All the Questions We Still Have After ‘Tron: Ares’

Tron: Ares ends with a couple of big questions about what could come next on the Grid and beyond. Unfortunately, the biggest of those after opening weekend is whether any of them will ever get answered. The film experienced a tepid opening, failing to outgross its 2010 predecessor, meaning the world of Tron may be officially dead. And yet it took almost three decades for a second Tron to come out and almost another two for the third one. Over the years, the franchise has shown an incredible ability to reboot, so let’s do that too.

Below are 12 questions and some attempts at answers we have after seeing Tron: Ares. Major spoilers follow.

What does Ares want with Quorra?

Tron: Ares ends with Ares (Jared Leto), now able to exist permanently in the real world, looking for the Iso named Quorra (Olivia Wilde), the digital being Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) moved off the Grid at the end of Tron: Legacy. That Ares, created by Dillinger Corp., would want to find Quorra, created naturally in the Grid, makes sense. He certainly has a lot of questions she could potentially answer. But what does he think will happen beyond that? Is there a method to his madness? And also…

What have Sam and Quorra been up to?

While Tron: Legacy ended with some big questions about what it meant for a digital being to now exist in the real world, Tron: Ares largely pushes those events to the side. We learn that Sam Flynn did take over Encom for a while before leaving for personal reasons. And, we see that there were at least discussions or rumors about Quorra in the press. But what have they been up to in the 15 years since that film? What did Sam do at Encom when he was there? We don’t know.

Why did Sam Flynn leave Encom?

An offshoot of the last question is the specific nature of Sam’s leaving Encom. Did he have a new project planned with Quorra? Did he reconnect with a digital version of his father? You almost get the sense that whatever story is happening with Sam and Quorra off-screen is just, kind of, whatever that original version of Tron 3, Tron: Ascension, may have been. Speaking of…

Could Tron 4 use elements of Tron: Ascension?

Last week, we spoke to Tron: Ares writer Jesse Wigutow, who also worked extensively on Tron: Ascension before it was shelved. Since Tron: Ascension focused on Sam and Quorra’s journey and presumably was a pretty good script after years of development, we asked about that. “That’s a great question,†he said. “I don’t know that I have thought about it quite in that way, other than the fact that Ascension…. I don’t know, is the answer. We’ll find out if there’s an opportunity or a conversation around doing another one of these at one point. It’s kind of above my pay grade. But I do think it’s an exciting idea anyway, potentially, that Ares and Quorra find each other.â€

What is happening with Julian Dillinger?

To avoid prosecution and almost certainly prison time, at the end of Tron: Ares, Julian Dillinger sends himself to the Grid. There, we see that he sort of starts to become Sark, the digital double of his grandfather, Ed Dillinger Sr., from the original film. How is that happening? Why is that happening? And if Julian does become Sark and works to gain control of the Dillinger Grid, what kind of damage will he do? We, of course, can’t answer any of those, but they’re fun to think about.

Where the hell is Tron?

One major character that’s not a part of Tron: Ares is Tron himself, the original hero program from the first film. We asked Wigutow about his absence from the movie. “I think there was a conversation at one point [about bringing him back],†Wigutow said. “At a certain point in the development, it just wanted to make this its own thing. And it wasn’t that there was a choice to say, ‘We don’t need Tron.’ There just wasn’t a role in this story that was obvious. And to kind of shoehorn it in felt, I don’t know, like it wasn’t necessary.â€

Then why is it called Tron?

Simple. Most people know Tron as a movie, not as a character in that movie or a game that exists in the world of the movie. You kind of have to call it that for the name recognition.

Is Athena really gone?

Athena, played by Jodie Turner-Smith, is clearly one of the best parts of Tron: Ares. But, when Encom hacks and destroys the Dillinger grid while she’s still in the real world, it seems as if she has nowhere to go and dies for real. Could she really have been permanently deleted? It’s certainly possible. But, with the Permanence Code now out there, you do have to think she might find a way to get revenge on Ares at some point.

What exactly was that version of Kevin Flynn?

To acquire the Permanence Code, Ares goes into an old copy of the Grid from the original film. There, he encounters Kevin Flynn. But not any Kevin Flynn. An older Kevin Flynn. This Flynn makes it clear you can’t jump between Grids without going into the real world, so is this a Flynn that existed here since the 1980s? Does he have any knowledge of Clu, Sam, and everything in Legacy? We aren’t sure and, frankly, are a little mad it’s left so vague.

What, exactly, is Ares?

If you are a computer program that is given a code that lets you exist in the real world, what exactly are you? Do you have human organs? Are you just wires? We asked Wigutow what he thinks Ares actually is now that he’s in the real world. “I think that there is this kind of unspoken, natural resource that’s probably quite valuable that is fueling those lasers,†he said. “And there’s something about the kind of genetic binding that can’t live beyond the time limit that we put on it, that the Permanence Code then makes binding. So in a way, if you were to kind of slice them in half and do a diagnostic or autopsy, yeah, I’d like to believe that you would find human biology. But I don’t know that that’s the correct answer.â€

Are the endings of Legacy and Ares similar on purpose?

And so in the end, our hero brings the digital being off the Grid to live like a human in the real world. It’s the ending of Tron: Legacy as well as Tron: Ares. Was that done on purpose? “It’s part of the kind of genetic mapping of the franchise,†Wigutow said. “I love the kind of ellipsis that the movie leaves itself off on. [Ares] is out there. He’s learning. He’s growing. He’s developing. And who knows where we may find him next and what he looks like and what, you know, what he’s grown into?†So, it wasn’t done on purpose; it just made sense.

Where is Cillian Murphy in all this?

You may have forgotten, but in Tron: Legacy, the Dillinger family was represented by Ed Dillinger Jr., played by eventual Oscar winner Cillian Murphy. Ed Jr. was the son of the villainous character from the first movie and was planned to have a larger role if a sequel had happened closer to the previous movie. Murphy got a little too big for a bit part by the time Ares was released so he’s not here. But Julian Dillinger is Ed Sr.’s grandson. So, either he’s Ed Jr.’s son, or Ed Jr. is his uncle. We don’t know. But we can safely assume he’s out there.

What other questions do you have about Tron: Ares? Let us know below.

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