get in, loser, we're boldly going

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Hey, name's Red, and if you're reading this, you've unfortunately found my small blog dedicated to me making gifs for whatever has me by the throat.

My big fandoms are Star Trek, Mega Man, Back to the Future, Tron, and Speed Racer (let me live.)

I like making gifs. Got a request? Wanna chat? Just hit me up.

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We are here as your captors to see your weaponry, Captain Pike.

SAFFRON BURROWS as BATTLE COMMANDER CASSELL STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS 4x01

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You used the word 'alone.' Our people have ten individual words for such a state, differentiated by emotional inflection. Your translating machine used the word 'widower.'

SAFFRON BURROWS as BATTLE COMMANDER CASSELL STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS 4x01

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I understand you were trying to save your people. As I am doing for mine.

SAFFRON BURROWS as BATTLE COMMANDER CASSELL STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS 4x01

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Mister Chekov, did you break my ship?

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Warp available at your command.

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We found the leak, sir, but the damage is substantial.

Any idea what caused it?

No, sir. But I accept full responsibility.

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Behind the deflector dish! I'll flip the switch!

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I HAVE ARES ON PLEX NOW IN HIGH QUALITY AND THAT MEANS I HAVE TO REWATCH IT SO MANY TIMES AND ALSO MAKE MORE GIFS (because lbr the lower quality Russian dub that i had did NOT work well with the heavily red-lit Dillinger scenes oof and i had i d e a s)

BUT it also means that I rewatched it this morning and thought a lot about that opening scene where we're introduced to Julian launching Ares and us seeing his first moments alive, so to speak, on the Grid, and the first thing he had ever known was confusion, his own derezzing, and likely fear.

The first things he was taught were how to fight. Derez. Fight. Fail. Rerez. Repeat. Over and over until he became the Ares we're familiar with throughout the film. And I wholeheartedly believe Julian was just at his desk-terminal watching the results, huffing, patching Ares, and waiting silently for him to learn, adapt, and reach that acceptable threshold.

Because after all that, when Julian makes contact with Ares for the first time, Ares is startled by The Creator's render's appearance and voice and his first instinct is to reach for his disc and adopt a fighting stance, just waiting for the attack to come. That's all he has known up until this point so far, after all.

But Ares is Dillinger Systems' security software. He's told his name for the first time, given an identity, and then given the title of Defender of the Grid.

And boy that sounds a lot like a certain other program, doesn't it?

One Tron, written by a certain Alan Bradley, created to be a security program, a watchdog, a defender of the Grid, a System Monitor. (Even if that last title is arguably more given by Flynn when he's brought to the Legacy Grid, it still falls in line with his previous functions/directives.)

AND IT MAKES ME THINK.

What were Tron's first moments like when Alan was writing and compiling him?

Julian had the knowledge already of the Grid, that there's another entire world in there where programs are their own living, conscious entities—I don't know if Athena was written before Ares, it seems to me like she might have been but that's just what I draw from her various scenes (and I kind of like that potential better anyway)—and still treated them as nothing but tools and things to be exploited and discarded when they were no longer useful. So his initial interaction with Ares really puts his character into perspective.

Alan, however, had absolutely no idea of this digital world. Programs were just lines of code, strings of text, 1s and 0s on a screen. But I have a hard time thinking that Alan wasn't sitting there, muttering to himself in a way that Tron wouldn't be able to hear, making his presence clearly known, always there for his Program. U

Man don't even get me started on Program/User dynamics and communications and all that—

But Tron also had to learn and be trained, like Ares, to be efficient at his job. I don't doubt that Tron's name was already well-known around the system before everything which made his capture and constant attempts to break him by Sark and the MCP a priority.

And I think about what that might have been like for Tron. Tron and Alan communicating, in a way, while Tron learns, Alan commenting, this rapport and trust already being built. Tron knowing he was never abandoned as he learned. Program/User dynamic/relationships aside, one isn't as firmly devoted as Tron is without some kind of already established relationship far beyond the norm, right?

