So a few short days ago the official teaser trailer for Tomorrowland, Starring George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie and directed by Brad Bird was released. I don’t know too much about this film but one of the things I do know is that is was written by Damon Lindelof of LOST fame.
One of the things I loved about Lost is all of the hidden clues scattered throughout an episode about the Dharma Initiative and all of the secret research stations scattered throughout the island. So when the teaser trailer for Tomorrowland came out and knowing that Damon Lindelof is involved, I instantly began searching for clues. Clues for what? I have no idea.
In the trailer we see a woman who looks like she is just getting out of Jail and is getting her belongings back.
She looks over at the TV and there appears to be riots going on somewhere. Is this a live story? The news ticker says, “Rampant Looting Across East Coast.” Something is going down.
Some of the items that the woman receives back of note are a pin, and a baseball hat with the NASA logo on it. Does she work for NASA? The hat looks beat up so she’s had it for awhile.
She tries to tell the guard that the pin does not belong to her and when she touches the pin, in an instant she’s transported to another location, A wheatfield. Another dimension perhaps?
When she releases the pin she back where she came from. This is all in an instant and she freaks out.
Then… George Clooney awesomeness. His voiceover says,
“What if there was a place.. A secret place.. Where nothing was impossible. A miraculous place, where you can actually change the world.”
The woman then picks up the pin and finds herself in a wheatfield in the middle of nowhere. As she turns and the camera pans, we see a very futuristic city in the distance.
We then cut to the man himself, George cloony in a dark room with a bunch of monitors show what looks like, civil unrest. There is also a very lost like countdown clock next to him counting down. Counting down to what? The end of the world?
George then delivers a line that only George can… “You wanna go?”
We then see the title screen – Tomorrowland. And then they show the pin (that we will probably see in pin stores very soon).
The trailer ends with a quick shot of somebody flying by the woman in a very futuristic city. So she obviously said, “Yes!”
So what is this movie about?
When I saw the pin in the trailer it reminded me of the alternate reality game called, “The Optimist” that Walt Disney Imagineering created in the summer of 2013.
So perhaps clues from The Optimist can give us some insight to this trailer.
In this game you followed a blogger who dug up some mysterious objects in her parents house that belonged to her Grandfather. The Grandfather had a connection to Walt Disney and was involved with the 1964 Worlds Fair.
If you followed along you were given clues that progressed the story at various locations. Places where Walt frequently visited. The Tam O’Shanter (Walt’s favorite restaurant in Glendale), Griffith Park Carousel (where the idea of Disneyland sparked into Walt head), Club 33 inside Disneyland and Walt’s apartment. Walt Disney Imagineering set up clues to the mystery at these various locations. Some players received a vinyl record in the mail.
It all came to a conclusion at the 2013 D23 Expo. Players were told to seek out, “Wallace”, one of the games characters, who was at the Disney Cartography booth. This guy then gave you a map that led you to the D23 Auction booth and The Imagineering Pavilion where clues led you into Disneyland Park. One inside you found more clues at the Lincoln Theatre, Snow Whites Wishing Well, Esmeralda whose fortune led you to the Lilly Belle, and then on to the final destination, The Main Street Cinema.
Inside the Cinema the Mickey cartoons suddenly stopped and a new film played. The film that played across all screens, showed different images from Walt Disneys past. And Walt spoke all about the future.
During the entire game there were hints of a secret society that Walt Disney, as well as Amelia Earhart, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, and other great innovators of the past had at one time all been members, working together to “build a better tomorrow,” and this conclusion was that the society indeed exists and that people who played this game got to become members.
After the film a box rose up from under the stage that had a display of pins inside. And all of the players were given these pins that were for members only. And those pins were the exact pin that was shown in the Tomorrowland Trailer.
Just like the players in The Optimist, Maybe the woman in the trailer passed some sort of initiation test (unbeknownst to her) that led her to jail. Despite this awful world that seems to be falling apart, she has the smarts and optimistic view of the future working for NASA. This may be enough for George Clooney, who left her the pin and invites her into the club.
This is a film that is surrounded in mystery. So hopefully The Optimist gives you some fun insight into the film.
Walt and company within this secret society helped create this “Tomorrowland,” and maybe in THIS reality, it’s the future that Walt had always envisioned. Where nothing was impossible and you can actually change the world.