Watch a Light Cycle Chase in ‘Tron; Ares’’ ¦ Anatomy of a Scene

Hi, I'm Joachim Ronning. I'm the director of Tron Eris. So this is the scene where Julian Dillinger has discovered that Eve is in possession of the permanence code. So he's sending his two top programs after her, Eris and Athena, and we get to see them on the light cycles. And Eris obviously being played by Jared Leto, Athena being played by Jodie Turner-Smith, and Eve being played by Greta Leigh. I put so much pressure on myself and everybody to get this right, you know, this sequence, because it's such an iconic part of the Tron universe, the light cycle chase and light cycles. And we spent a year designing this. And here, the police car. Obviously, this is the first time we're gonna see the famous Tron light wall in the real world, and boom. We shot this in Vancouver over six weeks and nights, and luckily, Vancouver is a very film-friendly city, so we were able to close down the bridge and, you know, really, really do this. And then we finally found, together with Darren Guildford, the production designer, and we found a look for the light cycles, and together with the suits, and I'm really happy with them. This is the Akira slide, by the way, which is like super important for me to get in there. And I remember reading the script three years ago and thinking, like, how can we be worthy of the next Tron chapter? And I think I got to page 30 or something like that, and I saw the digital assets coming into the real world and then the light cycles coming out and creating havoc on the streets. And I felt like, as a fan, as a filmmaker, that's something I really wanted to see. So here we are getting into the parkade, and this is like, I wanted to have a sequence in the middle of this big chase that we just stopped down and we brought it all down, and it became more a psychological thriller sequence with Eve hiding and wondering what the hell is going on here and being resourceful. She ghost rides her Ducati, you know, and takes down Athena. And Athena, boom, falling through the air here, that's the real stunt woman doing that. And obviously this is in March in Vancouver, so it's like, everybody's really cold, and you know, it's not easy, and we did it over so many nights, and you know, you get that 1,000 yard stare after a while, but I'm really happy we did it. I think the audience can feel that this is real, it's in camera, we built the light cycles, you know, and we're coming up to this moment now where Eve is about to make a decision and get on one. So I think the big advantages of building these assets, like the light cycle, we built a couple of them. What that meant was that we were able to put the camera on the light cycles with the actors. Here's Athena coming, you know, T-1000 style, running for her, and here we go. I think this is kind of like a wish fulfillment for a lot of fans, you know, to be able to drive the light cycle in the real world, and it sure is for me, and it was so amazing to be able to do this, and I think when you make these big movies, you have the resources to get it. And here it's Greta Lee, like, escaping Jodie Turner, Smith, or Athena, actually running behind her, and you get all these things in the same shot, you know, and both Jodie and Greta did so much running on this movie, and obviously Jodie is in that suit, so I was just so amazed by the physicalities that these actors went through.