Ahead of the movie’s panel at New York Comic Con, the first images from Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof’s much-anticipated Tomorrowland have been released, showing the world discovered in the movie by Britt Robertson and George Clooney — a world where science reigns supreme.
“What Hogwarts is to magic, Tomorrowland is to science,” Lindelof told Entertainment Weekly about the eponymous subject of the movie. “They are both easy to find if you are a wizard and very difficult to find if you’re a Muggle.”
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Under the Dome’s Robertson plays one such Muggle in the movie, co-written with journalist Jeff Jensen: a teenager who “still believes in this amazing future,” Lindelof explains, despite “being fed a steady diet of dystopia” by the world around her. When she ends up with a pin that allows her to visit Tomorrowland, she becomes “a Muggle who accidentally wanders across Platform 9¾ and sees something she probably shouldn’t have.” (Somewhere, J.K. Rowling is wondering whether she should ask for royalties for all these Harry Potter allusions.)
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In trying to discover the origins of the pin, Robertson’s character meets Frank Walker (Clooney), a failed inventor whom Lindelof described as “a guy who is retreating when something didn’t go well.” Is Walker the guy behind the pin? Not necessarily; in an interesting tease, the writer told EW that the movie (and alternate world therein) being named after a Disney attraction isn’t exactly a coincidence.
“Walt Disney is not a character in our movie, but he is referenced as having some involvement in this mysterious place called Tomorrowland, as a huge futurist and aficionado of space travel, rocketry, cities of the future, and space travel,” Lindelof said. “Some involvement?” Or, perhaps, being one of the people responsible …? Look at the concept art by iconic designer Syd Mead (whose resume includes work for Blade Runner, Aliens and Tron) and try and argue that it’s not something Walt would’ve loved to have worked on.
Tomorrowland will be released May 22, 2015.
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