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Tomorrowland is a science fiction film written by Damon Lindelof and Jeff Jensen and directed by Brad Bird. It stars George Clooney in the leading role, with Hugh Laurie as the primary villain.

Walt Disney Studios announced the film under the working title 1952, until it was renamed, sharing its name with the science-fiction themed land found at various Magic Kingdom-themed Disney parks.

The film was released by Walt Disney Pictures on May 22, 2015.

Plot[]

Overview[]

A teenage girl, a genius middle-aged man (who was kicked out of Tomorrowland), and a pre-pubescent girl robot attempt to get to and unravel what happened to the futuristic world of Tomorrowland, which exists in an alternate dimension, in order to save Earth.

Plot Summary[]

The story begins with Adult Frank Walker telling a story directly to the camera, occasionally interrupted by a female voice, turning into a flashback of his attending the 1964 New York World's Fair as a child. He meets David Nix, who is unimpressed with Walker's limited jet pack, but draws the attention of a young girl named Athena, who sees his potential, gives him a pin embossed with a "T" symbol and tells him to follow her aboard the fair's "It's a Small World" attraction. Frank sneaks onto the ride, his pin is scanned and he is transported into a futuristic cityscape known as Tomorrowland. He falls from a ledge, straps on his jetpack, and lands safely before Nix and Athena.

The narration then shifts to Casey Newton, who sneaks into a decommissioned NASA launch pad in Cape Canaveral, where her father Eddie is an engineer. She sabotages the machines that are dismantling the launch pad and returns home where Athena sneaks another pin that is programmed to Casey's DNA into Casey's motorcycle helmet. The next night, Casey attempts to break into the NASA compound again, but is arrested. At the police station, she discovers the pin among her personal items. Casey discovers that upon contact, the pin instantly shows her a view of Tomorrowland. She briefly explores the vision until the pin's battery runs out.

Assisted by her little brother, Nate, Casey finds a Houston memorabilia store related to the pin, but upon meeting the two owners, Hugo and Ursula, Casey is inquired about it, and when she reveals to know nothing else about it, they attack her. Athena bursts in and fights Hugo and Ursula, who are both revealed to be robots. The two girls escape as the robots self-destruct, destroying the store. After stealing a car, Athena reveals that she is an Audio-Animatronic robot, and the one who gave Casey the pin, revealing that she needs her help to save the world. Athena drives Casey to Frank's home in New York and abandons her there. Frank pushes Casey away, but she manages to lure him out of the house and sneak in, locking him out. While Casey explores the technology inside the house, Frank re-enters the house through a secret tunnel just as a group of robots disguised as United States Secret Service agents storms the house with intent to kill them.

After evading the robots and reuniting with Athena, the trio uses a teleportation machine that Frank invented, jumping to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. They enter a room with mannequins of Gustave Eiffel, Jules Verne, Nikola Tesla, and Thomas Edison. Frank explains that the four men were the founders of Plus Ultra, a group of inventors dedicated to finding other dreamers and inventors who shared the hope of shaping a better future, which eventually led them to discover a new dimension where Tomorrowland was founded. The trio enter a steampunk-esque rocket hidden underneath the tower, which launches into outer space and back towards Earth, finally arriving at a now desolate Tomorrowland. Nix shows up to greet them, and takes them to a building linked to a tachyon machine designed by Frank himself that can show images from the past and future, where Casey learns that a worldwide catastrophe will happen in the near future, and because of that, Frank lost all hope and was banished from Tomorrowland. Casey does not accept that the world is destined to end, and the future slightly changes as a result, a fact that Frank glimpses, but Nix ignores and orders them arrested instead.

As they await being sent back to Earth, Casey realizes that as a side effect of the device utilizing tachyons to obtain information about the future, it introduces a backfeed into their flow, thus making the future it shows all the more likely, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy; therefore, destroying the device can avert the apocalypse. Nix opens a portal to a beach, inviting them to live out the last days there, but Frank resists upon knowing that Nix had given up on Earth and intends to allow the apocalypse to happen. A fight ensues and Frank tries to use a bomb to blow up the machine. Mistakenly, the bomb goes off outside the portal and the explosion pins Nix's leg under debris. Nix retrieves a plasma gun and aims at Frank. Athena, who was able to see it happening beforehand due to the tachyons, jumps in front of him and is shot beyond repair; activating her self-destruct sequence. In her last moments of consciousness, Athena instructs Frank to take her to the machine and reveals that she loved him. Her self-destruction takes down the machine and kills Nix as well.

