Summary

Tron: Ares flips the script with video game elements invading the real world, setting up a unique conflict.
The trailer for Tron: Ares shares similarities with Adam Sandler's video game-inspired comedy Pixels.
Tron: Ares builds on Tron: Legacy's groundwork, focusing on the plan the prior films' villain was hoping to accomplish.

Is Tron: Ares copying the ideas seen in a terrible Adam Sandler video game comedy? Tron: Ares is finally set to continue the story of 2010's Tron: Legacy. Jared Leto is starring as the program Ares, alongside Gillian Anderson, Evan Peters, Greta Lee, and Jeff Bridges. The movie sees elements from Tron's digital world spilling over into the real world, with a program on the hunt for something it doesn't quite understand.

When the trailer for Tron: Ares debuted, it offered audiences a glimpse of how Tron's video game world will begin to infect things in the real world while still keeping much of the plot under wraps. While many fans had looming questions thanks to the events of Tron: Legacy, others noted stylistic similarities to another video game-infused film. Numerous shots in the Tron: Ares trailer share similarities with Adam Sandler's 2015 movie Pixels.

Tron: Ares Is On Its Way, But What Happened To The Original Sequel, Tron: Ascension?

Plans for a Tron:Legacy sequel surfaced back in 2015, with the cast and crew teasing a plot following key Tron: Legacy characters. So what happened?

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By Nicola Austin

Tron: Ares Sees Video Games Invading The Real World

While past Tron films featured characters entering the video game world, Ares looks to flip that conceit on its head, with the digital game world finding a way to spill into reality. The trailer sees Lightcycles splitting cop cars in half, and a Recognizer looming ominously over an officer as they run away from the impending doom. Beyond teasing audiences with Jeff Bridges' voice, the conflicting worlds are poised to fuel the film, with humans running in fear from invading video games, offering a distinctly different sequel than the franchise has seen before.

While much of the story in Tron: Ares will be dedicated to explaining how the clash of worlds is possible, with the film's heroes setting things right, much of the imagery was striking. Tron is a game infused with 1980s style, reflecting the era of the first movie. While things evolved with Tron: Legacy, the vehicles and neon-lit elements that are distinct to the world all began with the arcade-style video game elements that helped inspire it all. Thanks to the plot and video game inspirations at play, Tron: Ares looked to share numerous similarities with the Adam Sandler comedy Pixels.

Adam Sandler's Pixels Saw The World Invaded By Video Game Characters

Pixels is an ensemble comedy, as aside from Sandler, it stars Peter Dinklage, Michelle Monaghan, Josh Gad, Kevin James, Sean Bean, and Brian Cox. The sci-fi action comedy was directed by Home Alone and Harry Potter director Chris Columbus. The plot follows a former arcade gaming champion (Sandler), whose skills are called upon by the U.S. Government when an alien invasion occurs. Through a convoluted chain of events, the aliens are invading in the form of classic video games, seeing the characters battling monstrous-sized versions of games like Centipede, Pac-man, Donkey Kong, and Galaga.

What stood out about the film were the classic characters attacking real cities like movie monsters. There were alien ships flying through the skies, characters driving mini-coopers like they were the ghosts in Pac-man, and a weird plotline following Q*bert. Many of the classic games that are utilized by the invading aliens in Pixels are the same games that helped inspire Tron. With Tron: Ares spilling into the real world, much like the games seen in Pixels, there are natural similarities between the two.

Despite some ambitious ideas and a few funny jokes, Pixels missed the mark, carrying an 18% Rotten Score on Rotten Tomatoes, with the audience not rating it much better. There were plenty of unique elements that could have worked, but much of it simply felt like another Adam Sandler comedy, with the actor using the games to lackluster effect. With Pixels predating Tron: Ares by a decade, it makes one wonder if the Tron sequel may have borrowed a few ideas from the maligned comedy.

Despite Similarities, Tron: Legacy Laid The Sequel's Groundwork Before Pixels

While Tron: Ares bares some similarities to the story elements in Pixels, these merely stem from the era of video games they both derive inspiration from and the invasion-style storyline they are utilized to accomplish. The plot points fueling the story in Tron: Ares may see game elements invading the real world, but it has nothing to do with Pixels, as Tron: Legacy set the story in motion in 2010.

Tron: Legacy sees CLU tasked with creating a perfect system, which leads to the conflict that kept Jeff Bridges' character trapped in the Grid, making him a missing person in the real world. With CLU feeling as though he had conquered the digital world, his plan was to bring the ideals of a perfect system to the real world utilizing a portal. While Flynn and his son ultimately stop the events of Tron: Legacy from coming to fruition, Sam Flynn and Quorra, a program, do make it back to the real world.

Thanks to Quorra's presence in the real world, it has been proven that programs can make the leap to the real world, which is a concept that Tron: Ares looks to capitalize on. While Tron: Ares still has many secrets to reveal, the story looks to embrace CLU's plan from Tron: Legacy, predating Pixels despite some fun similarities to the Adam Sandler comedy.

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