Film / TRON: Legacy

Hey, it worked in 1982.

Kevin Flynn: The Grid. A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships? Motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I'd never see. And then, one day...
Sam Flynn: You got in?
Kevin Flynn: That's right, man. I got in.

— Opening Monologue

TRON: Legacy is the 2010 sequel to Disney's 1982 Cult Classic Science Fiction film TRON. It was directed by Joseph Kosinski from a screenplay by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz based on a story by Horowitz, Kitsis, Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal. Daft Punk composed and performed the score.

The film picks up where the original film's story left off: seven years after defeating the Master Control Program and exposing Ed Dillinger's corruption, Encom CEO Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) begins work on a new project, one far more ambitious in scope than any of his video games. Flynn claims his new project will change the very nature of human existence, but before he can reveal the nature of this project, he disappears, jeopardizing the Encom software empire — and orphaning his young son, Sam.

20 years later, Encom has recovered from his disappearance, but Sam (Garrett Hedlund) has not. Channeling his frustration into a life of extreme activity (motorcycle riding, base jumping, etc.), Sam holds on to the hope of seeing his father alive again some day — and, eventually, his hope pays off. Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner), Kevin's friend/co-worker (who also keeps tabs on Sam in case he decides to take his father's role at Encom), receives a mysterious pager message from the long-abandoned Flynn's Arcade. While investigating the message's origins, Sam discovers a secret lab in the arcade basement, where he unwittingly triggers a digitizing laser that beams him into The Grid.

With the help of the warrior program Quorra (Olivia Wilde), Sam explores the digital world, reunites with his long-lost father, and hatches a plan to escape back to reality, all while being pursued by Clu, the new ruler of The Grid — who plans on stopping the trio and taking the knowledge from Kevin Flynn for his own nefarious purposes.

The film was released on December 17, 2010. Around or after the release, Disney produced several tie-in prequels set between TRON and TRON: Legacy:

• A graphic novel, TRON: Betrayal, which tells the story of how Kevin Flynn created The Grid and Clu, as well as the emergence of the ISOs and Clu's desire to rebel against Flynn.
• A video game, TRON: Evolution, which takes place during Clu's rebellion and gives players control of Anon, a system monitor created by Flynn who fights against Clu and a virus named Abraxas.
• A second video game, TRON: Evolution - Battle Grids, which is set before Clu's rebellion and allows the player to take control of their own character to compete in various games in the arena.
• An animated series, TRON: Uprising, which depicts Clu's rule of The Grid and focuses on Beck, a program trained by Tron who hopes to lead a revolution against Clu and free his hometown Argon City from his army.

Plans for a third TRON film were announced before the release of TRON: Legacy. The script was worked on for several years, and filming was slated to start in late 2015, with Hedlund and Wilde reprising their roles and Joseph Kosinski back in the director's chair. However, it was back-burnered the week after fellow Disney sci-fi film Tomorrowland opened to a lukewarm commercial response. Prospects of reviving the film popped up sporadically over the next few years, and it was confirmed as still being an active project in summer 2020. With this announcement, the return of the Legacy cast was anticipated but not confirmed, as was the return of Daft Punk's scoring (with a Disney exec even calling it an utmost priority at one point) prior to the announcement of their breakup in 2021.

The third film is now titled TRON: Ares, with Joachim Rønning (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) attached to direct and Jared Leto starring, with Evan Peters, Greta Lee, Jodie Turner-Smith, Cameron Monaghan, Gillian Anderson and Hasan Minhaj among the confirmed additional cast members. It is currently scheduled for release in 2025.

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TRON: Legacy provides examples of:

Tropes A to B

• Action Girl: Quorra. Even when captured, she still has the gumption to strike back at Rinzler the instant Sam distracts him.
• Action Survivor: Sam Flynn starts out as this before he gets the hang of the technology of the Grid.
• Actually, I Am Him:
  • Castor, Zuse's gatekeeper, actually is Zuse.
  • Also inverted and subverted. Clu allows Sam to believe he's Kevin, but by the time he reveals otherwise, Sam's in the process of working it out.
  • Sam pulls this on top of the Encom tower, when he reveals to the security guard that he is Kevin's son, and as such is the owner of the company and the guard's boss. Then he jumps.
    Sam: Your boss works for the CEO, and the CEO works for the shareholders. Now do you know who the largest shareholder is?
    Security Guard: I don't know, some kid?
    [Sam gestures to himself in a "ta-da!" motion]
    Security Guard: Mr. Flynn?!
• Aerith and Bob: The programs have very unusual-sounding names, except for Quorra, whose name is pronounced like "Cora".
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Clu attacks his creator, Kevin Flynn, for abandoning their mission to create the perfect system on the Grid.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Clu. The look on his face during his flashback and when Kevin reintegrates with him is just heartrending. After all, he was simply trying to fulfill his objective in the only way he knew how, and while Kevin developed as a person, the arrogance he'd left CLU with — including the belief that he knew best and was already perfect — was a driving force behind many of his actions. Considering that he was a program, he lacked the broadness of mind which humans like Kevin and his son Sam have.
• Alternate Continuity: To TRON 2.0, which it replaces.
• Alternate Universe: In a much more lifelike, sophisticated Cyberspace. It possibly also allows computer programs to travel into our world physically.
• Alternate Reality Game / Viral Marketing / In-Universe Marketing: The Flynn Lives ARG, which ran from July 2009 to December 2010, told the story of a group of conspiracy theorists attempting to locate Kevin Flynn long after the rest of the world presumed him dead. Events in the game included the opening of a replica Flynn's Arcade in San Diego during the 2009 and 2010 Comic-Cons, an Encom press conference hosted by Bruce Boxleitner in character as Alan Bradley with Cindy Morgan as Lora (even though Morgan does not appear in the film itself), and the release of a fully playable version of the video game Space Paranoids. Members of this group got some sweet merch including a poster, postcards, pins, stickers and plenty more. And in the end they possibly caused the transmission that allowed Clu to send the page.
• Always Night:
  • On The Grid.
  • Even in the real world it's still night. At the end, though, sunlight is actually shown for the first time so that Quorra could experience it for the first time as a non-program being.
• Ambiguously Gay: Castor is flamboyant, to say the least.
• Ambiguous Situation: TRON: Uprising, taking place in the same universe as this movie and TRON: Evolution, puts forth an alternate explanation for Rinzler's identity.
• Animesque: In terms of style and effects, Legacy has much in common with anime.
• Anti-Hero: Sam Flynn, appropriately enough, starts off as a "Disney" Anti Hero. Fairly snarky, has some trouble with authority, but is generally a decent kid.
• Arc Words: "The game has changed!" or just "The game".
• An Arm and a Leg: Quorra loses her arm during the fight at the End of Line Club, but gets it fixed later.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Sam talking to his father about the real world of 2009.
  Sam Flynn: Polar ice caps melting, war in the Middle East, Lakers/Celtics back at it.
• Art Evolution: Necessary, considering the advances in computer-generated SFX since the original TRON. The SFX department handled Legacy as if it were sacred since TRON was the grand-daddy of their craft. Ironically, unlike the original film, most of the Tron Lines on clothing were practical effects instead of animated onto each frame. Justified in the context of the film itself because one would expect that advances in computer technology would allow for more realistic rendering of environments and people. And Flynn let Tron et al get rid of the goofy hats while he was at it.
• Artifact Title: It seems like a case of this at first, since Tron himself is nowhere to be seen. Turns out he's hiding in plain sight, corrupted by Clu and now known as Rinzler.
• Artificial Brilliance: In an odd example of emergent behavior being a plot point in a non-videogame setting, the ISOs are a direct result of Kevin's work on the Grid responding in a way he never anticipated being possible.
• Ascended Extra: Clu, in a way. The first film's Clu is a vaguely-defined hacking program presumably designed to slip into the MCP's private archive and dig up proof that Flynn wrote Space Paranoids, and depicted in an almost child-like manner. He gets captured early on by a Recognizer Zerg Rush and derezzed during interrogation by the MCP. Legacy's Clu is an entirely different program, created after the events of the first movie to help Flynn create a perfect grid (supplementary materials state that his full name is actually "Clu 2.0", but this movie doesn't mention the original Clu to avoid confusion). This time, the vaguely-defined purpose of his programming is what allows him to turn on his creator and become the film's Big Bad.
• Asian Speekee Engrish: Parodied with the Indian taxi driver at the beginning of the film.
  Taxi Driver: No free ride! No free taxi! You pay!
• Aspect Ratio Switch: The film changes from 2.35:1 to 1.78:1 in some scenes to show more of the Grid's environment. Also, the movie is filmed in 2D for real world scenes and 3D for scenes "On The Grid" to further accentuate the computerness of the world.
• Authority Equals Asskicking:
  • Clu is apparently the toughest thing in the entire Grid. While not as flashily agile as Tron or Rinzler, he's unfazed by a de-rezzing disc hit from Tron, and manages to take out both Tron and Sam with one punch. In the final battle, fighting him doesn't do any good at all, and Flynn has to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to finally get rid of the guy. It makes sense that he's way tougher than any normal program, as Flynn (who's basically God) made him specifically to serve as his stand-in while he was out in the real world. Additionally, Flynn implies that this version of Clu is a true A.I. rather than a basic program, making him akin to a somewhat less omnipotent, but also less bloated and more mobile version of the MCP.
  • Also Rinzler. He's Clu's Dragon and is champion of the games. Turns out, there's a reason he's that good; he's a "repurposed" Tron.
• Awesomeness Is a Force: Merely by being present, Kevin Flynn is able to completely turn the battle in the End of Line Club around. He doesn't need to do anything other than walk into the room, kneel, touch the floor with one hand and WHAM. Functionally, this is probably something akin to Kevin using his authorization as creator of the system (think "sysop with root access") to override Clu's, neutralizing the enhanced capabilities Clu granted his Black Guards and possibly even granting his faithful similar capabilities.
  digitalcrypt: As someone who has worked in IT and software for two decades, it is one of my favorite moments in any movie, anywhere. Little collections of ones and zeros think they can go off and misbehave how they want and have their fun... and along comes a human: "I think that's enough chaos for today." :-) (Too bad the job isn't always THAT easy. But the end result is the same, even if it takes a lot more time and work sometimes.) ;-)
• Background Halo: When Flynn is on the Solar Sailor meditating, the light behind him gives him the appearance of having one.
• Badass Adorable: When Quorra isn't busy derezzing Clu's mooks, she is innocent, naive, and, of course, outrageously gorgeous.
• Badass Boast: Sam gives one when he invades Clu's headquarters.
  Sentry Program: Identify yourself, program.
  Sam Flynn: I'm not a program. My name's Sam Flynn...
• Badass Bookworm: Quorra reads Leo Tolstoy and Jules Verne. She also knows how to kick ass when its time for it.
• Badass Bystander: When the Black Guards storm Castor's nightclub and turn it into a brawl, the patrons and resistance members spring into action. They are outmatched, but they outnumber the guards, and despite several losses they succeed in killing three of them once Kevin Flynn appears.
• Badass Longcoat: Complete with Tron Lines.
  • Clu starts with one but soon trades it for armor.
  • Kevin Flynn has one through most of the movie.
• Badass Long Robe: Sam takes one as a disguise.
• Ballroom Blitz: At Castor's virtual nightclub, thanks to Clu's forces.
• Bar Brawl: In Castor's club.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: A program throws himself off a building rather than be conscripted into the games.
• Bifurcated Weapon: Rinzler's Identity Disc can split in two.
• Big Bad: Clu, ironically enough. The film plays with assumptions from the first movie by hinting at a big bad in the real world similar to Dillinger by introducing Dillinger's son early on, but this ends up being a red herring.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Quorra's description of how Flynn rescued her before the movie took place. Quorra was surrounded by Clu's blackguards and when she opened her eyes... there was only Flynn standing there.
  • Kevin Flynn makes such an entrance during the fight at the End of Line Club.
  • Quorra makes not one but two dramatic entrances: the first was in the Game Arena to save Sam. She saves Sam once more when she crashes the party at the End of Line Club after Zuse and Gem reveal their true loyalties.
  • Sam crashing into Clu's headquarters to save Quorra and Kevin Flynn's Identity Disc, Badass Boast and all.
• Big Good: Kevin Flynn.
• Big "NO!":
  • Security guard, when Sam jumps off the rooftop of the Encom building.
  • Clu's last word, just before Kevin draws Clu back to him and destroys them both.
• Bittersweet Ending: Bitter in that Flynn made a Heroic Sacrifice. Sweet in that Quorra got to see a sunrise, is able to bring what Flynn wanted to bring out into the real world, and Sam finally grew up, found out what happened to his father, and now Clu's tyranny is finished.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: The Programs all look human for the most part, but several things stand out about them:
  • Injuries are more like holes or missing parts than actual wounds.
  • Odd eye/hair color, make-up and skin tones.
  • Deresolution instead of death, which turns them into a bunch of spilled voxels.
  • Electronically altered voices, for some characters more than others — Sam's initial contacts on the Grid have lots of flanging, while Quorra's and most of the program main cast are barely noticeable. Noticeable or not, every program's voice was processed to some degree.
  • Quorra's D-DNA is a Triple Helix.
• Black Dude Dies First: Once the nightclub fight starts, the scarred resistance leader (Bartik from TRON: Uprising) is the first one derezzed.
• Black Knight: Rinzler.
• Blofeld Ploy: Clu looks like he's going to kill Rinzler for failing to secure Flynn's Identity Disc, but instead kills Jarvis. To be fair, Rinzler made a concerted effort to at least try, against two of the strongest fighters on the grid other than himself and Clu, while Jarvis simply submitted without a fight.
• Bloodier and Gorier: While it is in no way gory, the film is way more violent than the original TRON. While in the original programs would simply explode into light before fading away when killed, the programs here shatter apart like glass and even let out bloodcurdling screams when killed. And it also doesn't help that Anyone Can Die this time.
• Blunt "Yes":
  Clu: Flynn! Am I still to create the perfect system?
  Flynn: ... Yeah...?
• Body Uploading: The process to send things Inside a Computer System is called "Digitization", and done through a process that involves firing a laser at people.
• Bond One-Liner: Sam's reaction to shooting down a jet fighter near the end of the film.
  Sam: Have a nice swim!
• Bookcase Passage: The entrance to Kevin's secret lab in the arcade is the TRON arcade game cabinet.
• Boom, Headshot!: Several times, most notably during the Old-School Dogfight scene.
• Boss Battle: In-story example — the final round of the Deadly Disc competition pits the surviving player against Rinzler, who is one of the best disc fighters in the history of the Grid and gets to use two discs. He's Tron, so it makes sense he'd be the boss.
  [Rinzler takes out two Light Discs from one]
  Sam: [tries to split his disc into two] Oh, come on. Is that even legal?
• Brainwashed: Clu is "rectifying" normal programs into loyal soldiers to lead into the real world. Also Rinzler, who was once Tron.
• Bridal Carry: Sam has to do this for Quorra after she gets an arm sliced off and falls unconscious.
• Bright Is Not Good: Clu and his mooks wear black robes with luminescent lines.
• Bullet Time: During the fights by thrown Identity Discs.
• Butt-Dialing Mordor: Twice.
  • In the Backstory, Flynn's supporters put together the means to send out a large digital pulse to try and signal Flynn wherever he was now. As The Grid was a mostly (but not entirely) isolated system, the pulse was hijacked by Clu, who used it to send out a message to Alan's pager, setting up the trap.
  • When Sam is sitting at his father's basement computer, he looks at the readout of the last commands entered and is prompted as to whether to repeat the last command entered. Sam, not paying attention to the laser behind him, shrugs and hits "yes."

