#Encom

[astercontrol]

So in other "disney abandoned the Tron franchise" news:

it was pissing me off how in Tron 2.0 the email addresses all ended in "en.com," meaning that Encom had snagged pretty much the best possible domain name??? And yet, NOW, if you go to that url, there's nothing there.

It's not available. Someone owns it. They're just not doing anything with it.

Meaning that Disney -- which ABSOLUTELY would have had the power to both get the en.com domain and KEEP it ever since Tron 2.0 came out -- has NOT done that.

Not even with a new Tron movie coming out this year.

Do they even care??

.... Anyway. I now own programsofen.com, and I am probably gonna make it redirect to the Mission Day thing.

Because only fans still know how to do Tron right. Apparently.

[dbarenzu626]

01000001 01110010 01100101 01110011

...Anyone know binary?

Anyways, "TRON Ares" fanart! It's no secret that I'm a fan of the TRON franchise, Disney's underdog marriage of video game and digital aesthetics has been an inspiration to me. Whether it was popping in the VHS tape for the 1982 film back when I was but a boy of ten or heading to see "TRON Legacy" in theaters with friends when it came out in 2010 to even clocking in my time to the countless video games based off the Grid, I owe a lot to the digital franchise that could.

Of course, the thing with "TRON Ares" is that it's a bit of a significant shift in the franchise. For starters, it's a complete reset button of Joseph Kosinski's prior "TRON Ascension" pitch, since the Mouse House essentially shelved it back in the day when Brad Bird's "Tomorrowland" cost the company a couple million in losses (it wasn't that bad thoooooough). The second is the most obvious: director Joachim Ronning is a director who one can read his filmography and see mixed bag results with and trusting him with the digital experience could prove a risky one. Third? The choice of its lead actor: Jared Leto. I'm sure I don't need to explain why this choice is divisive, but if you've seen the production of "Suicide Squad" (the 2016 one, not The) and "Morbius", then you probably know why.

Nonetheless, I've grown close to the idea that perhaps Ares might have some merit behind it besides being a giant reset button of sorts: for starters, the plot is leaning in the direction of digital meeting the real world, something that was already established in "TRON Legacy" and is now seeing fruition here with a commentary on artificial intelligence. There's also the soundtrack led by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (or more properly, for this film's case, their band Nine Inch Nails, which is... insanely hype), to which, BTW, I called as far back as April 2024 with some friends on a Discord server when I shared a piece off the "Challengers" soundtrack:

All in all, while I have my cautiousness, the optimism wins here. And for a film like this, I think it's best to carry a bit of optimism because it's what may lead to more in the franchise. Besides, we're getting this and a new game this year with Bithell's "TRON Catalyst", sooo... can we get some Lorcana rep next? C'mon, you know you wanna, Disney...

For this piece, I based it off the screenshots that Disney has released so far, behind-the-scenes pics of Jared Leto in the Grid suit from their shooting in Vancouver and then what I could see from the D23 teaser (shhhhhh, I needed references), mixing it in with a "TRON Uprising"-style influence. The tricky thing is trying to keep the character and actor looking like the character and actor without losing definitive features, something tricky with Robert Valley's art style for the show, but yet something he did well with CLU's character in-show too. But all in all, between that and a near furious digital look, I think I did pretty well! Text and textless versions above, of course!

If you don't know, "TRON Ares" comes out October 10, 2025. And Disney better get the first teaser out sometime in the near future~

(P.S: If you also don't know, "Something I Can Never Have" is a song title from Nine Inch Nails album Pretty Hate Machine and amazingly enough, a reworked version of that song serenaded the D23 trailer for "TRON Ares". Doubles as a reference to both its artists and to what I'm theorizing is Ares's character!)

