditions of the grid. This show takes everything established in the movies and evolves the ideas far beyond what you would normally expect for a children's show
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The ideas that are hinted at in Tron Legacy are mined for maximum narrative potential in this all-too-short series
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To make things even more frustrating, there were plans for a second season and even an animated film
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Depending on which sources you believe, the movie was either going to bridge the gap between seasons or the show and Legacy's story
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And yet this show didn't leave a particularly deep cultural groove, which is nothing short of tragic
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From the action choreography to the character development to the world building
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this series accomplished the impossible. So much so, in fact, that it's also surprising this wasn't the story that Disney went with
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for the live-action feature instead of Sam Flynn's story. Beck is a more dynamic character and a more exciting arc
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This story actually has a character named Tron prominently featured in it
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One of the major downfalls of Tron Uprising is that the show aired on Disney XD
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In an era where the streaming boom was just happening, the kids that were watching TV were starting to migrate in droves to iPads and computers
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not tuning in at a specific time to a basic cable network. And yet the show won several awards, an Emmy and multiple Annies to be specific
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but that wasn enough Despite the premiere episode pulling in almost 2 million viewers the second episode numbers dipped down to only 500 And by the end of season one
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the show was barely cresting over 300,000. Did the show have interesting developments like
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a compelling villain in Tesla and a former Tron protege turned villain played by Aaron Paul named
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Cyrus? Yes, absolutely. The maturity and dexterity of the storytelling on display was masterful
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The season even ends with one of the most memorable cliffhangers ever
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Clue and an armada of ships descend on Argon City, and Tron says
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The uprising has begun. But that's where everything stopped. The mosaic of compelling characters, exciting visuals, and brilliant writing
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wasn't enough to overcome Legacy's box office underperformance, and the show itself's low viewership
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In another world, the powers that be would have been able to see just how amazing the show was
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and if it was given time to grow, we could have had a whole parallel franchise
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spawn out of this forgotten animated classic. But that's not the world we live in
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We exist in the timeline where season two plans were abandoned and the show was permanently shelved
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Now, almost 15 years later after its release, Tron Ares is making its way into theaters
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Will this show bring a new founded excitement to the Tron franchise? Frankly, that seems unlikely
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Due to the fact that this isn't really a direct continuation of Legacy or Uprising
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Ares appears to be picking up the narrative thread of programs in the real world
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Fascinating. Only time will tell if that's the right move. Uprising gave us something that almost no Legacy sequel has accomplished
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It gave us a new and fresh version of the visuals of a franchise known for metaphorically reinventing the wheel
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Sure, the technical innovations of the 1982 classic are towering in their own right
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but they're such a bold step forward that they almost haven't aged as well as you'd expect
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While Legacy redefined much of that aesthetic, and for Uprising to ostensibly do that exact same task in the highly restrictive media landscape of children's action shows, that's almost more impressive than the other two bold strides forward
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And yet, it wasn't enough to guarantee more episodes of the show
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It just goes to show you, genius is rarely appreciated in its own time