The story returns to the present, with Frank and Casey's audience revealed to be androids like Athena, who are entrusted with new pins and instructed to bring other "dreamers" to Tomorrowland.

Cast[]

Production[]

The Walt Disney Studios announced previously known as 1952. On January 18, 2013 it was announced that the movie will be retitled Tomorrowland, named after the themed area in various Disney parks. The film was going to be released domestically on December 19, 2014, but was later pushed back to May 26, 2015. George Clooney (ER, Ocean's Trilogy, Syriana, The Descendants) is set to star. It was also reported in February 2013 that Hugh Laurie (House) will star as the primary villain for the film. Principal photography began in Vancouver, BC on August 26th, 2013.

Tomorrowland is written by Damon Lindelof and Brad Bird from a concept by Lindelof and Jeff Jensen. Lindelof (Star Trek, Lost, Prometheus) produced the film, and Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) produced and directed.

Promotional Tie-Ins[]

Beginning in July of 2013, Walt Disney Imagineering and the Walt Disney Studios partnered to launch The Optimist, which acted as a promotional alternate reality game which introduced the Plus Ultra organization and its connection to Walt Disney.

Chevrolet, (and subsequently parent company General Motors) has also sponsored the movie inpart by promoting the new second-generation Chevy Volt before its' 2015 shipment. Chevrolet, whose products are showcased in Test Track 2.0 in Epcot, has released a TV spot promoting both the movie and the car. The commercial has an animated car that morphs into five different fictional prototype cars created by GM, (one of which happens to be a prototype that was shown at the 1964 World's Fair) before morphing into the Chevy Volt's first then second generation models. The car then drives out of the factory and then drives into a background with the skyline for Tomorrowland.[1]

Videos[]

Gallery[]

Wiki
The Disney Wiki has a collection of images and media related to Tomorrowland (film).

Trivia[]

  • The 1964 World's Fair Vintage Pin is a reference to Disneyland trading pins found throughout the Disney parks.
  • Since 2011, the credits have been shortened to Disney, like the opening logo, however the opening title shows as "Walt Disney Pictures."
  • Tomorrowland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, are the first Walt Disney Pictures releases since The Muppets to open the film with the title card "Walt Disney Pictures Presents". The opening Disney logos, however, still remain indented as simply "Disney".
  • Portions of the film were shot in the Carousel of Progress; the attraction was closed for just one day so filming the scene could commence here.
  • The Optimist acted as a promotional tie-in to the film. The Optimist was an alternate-reality game, and starred fictional character Amelia and her attempts to discover more about her late grandfather and his work with the Disney company. The game tied in several key plot points which would be unveiled in Tomorrowland.
    • At the end of The Optimist, each player received a special pin, as seen in the Tomorrowland trailer.[2]
  • In the UK, the film was renamed "Disney Tomorrowland: A World Beyond".[3]
    • Likewise, it was released under the name "Project T" in Norway.
  • Much like Disney's Meet the Robinsons, Space Mountain appears as part of Tomorrowland's skyline. People have also spotted nods to Epcot's Horizons and the Magic Highway, U.S.A. episode of the Disneyland show.
  • Jetpacks were demonstrated at Disneyland's Tomorrowland during the 1950s and early '60s.
  • The White Rabbit and the Big Bad Wolf made cameos during the 1964 New York World's Fair scene.[4]
  • Michael Giacchino also made a cameo in this movie as an It's a Small World cast member.
  • Lochlyn Munro played Casey's Uncle Tony whose family was living with Casey and his family but were cut from the film to streamline the story. The scenes can be found on the DVD.

External Links[]

References[]

v - e - d
Tomorrowland-550x182
Media
TomorrowlandBefore TomorrowlandThe OptimistSoundtrack
Characters
Casey NewtonFrank WalkerAthenaDavid NixUrsula GernsbackHugo Gernsback
Locations
TomorrowlandParisEiffel Tower
Miscellaneous
Plus Ultra1964 World's Fair Vintage PinNASA1952 Box
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