It almost feels like, even though Alan has no idea about the digital world, when he's having the conversation with Dillinger in the beginning of the film, he refers to Tron already if he's some kind of living entity.

(And I think about this because of the way the we won't be able to speak again until you complete your mission scene goes. Like even though Alan was writing/updating Tron in secret under Dillinger and the MCP's noses, they were communicating regularly enough until Tron was captured by the MCP. That's just how it reads to me.)

Were Tron's first moments also full of fear and violence like Ares'? I don't think so, I think his beginnings came about very differently, but I won't pretend I haven't considered the other side of the coin too. It's an interesting thought both ways.

Like I can see Tron also going through a series of tests where he's got to learn to make choices, to evaluate situations unfolding around him to figure out how to act accordingly. What's a threat? What isn't? He runs independently of the MCP, has, in a sense, his own agency with a fairly broad set of directives (watchdog the MCP, monitor contacts between ENCOM's system and others and if he finds anything that isn't scheduled, shut it down), so his first days might be a lot different in that regard.

Yes he had to learn eventually and go through trials as well but I definitely don't think he got sent to the Game Grid without an already impressive set of skills let me tell you. Tron, confident, intimidating, impressive, dangerous from the moment he was captured and locked up.

(Man don't even get me started on how different the environments in which we first meet Alan and Julian are. Alan's is full of personal effects, nerdy things, it's bright and way more colourful, giving us an idea of what he's into, what he's like. Julian's, is cold, corporate, almost imposing in a way. Tells us a lot and yet so very little about Julian because Julian's everything, as we come to figure out, is inextricably tangled with the Dillinger name and the family company/legacy, oof.))

idk I just think it's interesting to think about—

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"Julian Dillinger! This is the police!"

JULIAN DILLINGER | TRON: ARES (2025)

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Oops!

JULIAN DILLINGER | TRON: ARES (2025)

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Julian really does just fascinate me as a character.

The Dillinger family line as a whole does, honestly. For the little we get of them, they're such huge continuing players in the franchise lore. (Another long rambling analysis/thoughts post incoming oops)

When my friend and I saw Ares the first time and that opening sequence played, the moment that Dillinger Systems was presented as the tech rival to ENCOM I remember thinking how did they/who let Dillinger do that after him being publicly disgraced after the events of Tron?

I guess with a good enough product and money, you can get away with anything, huh?

We don't really get to learn a whole lot about the Dillingers in-universe.

We know what Dillinger Sr did, we get that brief moment with Dillinger Jr in Legacy and in The Next Day where he proves that he's a brilliant programmer in his own right, enough to warrant his position as head of security design team and Alan rising to bat for him to Roy, and Ares is our only introduction to Julian and Elisabeth and by association, Dillinger Systems.

Ares says at the beginning of the film that Elisabeth is Dillinger Sr's eldest daughter and was head of the company for a rather unimpressive run before giving way to her son, to which she looks mildly affronted (and Julian looks rather amused) and replies that the company went up in value by twelve percent during her tenure.

Julian's introduction as current CEO of Dillinger Systems has him beginning a sales pitch to the board and potential clients for his state of the art military software. Stronger, smarter, better soldiers that can be reconstructed in an instant. State of the art tanks and other equipment.

Elisabeth doesn't appear to be too thrilled with the way Julian's taking the company, but it's out of her hands now so to speak. (I wish we got to know more about what the company got up to under her leadership.)

Her meeting Ares even seems to make her uncomfortable, though whether it's the nature of him being a program or the knowing that he has only 29 minutes to remain in their world (forty-five seconds by the start of Ares and Elisabeth's meeting) and he's due to violently derezz or a combination of both, who knows.

It's also interesting how when Elisabeth comes to stand beside Julian and Ares after that meeting, there's no closeness, no familiarity between them. They're all standing like three to five feet apart, it's all so formal and cold.

