Was Tron ever cool? I haven't seen any of the movies. It looks incomprehensible and loaded with lore no one asked for.
As a child in the 80's, the original film seemed pretty cool at the time. Tron was an early 80's Disney movie with a story aimed at children. It's a fantasy universe with 8-bit computer terminology replacing traditional names for heroes, villains, wizards, and locations. I still think it's a fun, if dumb, watch.
There's really no lore to the original movie aside from the basic plot and character info which is explained in the movie itself. Evil corporate AI sucks The Dude into its "Grid", a virtual world where programs are people, and Human users are the gods. The first sequel is just a follow-on from that 30 years later with better effects. The games and cartoons added story, but not a lot of lore. From the limited bits I've seen of the third movie, it doesn't look good.
However, the VFX were aimed to impress the adults, and were considered impressively weird at the time. With bizarre color gradient effects and the integration of early CGI effects, it was unique at a time when stop-motion animation (the Harry Hamlin Clash of the Titans was released the year before), matte paintings, and miniature effects were the standard.
These effects were different, but didn't age very well compared with the stuff Star Wars was producing. On topic, it compare unfavorably to what the Star Trek films were doing at the same time (Star Trek II was released the same year as Tron).
The first sequel was an equally weak fantasy story, but, although the effects were much more impressive CGI, they lacked some of the original's charm. It's the only movie where I've found Olivia Wilde remotely attractive looking, though, and I still kind of like it.
Most notable from all three movies is the soundtracks. The Walter/Wendy Carlos soundtrack (Carlos was a talented classical musician and OG tranny) from the first movie was pretty influential in 80's electronica. The Daft Punk soundtrack from the sequel was very popular, and universally considered the best part of the movie. The Nine Inch Nails soundtrack is the only thing I'm familiar with from the third movie, and I found it generally underwhelming, but then I'm not a huge fan of Reznor's soundtracks in general.
