Tomorrowland Begs The Question, Can we Fix It? #TomorrowlandEvent

I attended an all paid press trip to facilitate the review of Tomorrowland.   All opinions shared, and my excitement on #Tomorrowland is 100% my own.

The power of story telling lies in the way the audience get captivated.  If how immersed we all where during the interview is any indication of how you will become part of Disney’s new Film Tomorrowland, let me tell you, sit back and get ready to be transported to an amazing world where everything is possible. Listening to Director/ Producer/ Writer Brad Bird &Producer/ Writer Damon Lindelof talk about their collaboration in this PG rated family movie is uplifting, refreshing and made me want to get up and be a part of something bigger.  To summarize, all we got was candid enthusiasm, along with a powerful message of hope.   Tomorrowland Begs The Question, Can we Fix It? #TomorrowlandEvent

Brimming with passion for their latest creation together Bird and Lindelof were more than happy to share with us about the ride it was to bring us a great story where, if we can imagine it, it can be a reality!  They started their interview with some humor as they made fun at the fact that it felt they were the opening act for George Clooney who we interviewed afterwards 🙂

It is no secret now that we shared with you about how we can glimpse at Tomorrowland by discovering items from the Disney Archives.  And so, the very first question we asked was on how the Disney Archives helped the pair shape and eventually bring to life the movie on the big screen.  Bird deferred the answer to Lindelof but as you can see throughout the entire interview both not only collaborated on the film, they also did in the answers:

DL:” I think that we are both fascinated with Imagineering and particularly Walt’s (Mr. Walt Disney’s) futurism. A lot of that stuff was rampant in the early days of designing the Parks itself. In Tomorrowland he obviously came up with the concept in the 50’s and 60’s, but I think that this sort of treasure trove of roads not taken, the part that Brad and particularly zeroed in on, was the 1964 World’s Fair where there were a number of attractions like  Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, The Great Carousel Theaterof Progress…”

BB: “Magic Skyway, It’s a  Small world.”

DL:” It would be really great to see those (rides) on the big screen, and  kind of re-create that feeling. Our initial ambition was a lot higher but again the World’s Fair as what they represented at the time, particularly  in the 60s and the connection to Disneyland  was really the stuff that we locked in on.”

BB: “But it’s also that World’s Fairs in and of themselves were a thing where people would bring together their brightest minds and talk about the future. They were semi-regular  events where people came together from all over the world and kind of traded ideas. When we were talking about what happened to the idea of a positive future, we kind of started to notice that the idea of a great future sort of disappeared around the time the World’s Fairs disappeared. The world went through world wars and had plenty of strife.  But people clung to the idea that things in the future will be better.  Now, that idea seems to have been retired.  Everybody seems to be going -it’s going to suck.  Is there anything we can do about it? No. So, we’re all just kind of on this bus that we have no control over the destination.  We were just kind of looking at each other going, why did  that change? And when did it change? And how do we get  back to it? We were kind of trying to do sort of a fable around that idea.”

Word in the street is that the story of “Tomorrowland” started with a box labeled “1952,” supposedly discovered by accident in the Disney Studios archive, so we asked:

Q: Can you tell us more about the discovery of the 1952 box and how that inspired you in the movie?

DL: “The more that we look into what the origins of the box are, and where it came from, and who found it, the less defined answers we get. Suffice it to say we became fairly convinced looking through it, that we didn’t know exactly what it was. The items in it could have been, probably 80% of them, completely and totally uninteresting”.

But, the ones that were interesting to the pair, made put themselves back in elementary.  As they sat in their third grade class, someone would have put the “1952” box in front of them and asked them to tell them a story about the items in the box.

DL continues: “How would they all connect? We took some things like the design for the, It’s a Small World ride and Flushing Meadows in 64.  Next we sort of said, what if Walt Disney was a member of this secret group of geniuses-Plus Ultra.  What if Tomorrowland itself was actually a cover for a real place that they built in an alternate dimension? Then we were kind of off to the races. The box became just sort of  a part of the…”.

BB:” Prompt.”

This answer really open my eyes to the fantastic structure Bird and Lindelof have constructed to the background of the story line for the movie.  I am totally captivated by the  Plus Ultra idea!   Absolutely fantastic! Bottom line, we go back the the premise  of  imagining a place where nothing is impossible!

Question: In terms of the future itself there’s a lot of technology in the movie. And great that we can touch something and get transported somewhere else. What part of technology would you like to have today from the ones that we see in the movie?

DL: “Well, I would love to be able to travel somewhere without having to actually get on a plane.  I love the idea of walking through a doorway and being somewhere else. I think that that would probably change the planet in wonderful and nightmarish ways. But I think that there are a lot of sort of dream concepts in this movie.”

 

Question: What do you think people will learn or take away from watching this film?

BB: “I loved E.T. years ago. On the face of it, it’s a movie about a rubber alien puppet, but it absolutely swept you away and got you emotionally involved, and you thought about it. We, I think we would like to be that. We would like people hopefully to come away thinking “I have a hand in the future. I’m not a passenger on this bus. I can be the driver. We collectively are in charge of where we want, what we want the future to be”. That it’s a malleable thing that’s changing every day. I’s being created by what people do today.” 

DL : “We have a young woman in the movie (Britt Robertson as Casey) and she is being barraged with the polar ice caps are melting, Things are going to be much worse in the future. She asks the only relevant question which is, “can we fix it?”  We hope that you walk out of the movie at the end saying, you can but you have to do something. You can’t just sort of sit around and the future isn’t something that happens to us it’s something that we make happen. And I think that she certainly comes out of the movie feeling that way.”

Just like that Tomorrowland Begs The Question, Can we Fix It?

 

Really it was an one of a kind privilege and honor to pick Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof’s brains a bit and feel their commitment to original story ideas. The way they nurture their projects is what makes the difference in the experience for us as movie goers in the theater.  We are looking at  innovative storytelling  thanks to the inception of an nontraditional story with atypical heroes in a place where nothing is impossible!

We continue to connect the dots between the Disney Parks, The 1064 World Fair,  Mr. Disney’s Vision, the Disney Archives and Tomorrowland.  The anticipation to have that completed line of connected dots is almost a reality when the film opens in theaters this May 22.  We are so ready! Let’s see the official movie synopsis:

From Disney comes two-time Oscar® winner Brad Bird’s riveting, mystery adventure “Tomorrowland,” starring Academy Award® winner George Clooney. Bound by a shared destiny, former boy-genius Frank (Clooney), jaded by disillusionment, and Casey (Britt Robertson), a bright, optimistic teen bursting with scientific curiosity, embark on a danger-filled mission to unearth the secrets of an enigmatic place somewhere in time and space known only as “Tomorrowland.” What they must do there changes the world—and them—forever.

Are you ready to embark on the Tomorrowland journey?

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Visit the official TOMORROWLAND website: www.Disney.com/Tomorrowland

TOMORROWLAND opens in theaters everywhere on May 22nd!

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