The Missed Potential of the Tomorrowland Movie

An analysis and my vision of the world

Note: This essay has movie spoilers and minor spoilers of my Frank and Athena book.

Introduction

First, let me say that much of Tomorrowland I loved. After all, I wrote an entire novel about the world and the characters! I've put so much thought into this movie, probably a lot more than it deserves. But there really is gold hiding in the film.

My analysis and suggestions of where it could have been better are made from a position of love and respect. Parts of it were so good… but there was a huge amount of unrealized potential under the surface, which I believe ultimately led to its box office failure.

This essay breaks down and gives some alternatives to plot points which I think would have brought forth the movie it was meant to be. In a real sense, it's my working model of the world that I used to write my story. Although I'm critical of certain aspects of the movie, it's also meant to pay tribute to the brilliant movie struggling to get out that regrettably most people couldn't see.

The Brilliance of Harry Potter

I think it's enlightening to begin with looking at Harry Potter, and why it was such a great book and movie. Many things about it were great, of course, but I think one of the best things was the world building. The magical world had so many little details that made it seem like a real place, and people loved the idea that there was this place parallel to the boring, real world that held all these wonders.

Structurally to the plot, one brilliant thing J.K. Rowling (and the movie) did was that she didn't waste any time getting us there. She established Harry's character for a little bit, but once Hagrid showed up, it was all magic, all the time. And it was exciting, because that's where we wanted to be. We don't want to hang around in the muggle world, we signed up for a magic world, and that's what we got, loaded with sheer imagination.

I think that's a fundamental mistake Tomorrowland made. The very title makes us a promise – a land of tomorrow! The posters showed a world of technological wonders, a sparkling utopian world where anything is possible. Well, sign me up for that! And that's how it starts (once we get past Casey and Frank in the lead-in). Frank with his jetpack (jetpacks!), meeting up with a mysterious girl who gives him a mysterious pin that eventually leads him to an amazing, unbelievable place with teleportation, robots that fix things, flying cars, gleaming spires! Wow! And then…

Boom. Back to the real world "when everything went to hell." Well, all right, surely we'll be back there soon. Yes! Casey gets a pin, and now that's what I'm talking about! We're heading back to Tomorrowland! But no… the movie then turns into a very long journey through the boring real world. I don't want the boring real world… when do we get to Tomorrowland? You've shown it to me twice! When does the movie start? I don't want a mystery of how to get there.

The movie felt like one long tease, and then when we finally get there… no Tomorrowland of our dreams, just a depressing husk of its former self, left in ruins. Ultimately, the fundamental problem is that the movie cheated us out of Tomorrowland.

The Tomorrowland World

What Tomorrowland did right was the world building. The backstory and background are brilliant. Someone obviously put a ton of time and thought into creating this whole background, which really had the potential to be on par with the Harry Potter universe. I honestly don't think they realized what they had – A magic world based on technology. It was like Harry Potter, but filled with things that could possibly happen. And in some ways, better than Harry Potter. The HP universe tolerated the muggle world, but the Tomorrowland universe wanted to improve the world. It was place for optimists and dreams, people who could clean things up, who could battle against forces of pessimism and selfishness. And anyone was welcome. You didn't have to be born magical, you just had to dream of a better world and you were welcomed with opened arms.

So all that having been established, they had to overlay a plot on it. I think a big problem was the plot didn't live up to the potential of the world; in fact, the plot barely touched on any of the backstory. You could have had exactly the same movie and plot completely without any of the TL stuff, because none of it was tied to TL. They could have just easily had the whole "precognition machine" be in a secret lab in a warehouse in a remote location. They barely used any of the backstory!

There was so much potential. They even constructed a real Tomorrowland set. Which ultimately was hardly used.

What would have been better? Although I think the plot should have been more ambitious, even if they kept the same plot, they easily could have done the whole thing in Tomorrowland. Why not take us there? Show us all the wonders? Then have Casey and Frank discover the problems along with Athena, and have them travel through the bowels of TL to save the world (kind of like what I did in my Beneath Tomorrowland chapter). If they wanted the comic book store, you could have a Tomorrowland comic book store of the future. There was a tremendous opportunity to be imaginative and show us the world. Let Tomorrowland feel like a real place.

The Technology of Athena

A big part of the final act was listing all the problems of Earth. Unfortunately, a big issue with this plot point is that Athena represents technology that would literally solve 95% of Earth's problems. For one, she represents a tremendous power source – to do what she does requires huge amounts of energy storage. The material science to be able to get hit by a truck like that and get back up with barely any damage is amazing durability.

This might seem nitpicky and in any other movie, you could just roll with suspension of disbelief. But it's hard to ignore this because the entire premise of the movie is Tomorrowland wanting to help the world, but then in the final act Nix is critical of Earth's problems and their lack of solving them. Well, it's a bit hypocritical to criticize Earth when you're sitting on technology that could solve nearly all of Earth's problems.

That's actually one of the reasons I wanted an outside antagonist in my novel. It makes a lot more sense to have an antagonist that is actively interfering with Plus Ultra and TL than to just have TL decide for mysterious reasons to let Earth collapse. Nix says TL will get overrun if he helps them – but how does that make sense? TL could give the technology to Earth and still keep themselves closed off to see if Earth gets it together. Nix's big speech makes an assumption that Earth already has technology that can easily fix everything, but the reality is not that simple. The technology of TL could solve everything.

Again, some might say, "it's just a movie, why nitpick details?" Because plot matters. The movie failed for a reason. One of the reasons Harry Potter was so successful is because it had such a rich, complex plot. Someone obviously put a ton of time into the background of TL – why not put the same effort into the plot? You're spending $190 million! The Hunger Games also had a relatively rich, complex plot (of course, it had its issues, not to get into the plot of THGs, but it was far more complex than TL).

Casey

As much as I like Casey, she needed to be more instrumental to the plot. She could have been cut from the movie and it would have been the same movie, just with Athena driving the action (which she did anyway). All Casey did was follow Frank and Athena around giving reactions. Which is fine, having a reaction character is a good thing, but that's not how she was presented to us. She was supposed to be a genius but didn't do anything until the end when she supposedly came up with the key to everything. But why her? Frank could've just as easily came up with the solution, there was nothing particularly unique that had been established to make Casey seem like the linchpin to everything. She was optimistic, but Frank could have just found his youthful optimism again (which would have been a nice callback and transition).

Casey is presented as a genius and loves technology – why make her such a flustered and hysterical character? Meeting Athena should be the highlight of her entire life – Athena is unbelievable technology. Casey should be asking a thousand questions about how she works, but doesn't care in the slightest, except to be frightened of her.

The point of Casey's character was to tie the past to the present, to be the gateway to bringing TL back. Since animatronics are so central to the plot, one interesting idea would have been for Casey to be a roboticist. Give her a garage full of primitive robots – then meeting Athena would be a life changing experience (which ties to Frank's life changing experience). And then at the end, she can take her place in Tomorrowland and it makes sense. She fits right in.

Too Much Teasing

The build-up to Tomorrowland was a tease, but there were many frustrations like that. When Casey asks Athena what's going on, Athena just blows her off and refuses to answer. Why? They're in a car for hours; there was plenty of time and nothing else to do. Athena chose Casey to fix Tomorrowland – how can Casey do that when she isn't given any background to understand what's going on? Of course, the real reason was to preserve some big mystery for the audience.

Harry Potter is instructive here again. There's a mystery, but Hagrid didn't blow him off when Harry asked questions – he gave him (and us) all the necessary background information to understand what's going on and why Harry was heading to Hogwarts. It made sense and the audience felt like part of the ride – and importantly, we weren't being arbitrarily denied information just because Athena didn't want to.

With a bit more ambition in the plot, TL could have given Casey background on everything that was known, but placed the mystery into the resolution of the problem.

Plot Problems

One plot issue that could have been improved is when Athena sicced the robots on Frank. Athena said he "needed motivation" to want to get back to Tomorrowland, but Athena put both Frank and Casey's lives in danger for a very trivial reason. I'm all for action scenes, but I think it made Athena look rather foolish when she's mostly a very wise character. I think they stuck that in for comic effect, but it undermined Athena's character and raised plot questions that were hard to ignore. I think a bit more ambition into the writing could have made this make more sense.

Speaking of the robots, that also was highly unexplained. Why do they care so much about Casey? They're trying to find Athena (I think), but why try and kill Frank and Casey to get to Athena? And why do they even care about finding Athena, which was never made clear? What is Athena supposedly doing behind the scenes? Why does Tomorrowland care, since they're supposed to be cut off from Earth? The questions are never answered.

Some might argue, "well, you can't waste time explaining things without slowing down the pace." Which is true, but it isn't an unsolvable problem. I hate to keep harping on Harry Potter, but there was a lot of plot in that movie. But the information is doled out in interesting ways, in the context of other things. Large, complex plots don't have to be given through boring monologues.

The End of the Movie and the Triumph of Pessimism

It pains me to say this, but I think the movie was ultimately not an optimistic movie, but a very pessimistic movie.

The central foundation of the plot is a group of people who establish Plus Ultra, whose mission is to transform the world and make things better. But what happens? Plus Ultra ultimately proves to be unstable, to the point that one guy (Nix) is able to take control of it and shut down the whole operation. The place goes to hell, leaving it a shell of its former self. Where is the optimism here? Why did it happen? We're never really told this, except that Nix ultimately decided to shut things down because he thought Earth was a hopeless cause. This is very depressing.

The ending was supposed to be a triumph of optimism – Casey's belief in the future saves the day. But what has changed? How is Tomorrowland any more stable after the machine is destroyed? You have Frank and Casey in charge, but ultimately Tomorrowland most likely didn't fail because of one guy. There's some sort of structure that failed, and there's no guarantee it won't happen again, especially now that the guardian of Tomorrowland is gone – Athena.

When you combine this with the general idea with Nix's speech about all the world's problems, it's just very depressing. The movie tries to end on a hopeful note, but there's no particular indication that anything has changed. Does Tomorrowland give the world-changing technologies to Earth that they're obviously sitting on, which could solve many of Earth's problems? Do they lead Earth to a better future? Who knows? All we know is that they've started recruiting again. Which is a note of hope, but hope doesn't make real changes. The message of Tomorrowland should have been "Knowledge, Wisdom and Optimism will lead us out of our problems," and that means science, technology and hard work.

I think it would have been much better to let Tomorrowland be a functioning organization. With a problem that had to be solved, but let us believe that an organization of dreamers and optimists are working to solve them. The organization would be flawed and imperfect because they're human beings (as I had in my novel), but it would be sincere. That's optimism.

What happened?

So where did it all go wrong? There's no doubt that Bird Bird is a great director. He's made some great movies. Why didn't it live up to the potential?

I have a theory. I think the movie is really about Frank and Athena, and that's the plot that Brad Bird really cared about.

If you take away that framing device of Frank and Casey at the beginning (which feels very tacked on to me – I doubt it was part of the original script), the movie starts with Frank and Athena. At the end, the emotional climax is Frank and Athena. The entire movie is an arc around their relationship. And why is it even there? The central heroine is supposed to be Casey, who saves the world. The plot is supposed to be about optimism overcoming problems. But Brad Bird spends a lot of time showing us little snippets of Frank and Athena's relationship.

So we have this odd romance in the background – yes, romance. Let's not mince words. Of course it's a romance plot, but it's hidden in plain sight. And it had to be, for the obvious reasons that Brad Bird and particularly George Clooney talked about. It's very weird to have a romance plot with a 12-year-old actress (who is playing a 60-year-old machine) and an older man, and in fact some people found it "creepy" (which I think is extremely unfair, but there you go). So Brad Bird had to walk this incredibly narrow line of having a "romance that can't look like a romance," and he did a brilliant job of it. Really. That's the best part of the movie – every scene with Frank and Athena's relationship was well constructed and well thought out. It's obvious that he spent a ton of time fine tuning those little glimpses that we got. And the fact that he could sell this in a Disney movie shows what a brilliant director he really is – he really did a fantastic job walking that tightrope. It was a ticking bomb that easily could have blown up in his face.

But, the price of him caring about Frank and Athena is that I believe he cared a lot less about the rest of the plot. He cared about it some extent, obviously, but not like he cared about Frank/Athena. I actually think there's a good chance that at some point, if he could've done it, he would've dropped all the rest of it and just made a movie around Frank and Athena, similar to my book. But it was too late at that point, he had to make the movie that had to be made.

That result of this is that Casey got relegated to the background. He knew this by the end – hence the reason they added that framing device so that it opens with her and Frank. He needed to raise her profile so she didn't seem like such a pointless character.

I think the romance, by the way, is why Athena had to be destroyed at the end. There was literally no other way to end the movie, if you have the romance. If she didn't die, that means that she and Frank have to resolve their romance – and that's very difficult to do in any practical way in a visual medium when you have 12-year-old Raffey Cassidy and 53-year-old George Clooney. It could have been done if the whole movie was a story of Athena and Young Frank. Then at the end, the audience would be prepared to see Athena and Old Frank.

By the way, speaking of Raffey Cassidy, she was by far the best thing about the movie and did a fantastic job playing a very wise machine that was 60 years old. Of course, a lot of that credit has to go to Brad Bird as well. One fantastic decision that's a bit subtle is that while Cassidy is acting it out in a very mature way, she still exudes very much a charming girlishness that never tips into any kind of precocious sexuality. Compare Cassidy's performance to (say) Chloë Grace Moretz in Kick Ass. That movie felt much more uncomfortable in that sense (this isn't a knock on Moretz; it was the movie that did this to her character).

A Missed Opportunity

Tomorrowland is a very mixed picture. It has tremendous amounts of imagination in the world building, but it should have put much more ambition and imagination into the plot. That's why you get people who love it and people who just don't get it. I think the people who love it look past the plot details and see the idea of a world of optimism, which many people greatly crave. That's one of the reasons that I latched onto the movie. But many other people just see the surface plot, with all the problems of it. Ultimately, that's why it failed. You had to get past too much to dig down and get to the goldmine that's underneath it.

It could have been so good.