Tron: Ares, Disney’s third attempt in four decades to toss viewers into the Grid, has the same problems as the first two: inscrutable dialogue, flat characters, and thin plotting. No matter. The series has always been more attuned to sensory pleasures than narrative ones. When the dialogue drops out and the Light Cycles rev up, Tron films become a rush of otherworldly images and sounds, cinematic music visualizers. Tying together each film’s neon lighting, dorky costuming, and futuristic frisbees are scores composed by a series of electronic music pioneers: Wendy Carlos on Tron, Daft Punk on Tron: Legacy, and Nine Inch Nails on Ares. The franchise may be best known for its visual effects, but it’s the soundtracks that give the movies life.
Before arriving in Hollywood, Tron writer-director Steven Lisberger utilized early versions of the geometric shapes and TIE fighter-like designs that would form his digital world in ’70s television commercials for rock radio stations. These ads (and Lisberger’s designs for Tron) were reminiscent of 1977’s Atari Video Music, one of the earliest commercial music visualizers, which responded to sound in real time with pulsating diamond shapes. But for Lisberger’s visuals to sit comfortably on screen, they would need an electronic score to match them. Enter Wendy Carlos.
Carlos, who worked with Robert Moog to develop his eponymous synthesizer, made her name using the device on her landmark 1968 album, Switched-On Bach. A surprise hit, the album featuring several classical pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach performed on the Moog, helped popularize electronic and ambient music. It also made her a perfect fit for the uncanny takes on Beethoven and the eerie soundscape of Stephen King as she bookended the ’70s with scores for Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. Two years later, she landed Tron, where she slotted neatly into its zeroes and ones. Along with her collaborator Annemarie Franklin, she assembled a soundtrack that bridged the gap between the orchestral and the electronic. The idea was to use the former for the scenes in the real world and the synth-based tracks for the Grid. It became a hybrid that helped define the franchise.
One reason sound supervisor Michael Fremer enlisted Carlos was to save money, hoping to record the computer world’s sound effects and the film’s score simultaneously. However, due to the time crunch, neither Fremer nor Carlos was happy with how the music was incorporated into the finished product. “Instead of letting the music carry the emotions, they gave priority to the effects and mixed the music down or out,” Fremer told Moog for a 1982 Keyboard Magazine feature. “The film could have been stronger if the soundtrack had used more music and fewer effects, if the music were allowed to reach out and grab the emotions.”
Carlos said that the soundtrack album “is true to what we want, whereas the film mix is not.” 28 years later, Tron: Legacy would come closer to achieving Fremer and Carlos’ goal.
Improvements in special effects, both visual and aural, made Tron: Legacy a more immersive experience. Released in 2010, Legacy benefited from a post-Matrix audience accustomed to movies about people being sucked into computers. They could handle a more aggressive and moodier version of Tron, but even that $200 million movie was nearly overshadowed by its Daft Punk soundtrack. “How could you not at least go to those guys?” director Joseph Kosinski told the crowd at San Diego Comic-Con in 2009. More refined and traditional than Carlos’ score, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter’s synthesized arpeggios, pulsing bass, and Hans Zimmer-influenced horns hum throughout the film. It’s enough to distract from all the talk of ISOs and Jeff Bridges’ de-aged digital avatar.
Unlike Carlos’ work, Daft Punk’s score works better in context. As a soundtrack, it’s less successful. Like many special effects-driven blockbusters of the era, the Zimmer influence on “Outlands” and “Rectifier” makes Legacy‘s score feel more indebted to Dark Knight than Master Control. Still, it’s hard not to get a charge from “Derezzed” playing as Sam Flynn (Garret Hedlund) fends off Guard programs at the End of Line Club, or from the blend of electronic and organic performance on “The Game Has Changed,” a track that fuels the Light Cycle race.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it took two artists who spent more than a decade bending film scores to their whims to achieve Fremer’s mission without compromise. Nine Inch Nails is the true star of Ares, matching director Joachim Rønning’s swirling camera and streams of light beat for beat.
Nine Inch Nails carries the film from one world to the next, barreling through the stilted drama and pseudo-philosophical AI boosterism. No one goes to a Tron movie to hear a robot talk about Depeche Mode. They go to listen to beats inspired by Depeche Mode, and Ares‘ true success lies in the harmony of cybernetic visuals and NIN’s electronic sound. When Ares glides across the city on his Light Cycle, the film achieves what Carlos initially set out to do, melding sound effects, score, and image that play in tandem, transforming a mediocre sci-fi adventure into something beautiful.
