Character page for the 1982 film TRON. For the other entries of the TRON franchise, see the index below:
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Humans
Kevin Flynn
Kevin Flynn
"Greetings, programs!"
Portrayed by: Jeff Bridges
Portrayed by: Alain Dorval (European French)
A former programmer at ENCOM whose ideas for video games were stolen by Dillinger. Dillinger subsequently fired him from the company to silence him. When we meet him, Flynn has spent at least a year seeking evidence of Dillinger's theft, with no success. Alan and Lora enlist him to help them put an end to Dillinger's abuse of power, but the MCP responds to their efforts in a way none of them could have predicted.
- Action Survivor: When he gets zapped in, he has no idea what the hell he's doing, essentially bouncing from one Indy Ploy to the next and hoping it works.
- Audience Surrogate: He learns about the Grid at the same time as the viewers.
- Deadpan Snarker: A major snarker:Flynn: I never should have written all those tank programs.
Flynn: Now that is a big door! - Did Not Get the Girl: Broke up with Lora before the film, and briefly kisses Yori before leaving her world.
- God in Human Form: As a User to the programs.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Thinks jumping into the laser will cause him to die, but it simply rematerializes him back into the real world.
- Hidden Badass: When he ends up in the digital world, he looks indistinguishable from the other programs, but as a User, he has powers that they (and even Flynn himself) never expect.
- Hollywood Hacking: Though his methods aren't too unrealistic compared to other examples. Sitting at Lora's terminal, he was getting ready to put the MCP into a logic loop so he could search for his file uninhibited. Had he not been sitting in front of the digitizing laser, he might have succeeded.
- I Did Your Wife: Part of his attempt to troll Alan is by asking if Lora still leaves her clothing on the floor. Yes, in a Disney film.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Mercilessly trolls Lora and Alan when they come by to help him out. Lora clearly got fed up with his shtick ages ago. Between the films, he has a bad habit of taking his friends and allies for granted. However, it's never done out of malice, and he's very willing to risk his life or even give it for his loved ones if it comes down to it.
- Last Kiss: Flynn steals a kiss from Yori before making his Heroic Sacrifice in the computer world.
- Manchild: He seems to have regressed to this state after getting kicked out of his company. When we first see him, he's the owner of an arcade and wowing his teenage customers with his virtuoso game skills. His office overlooks the arcade, and when he asks Alan about Lora's personal bedroom habits, Lora (his ex) shouts in frustration "Now, you see why all his friends are fourteen years old!"
- Master of Unlocking: Has a talent with electronic locks among his various skills and uses it to open the huge main door at ENCOM.
- Messianic Archetype: From the programs' perspective he is a literal divine being who descends from on high, joins the fight against evil, and returns to his own world by sacrificing himself to save program-kind.
- Nerds Are Sexy: Flynn is played by a young Jeff Bridges who changes shirts for the audience in one scene. In-universe he is noted for dating Lora and having an appreciative fan base based on his charisma and gaming skills.
- Playful Hacker: His opening scene is trying to hack into Encom, and his orders to CLU 1.0 indicate that he may have used his computer skills for a few unsavory purposes."This isn't just sorting out my phone bills or my bank statement again, this is serious".
- Sarcasm Mode: This mode is his default "on" mode; he makes snide remarks to his friends, allies, enemies, and doors.
- Tech Bro: Something of an Unbuilt Trope, given the film pre-dates the Internet. He's got the good looks, the flashy charisma, the athletic build, and behaves like an overgrown adolescent. He also has a huge ego and his primary motivation is to get the money owed to him for his tech genius. Unlike the current version of the trope, though, he's actually much nicer than he lets on and his goals become less about money and more about genuinely improving both the digital and analog worlds.
- There's No Place Like Home: Although his goals do eventually shift from "get home" to "free the system".
- Trapped in Another World: Ends up physically digitized into Cyberspace by the Deus est Machina Master Control Program.
- Virtual-Reality Warper: Gradually develops reality warping powers while in the grid.
Alan Bradley
Alan Bradley
Portrayed by: Bruce Boxleitner
One of the programmers at ENCOM, with big nerdy glasses and a hot-air popcorn machine, he created TRON.