[assapoopshits-massachussets]

My favorite genre of Tron fanfiction is where Rinzler comes to the user world. like hell yeah let’s just let a little freak loose in Sam/Alan/whoever’s house and see what he does. As a treat :)

[tronzler-artchive]

[coupleofdays]

Imagining that in the Tron universe, ENCOM outcompeted Apple in the early 80s, and caused them to go bankrupt before they could create the Macintosh. A few years later, CEO Kevin Flynn reads a proposal sent to ENCOM from an advertising agency agency, for an ad based on George Orwell's 1984. He really likes it, but has some suggestions to the advertisers.

"Okay, I really love the concept, but what if... stay with me here... it's set inside of a computer?"

"Hmm, that sounds interesting. Do you mean that the people are trapped inside a tyrannical computer?"

"Yeah, man! And they've got, like, circuit patterns on their bodies to show that they're, like, digital. Oh, and the big bad guy on the screen, he's a big red computer face."

"Sure, we can work with that."

"Oh, and another thing, hear me out: What if the lady isn't throwing a hammer, but a disc?"

"A... disc?"

"Yeah, y'know, like a frisbee?"

"Uh..."

[twiinsunsart]

the arcade 🕹️

digital art of flynn’s arcade from TRON (1982), with a little bit of legacy in the sign with the disk of course

sketch and reference below:

sketch

reference:

[fights4users]

What to get a programmer for Christmas

Once you actually find a lot of the computer related shirts and buttons from the 80s you realize programmers and geeks were ….really horny. Like really— and for the computer too. (They’re valid)

Anyways, since is Christmas (eve) I wanted to do a little post of computer related things I think the encom bunch would receive.

Flynn-

He’s the boss with the cheesy mugs. I can see him varying in his collection. 90% of his stuff is either advertising Tron and his other games or goofy stuff from magazines and catalogs. He is really easy to buy for.

Alan-

You think he and Lora are squares but half is just computer innuendo. Other half his he’s just an optimistic dork.

Lora-

She gets to be a part of the funny shirt gang. I can also see her getting this Garfield. It has not left her desk in 20 years

Roy-

Also a button guy, but I can also see him with the unironic “my X got me this shirt and thinks I’m real cool” type.

The shirts come from a magazine Ad in the 80s “ software” thats hilarious

[hellodarjeeling]

It’s a shame I’ll never know the amount of times people have had to look up my ENCOM sticker while in traffic

[rexwrendraws]

My Encom Trio contribution for @tronfashionzine !! 🔸 Read the digital zine FOR FREE here !!

[what-bot]

The environments in this game slap

Now THIS is a GRID. Take notes, Kevin Flynn!

[razziematazz]

guys is there a reason everyone decided that stones first name is aban and his color is ourple or did that just Happen?

[gold-lightcycle]

Heheh, yep!

Going further down the rabbit hole with my headcanon about Encom system Program music.... I think that for Users, program music would sound extremely computerized, with random sounds and bleeps, to the point where it may seem atonal at times. However, the *emotions* and *feeling* behind the music will be there for that User to pick up subconsciously, and after a while, their mind will suddenly *click* and they'll really start to enjoy the music, even though it sounds entirely exotic and otherworldly. 

I made an example of what 82' program dance music might sound like (it was an 80's Linndrum machine demo with tons of Tron style echo/reverb added).

Does it sound like noise at times? Absolutely. Would I dance like crazy to this inside a club in the Encom grid? ABSOLUTELY.

headcanon that Encom programs and human Users have almost entirely non-overlapping preferences in music

most program music sounds like incomprehensible machine noise to Users, and most User music sounds like pretty much the equivalent to a program

it's possible for either side to acquire the taste for the other, but it's rare

further headcanon: the whole artistic range of the Wendy Carlos soundtrack represents the entirety of the overlap in which music will generally appeal to both programs and humans. (Even the most User-friendly program music will still strike humans as having that sort of… beautifully eerie, otherworldly quality to it.)

