"Tomorrowland" tells the story from the movie, the narrative method, the core of the story, and the characters are all pre-new wave sci-fi templates. The core of the story explores a topic that most sci-fi works must involve: our future is good. It's still bad.
Affected by the two world wars, the so-called Beat Generation was formed after the Second World War. They were like the literati in the Wei and Jin dynasties of China, thinking about human nature in confusion. The sci-fi writers who grew up during this period also set off the so-called new wave of sci-fi, the most typical external manifestation of which is that the sky of sci-fi seems to turn gloomy. In the past sci-fi works, the future will mostly appear in the form of utopia. Technology always brings people a better life, where people live a happy life like a fairy tale with plenty of food and clothing, just like the hero Walker in the movie in the early 1960s. People just come into contact with the various erratic and weird high-techs as seen in the world of tomorrow. People enjoy inventions and simply believe in the bright future of science.
But all this was destroyed by the war, especially the atomic bomb. It can be said that no weapon in history has the destructive power of an atomic bomb in reality, and no technology has profoundly affected generations of people like an atomic bomb, and the entire world's picture has been changed. An inevitable consequence is not only to reflect on technology itself, but also affect our view of the future.
This aftermath has been influencing to this day, and has experienced the so-called modern and postmodern baptism, and even in today's science fiction world, as long as the realism works that are dystopian or against the government machinery can arouse readers' excitement. Erection (especially in a country like China), of course, is a reflection and mapping of some reality, but it has also become a way of laziness and trickery. Many people always think that society has raped themselves, but they don’t realize that many times they are just wishful thinking. Masturbation and obscenity, in fact, this film is much better than most YA dystopias. So when the heroine of the new century, Newton saw that all she was reading were dystopian trilogy ("We", "1984", "Brave New World") or "Fahrenheit 451", she asked the teacher a question: " So, shouldn't we solve it?"
The girl named after a great modern scientist is a wizard who has been looking up at the stars since she was a child. Her father is a NASA engineer. As we all know, NASA has been cutting funding for space exploration recently, and SETI (Exploration of Extraterrestrial Civilization) was also suspended for a while. In the movie, his father also faced the dilemma of platform closure and dismissal. It was in the process of trying to use her ingenuity to fight against NASA to save her father, she also entered the world of tomorrow.
Just as we set up a countdown to the end of the day due to nuclear panic, at this time the world of tomorrow has a gloomy view of the future. Walker was expelled and lost his ambition and hope. What Newton has to do is to give him this hope and save the world casually and impatiently. The former is the main theme of the film. It is a repackaging and tribute to the ancient science fiction. Otherwise, do you think that there are too many science fiction stems to be seen everywhere are just easter eggs?
The United States had many unimaginable plans during the Cold War, such as Reagan’s "Star Wars" plan. It was in the 1960s that the Department of Defense proposed the so-called perception management plan, which was intended to pass or block certain audiences. Information to influence their emotions and behaviors, thereby predicting and even manipulating people’s thoughts and actions. The exaggerated and conspiracy theoretic version of this plan in the new century is that the United States corrupts young Chinese people through cultural aggression, allowing them to foolishly change their values, in order to achieve the purpose of weakening and even destroying China. In the film, this plan is embodied in the superphotonic machine. This machine that can predict the future allows people to see their pessimistic future, so as to achieve the function of self-suggestion and feedback, turning the psychological cycle into a logical cycle of timeline. Therefore, in the film there are constant questions: "Assuming that you can foresee your definite future and know your death, are you willing?" Of course, this "should not be built" machine is largely an allusion to the atomic bomb. It is because of the atomic bomb that mankind is full of pessimism about the future.
This is the most brilliant setting and imagination of the film, which means that the predictability of the future is actually an illusion, inheriting tradition and anti-traditional, in essence it is anti-science fiction. Because science fiction has always advertised and promoted that it can help mankind predict the future, and even in science fiction works, various time machines and prediction machines emerge one after another. Of course, the principles and motivations behind each machine are different. In fact, the role of sci-fi has never been to predict the future. Humans use Lianliankan to connect the pictures in reality with the fantasy in sci-fi works, thinking that the causal relationship between the two is so clear, but the reality is so complicated. Although it does not rule out the possibility that some works did directly create a scientific idea, it is difficult to imagine that the predictions of science fiction directly promoted dreams into reality, not to mention the realization of those ideas. Science fiction cannot be realized anyway. This kind of "sci-fi centralism" approach is as meaningless as Needham's search for inventions and creations that lead the world for many years in ancient Chinese civilization. Countless seemingly prophetic myths can be found in any other field, as long as you want.
But this film is by no means a pure return to the era of Verne, it makes people purely optimistic about technology. People who have experienced many trends of thought clearly have a deeper understanding of scientific thinking. What the film wants to express is that we don’t know what the future will look like at all. Why should we tell the children that our future is so gloomy? The consequences of technology are not. Certainly, but what kind of mentality we hold can be controlled. From a psychological point of view, pessimistic or optimistic mentality will have a great impact on the result. Just as the film questioned, is it because of the end of the world that we have an excuse to relax and not work hard, even if the future is terribly bad, isn't it exactly who we are today? Shouldn't we take our own responsibilities? Cursing the future is actually a loud slap in the face. The so-called world of tomorrow is actually right now, here and here.
I don't think "Tomorrowland" is just a children's movie. On the contrary, it is not children but adults and fathers who grow up in this movie. Think of the story of two wolves that my father told Newton in the movie. One represents darkness and despair, and the other represents light and hope. What my father taught us when we were young depends on which one we feed, but long Instead, we need to tell the father again. This is the reflection of the new wave after the children who have experienced the new wave grow up. The new wave and the beat generation are not the psychological shadows of the predecessors’ irresponsibility caused by the future generations. If we insist on giving this children's film a central idea, it actually wants to tell adults and parents that we should not let this kind of shadow continue to circulate in the hearts of children. And as a Disney movie, science fiction elements are as dazzling as the toys in the park, but its essence is an old science fiction, just like today’s young people watching "The Princess Bride." There are psychological expectations, but every scene is so perfect, but there will never be parents telling such old-fashioned stories by the bed anymore. The adventures of one level are so monotonous and intriguing, almost using all the stalks of traditional adventure fantasy. Just because as your wish!) has been very uncomfortable with the same. "Tomorrow's World" is not so perfect, but it is still as delicate as a love letter. The confession of Walker and Robot Loli, who has become a middle-aged uncle, certainly caters to modern aesthetic considerations. In fact, it is a true confession of unchanging fantasy literature after a little boy has become an old boy. It is a nostalgia for that golden age. The death of the robot also symbolizes that the era of looking forward to a better future is gone forever.
Originally published in Science Fiction Nebula: http://www.wcsfa.com/scfbox.php?id=3421
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