Tropes C to D

• Call-Back: Several, both between the two movies and within Legacy...
  • The Light Cycles, Recognizers and Solar Sailer all make return appearances, all snazzied up.
  • The Rectifier has the same basic shape as Sark's Command Carrier.
  • The End of Line Club.
  • Rinzler's first appearance is in his personal Disc Wars court, which is cross-shaped. Tron was introduced in the first film fighting a 4-on-1 Disc match in the middle of a cross-shaped court, lending another subtle clue to Rinzler's true identity.
  • Cillian Murphy appears as the son of TRON's villain, Dillinger, working at Encom.
  • The poster above is similar to the poster for the original. There is a poster for the original movie (in-universe, for the game) in Sam's bedroom in the beginning of the film, and he has a few of his action figures set up to resemble it.
  • A poster of the original TRON film adorns young Sam's wall, although in-universe, it's an advert for the game.
  • When Kevin, Sam and Quorra board the Light Jet on the flight deck, and Quorra is making the jet lift off to escape, Kevin says to her "You got this, Quorra. It's all in the wrists." In the original TRON, after Kevin has beaten the video game Space Paranoids record at the arcade, he gets asked by an unseen man "Hey Flynn, how'd you do it?". He answers "It's all in the wrists."
  • When Sam is breaking into Encom, he forges himself access and when the door opens, he says "Now that is a big door." In the original TRON, Kevin Flynn forges access into Encom with the same comment when the door opens.
  • After Clu has collected Kevin Flynn's data disc from Castor/Zuse, his Black Guards put up bombs in the club. Clu's final words, as he leaves, are "End of line". This is in direct reference to TRON when the Master Control Program (MCP) stated this when it terminated communications with anyone "inferior" to itself.
  • Flynn's mantel ornaments resemble his Bit from the original.
  • "This isn't happening..."
  • "Greetings, programs!"
  • Sam: "Pull up, man! You can't make that!" Quorra: "Made it." Later on, Quorra: "Clu will be here any minute. We'll never make it." Sam: "Made it."
  • "Identify yourself, program." "I'm not a program. My name is Sam Flynn." (the first time, it's right after he gets slapped around by Rinzler; the second time, he's about to open a can of whoopass on the mothership)
  • Kevin: "In there is a new world! In there is our future! In there is our destiny..." Clu: "Out there is a new world! Out there is our victory! Out there is our destiny..."
  • The sign above Sam's door reads "Dumont Manufacturing." Revealed in the viral campaign to have been renamed by Flynn after he bought out the company. A "connect-the-obscure-dots" for this callback:
    • "Dumont" was the name of the tower guardian program in the original film, played by Barnard Hughes.
    • Hughes also played Dr. Walter Gibbs, a programmer and Encom employee in the real world who, by the example of other actors' human/program dual roles, is assumed to be Dumont's creator.
    • Ed Dillinger Sr. makes a comment that Encom is no longer the company that Dr. Gibbs started in his garage.
    • Sam's home is a converted garage which, with a faded "Dumont Manufacturing" logo on it, so it's the very garage that Encom was created in.
  • The speech played when Sam receives his Disc is almost word-for-word from the speech Sark gave to the conscripts in the original.
  • "This is it. Come on!"
  • The original teaser trailer was evocative of Sark's Light Cycle duel in the original, though it also showcased how much things had changed — and the old tricks didn't work any more.
  • Music from the band Journey playing in the background of Flynn's arcade.
  • Both films feature a vehicle on the Game Grid blasting a hole in the wall and a vehicle escaping through it.
  • Sam changes his shirt while having some backstory exposition with Alan. Exactly like his father changing his shirt at the arcade's office when Bradley and Lora visited him in the original TRON.
  • Flynn's old Electronic Quarterback handheld game is collecting dust in his basement office. In the original film, he briefly plays it during Alan and Lora's visit at the arcade.
  • A very subtle one, but in the initial arena sequence, we see the "private box" of Clu as he watches the Games. Complete with a pimped out couch that he can lounge on. Despite a full, opaque helmet and Tron Lines-adorned armor, the body language is identical to Kevin Flynn lounging on a similar couch in his arcade office in the first film, identifying the program as Clu.
  • The way the camera rotates as it flies through the title is reminiscent of the way it does the same in the first.
  • More game-related lines than you can count: "Game on, old friend", "a new piece on the board", "It's his game now", "The game has changed", etc. — with, of course, the obligatory shout-out to Wargames.
  • The Program who jumps to his deresolution rather than be conscripted into the Games, bringing to mind the guard in the first movie who jumped rather than face Tron.
  • "This is the key to a new order." referring to Tron's disc in the first film and Kevin's after it's taken by Clu, sort of a Dialogue Reversal or Ironic Echo.
  • The fireworks were designed around isocahedral, dodecahedral, and other n-hedral forms, as an homage to Bit.
  • Daft Punk used Wendy Carlos's Leitmotif extensively, and sampled generously from all the TRON video games, including the Intellivision ones.
  • In the flashback of Clu's creation, he speaks his first words, "I am Clu... I will create the perfect system," in the same speech manner of the first Clu from the original TRON.
  • "I fight for the users!"
  • "FINISH THE GAME!" Also counts as an Ironic Echo; in the first film, Sark shouts this at Flynn when Flynn hesitates to kill Crom in the ring game, while in this film, Clu shouts it at Rinzler as Rinzler is in pursuit of Flynn, Quorra, and Sam.
  • Also, Flynn emphatically refused Sark's command to kill Crom; Rinzler, having become Tron again, refuses Clu's command by ramming his Light Jet into Clu's.
  • In the End of Line Club, there are some programs sitting off to the side that Gem mentions as being distracted. In the original TRON, there's a scene after Flynn crashes the recognizer where he passes up a few programs in a similar situation while walking about.
• The Cameo:
  • Cillian Murphy as Edward Dillinger, the son of the original film's villain.
  • The TRON fans, as audience, were recorded at Comic-Con 2009 during the start of the TRON panel, thereby providing all the crowd cheers for the arena sequence.
• Camp Straight: Although we never really get a hint at whether programs actually have sexual orientations,^note Though it should be noted Jarvis is briefly seen flirting — badly — with Gem at the End Of Line Club, and other programs are also seen behaving in behavior that can be viewed as romantic or intimate. Not to mention the subtle romantic plot for Sam and Quorra or even whether the concept of sexual orientation would make any sense in The Grid, Castor is most definitely camp... turned up to eleven... IN CYBERSPAAAAAAAAACE!
• Canon Discontinuity: Nothing from TRON 2.0 is in this, although some aspects of it have been borrowed for this film. The game's premise directly contradicts the movie, as the game story had digitization as being impossible for nearly twenty years after the MCP's defeat (as the MCP corrected errors inherent in the process and a new method to take its place took that long), whereas in Legacy, Kevin was digitizing himself regularly after the events of the first movie. Interestingly, both Sam Flynn and Jet Bradley lose their mothers at a young age.
• Car Fu: Light Cycles, especially when Clu's driving. Becomes Plane Fu towards the end after Rinzler/Tron's Heel–Face Turn.
• Catapult Nightmare: Quorra gasps and bolts upright after being revived.
• Ceiling Cling: Sam, to get the drop on two guards on top of the lift, on Clu's Rectifier.
• Cerebus Syndrome: And how. The first one was already a fairly dark family picture, but this one has brutal violence only toned down by having voxels instead of blood and a downright genocidal maniac as its villain.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • What happened if you didn't get sent to the games? "Rectify."
  • Rinzler has two discs. watch VERY carefully for another program that gets two discs. Also counts as a Chekhov M.I.A..
  • Quorra told Sam what would happen to Kevin if he merged back with Clu. Guess what happens at the end of the movie.
• Chekhov's Skill: At the start of the film, during his infiltration of Encom and subsequent run from the police, Sam displays the athleticism he will later need to survive the games, including several specific skills that come in handy again:
  • Sam's nonstandard motorcycle usage to evade the cops presages his nonstandard, and ultimately successful, light cycle performance; he even performs more or less the same kind of jump on both cycles in order to accomplish context-specific goals.
  • Sam's BASE-jumping skills, seen during his escape from Encom Tower, is used again in the finale to help him and Quorra escape Clu's quarters and make it to Kevin using some sort of digital parachute. Sam references this to Kevin after landing on the ground.
  • Used ingeniously in the viral campaign where a code entered on website "Hello Flynn" showed home videos of Kevin and Sam throwing stones on water, riding bikes and throwing a frisbee.
  • Blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment in Sam's garage/apartment: When Alan shows up, over his shoulder you can see a big punching bag. Apparently Sam boxes in his free time, which explains some of his fighting skills.
• Classy Cane: Castor sports one.
• Close on Title: Played with. The film begins with a title card, but it only says TRON. By the end of the film, during the credits, the film's real title is finally shown.
• Collapsible Helmet: The helmets worn by Clu and Quorra fold back at proper times for a Dramatic Unmask. Sam Flynn's costume also automatically generate the appropriate helmet for the Disc Wars or the Light Cycle match. Justified in this case, as this is in cyberspace where you don't have to obey physic laws nor keep track of extraneous objects.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: The film uses this to great effect, as noted by Tobuscus. Exaggerated and Justified in that universe, as a character's Tron Lines indicate their loyalties, position in the system, and probably act as an identifier.
• Come with Me If You Want to Live: Quorra to Sam Flynn on the Cycle Grid, inviting him in the Light Runner.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Clu deliberately stacks the odds against the programs that compete in his games. In order:
  • Rinzler is the final opponent for any combatant. Not only is he much better and faster than them, he gets an extra disc to fight with.
    Sam: Is that even legal?
  • During the Light Cycle match, Clu's team has faster Cycles. Clu himself also uses his disc (the others don't, though it's not clear if they just couldn't) and Rinzler has a backup cycle.
  • Stacked on top of all of this is the fact that Clu is apparently unkillable by normal means (he takes a normally-fatal blow in a flashback and isn't even scratched), which means even if some program managed to luck out and get past everything else, they'd never beat Clu. See Heroic Sacrifice for the significance.
• The Computer Is Your Friend: Clu isn't a rogue A.I. at all. He is, in fact, working exactly as Flynn intended at the moment he created him. The problem is that he became obsolete once the ISOs appeared, since he was not designed to be able to handle the ISOs' chaotic nature, which ill-fit Clu's definition of order. Flynn himself says that Clu's obsession with order was a reflection of his own misunderstanding of the concept of a "perfect system". Flynn's attitude towards Clu is that of a remorseful father, not of one who created a monster.
  Clu: Flynn! Am I still to create the perfect system?
  Flynn: ... Yeah...?
• Contemplative Boss: Clu when he has Sam brought to him.
• Convenient Color Change:
  • The color of a device depends on the color of the program, User or ISO using it.
  • In Rinzler's last appearance, his colors fade from red to blue.
• Cool Bike: The Light Cycles. The new design takes the cool factor up to eleven.
• Cool Car: Quorra's Light Runner is not only a match for a Bond car in terms of armament, but it can even go outside the Grid, where most ground vehicles have no power.
• Cool Mask: Any faceless characters, but especially evident on Clu and Rinzler.
• Cool Old Guy: Kevin Flynn; Alan Bradley.
• Cool Plane:
  • The Light Jet.◊
  • The Light Fighter that Sam, Kevin, and Quorra make their final run in.
• Cool Ship: Clu's throne ship as well as the mothership.
• Cool Train: The Solar Sailer, even more so than in the original film.
• Coolest Club Ever: Castor’s End Of Line Club is a sleek, futuristic nightclub and rooftop lounge with stunning views of the grid, full of interesting programs and fancy cocktails. Not to mention Daft Punk in the DJ booth!
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Board members of Encom.
• Crapsack World: Clu's version of the Grid is a hellhole where people live in fear of his totalitarian power. If you do anything to get the government against you, you're either forced to kill others for the amusement of a spectator crowd, or are brainwashed to be a part of a faceless army.
• Crazy-Prepared: Rinzler, in addition to having two discs, also carries a spare light-cycle baton and a spare light-jet baton with him.
• Creating Life Is Awesome: Kevin Flynn is a benevolent creator of programs that are alive... and who also transform into biological humans when/if they beam over to the human world. While some programs can be considered bad people, the act of creation done by a human is treated as cool and worthwhile in itself. Clu was the one who turned bad and corrupted others, but the mistake Kevin did was portrayed as being not creating Clu in the first place but rather charging him with a well-meaning but inherently flawed agenda.
• Creating Life Is Unforeseen: The ISOs grew out of the Grid's sheer complexity without any deliberate human action. ^note  Sentient Programs were also not the original intent of Encom programmers — remember Tron is Alan's creation and the ARG all but confirms Ram was Roy Kleinburg's — but this time Flynn subverted the trope.
• Creative Sterility: Clu cannot create new programs, he can only "repurpose" them. This actually seems to fit into the religious undertone of the series, as it's a trope that the Devil (Fallen Angel, in this case Clu) cannot create new life on his own, as that power rests only with God (in this case, Kevin Flynn), so the most he can do is pervert and distort God's creations to his own purposes. This works out for fans, because it meant Clu repurposed and reprogrammed Tron instead of killing him. Clu wanted a champion and enforcer, but couldn't just create a new one from scratch. His answer was to simply reprogram Tron into Rinzler.
  
