Tomorrowland seems, at first glance, to
lack a proper hero’s journey, until I realized that all three of its main
characters (Walker, Newton, and Athena—and, yes, those names matter, as does
that of our antagonist, Nix) serve as the same character.
No, I didn’t just
spoil a major plot twist for you. These characters only serve as the same
person metaphorically.
We meet, at Tomorrowland’s start, childhood Walker:
a boy filled with wonder, curiosity, courage, and optimism. He ducks under
signs that say, “do not cross.”
He falls in love
with young Athena, who represents all his best qualities. Athena leads him to
another dimension, where Earth’s brightest and most creative people built a
city called Tomorrowland.
Athena reveals to
Walker that she exists as a robot. Walker
afterwards feels betrayed by her and, by association, his better merits.
This mirrors our
own sense of betrayal when we advance from early childhood to our teenage years
and start to believe that these qualities exist only to indulge silly
fantasies, to blind us from the “real world.”
We feel foolish
for our childish beliefs against the “impossible,” and grow angered by our
former optimism while we travel that awkward path between child and adult.
Walker eventually
invents a device that allows people to see the future. He witnesses the Earth’s
destruction, instigated by pretty much everything (global warming, obesity,
poverty, etc.) with such synchronization that he sets a countdown to the exact
second that everything goes
apocalyptic.
He might as well have
named his invention “Cable News.”
The plot crumbles
here.
Nix serves as . .
. the leader of Tomorrowland . . . I . . . think (maybe I missed that explanation)?
He uses the future-seeing device to beam warnings into every Earthlings’ mind,
to push her or him into action against their demises.
However, humanity embraces
the easy mindset of complaining about the world without the slightest action to
save it.
Nix consequently
banishes Walker and Athena to Earth—even though that makes zero sense. Nix fails
to tell them about the whole
we-beamed-a-warning-to-Earth-but-they-just-shrugged thing.
The movie shows us
one image of Walker at this age. He marches, his back turned against
Tomorrowland, into a transporter that will return him to Earth.
About as subtle as
an atomic bomb, but I liked it.
Just as we saw
young Walker filled with wonder, we see young Newton the same way.
We afterwards fast
forward to her as a teenager. She seems desperate to improve the world, yet pessimistic
adults, who preach doom without a single solution, surround and suppress her
efforts.
I, based on the
extended preview I witnessed before I saw this movie, expected Tomorrowland to offer me yet another
helpless, passive, female protagonist who weeps while a male character leads
her through her journey.
You know, the sort
of character involved in the story merely because she’s “special,” and it’s
“her destiny.”
Newton proved no
such character. She remains active, and she enjoys the sorts of activities
(such as engineering) that Hollywood rarely equips upon a female character
without sounding somewhat sarcastic about it.
Yeah, Athena
involves Newton in the story because Newton’s “special,” but since Newton
represents her generation as a whole, and the movie serves as a call to arms
for that generation, I don’t mind.
Newton ignores
signs that say such warnings as “No Trespassing,” much in the way that young
Walker ducked under signs that said, “Do not cross.”
Newton discovers
the existence of Tomorrowland and that Athena expects her to save Earth.
Then killer robots
chase Newton around (a lot of robots in movies this year). These robots serve
no purpose beyond, “Hey, look! Robots!”
The movie never explains why they chase Newton, who sent them, or . . .
anything, really.
I suppose Nix sent
them, but only because he serves as our bad guy. Honestly, though, he holds no
reason to want to hurt Newton, and he passes up plenty of opportunities to do
so.
I can’t even
understand why Nix becomes the bad guy. He just does. I get what he represents
and how that attitude stands in direct opposition of Newton’s goal (to save
Earth), but this only works metaphorically. None of this makes sense from a
literalist’s standpoint.
Newton’s quest
leads her to Athena, who drives her to New York, drops her off, while she
sleeps, on Walker’s front lawn, and drives away. She returns later with no
explanation of where she went or why.
Adult Walker lives
as a symbol of cynicism and paranoia. Newton argues with him the way a person
might argue with her- or himself about adult realism versus childish optimism.
We see, at one
point, all three of these characters (character) while they sit in a truck. Young,
anything’s-possible Athena behind the wheel; old, cynical Walker; and teenage,
about-to-become-her-true-adult-self Newton squeezed between them.
The three of them
(after a few battles with the inexplicable robots) return to Tomorrowland,
where Walker explains to Nix that Newton can defeat Earth’s march to doomsday via
her optimism.
Nix’s responses
include an attempt to murder them for no reason.
Again, I
comprehend that these characters represent emotions and ideologies that battle
in our heads and hearts—but they also represent characters. They shouldn’t perform actions for no reason. This
isn’t Phantom Menace.
On that note:
Disney uses every opportunity in this movie to remind its audience that a new
Star Wars movie will soon arrive and we should all feel very excited about that
(which we do).
I liked Tomorrowland despite its confused,
convoluted plot. It serves as a prep rally to dream big again, to risk failure,
and to hope.
I remember when
Homer Simpson said, “America’s the country that stuck a flag in the moon and
said, ‘Now we stop trying.’”
The annihilation
of a NASA launch pad serves as one of the first things that Tomorrowland shows its audience.
Newton’s journey begins in Florida for that very reason (and to remind us that
we should visit a Disney theme park).
NASA used to
launch unthinkable missions that defied the impossible from Florida. Now,
people move to Florida because they’ve grown old. They basically go there to
die.
Once a disgusting
swamp filled with bravery, curiosity, and hope. Now a disgusting swamp filled
with gloom and surrender. That’s Florida.
Where did Newton’s
journey first take her? Texas, out west to bravely explore a new frontier, to
search for moreness.
Where did Newton
discover Walker? New York—filled with people who pride themselves on cynicism
as if it serves as a badge of practicality and adulthood (Relax. I didn’t say all New Yorkers think that way).
Tomorrowland stands on a soapbox and
screams its message with zero subtlety, but I like that message enough to like
the movie, gapping plot holes and all.
Thanks for reading.
I apologize for the lack of posts over the last few weeks. Army reserve drills, my next novel, and the creation of my card game based upon my novels swallowed a lot of time. I'll try my best to post frequently despite these projects.
An
inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com
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