Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Lisa Laman | Film | October 15, 2025
While features like The Idea of You and Fifty Shades of Grey are feature-length movies explicitly based on fan fiction, many modern franchises have been criticized for feeling like they were written as fan fiction. Legacy sequels and nostalgia-driven sequels like Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Terminator: Genisys have especially come under fire for feeling like two hours of relentless fanfiction. When this term is used as criticism, it’s meant to suggest a motion picture is simply wish-fulfillment for die-hard devotees. They get the fan service they want, but not the interesting art they need.
Not all projects assigned the fanfiction label have toxic reputations, though. 2011’s acclaimed movie The Muppets, for instance, secured a glowing review from Uproxx that declared the Jason Segel passion project “the greatest work of fanfiction I’ve ever seen.” Fourteen years after Segel realized his dream of hanging with Kermit and the gang, Jared Leto manifested his own pop culture ambitions by headlining another Disney franchise film, Tron: Ares. On the surface, Muppets and Ares couldn’t be more different. Breaking them down, though, they’re each a fascinating case study in how to do fanfiction cinema right.
The Muppets is Fun to Watch. Tron: Ares is a Slog
Before breaking down their artistic virtues, let’s briefly clarify how The Muppets and Tron: Ares each function as fanfiction cinema.
In the former film, Segel plays the human Gary, who has a Muppet brother, Walter. That plucky felt-skinned figure is a stand-in for Segel, with both Walter and Gary expressing constant awe that they get to hang out with the Muppets and bring them back from pop culture obscurity.
Tron: Ares, meanwhile, sees Leto playing the program Ares. Like Ariel and Margot Robbie’s Barbie before him, Ares wants to “be where the people are.” He yearns for the flesh-and-blood world rather than existing in the technological Grid realm. Ares quickly becomes the film’s most important character, briefly plays in the 1982 Tron movie’s version of The Grid (he even hangs out with Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn), and save the day. Leto’s Ares is the coolest warrior around even when he’s not wielding a Light Disc, as seen in a closing Ares scene where he zooms off into the sunset on his motorcycle.
Between these two fanfiction films, it’s already clear which one is more tolerable to be around. Gary and Walter are in a lot of The Muppets, but there’s also plenty of scenes where Kermit, Fozzie, and Miss Piggy take center stage. Entire musical numbers like “Me Party” are devoid of Segel’s two self-insert characters. Meanwhile, the biggest scene focusing on Gary and Walter is the delightfully written musical number “Man or Muppet.” How can you not love a song with a lyric like “I’m a Muppet of a Man”? Even if this James Bobin directorial effort is just an excuse for Segel to live out his Muppet fantasies, it’s hard to complain when the movie itself still works as a fun musical and a quality Muppet movie.
Leto’s desire to become a cool Grid warrior and rub shoulders with classic Tron iconography, meanwhile, yields far less successful results. Ares is a boring character, plain and simple. Leto’s lifeless performance accentuates that problem tenfold. It’s no fun spending time with the character while Leto’s flatline performance never communicates a sense of enthusiasm for the fictional world he’s inhabiting. Plopping the worst live-action Joker into this universe doesn’t produce a sweeping spectacle or exciting new twists in the Tron universe. Instead, it creates a story alternating between being a half-hearted “chosen one” narrative and a retread of the fantastical fish out of water comedy informing Barbie, Enchanted, and countless other movies.
Don’t Give Fans What They Want, Give Them The Unexpected
Each of these fan fiction approaches, meanwhile, radically differs in its relationship to the larger pop culture scenes they inhabited. The Muppets was a sincere ode to old-school musicals (hence the Mickey Rooney cameo) that tried offering something different in the late 2000s/early 2010s family movie landscape. 11 months before Kermit returned to the big screen, Yogi Bear had its titular ursine groove to Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “I Like Big Butts”. The Alvin and the Chipmunks installments were doing pop song covers and eating each other’s feces. A Jack Black Gulliver’s Travels adaptation had urine gags and retro needle drops galore.
Segel’s fan fiction satisfied his lifelong desire to “save” the Muppets and interact with his heroes. However, it also informed a family movie that offered something radically different to theatrical audiences in 2011 accustomed to Marmaduke and G-Force. Tron: Ares, meanwhile, is the umpteenth big legacy sequel blockbuster enamored with 80s culture. It’s also yet another major American movie enamored with a “good” tech CEO (in this case, Greta Lee’s Eve Kim) who will totally use her wealth and AI technology for positive means. She certainly won’t disrupt democracy or spread racist memes on social media. Put all your faith in the 1%, young Tron: Ares moviegoers!
These class politics are just some of the many ways Ares is as much of a hodgepodge of other modern blockbusters as it is Jared Leto Tron fan fiction. Ceaseless quips from comic relief characters about “breakfast burritos” or director Joachim Rønning’s filming of the various action sequences also echo everything from Black Adam to Transformers: Rise of the Beasts in the pantheon of 2020s blockbusters. Fan fiction cannot survive being this generic. The most memorable pieces of passionate and bizarre fan fiction lurking on A03 and Tumblr are many things. They are not derivative. On the contrary, they’re often unforgettably deranged.
When you’re being so vulnerable as to create a story where you shake hands with your pop culture heroes, why wimp out in making it “palatable”? Go all the way with your imagination. Create something nobody but you wanted. Segel, Bobin, and the crew behind The Muppets, in their own way, did that. They delivered an ultra-sincere musical (two years before Frozen made animated Disney musicals big business again) upending a culture of uber-cynical and modern kid’s fare. Every ounce of the project oozed infectious enthusiasm for Jim Henson’s beloved creations that even newcomers could groove to.
Tron: Ares, meanwhile, is a staggeringly run-of-the-mill blockbuster. Rather than exuding passion for The Grid, it rigidly checks off the boxes on what you’d expect from a 2025 Tron movie. It’s a corporate idea of fan fiction without any of the enthusiasm, creativity, or fearlessly corny affection underpinning this artistic realm. Even audiences seeking out entertaining evidence that the film is an ego-trip for Leto will leave disappointed. Ares is too thinly-sketched as a film to even function on that level. Tron: Ares isn’t bad because it’s an excuse for Jared Leto to play Tron dress-up. It’s a subpar feature because it’s boring. Letting fans of a pop culture property live out their dreams in these fictional worlds should result in filmmaking brimming with creativity and joy. The Muppets proved that reality by being as fun as a “Me Party…”….a party by myself…a meeeeee partyyyyyy…I don’t need nobody else…