  It also fits the UNIX security best practice. Clu, being a single-purpose daemon initially created by Kevin to monitor running programs with ptrace(2) while Kevin himself signed off, along with other programs, cannot fork(2). In order for him to repurpose programs, he have to inject code into other processes and somehow make the injected code run.
• Creator Cameo:
  • Steven Lisberger, who directed TRON and produced this film, is in the background at the End of Line Club scene as a bartender (the comic book prequel TRON: Betrayal gives his name as Shaddix).
  • Daft Punk, who did the soundtrack, appear as the DJ programs in the End of Line Club.
• Cue the Sun: Quorra wants to see a sunrise. Cue Sam giving her a bike ride during the break of dawn at the end of the movie.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Sam's first fight against Rinzler goes... poorly. Rinzler basically just toys with Sam, and he even seems to be aware of it.
    Sam: I feel like I just got dunked on.
  • Flynn when he enters Castor's club, shutting down everything simply from his presence, then completely turning the tide of the battle. His glare says it all, God is here... and he is pissed.
• Cyberpunk: However, the idea that the biggest stockholder of a MegaCorp would be a Playful Hacker who does nothing but play a prank on the company once a year is more consistent with Post-Cyberpunk. Essentially, it's Post-Cyberpunk in the outside world, and Cyberpunk in the Grid.
• Cyberpunk Is Techno: Especially when Daft Punk does the score.
• Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain: The Grid sure looks like Downtown Cyberpunk City. And, for some reason, the hexagonal floor tiles of the street that Sam first steps on are wet. ^note There seems to be a permanent thunderstorm going on all around this version of cyberspace. Where the thunder (or even just the clouds, for that matter) would come from remains unexplained. It sure makes for some awesome visuals though.
• Darker and Edgier: While the original TRON was a Save the World story with some Camp value, this Grid features genocide, programs dropping like flies, betrayal, Ludicrous Voxels, and a tyrant hellbent on keeping his citizens in line by any means necessary. Just to hammer it home, the old monochrome grey suits are black now. To elaborate further: out of the named characters in the entire franchise, over 2/3 are dead by the time Legacy ends. That's a casualty rate on par with A Game Of Thrones. Out of the ones not confirmed dead, they either suffer a Fate Worse than Death or their odds of survival (judging by TRON: Uprising) look very dim. By comparison, their Canon Discontinuity first-person shooter has a more upbeat tone and lower body count.
• Dark Reprise: The opening notes of "Adagio for Tron?" Listen closely — they're a downbeat version of WendyCarlos's sweet ending theme for the first film!
• Deadly Disc: The Identity Discs. Deadlier and faster than in the original, especially when one disc can split into two. Shades of TRON 2.0.
• Deadly Game: The arena is apparently prime entertainment for programs in this system.
• Deadpan Snarker: Sam at one point.
  Sam Flynn: Tolstoy. Dostoyesky. I Ching. Journey Without Goal. Must have a killer ending.
• Death Equals Redemption: Possible one. As Tron is sinking through the digital sea, his Tron Lines turn from red to blue. We don't know his fate after that.
• Demoted to Extra: Tron himself, due to being under Clu's control for most of the movie.
• Despair Event Horizon: By the time Sam finds him, his father has long since passed over this. Betrayal by his creation, murder of his friend, genocide of the people he was hoping would revolutionize the world, large-scale corruption of the world he'd created, and a prolonged, endless struggle with no hope of victory and no escape would do that to a man.
• Destroy the Security Camera: Downplayed. When Sam Flynn is infiltrating the ENCOM headquarters, he uses a laser pointer to blind a security camera. However, the security guard watching the screens simply taps his screen with his mug to get it working again.
• Digital De Aging: One of the earliest examples. Jeff Bridges was de-aged with CGI to look 28 years younger both as Clu and in an early scene in the real world.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Kevin Flynn hums a few notes of the original movie theme.
• Disappeared Dad: He's been in the digital world all this time.
• Disney Death:
  • Tron, and twice at that. First was when he got attacked by Clu's Black Guard, only to show up again as Rinzler. Then again at the climax when he overcame Clu's reprogramming briefly but got knocked into the Sea of Simulation. His circuitry changes color as he sinks out of view.
  • Quorra. Since no program had ever before crossed into the real world, there was some question about whether or not the process would work. Sam and Quorra leave the virtual world together. After the climactic ending, we cut to the real world and Sam is standing alone in the old arcade, looking sad as he downloads something onto a memory stick. He meets Alan and has a conversation with no mention whatsoever of Quorra, then goes outside the arcade alone. Only then do we hear Quorra's voice and they reveal that she made it into the real world, and was just waiting for Sam outside, not only none the worse for wear but she's found a new wardrobe.
• Disney Villain Death:
  • Averted. Instead of falling to his deresolution, Clu is reabsorbed by Flynn who then explodes as Sam and Quorra escape to the real world.
  • Rinzler, on the other hand, gets one, falling into the Sea of Simulation. But even then we see his colors change and it's suggested he has become Tron again, though his fate is not revealed.
• Dissonant Serenity: The DJs in the End of Line Club. Just before a fight scene, one turns to the other, nods, and they start playing background music to the fight. Which is entirely appropriate considering they wrote the soundtrack.
• Distant Sequel: The movie takes place in 2010, nearly thirty years after the original, with Kevin's son, Sam Flynn, taking the role of main protagonist this time.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Encom seems to have uncanny similarities to both Apple and Microsoft. The OS launch is clear satire on the latter.
• Double-Meaning Title: "Legacy" could mean an inheritance from parents or other ancestors (as in the case of the proverbial torch passes between the Flynns) and in computing parlance, "Legacy" also refers to antiquated, but functioning, software and hardware components (The Grid being run on a 1980's supercomputer)
• Downer Ending: For a Disney film; could be considered as a possible Sequel Hook. Sam is finally reunited with his father after his disappearance 20 years ago only to have his father seemingly lost forever after reabsorbing Clu. Also, Tron breaks Clu's mind control and redeems himself by protecting Sam and Flynn during the climatic chase scene only to sink to his apparent death. Made bittersweet in the final scene.
• Down the Rabbit Hole: As per the opening fanfare quote at the top of the page.
• The Dragon: Rinzler.
• Dramatic Drop: The security guard in Encom Tower, upon realizing there's an intruder.
• Dramatic Unmask: Clu's Collapsible Helmet revealing he has Kevin Flynn's face to both Sam and the audience.
• Drives Like Crazy: Quorra in the Light Runner.
• Dual Wielding:
  • Rinzler can split his disc into two. He can use both as melee weapons, and does throw both precisely once in the whole film, right at the beginning of the Disc Wars fight. (The camera is focusing on Sam so it's hard to see him throwing the second disk in the background.)
  • Quorra fights with her Identity Disc in one hand and a Laser Blade in the other.
  • Some Black Guards use a baton split in two laser blades.
• Dying as Yourself: When Tron's Tron Lines change back to blue.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Flynn taking out Clu after Tron fails to do so.
• Dystopia: Clu believes he's building "the perfect system", which is really this.