- Ambiguous Situation: Was designing Tron with the ability to shut down Master Control (and expose Dillinger) just a coincidence, or did he know/suspect the AI and Dillinger were up to no good (see his venting to Gibbs and Lora that something isn't right since Master Control started running) and worked a whopper of a Batman Gambit on them, hoping he would be beneath notice until he and his software couldn't be stopped?
- Beneath Notice: Seems to be his standard operating procedure. He managed to keep his project security software beneath the notice of Dillinger and Master Control until it was WAY too late for them to do much about it.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: See Beneath Notice. He seems so mild-mannered and harmless that by the time someone thinks of him as a potential threat, it's too late to stop him.
- The Chessmaster: A downplayed and benign form of it. He had been constructing Tron for months, right under the noses of Dillinger and Master Control, while maintaining good relations with Walter Gibbs, the only one who outranked Dillinger. He had also been sending Dillinger regular memos on the project, which Dillinger promptly ignored. By the time Dillinger and Master Control realized what Tron was capable of, it was far too late.
- Chessmaster Sidekick: He becomes this to Flynn once the plan is in place to break into Encom, and between the films, becomes the man who put Flynn's big ideas for Encom into practical reality.
- The Creon: In the Expanded Universe, he becomes Flynn's second in command, and has no interest in taking the company himself. He's a programmer, not a businessman, and does his best work out of the spotlight. Twenty years and change later, he is very happy to let Sam Flynn be the flamboyant "face" of the company and run interference with the press while he makes the real decisions behind the scenes.
- Gentleman Snarker: He's never intentionally rude or impolite, but he still frequently lapses into sarcastic commentary, especially when it comes to voicing his disapproval of Flynn's shenanigans.
- Glasses Pull: When he's complaining to Lora about Dillinger and the MCP.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Part of the reason he was not inclined to help Flynn at first is because of Lora's past with him.
- Happily Married: To Lora in both sequel timelines.
- Nerd Glasses: His large and unflattering spectacles.
- Nerds Are Sexy: Alan manages to look striking in his programming outfit and is in a healthy relationship with Lora.
- Nice Guy: All of his actions are good and nice, and even when he's on edge, the strongest word he will use is "frustrated". He even lets a coworker have some of his popcorn when he's in a bad mood.
- Only Sane Man: Appears to consider himself as such compared to Flynn and Lora.
- The Reliable One: A stable, reliable fellow who tends to plan ahead as compared to Flynn's flashier "make it up as I go along" style. Becomes especially prominent in the Expanded Universe, where he tended to run interference between Flynn's more outlandish ideas and the corporate board and hold the line of Flynn's (and Gibbs's) vision for Encom in the sequel timelines.
- Shout-Out:
- To Allen-Bradley, a brand of computer equipment.
- Also to Alan Kay, a computer software pioneer, and co-writer Bonnie McBird's husband.
- Sour Supporter: He isn't thrilled with the idea of helping his fiancee's ex-boyfriend, at least at first.
- Technician Versus Performer: He's anything but flashy or charismatic, withers if put in the spotlight, and is the most cautious of the trio. However, it's his software that actually stands a chance of shutting down Master Control. And even twenty years of brainwashing couldn't completely override all the safeties Alan put in.
- To Be Lawful or Good: He's very much on the fence about warning Flynn, much less helping. The "lawful" option would be to look the other way, let Flynn get caught, and give up on his software. The "good" option involves about a half-dozen felonies for all the right reasons. He takes the "good" option.
- Xanatos Gambit: As an Establishing Character Moment! He's called up to Dillinger's office and talks about the software he's working on. Oh, yes. It's an independently-run security monitor software. Yes, he's been working on it for a while and submitted the proper memos. Yes, he's kept Gibbs informed. Oh, it will watchdog Master Control. Yes, it's capable of shutting down Master Control. Is there a problem? If Dillinger and Master Control destroyed Tron without firing Alan, it would draw suspicion and Alan could try again. If they fired Alan, then it would likely cause Gibbs to investigate, which would expose them. If Alan were allowed access to Tron (which happened), they would also get exposed and shut down. No matter what, Alan would win. Master Control's only real option was to speed up the timeline on taking over both ends of the Cold War while Dillinger tried to lean on Gibbs.
