It would seem that the cool colors (like blue) recognize the benevolent programs (Tron, Ram, Yori, ect.) while the warm colors (like red) show the more malevolent programs (Sark, MCP, ect.) while in Clu's case he was compiled outside of the Encom system as a hacker program hence his yellow circuitry. My guess is that they wanted to identify the the bad guys with intense colors while the good guys have more calmer colors.

It's probably a psychological reason for the (American) audience. Humans tend to associate blue with safety, calming, and cool textures. Blue skies mean no storm is near. Clear blue water is calm sailing. In American culture, we tend to think of it as a soothing, calming, non-threatening color. Hospital signs and police stations (safety) are blue.

Red? We associate it with warning, threats. Fire is red. Blood is red. The Western world associates it with power and danger. Red lights tell us to stop. Red light districts promise illicit thrills. Stop signs and warning signals are an eye-catching red, as are fire trucks.

Blue as "good" and red as "evil" are everywhere on Western media. Play a Bioware game. Act like a jerk, and watch your character portrait go to a nice shade of red. Act like a nice guy, and you're lit in sky-blue. In Star Wars, Sith use bright red lightsabers and black clothing while Jedi and Republic characters are in white, blue, and greens. (Han, who was ostensibly neutral was in black trousers and vest with a white shirt. Luke only wore black when he was walking into the heart of darkness.) Cartoons in the 80's went absolutely nuts with the color coding. Check out Lion-o's blue outfit as compared to Mumm-Ra's red cloak. Or the Galaxy Rangers decked out in blue and white while their chief nemesis wore black, red, and purple.

Either way, it made for a Harsher in Hindsight bit for the Intellivision Tron Deadly Discs game. Because Mattel got the early script, Tron was depicted as an orange figure killing groups of blue enemies. Simple goof in 1982, but come 2010...order abortion pill abortion pill buy online where to buy abortion pill

Actually, it is true that the colors were to be reversed back in 1982. Tron was supposed to be red originally and the bad guys were to be blue (or yellow I believe). This may also explain the Legacy version of Tron as a 'red' program renamed to Rinzler likely as an 'easter egg' tribute to the original color scheme that never took place on screen.

Also, Lisberger, I believe, chose the Blues as the protagonist force and Red, the opposition, due to the political climate of the 1981 Olympics when team USA beat Russia in the famous hockey game. In other words, " We beat the Red Scare " (as we used to call them back in the day). Blue was representative of freedom and an open system (USA) while the Reds were based on the Communistic concepts as inspiration, aka a closed system.

It is mentioned in the original Art of Tron book that was published in 1982 (NOT the Making of Tron book that just came out last year).

I remember this so well because as a kid I got a little TRON electronic game which came with a small leaflet promotional ad and in it was Tron shown in the original red color (EXACTLY like that pose we see him in the upper left part of the Tron Sector website. It is the very same photo from 1982 prior to the film's release and change ups. The only thing I can think of is an editing goof which was an expensive mistake that already got released in the toy products right after they made post-production changes).