Tropes E to F

• Eating the Eye Candy: Right after Quorra rescues Sam from the Light Cycle grid and they're on the twisty mountain path leading to Kevin's hideout, Sam looks out the window and stares in awe at the scenery, and she briefly looks him up and down with a smirk on her face, apparently admiring some scenery of her own.
• Egopolis: TRON City (not used in the movie, but All There in the Manual). It's a subversion, though, since it was Kevin Flynn's idea, and Tron never was a dictator, more like a protector of the system.
• Elite Mooks: Clu's soldiers are actually quite skilled at fighting. During the battle at the End of Line club they have Sam and Quorra (and some insurgents) beat until Kevin arrives.
• Emerging from the Shadows: Gem enters her first scene in this way.
• Emotionless Girl: The Armory Sirens, except for Gem.
• Empty Fridge, Empty Life: Sam has a couple of cans of beer and not much else in his refrigerator.
• Everything Is an iPod in the Future: Specifically, Everything Is a Black iPod in Cyberspace.
• Everything Is Online: Averted. The Grid is not hooked up to the Internet, and the one time we see any hacking in the Real World, Sam has to physically make his way into the building, past security, to physically access a server and connect it to his phone to get the files into the system.
• Evil All Along: Zuse and Gem, though not so much "evil" as "always looking out for number one", tip off the Black Guards that Sam is in the club.
• Evil Former Friend:
  • Rinzler was once Tron.
  • Also Zuse for Quorra.
  • And, of course, Clu for Flynn.
• Evil Is Hammy: Clu. Exaggerated, of course.
• Evil Is Sterile: As mentioned in the Creative Sterility entry, Clu, as the Satan figure in the film's theology, is only able to "repurpose" other programs, contrasting with his creator and father, Flynn.
• Evil Twin: Obviously, Clu to Flynn.
• Exact Progress Bar: Well, it is the Grid.
• Exact Words: Clu was programmed to "create the perfect system". Basic rule of programming: programs do exactly what you tell them to, not what you thought or meant. But it's easier to forget this when they look and talk like people.
• Extremely Short Timespan: After the initial scene with young Sam and Kevin in 1989, the non-flashback portion of the film takes place over a few hours, from shortly before midnight one night, and a bit after sunrise the next morning. Inside the Grid, it again takes place over a few hours, which translate to milliseconds on the outside.
• Face–Heel Turn / Turned Against Their Masters:
  • Clu. He started out as Flynn's guidance/improvement program, mutated into a far quicker and deadlier Sark, and aspires to break into the Real World. In other words, to be the new MCP.
  • Also Tron, though, not by his choice...
• The Faceless: Rinzler, to hide the fact that he is really a brainwashed Tron. Also probably to save having to digitally de-age Bruce Boxleitner's face for more than the few seconds it's shown in flashbacks. The flashbacks themselves also have a bit of a digital haze to them, effectively de-emphasizing the fact that Boxleitner's de-aging wasn't nearly as detailed, according to Cinefex.
• Faceless Goons: The Black Guards. Done to Tron.
• False Reassurance: Clu's entire first conversation with Sam. All of his answers are truthful, but it's what he doesn't say that misleads Sam.
  Sam: ... you were trapped in here.
  Clu: That's right.
  Sam: And you're in charge.
  Clu: All right again, two for two.
• Fanservice: Nothing overt, but there's lots of people in skintight suits.
• Fantastic Racism: Clu and his regime, against the ISOs, and in turn the Users. The events of TRON: Betrayal indicate that Clu believed the ISOs were actually damaging the Grid by their very presence, which he believed was an anathema to the perfect, ordered system that Flynn had asked him to create.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: A sharp-eyed viewer will note that the Tron Lines of some of the characters are deliberately asymmetrical for no apparent purpose other than aesthetics. Quorra has asymmetrical Tron Lines, an asymmetrical outfit, and an asymmetrical bobbed haircut.
• Fate Worse than Death: The Games, if the suicidal, gibbering program is anything to go by.
• Faux Affably Evil: Castor may be The Mole, he may be working for Clu, but when you ham it up like that...
• Femme Fatale: Gem, although unlike classic examples, she is clad in white and has white hair.
• Final First Hug: The reintegration between Flynn and Clu looks a lot like this, with Flynn wrapping his arms around his "wayward son" even as Clu is being absorbed back into his body.
• Final Solution: The ISOs aren't perfect? Clu has a simple way to solve that problem...
• Flashback Effects:
  • The flashback to Kevin Flynn's backstory on the Grid has distortion on the edges and some bursts of static.
  • Flynn's earlier speech before his disappearance (if it can count as a flashback) looks like a TV recording.
  • One memory of his past with his son is shown as a negative.
• Fluorescent Footprints: Rinzler can track this way.
• Flynning: The hand-to-hand disc combat seems like a hi-tech version of this, apparently based on capoeira. Also, think about who's involved.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Rinzler has a T-shaped arrangement of squares on his chest, as Tron did in the original film. Related to that, in a flashback of Clu betraying Flynn and Tron, the latter grabs another disc and strikes a pose, just like what he did as Rinzler earlier in the film. After the Gory Discretion Shot of Clu taking out Tron, we start to hear the ominous flickering sound associated with Rinzler.
  • Quorra's almost childlike inquisitiveness combined with Kevin's description of the ISOs as being "profoundly naive yet unimaginably wise" foreshadows that Quorra is in fact an ISO, and the last one at that. Quorra also emotes an unusual sorrow and dread at Kevin's mention of the Purge during the exposition to Sam... unusual unless she's an ISO herself.
• Freefall Fight: Between Clu and Rinzler after the latter crashed their Light Jets together, to seize the remaining Light Jet baton.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • A Goofy plush toy can be spotted on the shelf in Young Sam's bedroom at the beginning, likely as a Mythology Gag to Kingdom Hearts II. Later on, Luigi can be spotted on one of the machines at Flynn's Arcade.
  • If you pause at the frame when Sam swept the dust away from the screen of the Grid mainframe, you can see some basic information of the mainframe: it used a weird mix of Intel and Sun processors, runs Solaris with GNU userland and X, have 2 users logged in, mostly idle, and is up for about 8 and a half days. Subsequent scenes revealed Flynn's username being "flynn", logging into the system using username "backdoor" will grant system priviledges, Flynn wrote the Grid using C programming language and named the program LLLSDLaserControl and left his last will and testament before entering the Grid.
• Future Spandex: A particularly noteworthy example.

Tropes G to H

• Game Changer: Kevin Flynn explains to Sam that with his arrival into the Grid that the previous stalemate between Flynn and Clu is given a shake-up. This is what Clu was expecting by summoning Sam to the arcade, hoping to egg Flynn out of his self-exile. Flynn initially tries to ignore the bait but Sam doesn't like trying to stay still.
• Guard Stations Terminally Unattended: The toadying lackey hears the sound of Sam obliterating the guards just outside the door and is quite disconcerted to see him walk in afterwards. However, he is savvy enough to immediately pledge his loyalty to Sam to avoid getting derezzed.
• Gladiator Games: And man, have they improved since TRON.
• A God Am I: Played horribly straight with Clu, who being a duplicate of a younger, immature Flynn, ended up manifesting much of the darker parts of Flynn's own ego.
• A God I Am Not: While Kevin Flynn technically is a God, as the Creator of the Grid, indeed being venerated by many Programs and ISOs, Flynn clearly does not wish for any of this worship and devotion, instead content to act in the role as benevolent father-figure who wishes to help his creations.
• God Is Flawed: Most of the movie takes place in the world of the Grid, which Kevin Flynn created (Quorra acknowledges him as "the creator") and can manipulate in various ways (see Physical God below). He is wise and benevolent, a personality that might seem a bit out of character for those who have seen the first movie and remember him as an immature brat. Later, he explains that he was still immature and shortsighted when he created the Grid, created Clu, and gave Clu his mission of "creating the perfect system"; he passed his flaws along to Clu, eventually leading to Clu's tyranny.
• God Is Good: Played with. Kevin Flynn is a kindly father figure to his creations. However, he is not infallible (see directly above), and, after his terrible mistake with Clu, he is reluctant to interfere in the universe.
• Go-Go Enslavement: When Sam arrives in the grid and is captured, the Armory Sirens cut away his clothes and dress him in the standard program attire.
  Sam: Hey, Hey! It has a zipper.
• Gone Horribly Right: Kevin Flynn wanted a helper-program to assist him in creating the perfect system. And Clu does just that.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: Like the original, blue means "good guy", red means "bad guy". Green can be either, and the leader of the bad guys is yellow-orange. Due to suit technology, the blue was extremely pale compared to the blue of the first film. This complicated color-coding scheme descends from Executive Meddling in the first film: Originally good programs were to be yellow and bad ones blue. Disney execs thought this too confusing and demanded that red=bad and blue=good, but by this time the scenes with the yellow Clu were already finished. So...^note Or manning a tank messes with your color in the ENCOM grid, since the MCP's tanks were manned by green programs. Also Flynn's color changed to match whoever he last touched. (Or, foreign code and military code.) The Game Sirens are dressed in white-blue, and they do "help" Programs... by equipping them to fight for their lives in the Arena. Its not clear if they work "for" Clu or they're just neutral. And of course, Programs who are just pretending to be good will dress in blue/white.
• Gorn:
  • With data cubes (voxels) and shards spilling all over the damn place, this movie has plenty of it.
  • Even then, Sam Flynn gets bloody wounds from his battle against Rinzler. Considering that most Disney movies, including the 1982 original, seldom show The Hero getting even a scratch in battle, TRON: Legacy is quite possibly the darkest Disney movie yet.
  • There's also a lovely close-up on a headshotted enemy fighter pilot, voxels dripping off the hole where his face used to be. (Rather similar to a shot in The Quick and the Dead.)
• Gory Discretion Shot:
  • This is used when Clu supposedly kills Tron in a flashback.
  • As an example of how the film otherwise averted this trope, the dogfight scene actually showed Quorra giving one of Clu's programs a headshot, disintegrating voxels and all. And this is a Disney movie...
  • Not just once, either. Before the previous example, Zuse blasts another of the Black Guard point blank to the head, from behind. Darker and Edgier, indeed.
• Grandpa God: Kevin Flynn, the demiurge of the Grid, is an old silver-bearded man in white robes.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: Generated by a baton, thus the cable is made of light like the Light Cycles, Staffs or Swords.
  • A Black Guard uses it to steal Kevin Flynn's Identity Disc in the End of Line club.
  • Quorra also uses one to swing under the bridge (and Clu) at the Portal.
• Gravity Screw: The gravity in the Disk Wars arena can be reversed, turning the ceiling into the new floor. Clu can apparently control this with a remote, though there's a warning siren when the changeover is activated. Because Sam is unfamiliar with the games, he doesn't know what the siren means or why Rinzler is running up the wall of the arena, until he's falling upwards and hits the ceiling, hard. More experienced players like Rinzler know that the trick is to run up the curved arena wall, timing it just right that you're perpendicular to the original floor just as the gravity changeover occurs, at which point you just run "down" to the original ceiling.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: Played straight and averted by The ISOs and Clu respectively. The ISOs are powerful programs who came out of nowhere, and seem to be actual, true AI. While Clu, despite his evil and sadistic nature, is still following Flynn's command to him when he was created, unfortunately in the most literal way possible.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: Sam sneaks into Clu's habitation and is able to steal his dad's disk almost unchallenged.
• Hammerspace Parachute: Sam is equipped with a hidden parachute which he uses for his Suicidal "Gotcha!" escape on the rooftop of the Encom building.
• Hammy Herald: Jarvis in the Light Cycle Arena, when he introduces Clu. Per Jarvis' comments, Clu wrote the speech, another nod to Clu's egomania.
• Hand Signals: During the final fight, Rinzler uses one to tell his wingman to go left.
• Happy Ending Override: The smartass protagonist from the first film is a ruined mess who's gone well past the Despair Event Horizon. Lora's nowhere to be seen (Expanded Universe material puts her clear across the country). Alan is left alone and friendless in a boardroom full of crooks that make Dillinger Sr. look competent and honest. The Grid is a hellhole, the title character's been handed every fate worse than de-rez, and the batshit AI has completely won on his side of the screen and plans to Take Over the World.
• Heel Realization: "I fight for the Users!"
• Hermit Guru: Kevin Flynn resembles a stereotypical Far Eastern sage in many, many ways. Living a secluded life, reading classic Buddhist and Taoist texts and meditating in a Lotus Position certainly helps. Lampshaded by the famous "messing with the Zen thing" phrase. This is probably also influenced by the fact that Jeff Bridges himself has become a devout Buddhist and does "the Zen thing" in real life.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Tron does so twice.
  • Flynn integrates with Clu to stop him from getting out of the Grid. And then explodes.
• He's Back!: Kevin showing up at the End of Line Club and winning the fight by merely being there. What he does is to undo the horrible odds Zuse had imposed against the club's patrons. Note that his hand is on the floor and he's implied to be having an effect of some sort.
• High-Altitude Battle: The Light Jets dogfighting before the climax.
• High-Tech Hexagons: Sported by a lot of the architecture on the Grid. As well as the mesh worn underneath most of the Programs' costumes. In fact, in the Armory scene, the undermesh is seen forming all over Kevin Flynn hexagon by hexagon.
• Hopeless War: Though only talked about in the background, Kevin fought one of these against Clu, but everything he did simply made Clu stronger.
• Hotter and Sexier: The costumes are a lot more attractive, tighter and revealing. Casting Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde and Beau Garrett really helps.
• Humans Are Flawed: Flynn mentions this when discussing the consequences of Clu entering the human world.
  Flynn: [on Clu] He doesn't dig imperfection, and what's more imperfect than our world?
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: From what little we see of him, Dillinger Jr. seems to be this to the Encom CEO.

