The Light Crawler is one of the new vehicles designed for "Tron: Uprising." (Disney XD)
The Grid, a world of shimmering, digital wonder, was introduced to moviegoers in 1982 film Tron and then taken to a new visual level in Tron: Legacy in 2010. Now the Grid is going to television and expanding with a wider mythology and new characters and more of the sleek, glowing vehicles that fans love.
Tron: Uprising, which begins this summer on Disney XD, was developed by Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, the same tandem that wrote Tron: Legacy, and they say the freedom of animation is allowing to explore the Grid without the constraints of a special effects budget.
The fun thing about animation is all the stuff we couldnt afford in [Tron: Legacy], either because they were financially or technologically prohibitive, we can now do because its animated, Kitsis said.
The duo, now also working on its freshman ABC show Once Upon a Time, has picked up the Grids story right after Clu takes over, which happened years before the events of Legacy. The new show isnt about users those are humans who go into Grid, such as Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) or Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) in the films but focuses instead on programs, the citizens of the Grid. The main character is Beck (voiced by Elijah Wood), the unlikely leader of a revolution against Clu.
As Kitsis puts it: What happens when you find yourself occupied by a force that is not in your best interest how do you fight back?
As for the new vehicles, Tron: Legacy designer Daniel Simon is back on the job with creations such as the Light Crawler which you can see in the exclusive early-look image above and a Light Rail, which Kitsis calls basically the coolest train youve ever seen it goes upside down.
In one episode, a fight takes place on the roof of the Light Rail, just one moment that evokes the western spirit that exists beneath the shows high-tech trappings. The Grid, Horowitz explained, is essentially a frontier town.
Mandy Moore and Bruce Boxleitner (reprising his title role from the two movies) join Wood in the cast, while Charlie Bean (Ren & Stimpy, Samurai Jack) is the shows director-showrunner. Tron: Uprising also features the music of Daft Punk.
Emily Rome
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