Tomorrowland is an incredibly visual feast of a film. The film was inspiring and positive, but the problem here is its positivity and inspiration. The convoluted story follows an inspired optimistic young teenage girl that has been given a pin that allows her to be instantly transported to another land, a world from the future, or rather inspired future, where spaceships fly among the massive buildings and the people of this place are free, free to dream without the fear of corporations and governments controlling their imaginations and dulling their minds.
This film centered itself mostly on innovation in science and technology, but yet navigates itself into religious themes to appease the mass movie going audience that wants to believe, rather than do anything to save the actual planet. Tomorrowland is a Disney production that is accountable to its stalk-holders like any other multinational corporation. The messages in this film must coordinate with the corporate plan of entertaining but never enlightening, providing said enlightenment doesn't effect the company's primary focus on profits.
The Earth isn't dying the way some environmentalists would lead us to believe it is, but it is suffering because of us. Tomorrowland depicts the end of the world oddly more negatively than it needs to be. The film is about saving the planet via an alternative tomorrow-world that is so-called better than our own, but yet it isn't until after Frank and the young girl, Casey arrive with their robot guide Athena, that they discover that Tomorrowland is all but abandoned.
This film wants us to believe that we can be better than we are, that we are special in some way. It says that negativity comes from this other dimensional world and they mean to control our dystopic view of our own culture. The film puts blame, for our apathy toward the future of mankind on this planet, on a machine in Tomorrowland that's multidimensional signal is the sole cause of this indifference many of us hold about where we are heading as a species.
The technology in the film was impressive and fun, there were flying back-packs as well as hover vehicles, there were robots that disturbingly look human that represented recruiters or scouts and enemy soldiers programmed to protect Tomorrowland from the recruiters and who they recruit, or something like that. One of the most historically relevant moments in the film is its look at the 1964 world's fair in New York, that itself reflected upon the 1939 world's fair, that predicted a massive change in the culture thanks to technological advancements. These world fairs were both on the edge of grand military devastating changes within the world, World War 2 and the Vietnam war respectively.
Tomorrowland isn't about the future rather it's about the past, a past that never leaves us, a past that lingers and bags to be present. The film is a lie, it means to believe when it itself doesn't. It means to inspire when itself does not, it wants its audience to learn and grow but yet it doesn't itself do any of these things outside of the Hallmark desire to be better through believing in each other without anything quantifiable.
The problem of being special for the sake of it breeds lazy thinkers. Our culture is filled with people who want to be centralized and seen as special. The fallacy here is we are bringing up our children to be winners and to be special without them doing anything. A healthy self esteem is always a good thing for developing minds but teaching a child that they are special and unique in some way without them really knowing why is crazy. If anything it validates that they are not special at all. Sure we can all say that we are all special but to what end? Being special or exceptional in some way must be active and not passive. Society is pampering the next generation for a world of conformity and obedience with an empty promise that if they comply they will be special. This is where Tomorrowland, a film that lacks the magic of a Spielberg film, becomes too preachy as it finishes off with its propagandized message of hope as long as we all believe. Films like Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator and Sydney Lumet's Network can't be considered too preachy because they are winking at the audience as they tell them the truth of our mind controlled society. Tomorrowland not only doesn't wink when it ends, it gargles down its own Kool-aid.
Tomorrowland was suppose to be a place where the brightest minds where able to freely realize their imaginations without the interference of politicians and corporations. But it became a failed project for possibly being too overly idealistic. Like George Orwell's Animal Farm, Tomorrowland fell to the controlling wills of ego-centric men (in the case of Animal Farm, pigs) and their unflinching need for control and power. Action from people is what is going to save our world, not hope or a belief that it will all work out. Educating people away from beliefs of religious salvation is what's going to save the world. Educating people to such an elevated degree that the race or gender of someone would be meaningless when attempting to get one's point across. Educating people to be able to see how 1% of the wealthiest of us is destroying this world from under our poor, ignorant, uneducated feet. Educating people to see their true potential and not a false self that is only in service of a greedy consumer culture.