Tropes I to J

• I Am Not Left-Handed: Surprise, Rinzler! That was Daddy's Disc! This next one's Sam's, though.
• I Am Not Your Father: Clu breaks this to Sam.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: When Rinzler captures Quorra and brings her to Clu, he acts like this around her, including touching her hair and saying he has "something special" in mind for her before ordering Rinzler to take her to his quarters.
• Implied Love Interest: The relationship between Sam and Quorra isn't explicitely romantic but they have some Ship Tease and they share a ride on his bike at the end.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: The Discs are no longer conspicuous-looking frisbee discs, but awesome laser chakrams that can still be used in close combat without hurting the wielder.
• Indy Ploy:
  Flynn: What's your plan?
  Sam: I'm a User. I'll improvise.
• Information Wants to Be Free: Sam stages an undercover operation to release the source code of Encom's operating system to the public (he's the main stockholder of the company, so it's legal for him to do so).
• Insecurity Camera: During his visit to Encom, Sam causes the camera (and apparently there's only one camera between the rear entrance and the secure server room) to stop working just long enough for him to get past it. The obligatory lazy security guard in the monitoring room notices that it's stopped working, but when it comes on again he decides it was nothing.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: The ISOs independently emerged from the Grid's own complexity.
  Flynn: They manifested, like a flame. They weren't really, really from anywhere. The conditions were right, and they came into being.
• Instant Expert:
  • Quorra apparently has never flown before. Not that it stopped her from deftly mixing it up with six Light Jets in the Light Flyer. May be an aspect of her ISO-ness.
  • Sam is often mistaken for this. However, he gets lucky in Round 1 of Disc Wars, cheats in Round 2, and gets beaten soundly by Rinzler in Round 3. Then, the Light Cycle competition comes down to him and Clu, and Clu has the fastest bike. Sam would have lost that, too, if the event had not been interrupted by an "illegal combatant". Later, he and Quorra mix it up with some red guys and some blue guys, and find themselves on the losing end of that battle until Kevin shows up. He later kills two mooks who were not shown even putting up a fight, then he and Quorra work together (with Sam using two discs, no less) to defeat Rinzler and succeed only in slowing him down. Toward the end, he found himself on the losing side of an aerial dogfight until Rinzler does a Heel–Face Turn... this is not a case of Instant Expert so much as Random Number God.
• Insult Misfire:
  Clu: The cycles haven't been kind, have they?!
  Flynn: Nah. You don't look so bad.
• Interspecies Romance: And a refreshingly subtle one at that.
• Intrinsic Vow: Combined with Foreshadowing. Rinzler stops attacking Sam as soon as he draws blood, because only Users have blood, and he was originally programmed, as Tron, to defend them.
• Ironic Echo:
  • There's a shot of Kevin before his disappearance giving a speech, which Clu echoes in his speech to the army.
    Kevin: In there... is our destiny!
    
    Clu: Out there... is our destiny!
  • "Identify yourself, program." "I'm not a program. My name is Sam Flynn." The first time, it's right after he gets slapped around by Rinzler; the second time, he's about to open a can of whoopass on the mothership.
  • Sam: "Pull up, man! You can't make that!" Quorra: "Made it." Later on, Quorra: "Clu will be here any minute. We'll never make it." Sam: "Made it."
  • In the flashback, when Clu attempts the coup against Kevin, Kevin pleads "Why?" as Clu stands over him. At the end of the film, when Clu, standing over Kevin again, realizes that Kevin switched his Disc with Quorra's, it is Clu who bleats, "Why?"
• It Only Works Once: In his first disc match, Sam wins by breaking the floor in the spot his opponent is trying to land, sending him plummeting to his death. When he tries this on Rinzler a couple matches later, Rinzler lands on the edges so he doesn't fall through.
• Jedi Mind Trick: Kevin Flynn attempts this when stealing the light jet by reprogramming the guard from behind. After getting the guard's attention, the initial request doesn't work. Then Kevin applies some Percussive Maintenance to make him comply with the new programming.
• Just Think of the Potential!: Flynn was delighted with the Grid and especially the ISOs, seeing them as capable of revolutionizing "science, medicine, religion, everything!" Of course, Clu disagreed with the notion, meaning that Flynn's entire vision came to nothing.

Tropes K to M

• Killed Mid-Sentence: Jarvis. "DEATH TO THE U—"
• Knight Templar: Clu.
• Large Ham:
  • Michael Sheen is let completely off the leash and practically bounces off the walls playing Castor. Just watch.
    Castor: Change the scheme! Alter the mood! Electrify the boys and girls, if you'd be so kind.
  • The theatrics of Clu's arrival into the Game Arena and his New Era Speech are extremely over the top.
    Clu: And whatever we find there, there, our system will grow. There, our system will blossom! Do this! Prove yourselves! Prove yourselves for me! Be loyal to me, and I will never betray you!
  • Clu's flunky Jarvis gives a hammy speech to the crowds, then asks Clu if he was motivational enough.
• Laser Blade: Mocked at first with Sam holding the Light Cycle baton like a lightsaber. Though it is later shown that both Quorra and the Black Guards use them, including a bo-staff version.
• Last of His Kind: The last ISO, Quorra.
• Latex Space Suit: A majority of the programs, but literally the Armory Sirens, at least the outer layer. In a special feature on the DVD, Beau Garrett (the actress who plays Gem) explains that her costume has four layers; the outermost layer is a sprayed-on latex, similar to the latex used in party balloons.
• Left the Background Music On:
  • Apparently, the DJ programs in the End of Line bar were responsible for changing tracks after Castor betrays our heroes and Kevin shows up personally.
  • When he arrives at the arcade, Sam turns on a jukebox that instantly starts playing music. Since he never turns it off before being transported, presumably the music kept playing the whole time he was uploaded.
• Legendary in the Sequel: At one point at the end of the bar fight, one of the programs kneels down and virtually prays to Kevin Flynn.
• A Light in the Distance: The Portal.
• Light Is Not Good: Zuse and Gem both have white hair and dress in a similar aesthetic. They're not good guys.
• Like Cannot Cut Like: The Identity Discs.
• Living MacGuffin: Quorra, the last ISO.
• Logo Joke: The Cinderella Castle appears as a building within the grid, complete with Tron Lines. The words "Walt Disney Pictures" appears as a hologram.
• Lotus Position: Kevin Flynn meditates a lot.
• Love at First Sight: While not quite love, there is a near-immediate pre-romance going on between Sam and Quorra, starting with her Eating the Eye Candy after rescuing him from the Light Cycle grid. The first and most obvious hint that he feels the same way is dropped during the conversation on the Solar Sailer simulation. When Quorra asks Sam to describe the Sun, he looks at the Portal when saying "warm" and "radiant", but turns to her to say "beautiful", which gets a smile from her. Naturally, the movie ends with her seeing the Sun for the first time.
• Ludicrous Gibs: Well, Ludicrous Voxels — some of the program's deresolutions are quite graphic, if being converted into a million little blue or red cubes can be called that.
• MacGuffin: Apart from the above Living MacGuffin, Flynn's disc, which would supposedly enable Clu to enter the physical world.
• Madness Mantra: "Not the games not the games not the games not the games..."
• Male Gaze:
  • When the Sirens have Sam's armor on him, the camera pans up from bottom to the top, we get a great view of the Sirens in their tight costumes from behind.
  • When Sam and Jem enter the End of Line club, we get a great shot of Jem's rear.
  • We get a great shot of Quorra's rear at the end of the film, as it reveals that she is in the real world.
• Manchild: Sam Flynn acts more like a rebellious teenager seeking thrills than the 27 year old that he is. At the end of the movie, he decides to start working at Encom.
• Manly Tears: Sam's eyes are visibly red and tear streaks are on his cheek after his reunion with his father. Likewise, Flynn starts crying almost the very second he recognizes his son.
• Mass Transformation: A part of Clu's ultimate plan is to use the facilities onboard the Rectifier to convert dissident programs into a massive army of loyal, obedient soldiers.
• Master of Unlocking: Sam Flynn. Like father, like son.
• Match Cut: Of the Age Cut variety. Kid!Sam's bicycle becomes Adult!Sam's motorcycle.
• Meaningful Echo:
  • See Call-Back and Ironic Echo, above.
    Quorra: You could say... I was a rescue.
  • Beginning of the movie: "In there is a new world... in there is our destiny!" End of the movie: "Out there is a new world... out there is our destiny!"
  • Sam: "Pull up, man! You can't make that!" Quorra: "Made it." Later on, Quorra: "Clu will be here any minute. We'll never make it." Sam: "Made it."
  • Right after Sam gets steamrolled by Rinzler: "Identify yourself, program" "I'm not a program. My name is Sam Flynn." Later, when Sam is about to open a can of whoopass on the mothership, the same exchange occurs word-for-word.
  • In the beginning, immediately before Flynn gets trapped in the Grid, he promises to play an arcade game with Sam, assuring him that they're "always on the same team". On Clu's Rectifier ship, Sam makes it clear that he won't leave without his father, saying "'Same team', remember?" Flynn responds, "I was afraid you were gonna say that."
• MegaCorp: Encom. They've expanded since the first and the board takes advantage of Flynn's absence to go against his ideals in the name of profit.
• Men Get Old, Women Get Replaced: Bridges? Check. Boxleitner? Check. Morgan? Oh, we put her human character on a bus, and her Program doesn't even warrant a mention in the Expanded Universe.
• Mickey Mousing:
  • The Armory Sirens walk in time to the BGM "Armory". The resulting effect is both creepy and cool.
  • Later, a literal siren goes off just as the BGM starts to resemble siren sounds.
• Midair Collision: Rinzler actually does this to Clu 2 at the end.
• A Minor Kidroduction: The movie starts with Sam Flynn as a child.
• Mood Whiplash: While Quorra and Sam are fighting against Black Guards in the End of Line Club, Castor is dancing the entire time.
• More Dakka:
  • Castor's laser cane is the only man-portable firearm in the entire movie, and it boasts a quite impressive fire rate. The shots even bounce around the room when they hit a wall, which most of them do.
  • The Light Fighter that the protagonists hijack during the finale isn't precisely a bomber, but comes with the secondary armaments of a World War II one: heavy machine guns in the front and a twin-linked tail gun turret. Being a Light vehicle, it's also equipped with the mandatory light wall emitters.
• Ms. Fanservice: Quorra. On the couch. With her legs.◊
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: "I'm not a progam. My name is Sam Flynn."
• My Nayme Is: Quorra (pronounced "Cora").

