I had the opportunity to go see Disney’s Tomorrowland this weekend, and wanted to share some thoughts with everyone about the film. I’m not considering this a review of the film, as much as just my random thoughts being spewed forth onto paper, as it were. If you would like to read a really good, full-blown review of the movie, please check out this review by Tracy Mangum on the Lord of the Laser Sword site. It covers all the bases pretty well. This post, well it’s just a little different.
It seems to me that the overlying question that you are left asking yourself after seeing this film is simply, “am I an optimist?” The whole story seems to revolve around the main protagonist, Casey Newton, being an optimist and refusing to give that up, when everyone else around her has given it up. On the surface, it sounds like a great, happy ending kind of thing. You come out of a movie where the good guys win, and hope triumphs, and all of that is great. The more I thought about, there was something more that lingered. For me, that something is embodied in this question of being an optimist.
When Frank starts out talking about the future being scary, he’s talking about right now. Look around. There is plenty in the world that is frightening. Ranging from war and famine and disease and natural disaster, there is just quite a bit of terrifying things being reported on the news each night. Looking at how much negative there is, it can be really overwhelming and scary and it makes you wonder how much worse is going to get before it all ends. It’s almost like we are expecting the zombie apocalypse to begin tomorrow. All of this scary stuff, all of this negativity can wear on us, and we begin to feel like there is no point. Our literature and movies and culture seem to revel in this stuff, almost celebrating it. I think of pop culture successes like The Walking Dead or Hunger Games. We really love this stuff, and really believe that this is where our culture and society is headed, and there is nothing we can do about it.
I love the part in this movie when Casey is sitting in her different classes as teacher after teacher is describing each and every calamity we are facing today. She is sitting in each class with her arm raised wanting to ask a question, and the viewer can assume it is the same question in each class. Finally she has an opportunity to ask her question when a teacher calls on her. She asks, “Can we fix it?” And her follow-up: “What are we doing to fix it?” This embodies the idea of hope and optimism. It’s not just accepting that the world is the way it is. It’s the opposite, it’s questioning the world and looking for solutions to our problems. It’s assuming that we can fix it, and we should fix it. This was refreshing to see in an original story. We need more stories and more people to say that we can fix the world. If we look at it today, we need to say it’s not good enough, we can do better.
I thought of the clip of Jeff Daniels that occasionally circulates on Facebook. You have probably seen it. It’s from a show he’s in, I’m not familiar with the show itself, but I have watched the clip. Fair warning, if you go out and look for it, it does have some language. In this clip, he is on a panel and some college student asks what makes America the greatest country in the world. The other two people give some canned answer. He responds that America isn’t the greatest country in the world. Not anymore, and he gives some very compelling reasons why. And he’s right. We used to do things that mattered in this country. We weren’t afraid of doing hard things or of knowledge. We went to the moon because it was there, and since then we’ve barely made it out of our atmosphere. In his tirade, he blames this latest generation, which is technically my generation. I can’t help but think he is right.
Have you been to Disneyland recently? I haven’t been since 2011. Grandma took the whole gang, and we promised to go back, but we haven’t made it yet. (I am thinking of starting a GoFundMe campaign to fund the trip. That’s cool, right?) When we were there, I was so excited to share it all with my kids, and they loved it. There was one part of the park that made me sad, and it was Tomorrowland. It just felt disconnected, rundown, in disrepair, compared to the other lands in the park. Tomorrowland had always been one of my favorite parts of Disneyland because it was all about the future, what I hoped our future would be. Awesome technology, trips to the stars, people working together to achieve stuff. Now, it all just seems old and outdated.
Maybe it’s because the ideals that Disney wanted to portray in Tomorrowland are rundown and outdated. It’s not cool to hope for a better world. A world like the one we see in Star Trek, where we, as in people of Earth, overcome our differences and reach for something greater than ourselves. Instead we live in a world that says that idea is boring so we need to reboot it and turn it into 2009’s Star Trek. Maybe Tomorrowland looks old and outdated because we have given up on all of that.
This movie challenges us not to give up. We can change the world and make it better. The dreams that powered our imaginations back then can fuel our reality today. Frank Walker had given up hope, until he met Casey Newton, who refused to give up hope. She calls herself an optimist, and that’s exactly what the world needs today are more optimists. Fewer people who see the world as falling apart, and more people who are reaching for the duct tape, proverbially speaking.
As I left the theater and pondered what I had seen, I realized that this was groundbreaking, earth shattering cinema. This was a family film from Disney, after all. It was beautiful and well put together by Brad Bird, but it was still a Disney film. There was one question that lingered for me, though, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind. So I pose it to all of you who might read this. We can all agree that the world needs to change, that we can do better, but are we willing to do something about it? Are we willing to try to fix it? In short, are you an optimist?
