While it was already apparent that the upcoming Disney family-friendly fantasy epic, Tomorrowland was looking to captivate audiences with a broad, inventive, imaginative realm full of optimistic possibilities, the previous trailers haven’t exactly divulged substantive details of the film’s plot. That apparent moratorium has ended with the release of a brand new trailer aimed at the Japanese moviegoing market.
This official Japanese trailer for Tomorrowland lays the film’s cards straight down on the table and several previous clues were confirmed. The Disney film seems to be using the production as a cinematic commercial vehicle to reinvigorate a sense of majesty and awe in their Disney theme parks. As the key exposition revealed to Britt Robertson’s Casey Newton implies, the original Disneyland was "just a cover for the real thing." In essence, Tomorrowland doesn’t exist in the future, but rather, was the ambitious brainchild of some of the 20th century’s greatest geniuses like Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison and, not at all coincidentally, Walt Disney, himself.
Right from the get-go, the scene of the young boy in a 1960’s era Disneyland hopping on board the indelibly animatronic "It’s a Small World" ride immediately makes things clear that this is going to be one of those self-reverential Disney movies that leaves an Epcot-sized hole in the fourth wall. The trip that the boy, who would grow up to be George Clooney’s character, Frank Walker took in the middle of that iconic ride would experience a seemingly magical detour leading him to a door not to The Twilight Zone, but rather, to what he would later call "a secret place where nothing is impossible."
The juxtaposition of Disney parks with this fictional grand metropolitan manifestation of the power of child-like imagination seems to be the heartstrings on which the film is looking to pull. Yet, despite the awe-inspiring reveal of this surreal city, a crisis is at hand as foreboding visions of apocalyptic implications seem ready to set the duel dimension up for a fiery, explosive atomic end. Now, the once-wayward Casey finds herself as the "Chosen One" who must discover some deep-down innate attribute that will save the two worlds. With the help of an older, jaded former young "Chosen One" in George Clooney’s Frank, they work together to come up with a solution to the unidentified crisis. Considering the film also features Hugh Laurie working on the issue, we might conclude that said crisis is NOT lupus. **rimshot**
There does seem to be a general sense that the primary message of the story is that imagination will save us all from oblivion and it just needs to be properly tapped. After learning more key elements to the plot, Tomorrowland, despite its blatant commercialism, is looking like a feast for the eyes that, should it prove compelling enough, could be the start of an interesting film franchise about a theme park that doesn’t contain cloned dinosaurs. The film will commence its blastoff to theaters on May 22.