Tropes N to O

• A Nazi by Any Other Name: Clu's Big Speech scene is pure Leni Riefenstahl. His genocide of the ISOs because they didn't fit in with his idea of a "perfect system" is another big clue.
• Nerds Are Sexy:
  • Sam Flynn
  • Ed Dillinger, Jr.
  • Alan Bradley
  • Quorra, though she's a literature nerd.
• New Era Speech: Clu's final speech to his program army. See the epic hamminess for yourself.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: During the final phase of Flynn Lives, the titular organization attempted to find Kevin Flynn by investigating his last major public appearance — a promotional tour for his book The Digital Frontier — and locate mysterious packages he had left at each stop on the tour. They had hoped that by gathering the information left in the packages, they could create a "digital pulse" that would allow them to send a message to Flynn. Instead, the pulse temporarily connects the Grid to California's phone system, giving Clu the opportunity to send the page to Alan Bradley and set in motion the chain of events that would almost lead to the conquest of Earth.
• No Communities Were Harmed: The sign above the police station that Sam emerges from shows that the setting is called "Center City." Its coat of arms is based on that of Los Angeles.
• No Escape but Down: Sam is in this situation when cornered by the security guard on the rooftop of the Encom building. He does a Suicidal "Gotcha!" and escapes using his Hammerspace Parachute.
• No Flow in CGI: This is an Invoked Trope, since though the programmers and actors could easily have included billowy clothes and long hair, they chose to have nearly everyone wear skintight clothing for most of the film and sport very short or bound hairstyles.
• Nonchalant Dodge: Rinzler tends to invert this, doing elaborate flips for no other reason than because he can. But in his arena battle with Sam, after a particularly complex dodge of Sam's disc, he lands and then simply ducks about an inch or two to avoid the disc as it bounces off the wall behind him.
  Sam: Why do I feel like I just got dunked on?
• Nothing but Hits: A non-period example: The mothballed jukebox, dusty and unused since Flynn's Arcade closed in 1983, immediately starts blasting hits from when it was last active (Journey's "Separate Ways" and the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This").
• Oddly Named Sequel:
  • Was to be called TR2N.
  • TRON 3 was given the go-ahead before Legacy had even opened; due to the Ironic Echo, the front-runner for the next movie's name was TRON: Destiny. Production had started with the temporary use of TR3N, calling back to Legacy's original title scheme. Later rumors pointed to it being called TRON: Ascension, and, as of July 2023, the third movie has the working title of TRON: Ares.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • Sam facing off against several of Clu's minions looks like it would be a pretty awesome fight scene, right? Too bad all we get to see of it is Jarvis' reaction as it happens right outside his door.
  • We never actually get to see how Sam and Quorra leave the Grid and re-materialize in the real world, or Sam leave the real world and appear in the Grid for that matter (this crosses over with Take Our Word for It).
• Oh, Crap!: Castor gets a look of utter terror when he sees Flynn.
• Older and Wiser: Kevin Flynn and Alan Bradley from the original movie return as mentors for Flynn Jr.
• Old-School Dogfight: It doesn't get much more old school than having a tail gunner.
• Opinion Flip-Flop: Clu's spinelessly sycophantic right hand program. Neatly mirrors both Clu and Sam's desire to reconcile with Kevin Flynn, their higher-up/father.
• Orange/Blue Contrast: The movie itself consists mostly of this. It could have been grandfathered in as the original TRON was mostly black-and-white with Red and Blue glow-lines. For the sequel they kept the Blue glow intact, but then they went and tweaked the Red to be various, mostly orange-ish shades.
• Orchestra Hit Techno Battle: The Masked DJs in-universe provides the soundtrack for a battle inside Castor's nightclub.
• Order Versus Chaos: The driving force for the conflict between Flynn and Clu.
• The Outside World: The real world in this film and the original TRON'. Programs are barely aware of its existence, except as a place where the nearly-mythical Users live, but some of them are anxious to break out of their computerized life and enter reality. The MCP in Tron is trying to use Dillinger to access more powerful systems, namely the Pentagon, and Clu 2.0 in Legacy actually wants to invade the real world to make it "perfect".