Ed Dillinger
Ed Dillinger
Portrayed by: David Warner
The Corrupt Corporate Executive responsible for the Master Control Progam, and Flynn's termination from ENCOM. He is now Senior Executive Vice President thanks to his "contribution" to the company line.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Created the initial version of the MCP and stole Flynn's ideas to rise in ENCOM but by the time of the film he's subservient to his own creation. Dillinger is visibly terrified by the MCP's more diabolical schemes but powerless to do anything about it and can only stare in horror when the MCP threatens to expose him for his own crimes.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: He stole the plans for several of Flynn's games and passed them off as his own. He shows himself to be unethical and dishonest throughout the film. Toward the end of the movie, it is implied that he even stole the original MCP from Gibbs, when it is shown that the MCP's core has Gibbs's face.
- Dirty Coward: When Dillinger learns that MCP plans to hack into the Pentagon and Kremlin, MCP dissuades him from going to the authorities by threatening to expose his theft of Flynn's programs to the press. This is enough to silence Dillinger.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Dillinger balks when MCP expresses desire to hack into the Pentagon and Kremlin, though it is probably an example of Pragmatic Villainy, because there's a good chance the MCP will fail, and guess who will take the blame from the two major Cold War powers?
- Idiot Ball: He ran with this one, but willingly letting the MCP hack the Pentagon and Kremlin just so it wouldn't tell the world about all the programs he'd stolen will forever be one of the classics.
- Jerkass: His demeanor is arrogant, he passes off Flynn's games as his own, and he hints that he could fire Gibbs after Gibbs criticizes him.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Reacts this way when he learns the full extent of the MCP's plans.
- Oh, Crap!:
- He has one when Alan informs him that Tron would be able to watchdog Master Control. As soon as Alan's out of earshot, Master Control seems to share the sentiment.
- Dillinger also gets this when the MCP casually mentions that it plans to take over both the Pentagon and the Kremlin. And when Dillinger angrily protests to this, the MCP forces him into submission by threatening to reveal his theft of Flynn's programs to everyone.
- Downplayed at the end of the film after Flynn's documentation of Dillinger's plagiarism is displayed on his desk screen following the MCP's death, and he realizes his game is up. He says nothing, but the look on his face is enough.
- "Oh, Crap!" Smile: Downplayed during his "talk" with Alan right after Alan drops the bombshell that, yes, his software will run independently. And oh, yes. Said software can disable Master Control. Dillinger slaps on his best fake smile, says "sounds good", and hustles Alan out of the office ASAP.
- Smug Snake: Despite his arrogance, he's not nearly as in control as he thinks he is. As Flynn describes him, "Not so young, not so bright, but very, very sneaky."
- Stealing the Credit: Hacked into Flynn's files, stole all the data on the games he developed, then presented them as his own.Flynn: He didn't even change the names!
Lora Baines
Lora Baines (Lora Baines-Bradley in the Expanded Universe)
Portrayed by: Cindy Morgan
One of the programmers at ENCOM, specializing in laser research and digitizing objects. Also the current love interest of Alan Bradley, and the former love interest of Kevin Flynn.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Towards Flynn by the end of the first movie.
- Happily Married: To Alan in both sequel timelines after the events of the first film.
- Ice Queen: Flynn halfheartedly accused her of acting like this before they broke up; he may or may not have been serious.
- The Pig-Pen: She does leave her clothes on the floor, after all.
- Put on a Bus: Come the Betrayal comic, the Shiva laser project is shut down at Encom, and she follows a job opportunity in Washington DC.
- The Missus and the Ex: A gender-swapped variation, with Alan as the Mister, Flynn as the ex.
- Small Role, Big Impact: On screen for roughly ten minutes, and effectively written out of the sequels (dead in one canon, stuck in Washington DC for the other), but she co-invented the laser that got the whole franchise started, she was the one who persuaded Alan that they needed to warn Flynn, and she came up with the plan to break them into Encom and become a team of three. Oh, and wrote Yori on top of all that.
Walter Gibbs
Walter Gibbs
Portrayed by: Barnard Hughes
An ENCOM scientist. Gibbs founded ENCOM, originally running it out of his garage before Dillinger took over, and doesn't approve of Dillinger's methods.
