I’ve loved the Tron franchise for a long time! To me, this was one of the finest and most underrated franchises to come out of the House of Mouse, with some of the best visuals and concepts put to screen both of and ahead of its times. The gorgeous work from the original Tron to the fantastic sequences in Tron: Legacy still hold up today!
However, until now, we haven’t seen a whole lot of POC representation in the franchise. Thankfully, with Tron: Ares coming out in October, the game is finally about to change on this!
Tron: Ares has a stacked cast, including franchise mainstay Jeff Bridges and Oscar-winner Jared Leto. However, most appealing to me is the inclusion of the phenomenal actress Greta Lee, prominently being featured in the trailer. It also appears Lee might be receiving second billing under Leto, which makes me extremely excited that she may be one of the ensemble’s leads, given how much I loved Past Lives and all her other work. Take a look at the new trailer here:
In addition to Lee, the Grid is seeing the additions of Hasan Minhaj, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Arturo Castro. Though we don’t see these terrific performers in this brief teaser trailer just yet, seeing how we’re getting representation across all POC communities in a franchise that has predominantly been populated primarily by Caucasian actors makes me finally feel like I’m being seen in this franchise.
To be clear, I’ve never taken any faults with the franchise’s direction or previous ensembles. You can’t argue with how amazing Bridges is, and how the whole thing would collapse without him. And I will say, as a huge Legacy fan, I’ve been advocating for the returns of Olivia Wilde and Garrett Hedlund to continue the story left off by the second film’s cliffhanger for some time. However, to announce that we’re not only getting new POC faces in this third movie, but also POC faces that are phenomenal actors, only gets me infinitely more excited to return to the grid.
It doesn’t hurt that this trailer is 100 types of badass too, with an incredible score by Nine Inch Nails!
We also go our first look at the poster for the film today, showing the literal idea of the Grid and the real world colliding:
Now I don’t know about you all, but I’m SO ready to return to the Grid for Tron: Ares! October 10 simply can’t come soon enough!
Stay tuned to The Nerds of Color for more coverage of Tron: Ares as we approach our upcoming visit to the Grid!