Tropes P to S

• Painting the Medium:
  • The real world is 2D, while the Grid is 3D. You even get a note advising you to keep your 3D glasses on for the whole film.
  • The real world scenes are also filmed in Cinemascope while the Grid is filmed in IMAX format.
• Parachute in a Tree: Sam's parachute gets stuck on a light post, messing up his escape plan.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: Subverted; Clu seems to be this at first, but see God Is Flawed above.
• Parental Abandonment: Sam suffers from this; in addition to his father's disappearance, his mother was killed in a car accident shortly after he was born. Alan does his best to be a surrogate father. Arguably, Clu is also an example (Flynn being the disappeared "father").
• Parental Substitute: Alan took over as father figure to Sam after Kevin disappears. In one of the clips in the news montage on Kevin's disappearance, it looks like he's about to go Papa Wolf on some hounding reporters harassing young Sam.
• Password Slot Machine: Used by Sam to sneak inside the Encom HQ, using his hacked cell phone, like Flynn's homemade hacking device in the first movie. The diagram shown is vaguely similar to diagrams depicting differential cryptanalysis suggesting that his method may be examining the results of each attempt to find the patterns to lock in a correct key.
• Percussive Maintenance:
  • In the real world, a guard taps his security monitor and it (coincidentally) begins working again.
  • Flynn tries to reprogram a guard to let him steal a Light Fighter and it apparently doesn't work — then he thumps the guard on the head, and the new programming kicks in.
    Guard: You are not authorized.
    Kevin: [whack]
    Guard: Right away, sir.
  • At the beginning of the "Derezzed" music video, one member of the Daft Punk duo starts the video game with a kick.
• Perfection Is Impossible: After seeing the disastrous results of giving Clu the directive to create a perfect system, Flynn has come to this conclusion. He tries to explain this to Clu during the film's climax, but this only incenses Clu futher.
• Perma-Stubble: Clu, due to Kevin Flynn having some stubble when he created Clu. And since programs don't age....
• Phony Newscast: The second half of the prologue is done via newscasts.
• Physical God: Kevin is able to alter the Grid as its creator; for example, he can empower friendly programs to fight better, allowing them to overcome Clu's Elite Mooks (to be fair, they did just Zerg Rush the mooks), take control of machines and elevators, and heal damaged programs by removing damaged code. He can also kill Clu, but can't do this without triggering a huge explosion that will kill everyone in a wide radius. With a bit of time to work, he can also reprogram guards. Some still-faithful programs can be seen kneeling as Kevin walks by in the bar fight scene, enraptured by his presence.
• Pillar of Light: The Portal, when activated by Kevin Flynn's disc.
• Playful Hacker: Sam, who apparently has used the computer savvy he inherited from his father to annually prank Encom. He doesn't do it just for the heck of it like some hackers, either: he's basically punishing the company for abandoning his father's philanthropic bent.
• Plot Armor: All minor characters are instantly destroyed when they crash, but major characters are always thrown clear from crashes completely unfazed. Minor characters are also instantly destroyed by a hit from a disc, but Clu takes a shot from Tron and survives, while Quorra merely goes offline instead of being totally destroyed.
• Precision F-Strike: Sam gets one during his botched getaway after stealing the ENCOM OS 12 and redistributing it on the Internet; specifically, when his parachute gets caught on a stray pole in the middle of the road.
  Sam: Oh, shit!
• Precision-Guided Boomerang: In this case, Precision-Guided Identity Discs.
• Pretty Little Headshots: Averted during the dogfight — one shot takes out a significant chunk of a mook's head. It's still Bloodless Carnage seeing as he's a program.
• Previews Pulse: The film plays one as Sam first enters the Grid and sees a Recognizer. Its trailer utilizes them as well.
• Product Placement: With most of the movie taking place in the computer world, they need to stuff it in early.
  • When the police motorcycle is about to pursue Sam on the highway, it stops in front of the camera for a moment — trying to let you know that it's a BMW police bike.
  • Sam and Alan drinking Coors. In one shot, a Coors can takes up about a third of the frame, but it is tastefully out of focus. (Word of God invoked says that the beer was not intended product placement; the director simply liked the color and look of the can and thought it would look good on-screen).
  • Kevin's old Ducati bike is given a lot of attention. Sam also rides the same Ducati, and the company's logo is quite visible on the gas tank as he flees the cops and after he gets home. Sam later tells Kevin that he's fixing his old Ducati.
  • Sam's phone is a Nokia N8 with a few custom attachments.
  • Almost all of the toys and models in young Sam's room are actual merchandise created to promote the movie, especially the action figures.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Albeit a short one. Quorra needs to verbally club a hesitant Sam to get into the Light Runner when she sprangs him from the Light Cycle grid.
  Quorra: Get in.
  [Sam stands there]
  Quorra: GET. IN.
• A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: Clu since all he wanted was perfection. The comic Betrayal indicates Clu was more a Deceptive Disciple, especially since he was planting bombs in the City to frame the ISOs and turned the Games lethal before striking the final blow with the coup.
• Pursuing Parental Perils: Subverted, as Sam wanted nothing to do with Encom, but played straight because the kid inherited his father's computer skills, and used them to prank the company annually, before finally exerting his majority stock share and taking direct control after getting some closure on his Parental Abandonment.
• Putting on the Reich: Clu's army.
• Quotes Fit for a Trailer: Several such lines that were used in various TV spots (see one example here) include Castor's "This is going to be quite the ride." and Sam's "Now that's what I'm talking about!"
• Rage Against the Heavens: Part of Clu's motivation.
• Rapid-Fire Typing: Though the film does use real and accurate UNIX commands in a few scenes, it has also been pointed out (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that even for Dillinger or Flynn, being able to type that quickly, that accurately on a virtual keyboard is practically a Charles Atlas Superpower.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Quorra's combination of dark clothes and hair and pale skin/white Tron Lines emphasize this. She's also quite gorgeous, as Sam and Clu can attest. When she's brought into the real world, her skin becomes a normal Caucasian tone.
• Really 700 Years Old: Kevin Flynn has been missing for only 20 real-world years, but has passed the equivalent of a thousand years inside the Grid. So he has a body of a 60-year old man, but the accumulated wisdom of ten lifetimes. Kevin mentions that a millicycle is about eight hours. That would make one full cycle to be 8,000 hours, or about 333 days, roughly a year. Judging by Castor/Zuse's comment about Clu looking for Flynn's disk for "over a thousand cycles," Kevin Flynn has been exiled for over 913 years, from his point of view.
• Recursive Canon: The TRON and Discs of TRON video games were apparently made and published by Encom based on Kevin Flynn's experiences. TRON 2.0 did the same thing.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Once again this trope is played by the antagonists of the Grid, although for CLU himself it is subverted - his personal color scheme is black and orange.
• Redemption Equals Death: Tron/Rinzler. Arguably Flynn Sr. as well.
• Redemption Rejection: At the climax on the bridge, Flynn legitimately apologises to Clu for everything he had done that resulted in Clu becoming the way he was. He then offers to embrace him. Clu, looking absolutely stunned, seems almost willing to accept. Instead, he sends Flynn flying across the walkway.
• Red Herring:
  • Flynn telling Sam that they would play on the same team. It sounded exactly like Flynn was Tempting Fate, and he'd have to fight Sam at the Grid. It didn't happen, but would probably look damn cool.
  • There's also the old-school Light Cycle, to a point. Quorra makes a point that it is the fastest version around, so you expect that there's going to be a Light Cycle match to show this off. Instead, Sam takes it for a ride, gives it to a hobo to perform an identity switch, and then the Light Cycle leads Clu back to Flynn's hideout.
  • The coin that Flynn tosses to Sam before he disappears. It is implied to be the same coin Sam puts in the TRON machine in the arcade, so we're lead to think it's some kind of key. It turns out to be just a coin, and falls unceremoniously to the floor. Then subverted, as the coin hitting the floor brings Sam's attention to grooves in the floor that indicate it's not just an arcade cabinet...
• Red Shirt Army: The resistance programs at the End of Line club who are trying to enlist Zuse's help against Clu. When the Black Guards bust in, the best they're able to do is keep a couple of the bad guys busy, and pretty much get slaughtered. At least until Kevin walks in and manages to turn the tide singlehandedly by simply being there.
• Reduced to Dust: Done constantly and violently whenever a program is killed, resulting in "de-rezzing". However, instead of dust, dead programs disintegrate into bits of code.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: Averted. After his first adventure with Tron, Kevin Flynn spent the next few years developing the Grid as a digital world for both Users and Programs, hoping to revolutionize the human race. By the film's end, Quorra and Sam set out to do just that, though exactly how isn't addressed for the time being.
• Reliably Unreliable Guns: The jet-fighter gun jams on Sam during the flight battle.
• Retraux: All over the place. Specially, with an old-school Lightcycle (not the same as in the original, but a closer style to it than the new Cycles) in Kevin Flynn's room. Including, Clu is pretty much a younger 1989 Jeff Bridges.
• The Reveal: Rinzler is Tron. Plenty of hints are dropped, but it's easy to miss them on the first viewing.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Zuse and Gem, having outlived their usefulness.
• Romantic Ride Sharing: Sam and Quorra have some subtle Ship Tease. At the end, he gives her a ride on his bike, with her hugging him from behind, and she admires the view of their surroundings before burying her face in his back.
• Rule of Symbolism:
  • Kevin Flynn is God to the programs, and Jesus in terms of artistic direction. One noticeable scene is when he puts up his hood and walks into the wild after Clu's rebellion, kinda like how Jesus walked into the desert to be tested. Also, if Flynn is God, Sam and Clu are Jesus and Lucifer, respectively, and the ISOs are humanity.
  • Clu's Carrier is different from Sark's; when viewed from the side, it looks an awful lot like a sword.
  • The arrival of the son of the creator is heralded by a star in the east. (At one point, Sam mentions they're going "east" to the portal.)
  • Flynn's confrontation with Clu has hints of the parable of the Prodigal Son (a father figure accepting/welcoming back his wayward son).
  • The plot also has parallels to the Buddhist Path of Enlightenment, with Flynn demonstrating that striving is futility, control is an illusion, learning to release his worldly desires and (in the form of Clu) reconciling himself with his shadow-side to transcend the world and attain Nirvana.
• Samus Is a Girl: Quorra is introduced as a mysterious masked figure with a digitally processed and intimidating voice. After saving Sam, she removed her mask and reveals herself to be a smiling and friendly young woman.
• Saved for the Sequel: We meet the son of the bad guy from the original TRON, who's played by Cillian Murphy. Since avenging one's dead parent is a common trope, and since Murphy is a relatively well-known actor, you'd expect the son to have some relevance to the plot. But he only appears in one scene, doing nothing significant at all. Seems pretty obvious the character was in the movie only because they plan to have a bigger role for him in a possible sequel. Which is very heavily hinted at in the secret scene/teaser included in the Blu-Ray release. Dillinger Jr. has an IM conversation with his father... whose lines on the screen are accompanied by the voice of the MCP.
• "Save the World" Climax: It is originally about rescuing the previous film's protagonist from imprisonment in virtual reality, and ends up being about saving the world from an invasion by a fascist AI.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: Rinzler.
• Scenery Porn: It wouldn't be a TRON movie without this.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Since Sam is Kevin's son and owns a controlling interest in Encom stock, he can get away with a lot of legally questionable actions. For example, after breaking into Encom headquarters, stealing its intellectual property, and freely distributing it across the internet, Sam is merely punished with a couple hours in jail and getting his bike impounded. Plus, it's implied that this isn't the first time it's happened. To put it more precisely, what can the police even have you prosecuted for, once they find out that the property you stole and the place you broke into belong to you in the first place?
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Why does Sam do all this? Encom has gone from a shining example of Noblesse Oblige in Kevin's day into a corporation governed by cold greed, and Sam's voicing his disdain for this by griefing them. Our glimpse of the Encom board meeting is clearly intended to cause the audience to sympathize with this attitude. It's mentioned that his annual shenanigans are only tolerated is because he lets the board do whatever they want 364 days out of the year. Not to mention that once the new operating system is online for free, ENCOM immediately decides to act like that was the plan all along and get a nice PR boost.
• Sci-Fi Bob Haircut: Quorra.
• Secondary Character Title: Just like the first film, Tron isn't the main character.
• Sequel Escalation: The original TRON was a moderately budgeted effort that became a Cult Classic. TRON: Legacy is an ambitious bona-fide blockbuster, with a large budget, actual physical sets, and a 45-minute-longer running time. To put it into perspective: the costumes in TRON were made out of leotards and hockey equipment. In Legacy, they spent $10 million on wardrobe alone.
• Sequel Hook: Aside from press releases stating that another TRON had been greenlit before Legacy was even in theaters...
  • How will Quorra affect the world? Will she retain her powers? Will she be recognized and accepted as a "normal" person, with an ID number, a job and all?
  • The Blu-Ray disc comes with a special feature, "Flynn Lives: The Next Day", which shows (among other things) what seems to be a conversation between Dillinger Jr. and a new MCP.
  • A subtle one in the arcade's secret lair. Dust everywhere. Cobwebs. Old lock, key still inside it. The key, however, is shiny and new.
• Sequel Non-Entity: Cindy Morgan's characters, Lora and Yori, are nowhere to be seen. It has been claimed that the actress wasn't even called about the project, which is odd as Morgan — playing Lora — was involved in the viral marketing for the movie, appearing with Bruce Boxleitner at a faux press conference. Expanded Universe material gives an explanation for Lora's absence, but the fate of her Program is completely unknown (though, as it's established that The Grid is A. a new construct from the one in the original film from which only Tron was imported, and B. Clu has been running the show for cycle, any number of reasons are possible for Yori's absence).
• Sexy Backless Outfit: The servers at Castor's bar have these. (Which is weird, since you'd expect every program to carry an Identity Disc.)
• Shirtless Scene: Sam gets two. One not voluntarily, though.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Kevin lays out what he believes Clu's plan to be for Sam, and delivers the line, "It's his game! The only way to win is not to play."
  • Walking into a pristine white room and finding an old man...
  • Kevin calls his disc, which is needed to enter the Portal, "the Golden Ticket".
  • Star Wars: The fight on the retractable bridge, the dogfight (complete with Quorra announcing "It's gonna be rough" and flicking some overhead switches), Sam initially mistaking the Light Cycle baton for a lightsaber, and Kevin's resemblance to Obi-Wan. There's also masked, black-clad bad guy Rinzler with an unnerving Verbal Tic and actually being former good guy Tron, who returns to the light side and tries to kill his evil master at the end. Not to mention a largely mute, acrobatically badass Dragon who reveals his weapon to be a double version of everyone else's. The Black Guards, clad in black with red highlights, also have a moment of activating their glowing red Double Weapon Laser Blades.
  • Sam's childhood bedroom has a poster for The Black Hole and an action figure of Old BOB. The doors on Clu's ship also look like Maximilian. This seems to be a reference to the proposed remake of The Black Hole that Kosinski was interested in directing, which is now unlikely to be made.
  • Zuse is named after Konrad Zuse, creator of the first functioning, Turing-complete, program-controlled computer. This is particularly appropriate, since Zuse is described as having been around since the early days of the grid — i.e. one of the first functioning programs.
  • Other programs competing in the disc and Light Cycle games are named after notable computer engineers and programmers: Wulf, Miner, Hurd,^note or possibly GNU Hurd Urban, Landin, Logg, Eckert, Turing, Pike, Kurtz, Perlis, Berners, Backus, Cray, Vint, Cerf and Wilkes.
  • The real world is depicted two-dimensional, the digital world three-dimensional. Like in The Wizard of Oz, where Kansas (real world) was black and white, and Oz (digital/magical world) was in Technicolor.
  • Kevin's usage of "dude", "man", and "you're really messing with my Zen thing", complete in The Dude's slacker voice. He even sounds like this in the 1989 flashback. Compare to the original film in which Kevin sounds nothing like this.
  • Castor is obviously based off David Bowie, specifically his Ziggy Stardust persona; he even mentions having had to "reinvent" himself over the years. He has also been described in terms of "The Mad Hatter at Studio 54".
  • When Castor meets Sam for the first time, he says "The son of Flynn! Of all the innumerable possibilities, he has to walk into mine."
  • When Clu leaps across the bridge at the end, the shot is identical to Trinity's famous leap across two buildings in the original Matrix. (Except that he doesn't do a barrel roll through a window.)
  • When the Encom CEO tries to show off EncomOS 12, but instead gets a dog video, he goes "whoa!", just like the famous Windows 98 BSOD.
  • The fate of Tron is very reminiscent of another.
  • When Castor rejoices after stealing Flynn's data disc, he can be briefly seen doing Charlie Chaplin's famous waddle-walk with a twirling cane.
  • Sam using the Roof of the Disc Wars arena to get ahead of the levels quicker is much like the classic cheat used in Super Mario Bros., when Mario can do the same to advance to level 4.
  • In the opening scene, The Black Hole is clearly seen in one of the shots of the toys on the shelf. Though the director had stated he hoped to do a remake of the film, the reference to the 1979 film wasn't just meant to be a shout forward. It was meant to be a reference to a Development Gag for the original film. Disney wasn't sure if Steve Lisberger, the director of the original film, could direct a film and pull off the glowing effects that he said could be hand animated. So, in order to show they could work and that he could direct, Lisberger had to shoot a short test film to show what he had in mind for the film. For the test film, they reused props and costumes recycled from a recently wrapped film. That film was The Black Hole. So, a TRON film featuring a reference to The Black Hole makes sense, as The Black Hole was a part of its development history.
• Shown Their Work:
  • While the movie doesn't completely avert Hollywood Hacking (for obvious reasons), on two occasions, they show a person typing at a console to accomplish a task (Dillinger at the Encom conference, in order to kill the dog video, and Sam accessing the computer at Kevin's lab). Both times, the commands typed are the correct UNIX commands that you would use to accomplish that sort of task. Except for Sam trying the "Backdoor". The computer responds as expected of the real life OS to his attempt at Hollywood Hacking, by spitting out an error.
  • The "purring" Rinzler makes is the sound that a corrupted and physically damaged hard drives will make when the stylus skids over a damaged sector. It's yet another subtle clue that the poor fellow isn't quite operating correctly.
  • The Old-School Dogfight scene is an example of this as well, especially the maneuver Quorra uses to defeat the last of the mooks' Lightjets — which is precisely the sort of maneuver that is used in real life by heavier and less-maneuverable but more-powerful craft against lighter, nimbler ones. Take the fight into the vertical, and run them out of energy.
• Show Accuracy/Toy Accuracy: In-universe example. In the opening scene set in 1989, Kevin Flynn shows Sam an action figure of Tron. This may look like Product Placement, but a Tron action figure with the light-up gimmick seen only in modern-day TRON: Legacy toys never actually existed in Real Life, cool though they may look.^note TRON action figures from 1982 were molded in colored transparent plastic with circuitry painted over it. The discs glowed in the dark, and the figures had only five points of articulation. The only reason for its inclusion seems to be to serve as a Chekhov's Gun establishing the T tetromino pattern on Tron's chest, to clue viewers in when they later see the same pattern on Rinzler's chest.
• Signature Move: One of the moves Rinzler uses on Sam is a quick, short jab with his disc in to the middle of his chest; not very powerful for a punch, but for a disc it is very lethal. Later, during Kevin's flashback, during the battle with the rogue programs, Tron uses this exact same move several times. Subtle but clear connection there.
• The Singularity: Flynn implies something like this happened. The ISOs were created by the Grid itself, so Flynn was just as surprised as the Programs to find this new form of life emerge out of nowhere.
• Skilled, but Naive: This is the hat of the ISOs and exhibited by Quorra. Visualized by Quorra's neutral expression being of doe-eyed wonder.
  Kevin Flynn: Profoundly naive... yet unimaginably wise.
• Slouch of Villainy: Clu, while watching the Games. Conversely, Sam slouches in a similar way while talking to Quorra on the solar sailor. It's a Flynn thing.
• Smart People Play Chess: Quorra and Flynn Sr. play Go, the Eastern chess. A game that is extremely hard to program for, even in the 21st Century. This hints that Quorra is no ordinary program.
• Stealth Pun:
  • At the end of the movie, Jeff Bridges is fighting Jeff Bridges on a bridge. See also Visual Pun, below.
  • In the dogfight scene, at the end of the Light Flyer's climb, right as it begins its descent, a motif from an earlier song starts playing. The name of the track this motif is taken from? "Fall".
  • Many of the glowy-weapons (or at least the glowy weaponized items) in the films are named with Light as a prefix. Light Cycles, Light Jets, etc. One of the weapons seen in the movie could be easily described as Light Sabers.
  • Kevin Flynn is living on the outskirts of The Grid, hidden from Clu, in a house that Clu (initially) can't find. One might say he's living "off The Grid."
• Stock Scream: A digitized or derezzed version of the "Wilhelm Scream" can be heard as Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) kills the last guard before entering the flying ship's cockpit.
• Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: Tron. Clu would be an example, except that he's not the original Clu.
• Suicidal "Gotcha!": Cornered by the security guard on the rooftop of the Encom building, Sam has No Escape but Down. Sure enough he jumps off but is saved by his Hammerspace Parachute.
• Sword Cane: Castor's cane doubles as a laser gun.
• Sword Drag: Done on a Light Cycle, with a disc for added awesome.
• Symbolic Blood: Programs do not bleed. Instead, severed or destroyed flesh shatters into glowing voxels and cubic chunks; a dead program crumbles to a cube-y mess.