Sometimes it feels like Elisabeth is more concerned with the future of the company than she is with Julian himself, but you could arguably also spin that in the sense that she criticises Julian's every move because she also cares about him and that's her way of showing her love.

Yeah, they have their moments, but even then it's a bit strained. She pats Julian gently on the cheek and that's about as...I don't know, comforting? as she gets.

She is certainly not there to provide a safe place to be, someone to lean on, or comfort to Julian as the rest of the film progresses and everything spirals. In fact, she gets more and more annoyed with him and when it all comes to a head, the scene before she ends up being killed by Athena, she comes in like I'm shutting this down. You've been stripped of your position by the board and I'm taking control of the company again.

The last thing she says to her son is that all this is entirely his fault and implies that he's on his own here. What does that say?

Even if you make the argument that Julian and Elisabeth are close, they certainly don't feel like it and they don't show it in the way you'd typically expect to see it from a family. They have that very professional/work-oriented distant rich family feel to them. It's all about results and what do you bring to the table, not love.

I've seen this film in Russian far more times than I have in English so you'll have to correct me if the line in the English version is wrong/different here (I don't remember how it goes in English) but Ares says that it's a pleasure to meet the creator of his creator before he derezzes.

And just thinking about the family dynamic in the way it's presented is interesting because if Elisabeth is a kind of mirror of how Dillinger Sr was as a father, and Julian a mirror of that because it is what he knows, it says a lot about the way he treats his creations, specifically Ares and Athena.

They're nothing but tools to Julian - a means to an end that have little value unless they can perform for him. If not? Deleted without hesitation. It happened to Caius, after all. He's threatened Ares with it enough times throughout the film.

Something I thought is super interesting is that Ares starts to figure that out right from the get-go. When Julian rezzes in Ares along with the tank for the demonstration, as Ares scans the crowd and picks them apart, he does so for Julian as well, looking over as he says oh, if Ares is destroyed, we can just make you another one.

And what Ares sees is very interesting. Ares' analysis shows that Julian's intent is to stop his (Ares') objective and his verbal response shows signs of anger and intense sadness. What action should he take? Nothing - ignore the subject (Julian) for he's currently a low level threat and he should just continue his objective.

But what is his objective? I'd argue that after the introduction sequence we got with Ares which is him getting derezzed over and over again as his AI is trained into the fighter Julian wants, his objective is to survive.

Though, Julian's anger/intense sadness as he says that is something that's also fascinating. He doesn't really care about Ares, so I wonder if that reaction is because Julian knows he's lying to the board and that all his attempts thusfar to find the Permanence Code have ended in failure.

But already, there's some tell into Julian.

Julian is absolutely the kid that people did not say no to. And if they tried, he took it as a personal challenge and got even more insufferable, pushing and bending and breaking until he could see just how much and exactly what he could get away with.

He's also kind of a bastard, calling up and taunting the ENCOM team for fun.

And everything is his to be used as he sees fit. As long as he benefits in the end? Julian had the privilege of meeting his programs face-to-face and still treated them like they were just tools to be discarded and used on a whim. Ares feared for his own continued survival under Julian. In a way, so did Athena. He'd delete her too if she couldn't fulfil her directive. Both of them feared him in their own ways, I think, only Ares chose to rebel against his creator and Athena chose to serve. One way or another they'd get to stay alive.

Julian also definitely doesn't think consequences apply to him. When the Ares/Athena/Eve bike chase through the city wrapped up and the news was covering it, Julian didn't look worried. He looked pissed more than anything else meanwhile Elisabeth was the one who was getting worried, essentially telling Julian he's going too far, that he's not in control like he thinks he is, and that is job is to ensure the continuation of the company. And Julian just kind of shrugs it off, nursing his anger and his growing dislike for Eve Kim. He'll get the Permanence Code and everything will be great, you'll see. Who cares if a few people get hurt along the way?

Elisabeth tries to caution him against hacking into ENCOM, but what does he do? Shrugs off her concerns, deploys Ares, and just goes oops!

Hell, he's willing to straight up commit murder if it means he gets what he wants. And it didn't seem like it was all that hard a choice for him to make, either.

And Ares, this great, supposed to be terrifying security program, is the one with a conscience here, telling Julian that extracting the code will delete Eve Kim from both the Grid AND Julian's world. Executing this command cannot be undone.

To that, Julian delivers what's probably my favourite fucking line of this entire film: There was a program named Ares. Ares obeyed every command Julian Dillinger gave him and Julian Dillinger earned three million dollars and wrote his name on the face of time in blood!

No arguments. He doesn't care about Eve's fate. Just his own. Ares will comply or else.

I genuinely wouldn't be surprised to find out that Julian equates value and self-worth directly with his own success. That that's what might have actually got him noticed by anyone in that household.

He's also kind of pitiful, honestly. Underneath all that intelligence, bravado, and dare I say charm (he knows how to work a crowd when it matters), he's very much a child who has no idea what he's doing. If money, power, or cunning dirty tricks can't solve his problem (see: the aftermath of everything he has wrought), he doesn't know what to do.

Failure does not seem like something that's tolerated by the Dillingers. Julian certainly doesn't tolerate it. He told Ares to enjoy this last 29 minutes of life after he escapes from the Dillinger Grid with Eve because that's all he's going to get. He deleted Caius for not performing to his standards. When Athena rezzes herself into Julian's world, when Julian gets over his initial shock, he immediately snaps at her like where's my code??

Towards the end of the film, I genuinely wonder if there's guilt wrapped up in all there.

There might be. But he just as likely might not blame himself, either. It's definitely messy and complicated and it's a situation he has never had to deal with before.

It's Ares' fault for disobeying his programming and going rogue. It's Elisabeth's fault for stepping in and trying to stop Athena. It's Athena's fault for failing her directive each and every time. It's Eve Kim's fault for standing as his opposite, for corrupting Ares, for finding the Permanence Code before him.

But none of that would've happened if not for his actions.

There's just so much to say and I fjkl;asdj

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Beginning transfer of biological life-form... Initiating digital reconstruction...

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TRON: ARES vs. TRON (1982)

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I'm never gonna be over this Julian ending scene I think ugh—

Something else I also really love about that scene is the way the Dillinger Grid looks in the aftermath when Julian's staring out over it compared to the way it's shown when Eve sees it the first time.

It's ruined. There's the remnants of what looks like a raging fire on the horizon, the Grid is absent of the energy transfer lines, the orange glow of life and activity—it's a hellscape of his own making. It looks dead, chaotic, angry, and scarred in a way which is so highly representative of Julian's current mental state I'd say.

Directly and indirectly, Julian's the catalyst for the majority of the events in this film, be they good or bad. He'd gone through the whole film thinking he's untouchable, playing god, consequences don't apply to him and he'll show them all. He's Julian Dillinger; it'll all work out.

Then the film ends, and everything crashes down around him, something he really only starts to realise in the scene where Athena frees herself from the Grid, echoing Elizabeth's sentiment from earlier: you think you're in control, you're not. Then when Athena stabs Elizabeth, it's over. The last words he ever heard from his mother were you did this.

It's a long hard fall back to earth for Julian. He has lost everything now.

All that bravado he'd displayed, that cocky attitude he had earlier, it all shatters in an instant.

I wonder if he'd considered in that moment to try and give Athena a new directive and either thought better of it because she'd likely kill him too or he knew there would be no point.

I think he's got a number of unresolved issues prior to all this given his family name and all but that's another story in and of itself—

Anyway, when he makes his desperate escape to the Grid, mentally he's in a terrible place. You can see the tears in his eyes, the way he shakes, the uncertainty, the moments where grief switches to anger and back again. And seeing all that against the backdrop of the ruined Dillinger Grid really just sets the scene.

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$ ACCESS *M/MTC/IMIT.GRID/1982

[ENTER]

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❝Sark...❞