Keeping Score: A sonic history of ‘Tron’
On October 10th, 2025, the world will be invited to watch a new film by Joachim Rønning: Disney’s Tron: Ares.
Starring Jared Leto as an AI-powered super-soldier, the movie will be the third in the ‘Tron’ series and the first entry in 15 years. Is anybody excited for this movie? Did anybody care that there had been a severe lack of ‘Tron’ in their lives? Who knows, but at least its release gives us a chance to talk about the franchise’s most fascinating element.
Each of the three ‘Tron’ films have been scored by a different, but uniquely fascinating person or group. Electronic pioneer Wendy Carlos handled the original; French dance icons Daft Punk dealt with film number two; and then there’s Ares, which is being scored by Nine Inch Nails. Over its 43-year history, the series and its music have given us a lot to talk about. So, let’s dive in.
The initial entry in the franchise, 1982’s Tron, was one of the first major projects to make use of an emerging technology – computer-generated imagery. Set mostly in the digital world, the story needed a soundtrack that matched its take on this brave new world. Enter Ms Carlos. Her history up to this point included an album of Bach compositions played on her signature Moog synthesiser and the scores to two of Stanley Kubrick’s biggest films, A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. Tron would be her biggest test to date: composing music for an entirely new world. She was more than up to the task.
To add a sense of the unknown to the movie, Carlos wrote a number of the film’s musical cues in several variable time signatures. This created a slight issue when the London Philharmonic Orchestra were brought in. Disney were worried that Carlos wouldn’t complete the topic on time, a claim she disputes. This forced collaboration resulted in a head-spinning of conventional film music and electronic noise, which is precisely what the film needed.
Daft Punk were natural successors to Carlos’ crown as ‘Queen of Tron’. They took their job scoring 2010’s Tron: Legacy incredibly seriously, scrapping all other projects and dedicating 19 months of their time to it. Like Carlos, they blended orchestral and electronic music, only they did it on purpose. Their pieces are far synthier than Carlos’, though, in a similar vein to a lot of the French band’s biggest hits. Their work was applauded thoroughly, and the album sold well all over the world. It did a damn-sight better than the film, that’s for sure.
That brings us up to the present day, and the hotly anticipated Tron: Ares score. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have been established film composers for some time, winning two Oscars for their work. However, this will be the first time they’ve worked on a movie under the ‘Nine Inch Nails’ name. In contrast to their predecessors, the band have shunned the orchestra entirely, deciding to craft a score featuring their unique blend of electronica and industrial metal. Time will tell if this approach pays off.
There aren’t many film series that have three distinct film scores by three equally famous composers. The movies themselves might be average at best, but the ‘Tron’ scores offer a fascinating insight into how electronic music has changed over the years and how the world of film has embraced the genre.