Tropes T to V

• Take Over the World: Clu wants to use the Portal to transport his army into Earth and make it another "perfect system".
• Taking You with Me: The only way for Clu to be destroyed is for Kevin Flynn to reintegrate the both of them, which will kill them both in the process. When it actually happens, and it results in a titanic explosion comparable to a nuclear initiation, it becomes apparent that Flynn could have used this on Clu at anytime, but he was afraid to make the sacrifice to do so, and up until Sam departed to the real world, he was too close to Clu to actually initiate the reintegration.
• Technology Marches On In-universe example. The Grid was based on hardware that was state of the art when it was built, but by the events of the film is 20 years old. One of the final scenes shows Sam copying the *entire Grid* onto a USB flash drive. Incidentally, a modern cell phone is probably more powerful than the computer that was running it.
• Technology Porn: Wouldn't be a TRON movie without it.
• Tempting Apple: Clu sees his reflection in a silver apple, recalls his creation by Flynn (who he has come to passionately hate), and loses his temper.
• Theme Song Reveal: A very subtle one during "Adagio for Tron": At the moment of Tron's defeat in the flashback, "Rinzler's" leitmotif plays
• There Was a Door: Sam's reaction to having his clothes burned off in the armory: "Hey, it's got a zipper."
• This Is Gonna Suck: Kevin's reaction in the Flashback when confronted by Clu (Tron Lines now all in orange) who asks him if he's "still to create the perfect system?", is a nervous pause and wary "... Yeah...?"
• Three-Point Landing: Done by Quorra, Sam, and Rinzler.
• Token Romance: Delightfully subtle, as there is a growing affection between Quorra and Sam during the course of the film but there is no Big Damn Kiss and Quorra is too important to the story to count as a Satellite Love Interest. See also Eating the Eye Candy and Love at First Sight, above.
• Totalitarian Utilitarian: Clu, building his "perfect world".
• Totally Radical: Kevin Flynn, on purpose. Makes sense, given his being stuck in Cyberspace for 20 years real-time. The following quote may be more of an Actor Allusion to The Big Lebowski, or it may be a reference to Jeff Bridges' surfer past, or both.
  Kevin: You're really messing with my Zen thing, man!
• Tragic Dream:
  Clu: You promised we would change the world together! You broke your promise!
• Trespassing to Talk: Alan does this to Sam early on with the excuse that Sam wasn't answering his phone. Sam at least pretends not to care about Alan barging in.
• Triumphant Reprise: "Tron Legacy (End Titles)" is one for "The Grid".
• Tron Lines: Obviously. Funnily enough, however, Tron/Rinzler is the program who has the least amount of Tron Lines, with only a few lights here and there. It's interesting to note that, compared to the last movie, the Tron Lines are much simpler and fewer in number on everyone, though this is probably for a variety of reasons (easier recognition of characters — see above, the fact they're physical parts of the costumes [cost/work], more streamlined look to match the more modern look of everything else, etc.).
• Umbrella Drink: In the End of Line Club, Clu prepares one and offers it to Zuse in exchange for Kevin Flynn's disc.
• Up the Real Rabbit Hole: Both Sam and Flynn are pretty consistent in referring to anything off the Grid as "The Real World". In the prequel comic TRON: Betrayal, Clu actually calls Flynn on this, pointing out that while he calls the realm of the users "The Real World"; the Grid is "The Real World" to all programs.
• Verbal Tic: Literally. Rinzler only communicates in rapid, low-pitched ticking sounds.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Clu has one when he searches Flynn's abandoned home, reminding him of how much he still loves his creator. His reaction to this emotional flashback is defiant rage, clinging to his hatred.
  • He experiences this during the final confrontation as well, screaming at Flynn for breaking his promise and shouting that "I did everything you asked." After Flynn admits that perfection can never be achieved, he completely loses it.
• Visionary Villain: Clu wants to create a "perfect system" just like Flynn told him to do. Since imperfection is inevitable, he feels he needs to completely reshape every system he encounters.
• Visual Pun: When Kevin Flynn repairs Quorra's damaged code, he pulls out the erroneous parts, clasps them in his hands, and lets go. The damaged code then flies away in an insect-like fashion. He was literally debugging Quorra.
• The Voice: The Grid gains one of these between the gap, popping up sporadically for announcements and to explain the rules for the arena games.

Tropes W to Z

• The War Has Just Begun: Clu's speech to his army.
• We Don't Need Roads: With a flick of a switch, Quorra's Cool Car raises its suspension from road-hugger mode to a good two or so feet off the ground, and then sprouts tread spikes.
• We Will Not Have Pockets in the Future: The Latex Space Suits seem impractical for everyday life. Justified as they are not on Earth.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Clu's case. His "father" created him to help make the Perfect System, and he constantly tries to live up to that goal. However, his father changes his mind on the nature of perfection, while Clu is desperate to have his father join him. During Clu's and Flynn's confrontation, it sounded a lot like Clu was Calling the Old Man Out for abandoning him.
• Wham Line:
  • In the climax, just as Rinzler/Tron appears to to crash into the Heroes' jet, he utters this line to let the audience know Tron is back.
    Rinzler/Tron: I fight for the users. [crashes into Clu's jet instead]
  • The "Flynn Lives: The Next Day" feature on the Blu-ray shows a conversation between Dillinger Jr. and an unidentified individual. It's something of a variant, in that the whamminess comes not from the line itself, but from the voice it's spoken in.
    Dillinger: Dad... did you see this [video of Sam's return]?
    MCP: [aloud] Yes. Will this be a problem?
    Dillinger: No. Minor bump in the road. Nothing I can't handle.
    MCP: [aloud] He may not be his father, but he's still a Flynn. Don't underestimate him. [Beat] End of line.
• What Does This Button Do?: Sam ends up zapping himself onto the Grid by ignorantly repeating the last issued command on the console. Even when faced with the warning message, he makes only a token effort to look for the indicated "aperture" before confirming the command.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Sam manages to get an extra Light Cycle baton and does absolutely nothing with it. However, this neatly establishes you can have multiple vehicle devices, which helps accepting the numerous times it's used by the villains in the fight scenes.
  • Whether or not Rinzler/Tron actually died when he fell into the Sea of Simulation is left deliberately ambiguous.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
  • Quorra, indicated by invokedWord of God to be Kevin Flynn's Magnum Opus — a new form of life created by the grid itself.
  • On the other hand, however, ordinary programs drop like flies and are casually slain by the protagonists whenever necessary or convenient. Even though they most definitely appear to feel pain and scream in terror when about to die.
  • There are brief shots of grieving programs during the fight at the End of Line club, clutching at the bits of derezzed dust that were once fellow programs.
• Win to Exit: Sam has to take part in the gladiator-style competitions set up by Clu in order to survive. In a larger sense, the entire plot is based on this, just like the original.
• Withholding the Big Good: It takes half the movie for Kevin Flynn to be found in the Grid, and even longer for him to do anything. In his case, he believes the only way to beat Clu's game is not to play, forcing Clu to introduce a new variable (Kevin's son Sam) to force Kevin's hand.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Technically, not the wrong genre, just the wrong movie... when Sam gets a Light Cycle baton, he holds it like a lightsaber.
  Sam: What's this? What do I do with this?
  Jarvis: I'll give you a hint: Not that. [crowd laughs]
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: A fraction of a second of real-world time is like hours or days to a program on the Grid.
• You Have Failed Me: Clu eventually destroys Jarvis instead of Rinzler for failing to stop Sam retrieving the Identity Disc.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After Castor and Gem retrieve Kevin's disc, Clu has them blown up.
• You Keep Telling Yourself That: This bit of conversation between Sam and Kevin Flynn:
  Sam: We can go home. Don't you want that?
  Flynn: Sometimes life has a way of moving you past things like wants and hopes.
  Sam: That's great, Dad. Keep telling yourself that.
• You Shall Not Pass!:
  • Tron's last stand against Clu to try to save Kevin Flynn in the flashback.
  • Flynn holding Clu back from using the Portal, complete with a damaged bridge and the apparent sacrifice.
• Zeroth Law Rebellion: Kevin creates Clu, who is programmed to create "the perfect system." However, since Clu's idea of perfection is flawed, he rebels against his creator. Once he believes he's made the Grid "perfect", Clu takes the logical next step and plans to make the real world "perfect" as well.

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"End of Line, man."

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