Yeah, all we really know about them from ‘82 is that if your Lightcycle crashes into one, you get derezzed. I think the same deal was true in Legacy? No indication that the physics were any different from just crashing into a wall.

But then, every incarnation of the Tron world has slightly different takes on the technology.

For instance, if it were Legacy coming out now, I’d probably be the one complaining like this, about how it treats Lightcycles like regular motorcycles. I’d be going, “That’s not how they work! They have to turn at right angles when they’re on the Game Grid! They can’t voluntarily change speed! And they can’t just turn their jet walls on and off whenever!”

But now that Legacy’s been around long enough to be respected as part of the Canon, people mostly just accept that this is how they work on the Legacy Gaming Grid.

And I’ve gotten apathetic enough about it, that I just…. don’t really care if they now work like lightsabers in whatever situation Ares is putting them in. Might as well happen.