- Benevolent Boss: His marching up to Dillinger's office and chewing him out was because he was upset over Alan being locked out of his project. He also quickly reinstated Flynn and gave him Dillinger's former job after Dillinger was exposed.
- Cool Old Guy: He was the guy who founded ENCOM, but was more interested in scientific development than money. He invented the laser that got it all started. He was also the only person on-screen who dared to tear Dillinger a new one to his face over the way things were run.
- For Science!: He was so happy to be working in a lab with his laser project that he all but handed Dillinger the company he built.
- Honest Corporate Executive: He started Encom in his garage, and built it to a multi-billion empire, but is most passionate about scientific discovery and information freedom.
- Kicked Upstairs: Dillinger wanted him out of the way, and he was so distracted by the scientific potential of the Shiva laser that he didn't notice how much power Dillinger accumulated.
- Nerd Glasses: He wears some big spectacles when outside of the lab to highlight his mousiness vs. Dillinger's business savvy.
Programs
TRON
TRON
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users".
Portrayed by: Bruce Boxleitner
Appears in alternate continuities: Kingdom Heartsnote
A security program (basically the 1982 version of a firewall), written by Alan, that threatens the Master Control Program's plans to infiltrate and take over government computers. Held prisoner by Sark as a Game Grid gladiator when Flynn first sees him.
- Action Hero: Acts as the real leader of the group as they attempt to escape, despite Flynn nominally taking charge as the only User.
- Big Good: Created by Lora and Alan to curtail Master Control's unmitigated power. He gets sent to the Game Grid to die for his efforts, but is notoriously difficult to kill.
- Bruiser with a Soft Center: Yes, he's the biggest badass in cyberspace. He's also a very loyal and sweet guy. He's visibly shaken when it looks like Flynn and Ram were killed. When he's running through the city, an urgent call from his User pending, he goes to rescue his girlfriend first (and, if you believe that
Deleted Scene, go back to her place for a while). His Kingdom Hearts II incarnation is even more so. - Combat and Support: He handles combat. Yori handles support.
- Dork Knight: Yup. Badass in a combat arena, and a completely earnest, sweet-natured dork when the discs aren't flying.
- Establishing Character Moment: TRON's Badass cred is established in his very first appearance, where he is seen taking on four other Programs in a blatantly-unfair disc duel... and wins. Then he raises his disc to the sky, as if dedicating his victory to the Users.
- Friendly Sniper: Is an expert at throwing his disc with precision.
- Happily Married: Or the Program equivalent of such with Yori, in the same way that Alan and Lora are. Given much more detail in the Novelization. note
- Meaningful Name: TRON means "trace on," similar to his functions in the game. Also abbreviated from "electronic".
- Name-Tron: According to Lisberger, TRON is a shortening of the word elecTRONic. He didn't learn until years later that there was a BASIC command that was also TRON (a debugging tool, short for "trace on"). note
- Religious Bruiser: Bordering on The Paladin. He explicitly states that he fights for the Users, particularly his creator, Alan. Much of the reason he was sent to the Games was because he refused to abandon that faith. It's probably dimmed significantly come the TRON: Uprising era.
- Supporting Leader: Tron is the title character and the action hero, but it's really Flynn's show.
- Three Laws-Compliant: Will not injure a User, or by inaction allow Users to come to harm? Check. This is a big plot point in the sequel. Obeys orders given by Users unless it comes into conflict with the first law? Check. Will fight to preserve his own life unless it comes into conflict with the first two directives? Check, and tragically so.
- Tron Lines: Imagine that. Blue, with a large T on his chest made of light squares.
Master Control Program
Master Control Program
"End of line".
Voiced by: David Warner
The Big Bad. An artificially intelligent program used by Dillinger to advance his career at ENCOM by assimilating the functions of all the other programs on their mainframe. It eventually begins planning to take over other systems, like the U.S. Military's computers, and even overcomes Dillinger's control. Inside the computer world, the MCP is a totalitarian dictator attempting to stamp out even the belief in users.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: He's a sentient program who kills other programs and seeks control of the Pentagon and Kremlin. He figures he can run things 900 to 1200 times better than any human.
- Bad Boss: He inflicts pain on Sark whenever Sark disappoints him or shows trepidation.
