TRON: Legacy - How A Fantastic Soundtrack Elevates An Average Film

Daft Punk's contributions to this film are the main reason anyone remembers TRON: Legacy, and here's why.

Daft Punk's cameo as DJs in TRON: Legacy. Photo: Disney

TRON: Legacy is a fairly unremarkable film for the most part, barely scraping the threshold of being an okay film. Whilst there are a fair number of people in online communities who consider the sequel to the original 1982 Tron an underrated gem, due to the cult following it has garnered over the years since its 2010 release, critics at the time gave the film a mixed reception. There is a reason this film has never had too much of a lasting legacy, as critics in 2010 praised the visual effects, which have held up quite well to this day, and the production design, but criticised the character development, the overall cast performance, and the story. 

There was also another aspect of the film that garnered near-universal praise from both critics and fans. This was, of course, the film's musical score, composed by the now-retired French music duo Daft Punk. There's a certain level of bias that I can attribute to Daft Punk's work on this film, since their score was the very reason I became obsessed with their music, and even though I watched TRON: Legacy after the duo announced their split in 2021, they are still my favourite musical artists to this day.  So what makes TRON: Legacy’s music so fantastic, and how does Daft Punk's work manage to elevate a mediocre film like this into the decent category?

Even though Daft Punk’s music is unique compared to its contemporaries, their style had to be adapted and modified for TRON: Legacy. Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, one half of Daft Punk, said in an interview with Fact Magazine that, “We knew from the start that there was no way we were going to do this film score with two synthesisers and a drum machine”, and as a result, the combination of their well-known synthesisers with an 85-piece orchestra makes for a unique yet effective double act. If the film didn’t feature the orchestra, and instead relied solely on synthesisers and a drum machine, then it could have been interesting to see how it would work in conjunction with the digital setting of the Grid. Ultimately, the use of an orchestra allows the soundtrack to feel different from Daft Punk’s other albums, both before and after this film's release, while maintaining a sense of familiarity that people would come to expect from this iconic duo.

 Furthermore, De Homem-Christo also mentioned in that Fact Magazine interview that watching Tron as a child had a strong influence on him, saying that, 

"Maybe I only saw it two or three times in my entire life, but the feel of it is strong even now, that I think the imprint of the first [film] will not be erased by the new one. It has a real visionary quality to it."

Secondly, it’s also important that while TRON: Legacy is Daft Punk’s only soundtrack album, they have had experience with films before. “Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem” is a 2003 animated film that served as a visual companion to their album “Discovery”, with Daft Punk themselves credited as the film’s writers alongside their creative director Cédric Hervet. There’s also “Daft Punk’s Electroma”, an avant-garde sci-fi film directed and co-written by the musical duo, without any of their music. Even outside of Daft Punk-related experiences on films, Thomas Bangalter, the other half of Daft Punk, composed the soundtrack for Gaspar Noé's polarising 2002 film "Irréversible". Simply put, it’s fair to say they knew how films worked more than you’d expect. 

TRON: Legacy is in an interesting situation here because the music unintentionally elevates the film to make it better than any other aspect of the film. Since the characters are largely uninteresting (minus Michael Sheen's flamboyant nightclub owner channelling his inner David Bowie and Dr Frank N Furter from Rocky Horror Picture Show), there’s not a lot of reason to care for them in action sequences, leaving it up to the music to ease you in, which is why the soundtrack is the best part of the film. Amongst the 31 tracks in the soundtrack album, there's more than enough for each specific occasion they end up being used for.

How about introducing new environments and settings to the audience? “Outlands” and “Sea of Simulation” have you covered in spades, each of them different from one another. Do you prefer mournful minor tracks? “Adagio for Tron” is an all-in-one package. Upbeat and funky songs to blast at a party? “Derezzed” and “End of Line”, two of my highlights from the album, kindly introduce themselves. “The Game Has Changed”, “Flynn Lives”, “Tron Legacy (End Titles)”. I could go on and on about how this soundtrack fits flawlessly and how many of the tracks are great to listen to with or without the context of the film. Some songs gradually build and build into a magnificent ending, whilst others remain consistent yet catchy enough in the normal Daft Punk sense, despite the lack of lyrics. No matter what way you spin it, the balancing of orchestral and electronic sounds works tremendously here, representing the idea of bridging humanity and technology in a way the film doesn’t do all that well and goes to show how much music can make the step up and help get you emotionally invested in a film if the characters aren’t doing that.

To sum up, Daft Punk’s soundtrack album for TRON: Legacy is excellent. Regardless of your opinion on the film, whether you like it, love it, dislike it, hate it, or are simply indifferent, the soundtrack is excellent and significantly enhances the film. Whether Nine Inch Nails can live up to the high bar set by Daft Punk for their upcoming score work on TRON: Ares remains to be seen, but regardless, TRON: Legacy's legacy, for lack of a better word, is defined most by a soundtrack that elevates the film's overall quality to the point where without it, the film would be much, much worse.