[quantum27]

"Trio"

ah yes. this DEFINITELY will not turn into a polycule after the heist

[mthcomics]

My piece for the iconic @tronfashionzine !! Raise your hand if you will never get over the Encom OS style✋ i just imagine this program is used for the tones/alerts in the system so she’s just perpetually jamming out. I wanted to lean into the 80s aesthetic with bouncy hair, flown skirt and high boots/shin guards while still sticking to the original movie’s style. I really enjoyed making this design and am so happy to be apart of this zine!! You can see all the incredible work of my fellow creators here!

[tronzler-artchive]

[coupleofdays]

Thinking about it some more, I can see some similarities between Alan Bradley and Steve Wozniak, in the sense that they're both computer geniuses who are looking on in despair as the company they're working for, and helped make big (I'm not sure if Alan was at ENCOM back in its garage days, but I get the impression that he's been there a while at least), turn into something entirely different. In Alan's case, first it's ENCOM turning from Gibbs' idealistic garage enterprise into Dillinger's huge, soulless and predatory corporation, and later into Flynn's well-intentioned but weird cult of personality.

Another interesting similarity is that while Woz is still technically an employee of Apple to this day, it's now merely in a "ceremonial capacity" according to Wikipieda. Similarly, by the time of Tron Legacy, Alan is described in some background material as having been stripped of executive power at ENCOM, but still stays on "as a figurehead".

If you're a Tron fan who wants to know about the real-life environment in which a computer company like ENCOM would exist, and in which characters like Kevin Flynn and Ed Dillinger would have become the people they are in the film, I heartily recommend watching the film Pirates of Silicon Valley. It's a dramatization of the history of Microsoft and Apple, how they grew from small startups to huge corporations, and the fierce, often nasty, competition between their owners, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, including a lot of trickery, backstabbing and outright theft. Like most dramatizations, not everything is portrayed with 100% accuracy, but most of the real life people portrayed have later come out and said that the film captures the general mood and real events of the 80s computer revolution, and the personalities of the people. You don't have to know a lot about the techical details of computers to follow along, since most of the important stuff is explained in layman's terms.

The Tron characters such as Kevin, Alan and Lora are pretty idealized, far more sympathetic versions of the kind of people involved in the computer business at the time. In Pirates of Silicon Valley, people such as Jobs and Gates appear pretty sympathetic at the beginning, but as the film goes along, it become apparent that they're both nasty, cunning and just generally unpleasant businessmen, prone to screaming outbursts and abusive treatment of their employees. The only person in the film who comes off as a decent human being is Steve Wozniak, who looks on in horror as Apple goes from a bunch of friends tinkering with computers in a garage to a huge company with unhealthy working conditions and an awful corporate culture.

None of the Tron characters are carbon copies of Jobs, Gates or Wozniak, but there are some interesting similarities in their personalities and interactions. Jobs being the slick talker and salesman who becomes the head of the company, while Woz is the actual computer genius inventing the hardware and software, feels similar to the relationship between Dillinger and Flynn, or Dillinger and Gibbs for that matter. Jobs is also portrayed as being a pretty "out there" character, dropping acid, thinking of himself as a counterculture rebel, and viewing his work with computers as an important politicial and spiritual undertaking, which feels similar to what Kevin Flynn evolves into between Tron and Tron Legacy (though, again, Flynn seems like a much more sympathetic person).

Also, maybe I've been on Tumblr for too long (scratch that, I've been on Tumblr long enough), but some of the scenes in the film gives off some weird homoromantic/erotic vibes to me. Jobs and Wozniak occasionally comes off as an unstable romantic couple, arguing with each other, and with Woz trying and failing to keep Jobs from becoming more and more unhinged. And the interactions between Gates and Jobs sometimes feels like a couple of arch rivals who wouldn't hesitate to sleep with each other in order to manipulate the other into a position where they could be stabbed in the back. Jobs especially gives Gates some looks that could be interpreted as horny, in a sinister sort of way. And of course, there's this gem from the IBM songbook: