Three Grids? Three Colors! Disney TRON: Ares Movie Goes RGB. ENCOM Blue (the signature cyan/electric blue from TRON) should be sold in stores like Home Depot! ENCOM Blue is the color of the digital frontier for Gen-X! The primary color of TRON and TRON: Legacy, the color can be seen on TRON Lightcycle / Run canopy and lightcycles, on merchandise, and now it will be highlighted once again in TRON: Ares. This time, though, it will be joined by the new TRON: Ares red, also known as Dillinger’s Grid, and ENCOM Green, which is described as the Emerald City.
While ENCOM Blue has been the color mostly associated with the TRON franchise since 1982, the new Dillinger Red is a perfect addition to the TRON Grid. Previously, we have seen the ENCOM Green, which we have not actually seen on the big screen as of yet. We can get a good idea of what it may look like from the TRON Lightcycle Ride photo op with the Enterprise Green Lightcycle at the exit to the attraction here at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World.
In a recent Production Notes release from Walt Disney Studios, they describe the new colors. “TRON: Ares” takes audiences into not one, but three Grids, each a masterclass in production design and visual storytelling.
Check out all of our coverage of TRON: Ares. Opening October 10th, 2025. Tickets are now on sale.
Designing Three Distinct Grids
Unlike the first two films, “TRON: Ares” takes place on three unique Grids: the ENCOM Grid, the Dillinger Grid, and Flynn’s Grid. Spearheaded by graphic designer Ellen Lampl, whom production designer Darren Gilford calls “a graphics powerhouse,” each Grid was made distinct from the other so as not to confuse the audience.
The design team chose the primary RGB color scheme: “For the Dillinger Grid, we immediately went to red,” says Gilford. “Dante’s Inferno. To complement that, ENCOM was green, like the Emerald City. And Flynn’s Grid is the same blue as before: instantly recognizable to fans.” Gilford also used visual metaphors to illustrate computer language: the security of ENCOM’s system is visualized as a medieval castle, its firewall literally a giant firewall, and its data falls like droplets of light in a cathedral-like structure.
For the Dillinger Grid, says Gilford, “one of our gambles that ended up really successful was the texture of the walls. We didn’t want to do traditional paint and surfaces like you’d see in the real world, and we ended up using a stainless-steel sheet called Dibond that we could bend, and we put a vinyl automotive wrap over it. It gave us this transparent candy apple red look, with the grain and light of the stainless steel visible through, which gave the walls a really interesting look.
Gilford continues, “And when the light hit it, it really bounced and sang. And then we saw that, if the grain of the stainless steel was horizontal, the highlights would go vertical, and vice versa. So we started experimenting with angles, rotating the material to see how the highlights would kiss along each surface. It was really, really interesting and just gave a very different, unique look to the surfaces of the Dillinger Grid.”
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Three Grids? Three Colors! Disney TRON: Ares Movie Goes RGB
In “TRON: Ares,” a highly sophisticated digital Program, Ares (Jared Leto), is sent into the real world on a dangerous mission, marking humankind’s first face-to-face encounter with artificial intelligence. As Ares experiences his surroundings and has his first brush with humanity, his consciousness – and conscience – start to evolve.
He finds an unexpected ally in the brilliant technologist, computer programmer, and current ENCOM CEO Eve Kim (Greta Lee), who is on her own journey to discover a critical code written by Kevin Flynn (Je Bridges). Betraying orders and relentlessly pursued, the two fight not only for their survival but for a future where technology and humanity can intersect. “TRON: Ares” is a production of Walt Disney Studios. The film opens wide in U.S. theaters on Friday, October 10, 2025.
