Where Is The Grid in 'Tron'?

Pixar's John Lasseter said it best: "Without Tron, there would be no Toy Story."

And without Shanghai Disneyland, you wouldn't be able to see what The Grid looks like in real life. 

When you don't have the means to go inside the computer, you can always take a trip to the futuristic Chinese city and get a taste of Kevin Flynn's fictional digital frontier. Shanghai Disneyland is the first of any Disney park to offer a Tron-themed roller coaster attraction: the Lightcycle Power Run. 

So how fast is the Tron ride in Shanghai? Manufactured by Netherlands' Vekoma, the ride's so-called lightcycles really live up to their name, going as fast as 95 km/h. That's the fastest ride at the Disneyland parks worldwide. 

We have to talk about the lightcycles, which look like they were churned out of Tron City with wheels glowing cyan and blue as in the movies.

The lightcycles in 'Tron' 2010 (above) vs. those in Shanghai Disneyland's Tron roller coaster ride (below). Taken with a Sony DSC-RX100M3 by Jeremy Thompson 

A replacement for Space Mountain at the Shanghai Tomorrowland, Tron Lightcycle Power Run is a motorbike-style roller coaster ride with a 966 meter-long track. This breathtaking ride has you leaning forward on your personal lightcycle and sends you hurtling through the glowing latticework of The Grid, with the Daft Punk score booming in the background. The ride also blasts you off outdoors under a glowing, color-shifting canopy.

You have to see it to believe it.

Until the opening of the Florida Magic Kingdom's own Tron Lightcycle Power Run in 2022, fans in America had to content themselves partying at the ElecTRONica club in Disney California Adventure. The parties, which took place nightly at the park's Hollywood Pictures Backlot, ran from 2010 until 2012. 

Before the pandemic, Brazilian fans had the D.EDGE Club in Sao Paulo, which boasted interiors that somewhat recalled Tron's trademark nets of light. The EDM DJ sets themselves would transport you to a future-forward world.

Let's not forget that Tron was filmed on the premise that you can get sucked into a computer game. You can now technically do that—with the help of virtual reality goggles.

Not since Steven Lisberger watched the Pong game in 1972—and got inspired to make TRON—has the idea of inhabiting virtual reality been more achievable. Today arcade games have cast off the joysticks and consoles for VR goggles, with titles like Eleven Table Tennis (ETT) being played on Oculus, Vive and WMR (Windows Mixed Reality) headsets. 

So is The Grid from TRON possible? Today, you got in.