Tron: Ares director Joachim Rønning was faced with two big challenges when approaching his third installment in the long-running sci-fi series: how to live up to the groundbreaking visual effects of its predecessors, and then how to push them forward. The latter proved difficult in an unexpected way, especially when time came to connect his chapter to Joe Kosinski’s Tron: Legacy, and especially to Steven Lisberger’s 1982 original.

Starring Jared Leto, Evan Peters, Gillian Anderson, and Jodie Turner-Smith, the film will follow Ares, a sophisticated program who emerges from the digital world into our physical one for a dangerous mission, instigating humanity’s first flesh-and-blood (or maybe flesh-and-pixels) encounter with artificial intelligence.

In an interview with ScreenRant, director Rønning, best known for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Pirates of the Caribbean: ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Men Tell No Tales, explained how recreating the visual landscape of Lisberger’s film proved tougher than doing so for Legacy:

ScreenRant: We go into the Retro Tron grid in this film. I loved how you retained every little nuance of what it looked like in the 20th century. Can you talk to me about playing in that sandbox and how rewarding it felt as a filmmaker to get to use 2025 technology on that retro Tron?

Joachim Rønning: As a fan of the franchise, to be able to go back and have Ares talk with Kevin Flynn on the original grid, I think for everyone involved working on the movie, there was a lot of love for the franchise amongst all the team, and especially for Industrial Light & Magic, ILM, who made the VFX for the film.

It’s like the first one is kind of like a holy grail for VFX artists, and it was the first film that really utilized computer graphics and things like that. So when we made the original grid in our film, it was very important for me that we didn’t polish it, that it was supposed to look as much as possible like the first film. And that’s pretty rough. I’m just saying, if you’ve seen the first film lately, it is very rough.

And we went in and we did some hand painting on the light lines, and we made the skin tones almost black and white, and we added the grain. It’s very little depth of field and the colors, and just being on that grid and using those very, at least for the fans and for myself, those famous icons was the hoot.

What Jeff Bridges’ Retro Tron Grid Means

The first film in the Tron franchise was released in 1982. Jeff Bridges played the lead role of a software engineer named Kevin Flynn, as he’s dragged into virtual reality and forced to defeat evil software, enlisting the security program Tron to defeat the villains.

Tron: Ares director Joachim Rønning incorporated the 1982-style legacy grid to pay homage to the original movie. The film is set to feature three grids (artificial digital universes), and they include: the Dillinger Grid, the ENCOM Grid, and the legacy grid.

Bridges is also set to reprise his role, but as fans remember, his character was seen sacrificing himself in 2010’s Tron: Legacy. While it’s not entirely clear how Bridges’ character Kevin Flynn will return, director Rønning is determined to pay homage to the film that put the Tron franchise on the map.

Our Take On Jeff Bridges’ Return To Tron

When fans think of the Tron franchise, only one face comes to mind, and that’s Jeff Bridges. Every movie reinvents and transforms itself, but Bridges remains a consistent piece of the puzzle. Kevin and his digital duplicate CLU died in Tron: Legacy, so fans have begun theorizing that Bridges’ return could just be the result of another copy.

Bridges made it clear that he wasn’t fond of his CGI appearance in Tron: Legacy, so it must be because of that, Rønning decided against de-aging Bridges again. The Grid opens up plenty of opportunities in the digital universe, and so anything is possible, including resurrection.

Only time will tell how Bridges’ character arc will match up with Leto’s Ares casting. While many are hesitant to see Jared Leto in yet another fantasy film, it could be the exact role Leto was made to play.