Saturday Night Showcase> Tron: Uprising

Between reviewing the sequel comics for Tron 2.0, the video game that was the sequel before decanonized in favor of the “more important” medium of live-action theatrical films, and getting to interview that comic’s co-writer, the Tron franchise is on my mind…and no, it doesn’t have any direct correlation to my screenname. The Tron franchise is not the juggernaut Disney had hoped it would be when Tron: Legacy came out but it does have a lot of attached media. Comics, video games–including appearances in the Kingdom Hearts series, have been out since the very first movie back in 1982.

However, only one animated series has ever been made for the franchise, though it seems to have all but disappeared.  2012’s Tron: Uprising is a Disney XD computer animated (of course) series set in the later days of the Grid prior to Sam’s arrival in Legacy and would set up the events of that movie between the comic prequel about the origins of the Grid and Clu’s descent into evil. Uprising would see Clu in control of the Grid and moving not only against ISOs but trying to quell all free thought and actions within the Grid. However, one program named Beck would come to stand against Clu’s agents in his part of the Grid and take on the identity of Tron to inspire the people. It’s a great show, though sadly I didn’t get the chance to watch the whole thing. I wanted to but scheduling kept falling through and now I need Disney+ to watch it, and guess who can’t get it.

Disney XD did release the first story, “Beck’s Beginning”, as a multipart series of shorts but doesn’t have a dedicated playlist for that alone. Their playlist also contains ads for various episodes of the show. So I collected the episode into one playlist, which you can see below (sorry for the odd divisions), and added in a mini-documentary by Jordan Fringe about the series and why it never got past the first season. I’ll post that separately in case you just want to watch that or put it in your Watch Later or something. Either way, enjoy.