- Badass Boast: "No one User wrote me. I'm worth millions of their man-years".
- Big Bad: The main antagonist of the film, who rules his network with an iron fist and plans on expanding to others.
- Deus est Machina: The Master Control Program is the supreme leader of the digital world and has grown smart enough to blackmail people in the real world.
- Evil Counterpart: To Dumont. When shown in his chess program form, he's even inside of a similar apparatus to dumont's in the i/o tower.
- Evil Is Sterile: The MCP cannot create programs, only repurpose existing ones.
- Evil Overlord: The MCP oppresses the digital world and is the leader of its Empire.
- Evil Sounds Deep: His voice is a baritone version of Dillinger's.
- Flat-Earth Atheist: Is not one himself, but promotes the attitude among the programs.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Started out as a simple chess program until Dillinger got his hands on it.
- A God Am I: This appears to be his main motivation (see AI Is A Crapshoot above). After derezzing and absorbing the energy and functions of too many programs to count, he sees himself as hundreds of times more intelligent and efficient than a human being could ever hope to be.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Even though he hates Flynn, he tries to talk him out of destroying him by reminding him of all the times they played chess together.
- Huge Holographic Head: Although upon his final defeat, the holographic walls come down to reveal his original true form— an incredibly aged chess program whose face slowly fades out, as Dumont had noted prior; see Instant A.I.: Just Add Water! entry.
- Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: Started as a chess program, then various people gradually rewrote it to perform sysadmin duties on its own hardware. After this, it continued to gain intelligence by assimilating other programs' code into itself.
- Ludicrous PrecisionMCP: There's a 68.71 percent chance you're right.
Dillinger: Cute. - Master Computer: MCP: it's almost his name and primary function.
- Nay-Theist: Although his public position on the matter is less Nay-Theist and more "Users don't exist, period, and even if they did exist, they're not helping you anyway".
- Never Found the Body: The last we see of the MCP is an old man furiously typing on a keyboard, then disappearing into the darkness. Steven Lisberger hinted it was a Sequel Hook.
- Not So Stoic: When Sark is killed, the MCP is visually and audibly distressed and saddened.
- Orcus on His Throne: Zig-zagged. MCP is adept at navigating the world's computer systems, setting the Kremlin and Pentagon as his next targets. In cyberspace, however, he's physically limited to the building he inhabits plus Sark's interface on board the carrier. He relies on underlings to carry out his will and monitor the day-to-day operations of his world. In the movie's climax, Sark has to physically defend MCP against Tron. MCP can only raise shields around his base to defend himself.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: He appears to Sark as a multifaceted face with red eyes.
- Red Is Violent: He is completely red and acts as the primary threat of the story.
- Sinister Geometry: He appears to Sark as a digital, multifaceted face. His true form is a rapidly rotating cylinder with a humanoid face.
- The Stoic: The MCP never wavers in his cool, deep voice, whether he is threatening others or on the verge of defeat.
- This Was His True Form: As he Derezzes, the MCP reverts back to a chess program with Walter Gibbs' face.
- Turned Against Their Masters: Intends to hack into the Pentagon and take control of the US's missile defense system, using it to force the world to obey.
- Verbal Tic: When finishing conversations, the MCP says, "End of line".
- We Used to Be Friends: Unless what he says was a lie, this piece of dialogue implies it.MCP: You shouldn't have come back, Flynn.Flynn: Hey hey hey, it's the big Master Control Program everyone's been talking about.MCP: Sit right there, make yourself comfortable. Remember the time we used to spend playing chess together?
- Wrong Genre Savvy: He isn't overly arrogant toward the threat Flynn poses to him, but he still insists on making him fight until he dies in the gaming grid... until he escapes with Tron and Ram.
- You Will Be Assimilated: Kills programs and takes on their functions.
Sark
Commander Sark
Portrayed by: David Warner
The Dragon to the MCP, with Dilinger's face and voice. Runs the gladiatorial games.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Sark becomes a giant after the MCP transfers all its functions to him.
- Bad Boss: Sark is insulting and violent to his subordinates.Sark: Don't think. I do the thinking around here.
- Blood Knight: He's delighted when MCP gives him new victims to compete against in the Game Grid. MCP even admits that Sark is "brutal and needlessly sadistic", which Sark takes as a compliment.
- Boom, Headshot!: During Sark's battle with Tron, Tron's disk slices off the top of his head, exposing his brain.
- Card-Carrying Jerkass: While he does not quite self-identify as evil, he clearly knows he is not nice. As noted, he takes being called "brutal and needlessly sadistic" as a compliment.
- The Dragon: He is the MCP's right-hand man.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Played with and discussed, while Sark has no qualms about bullying and torturing programs, he expresses discomfort at the idea of doing the same to a user after learning he has been transported to the game grid. It's only when he's coerced by the MCP that he continues to carry out his orders without further objection.
- Eye Lights Out: When Tron's disk slices through his head, his eyes go dark.
- Jerkass: Even moreso than his user, Dillinger. Sark is arrogant and cruel toward everyone except the MCP.
- Nay-Theist: But pretends to be a Flat-Earth Atheist for agitprop purposes.
- Red Is Violent: He and his soldiers are red, contrasting with the blue programs.
- Robots Enslaving Robots: Sark is essentially a kapo, lording over the other programs while MCP lords over him. He carries out MCP's will by forcing his fellow programs to engage in gladiatorial games.
- Sizeshifter: In the movie's climax, Sark grows to giant size after MCP transfers his power to him.
- We Can Rule Together: He offers Tron a place by his side.
- Victory Is Boring: Bored by "accounting program cream puffs" to fight. Perks up at the idea of fighting software from defense command.
CLU
CLU
Portrayed by: Jeff Bridges
One of the programs Flynn used to hack into the ENCOM system.
- Defiant to the End: Basically spits at the MCP as he's slowly being drained.
- Hollywood Hacking: An actual hacking program, albeit a custom one.
- Machine Monotone: Unlike almost all of the other programs (presumably an acting choice on Jeff Bridges's part to help distinguish him from Flynn). Granted, he was the only one from a different system.
- Not as You Know Them: Following the events of the movie, CLU was rebuilt and vastly upgraded into a powerful Admin program who later became the Big Bad of the sequel. Some fans consider them the same character because they have the same name and actor, but they have very distinct functions and characterization. Others refer to this CLU as "CLU 1.0" and the TRON: Legacy one as "CLU 2.0".
- Sacrificial Lamb: To prove that the MCP is a jerk and that the digital world is a dangerous place.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: When he crashes his tank. And while being derezzed.
Yori
Yori
Portrayed by: Cindy Morgan
A program written by Lora. She appears to be a 3D simulation program and may play a role in the digitization process.
- Ace Pilot: Pilots a solar sailer to help Tron and Flynn escape.
- Behind Every Great Man: As pointed out in the Fridge page, Tron handles the fighting, but Yori handles most everything else.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Is never mentioned in any media after the first movie, though director Joseph Kosinski assured fans that she's alive and well during the events of TRON: Legacy.
- Combat and Support: She isn't a warrior. That's Tron's job. However, she handles diplomacy (getting Dumont to help), piloting (building and flying the Solar Sailer), and some of the planning (the deleted scene).
- Despair Event Horizon:
- When Tron reunites with her, she mindlessly repeats her report in Machine Monotone. When Tron confirms to her that it really is him, she brightens.
- She hits it briefly when the Sailer is destroyed, she sees Dumont being dragged away to certain de-rez, Tron's apparently dead, and Flynn's imprisoned with her. Flynn talks her out of it.
- Early-Bird Cameo: During the scene where Gibbs's team is digitizing the orange, there's a readout on the lower right of the screen saying "ROM YORI, LOAD YORI," meaning she has a role in running the digitizer. This may be the reason Master Control left her alive while sending her bondmate to the Games.
- The Engineer: She designed and helped build the Solar Sailer that gets them out of the city and most of the way to the fight with Master Control.
- Happily Married: Or at least the Program equivalent of "committed relationship" with Tron. The Deleted Scene demonstrates that they live together as a unit, much like their creators.
- The Heart: Definitely the emotional anchor for the group inside the Grid, and no apparent combat ability.
- Last Kiss: With Flynn as he jumps into the beam.
- Lingerie Scene: Cut from the final release, but seen on DVD. She waits for Tron at her place while wearing a loose nightgown and basically a circuitry and glitter onesie.
- Playful Hacker: Pulls a highly-illegal power reroute, practically under Master Control's nose, just to give Tron a proper "welcome home".
- Small Role, Big Impact: Just like her User. She shows up at roughly the halfway point of the film, but has that early cameo (which means she ran the laser). It's her connection to Dumont that gets Tron through to contact Alan, and she built and pilots the getaway vehicle. See the Fridge page for more details.
Ram
Ram
Portrayed by: Dan Shor
An actuarial program for an insurance firm conscripted into the gladiatorial games. An ally to Tron and eventually Flynn.
- Action Survivor: Before being captured by the MCP, he was an actuarial program, with the implication being that he was anything but a badass, yet he proves quite adept at the games. After he escapes the games with Flynn and Tron, he acts as a point man while the trio wander the outlands.
- Badass Biker: A survival requirement in that universe, but the fact he's awesome enough to be Tron's wingman says a lot.
- Badass Bookworm: While he's pretty badass by the time Flynn meets him, he was originally an actuarial program, meaning that he knows his way around compiling statistics and calculating insurance premiums.
- Go Out with a Smile: After he is mortally wounded, he asks Flynn if the latter is a User, which Flynn confirms. Ram then derezzes with a smile, knowing that even if he is out of the game, at least one User is aware of the programs' plight and is there to help.
- Mr. Exposition: He gives Flynn, and by extension the audience, the low-down on the MCP's regime and the game grid.
- Nice Guy: Imagine a friendly neighborhood insurance agent who genuinely loves his job helping people. He might be the most incorruptible guy in the whole franchise.
- Sacrificial Lion: Just to piss us off.
Dumont
Dumont
Portrayed by: Barnard Hughes
A Tower Guardian who is nearly killed by the MCP for trying to help the heroes communicate with the real world.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Dumon notes that he and other I/O programs are too important for the MCP to kill, since the MCP needs them to interact with anything outside the mainframe.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: However, the MCP decides to just merge their functions into itself, making Dumont and the other I/O software unnecessary.
- Cool Old Guy: He was the one who allowed Tron to get in contact with Alan via his tower and download the upgrade that eventually destroyed Master Control. Sark's forces eventually catch him, and he's remarkably snarky and sarcastic to them, even in the face of certain de-rez.
- Defiant to the End: Insults the MCP even while being tortured.
- Obi-Wan Moment: Sark's troops storm the gates of his tower, intending to arrest him and drag him to certain de-rez. He calmly (but sarcastically) addresses Sark as if he were just another Program seeking communion with a User.
- Turbulent Priest: Guardians serve a priest-like role in the system, and he maintains the last free tower. He's cranky and embittered for a good reason, but he's just fine with being a pain in the ass.
Crom
Crom
Portrayed by: Peter Jurasik
A banking program conscripted into the games.- Jewish and Nerdy: He has a pronounced New York Jewish accent and is essentially a pencil pusher.
- Sacrificial Lamb: To prove that the Game Grid is truly dangerous
Bit
Bit
A binary digit resembling a compound of dodecahedron and icosahedron, Bit can only say "yes" or "no" when asked a question, and is used by other programs for advice.- Big "NO!": Says "No no no no no" when scared.
- Big "YES!": Says "Yes yes yes yes yes" when amused.
- Deadpan Snarker: Despite only being able to say "yes" and "no".
- Living Polyhedron: Changes between a light blue icosahedron and a stellated dodecahedron when idle. Changes to a yellow octohedron when saying yes or a second stellation of an icosahedron when saying no.
- Oh, Crap!: Bit gets this when it realizes that Flynn's about to crash his Recognizer.
- Omniglot: The novelization says he can say yes and no in several languages.
- Robot Buddy: Basically follows CLU around for comic relief.
- Snarky Non-Program Sidekick: Seems to be a trait for all Bits and their upgraded Byte counterparts to dole out the sarcasm at the expense of the human or Program they're accompanying.
- Verbal Tic: Only says "yes" and "no".
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Is shown to have survived the Recognizer crash unharmed, but then flies off and disappears and isn't seen again for the rest of the movie. According to Word of God, that particular Bit's only job was assisting the pilot of a Recognizer. When it was destroyed, the Bit departed.
