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Last year, Disney revitalized the Tron franchise with Tron: Legacy, released last year by Disney. This year, the Tron creative team has gone another direction. Creating a world temporally between the two feature films, the animated adventure series Tron: Uprising, recently debuted on the Disney XD cable channel.
Voiced by Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) as The Grid, Bruce Boxleitner (of course as Tron), and Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings) as new character Beck, the series explores a rich new world franchise. The series premiered last month for a 18-episode run this first season.
Bruce, Tricia, and the creative team met with entertainment reporters during Comic-Con to talk about their newest Tron endeavor just after meeting with fans during a packed and enthusiastic audience.
Beck is the young warrior inside The Grid, destined to free his world from Clu. The damaged Tron is tasked with mentoring and teaching young Beck, shaping him into the courageous leader needed to defeat the oppression of Clu and his henchman Dr. Tesler (Lance Henrickson). Bruce Boxleitner views Tron’s relationship with Beck as mentor, perhaps even parental. “Like Obi-Wan” in Star Wars. He sees Beck’s journey in terms of a Joseph Campbell heroic quest. Bruce voices Tron with all the world weariness you might expect of a fallen warrior, while Beck, he says, is really Tron’s voice from 30 years ago when the franchise was first launched. Listen to what Bruce has to say:
Tron Press from barbara barnett on Vimeo.
During Tron: Uprising, we will also learn more about Tron and what happened to him in the time following the original movie. Consulting producers Adam Horowitz and Eddie Kitsis (Lost, Once Upon a Time) also talked to entertainment writers about the new series:
Tricia Helfer, talked about playing a neutral character for a change as the voice of the Grid. Of course Tricia is known to Battlestar Galactica fans as Cylon #6:
Tricia Helfer at Comic-Con 2012 from barbara barnett on Vimeo.
Tron: Uprising airs Thursdays at 8 PM ET on Disney XD.
