Check out Tomorrowland today!

Check out Tomorrowland today!

“There are two wolves who are always fighting. One is darkness and despair. The other is light and hope. The question is: which wolf wins?”

“The one you feed.”

This is the central narrative of Tomorrowland: Choice. This is expressed in a young Frank explaining that he was tired of waiting for someone else to invent something that he wanted, so he did it himself. And it is central to Casey's question of 'What is anyone doing about it?' when confronted with gloom and doom. But both Casey and Frank make a choice to act and change things for the better.

Yes, Tommowland is about jetpacks and robots and antique rocketships, and all of those things are fun, but the main thing that it is about it which future will you chose? The one where nothing is asked of you and you just sit back and let everything happen (and then moan about how you are a victim) OR will you choose the future where you get up and look around and see what is happening and then figure out a way to do something (other than just talk) about it?

The villain in the film is correct, the vast majority will choose the future when nothing is asked of them, but is that what you will choose? And today, that choice is easier than ever. People scoff at Wikipedia and YouTube, but these are great places to start learning about almost any topic when that used to require either finding a book, or a class or a person who already knows about the topic. And YouTube also is a great place to get practical knowledge on almost any topic, and they are both out there for free!

In the Sherlock Holmes stories, there are many little narratives that Doyle inserts to comment on his time, and one of those is Holmes and Watson discussion how an education that used to be expensive and difficult to get, was largely available through the encyclopedias of the day and that nearly anyone who had a mind to, could just go out and educate himself pretty well, on whatever subject he wished to know. That is even more true today, but we still operate as if the action of finding the answers is a difficult one, and it is not.

Are there valid criticisms of Tomorrowland? Sure. But they are largely about the form of the movie and less about the function. Yes, the people in Tomorrowland have a vapid look on their faces—which I attributed to two things: either the director really had no idea how the people who would populate such a place would act and played it safe by having them all just very calmly and passively going about (so as not to also detract from our heroes) OR the director thought that these should look serene and calm and secure in their fantastic setting. And yes, the very act of creating Tomorrowland actually sets up the terrible danger to the rest of the world, and at the end of the movie, the people in Tommowland are going to try again, but I took that to mean that they had learned from their mistakes and would be doing things differently this time around, not that they were insane and just going to wreck everything for a second time.

Tomorrowland is a dream. And the way it is portrayed in the movie it is an impossible one. Not that a place couldn't be found—a place could be found. One could argue that it has already happened many times over in history. In one sense, America (among other places) is Tomorrowland, where over the last couple of centuries the best and brightest have come to do, when they couldn't anywhere else (and ironically, our own media has become like the evil machine in Tomorrowland; broadcasting out an unrelenting stream of negativity and despair that is causing people to sit back and bemoan about how they are victims). But any real place, be it Tomorrowland, America or anywhere, would have the same problem which is that people have connections to their friends and their family and you can't just transplant all the smart and creative people into one place as amazing as that might be to think about—most of them wouldn't want to leave those connections behind.

Tomorrowland is a dream also because of another problem, money. Any part of the technology of Tomorrowland would be worth billions  (likely more) and we see what problems are caused by people fighting over the money that an idea is worth to others. We see it all the time.

Tomorrowland is a dream lastly because of governments. While businesses would use money to get the fruits of such a place, governments would use naked force—in the name of 'security' to get at those same fruits. We see that happen all the time too. We see a government that stumbles over itself to shut down twitter accounts of recruiting terrorists, moves with surprising speed and accuracy to stop a person distributing the data for how to instruct a 3D print from making a firearm.

Tomorrowland is a dream, yes. And while it will always remain so, that is just as well. For if Tomorrowland were real then it would paradoxically cause the real people like Frank and Casey to think that they have to get there before they can act and start to make a difference. With the advent and availability of information via the Internet, I say this:

Tomorrowland is TODAY. It is right here. All you have to do is OODA.* Observe what is around you and see what you would like to change. Orient yourself to what you know and what you need to know. Decide what you will do. Act, do it.

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* the OODA loop decision cycle theory is the product of USAF Colonel John Boyd. For more information, go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop