I don’t normally do movie reviews in this space.
That’s because first, most SF movies don’t deal with
alternate universes and second, most SF movies that are currently in release are
relentlessly bleak (think of the latest Mad Max iteration, or any one of the entries in the Hunger
Games franchise, or the countless identical mindless zombie movies) as to make
oneself run screaming in frustration from the theatre.
Then there’s Disney’s recently released Tomorrowland,
directed by Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles) and starring George
Clooney. It manages to discuss
parallel universes (okay, in a sideways –pardon the pun –way) and to also say that
maybe we can be kinda sorta optimistic about the future.
Okay, a bit – but not too much – about the plot. Tomorrowland – is city in a universe
next door – where humanity’s best and brightest and go think, create, and do,
unfettered by all of the traditional restraints.
George Clooney plays Frank, an exile from this technological
utopia, who lives a recluse’s life all the while watching the world around him
fall apart. Enter Casey, played by
Britt Robertson, the daughter of a soon to be out of work NASA engineer who has
just been arrested for sabotaging the demolition of an Apollo launch pad at
Cape Canaveral. Casey has been
given a mysterious pin that transports her to Tomorrowland by a by an equally
mysterious –and apparently ageless – young girl, Athena. It’s Athena’s mission to recruit
“dreamers” like Frank and Casey.
The plot moves along nicely, guided by director Bird's sure hand. I found it very entertaining. Suffice it to say, you should see Tomorrowland.
However, I want to address the point made in the film – and
it is horrors, a “message film” – regarding the fact that we seem to have
collectively, as I alluded to in my opening, given up a more optimistic future
for a frankly apocalyptic one. It isn’t bad enough that we do face several real
and very serious challenges to humanity’s continued survival that we seem to
have actually started to anticipate the apocalypse – and dare I say it; cheer
it on – in our mass media.
I know there have always been movies and books on the subject,
but these were balanced by some kind of optimism that we would somehow pull
through our times, which is one of the reasons why Star Trek initially became so popular.
We as a culture need to be a bit more optimistic about the
future and ourselves. Not wildly so, but realistically optimistic. It beats the alternative.