I have never seen any of Tron movies or animations.  
 
But I'm interested in Tron: Legacy and Tron: Evolution and I want to understand the cultural phenomenon of Tron. 
 
So what makes Tron good? 
 
Is it good? 
 
Does it actually deserve all the hype? or Is it just one of things that is a novelty when it came out? 
 
What makes Tron good? 
 
P.S  
 
If you want to recommend any Tron movies or animations, please do so.

play the games

• Jeff Bridges
• Bruce Boxleitner
• David Warner
• Lightcycles
• Neon everywhere
• Jeff Fucking Bridges
• Recognizers
• Synth as hell soundtrack
• The MCP

I like how you're asking about all the Tron movies and animations out there.  There was the one movie in 1982 and that was it, aside from a PC game that was a semi sequel that is not considered canon.
 
As for the hype, it was a groundbreaking film that pioneered computer graphics in media, as well as the first film to introduce ideas like cyberspace, game culture, as well as including ideas of machines replacing man, religion and A.I. run rampant.  The look of the film was and still is unique, since the process was so costly and time consuming it was never used again outside of small projects.  It also was a box office bust that was the final of a string of losses that forced Disney to close Walt Disney Productions, but that's a whole other discussion.
 
So the hype comes from almost 30 years of a movie most people saw when they were a kid (I was 8 at the time and saw it in the theater about a dozen times) and it was something that got ingrained in you since it was such a sensory overload.
 
The movie itself was fairly dull in spots and still has the side-effect of being a project that wasn't focused on an audience.  At times it's very technical and expects people to understand the concept of cyberspace and digital technology - in a time when only engineers had PCs at home - and later feels like a kids movie with stilted acting and weak dialogue paired with running from place to place with horrible pacing.  It all stems from the process being so involved to make it that it had to be as concise as possible and it really hurts the movie.
 
Watching it now for the first time is probably nowhere near as impressive as it was then, since movies like The Matrix, Inception and others have basically retold and reused the story and ideas with far more technical ability and an audience that understands the concepts much more readily.  Tron still has a style and look to it that sets it apart enough to stand on its own however.  It's worth watching and still ties directly into the sequel so you would know who the characters are and what the world evolved from.

Aside from groundbreaking (for the time) special effects and Jeff Bridges, the first movie isn't really all that good. I'd go so far as to call it bad.  
 
Granted, I didn't watch the first one when it originally came out (I wasn't even alive at the time), but the only real enjoyment I got out of it was laughing at it for being bad in a comical way.  
 
The new one looks like it might be good though. I dunno. 

"   So the hype comes from almost 30 years of a movie most people saw when they were a kid (I was 8 at the time and saw it in the theater about a dozen times) and it was something that got ingrained in you since it was such a sensory overload. "

Yes, I fully recommend it. I know this is old, but Tron: Uprising is relatively new and that's something I recommend as well. Ever since it's inception, Tron: Uprising is one of the only things I've been thinking about lately.

Daft Punk