I had very little interest in seeing Tomorrowland. Yet, on a lazy Memorial Day, my family wanted to see a movie, and that was the one that was the winner. So while I secretly was only excited for the popcorn, I went.
It turns out, I absolutely loved it, but not for the reasons I was expecting. A teenager gets selected as a “dreamer,” and is invited into Tomorrowland, a magical “future” in which the best and brightest come together to move the world forward. The basic concept is that there are too many distractions and barriers to innovation in the real world, so the best minds are brought to this utopian city to create, imagine, and dream without restriction.
At the very start, it is clear that the film’s writing team is on a mission. Most of the time, movies use subtly to try to get their agenda across, but apparently this team wanted to hammer their point home. The world they create is destroying itself. Pollution, corruption, human rights violations, you name it. It is destroying the earth from the inside out. While at school, the main character asks the question “What can we do about it? How can we make it better?” and is quickly dismissed, because that question is one too difficult to answer.
As the film progresses, the film shows that the governor of Tomorrowland is actually putting the idea of death and destruction into the minds of humanity. In a rant so common to the villains of superhero movies, he explains that he tried to share the image of destruction with the people in the hopes that they would change their behavior, moving away from the terrors of their potential doom. Instead, the people ran right to their own destruction, using it as a form of entertainment. He argues that they seem to relish their own annihilation, doing nothing to make the world better. It is the epitome of a complex enemy. Not a traditional “bad guy,” but a man trying to do his version of good and getting lost along the way.
There are two elements here that particularly caught my attention: the message and the vehicle. The message itself is intensely disturbing, and incredibly accurate. We love the problems in the world. We cherish the opportunity to complain, to look for reasons things are screwed up, to look for our own doom. It keeps our news outlets in business, our writers with things to talk about, and our small talk full of “oh, what is the world coming to?” We are so intent on identifying problems and wallowing in them, that we far too often forget to try to fix them.
Meanwhile, the vehicle for telling this story comes in the form of a very blunt cautionary tale. Tomorrowland doesn’t pull any punches, and comes right out and tells the viewer that the world is screwed up, and it is the way it is because we let it be that way. There are so many times when we treat people with kid-gloves. We are afraid to offend, afraid to come right out and tell it like it is. In this story, the writers were willing to explicitly call out the world for failing to drive our world forward, and demands better from each of us.
Here’s where it all comes together, though. The conclusion to the message is one of hope. We see that, after the transmission of doom and gloom is eliminated, we have the potential to try to find the best in the world, to think creatively and look for innovation. The final image is that of scouts going out to find “dreamers” to continue to make the world better.
We each have the opportunity to be dreamers. This film so strongly tells us that the more we wallow in our own despair, the closer we get to fulfilling that prophecy. Instead, we have to find the best, most creative ways to make the world better.
Tomorrowland is a wonderful representation of a warning we all need to hear, and we all need to take to heart. Let’s start dreaming.
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