The Disney approach to sci-fi can be best illustrated by the Tomorrowland section of Disneyland. Among the many other realms of fantasy and escapism that the park indulges in and amidst its Space Mountains, Astro Blasters and hotly popular churro stands, the original concept of Tomorrowland asks visitors to hypothesize and look forward to the great big beautiful tomorrow that lies ahead of them. This reflects Walt Disney's own efforts to push for exploration and innovation in creative technologies to build a better world decade by decade. From the Carousel of Progress to the initial vision of EPCOT as a futurist wonderland, Walt built the Disney company’s view of the future as something to welcome and strive for through technology.
The optimistic view of a technologically driven future carries throughout the bulk of Disney’s modern science fiction efforts and shapes their approach to the genre, making it stands out from traditional thematic genre norms.
'Tomorrowland' Shows that Changing Perceptions Can Change the World
Inspired upon its theme park namesake, Brad Bird's Tomorrowland tells a scathing story of how humanity's resignation to its own destruction offers an easy and morbidly pacifying lens through which to view an apocalyptic future that asks nothing of the present. The film follows Frank Walker (George Clooney), a jaded former inventor, and Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), a plucky and optimistic tech-wiz, as they fight to save the Earth from its impending apocalypse and reopen the futurist utopia of Tomorrowland.
Even though the film does have a personified villain in Hugh Laurie’s Governor Nix, what the characters are truly up against is not the future itself, but the influence its perception has in the present. Complacency with annihilation is peppered throughout various scenes and is later outright challenged as the film posits that a palatably nihilistic and alarmist view of tomorrow is what comes easiest for the world to comprehend because of how little it asks of us today. The arrival of Newton into the story as an idealistic youngster awakens the childish optimism and wonder for the future that Walker himself once had and enables the grand scheme of Tomorrowland to be saved and the doomsday clock delayed. The film champions the idea of a bright future only being promised if we make it that way through affirmative action and childlike optimism in the present.
'Wall-E' Cautions Against Over-Reliance on Technology
While Tomorrowland prophesies a promising tomorrow through technical innovation today, Pixar’s wildly beloved ecological tome/robot love story Wall-E shows that a brighter future can also be accomplished through pure passionate motivation to live better. After spending 700 years granularly cleaning up after humanity’s pollution, the titular trash allocator happens upon a visiting environmental scout drone named E.V.E. The two of them find themselves on a journey to save not only the Earth but humanity’s autonomy.
After being witness to the love of Wall-E and EVE and the hope for Earth they represent, the sheltered residence of the AXIOM, a cruise-like vessel for surviving humanity, come to discover that their slovenly survival in space and their overreliance on technology is no way to live. While the film is filled stem to stern with innovative gadgets and robots in a supposedly utopian future, humanity’s relationship with overabundant technology colors them as having no actively progressive future at all. When the Captain (Jeff Garlin) learns of how wonderful life on Earth can be and what has become of it that he elects to take accountability and act on the possibility of a fertile and sustainable Earth. It is when the human effort and passion that inspires even the machines to look at the opportunities for improvement in and beyond the world around them that the film becomes an illustration of how an optimistic future is possible by learning to live with technology, not for it.
'Big Hero 6' and Shaping the Future
Man’s relationship with technology also extends to Disney Animation’s Big Hero 6, the studio’s first film to be based upon a Marvel comic book. The film centers around boy genius Hiro Hamada (Ryan Potter) and healthcare companion robot Baymax (Scott Adsit) who embark on a caper with their tech-savvy friends to seek vengeance for the tragic death of Hiro’s older brother and uncover a villainous plot that threatens the fusion metropolis of San Fransokyo.
The major conflict the film presents is in how advanced technologies can shape the future and the responsibility that comes with invention. Hiro’s late brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) invented Baymax as a caregiver to help the world and advance medical science technology. In this same way, Hiro developed his own microbots and presented the various ways they can be used to benefit society. After Tadashi’s death and the arrival of the mysterious Yokai, Hiro lets his grief cloud his judgment as to how Baymax can be used, effectively turning him into a super-fighting tool of revenge instead of a friendly nurse.
When it is revealed that Yokai is Tadashi’s former Professor Robert Callaghan (James Cromwell) who had stolen Hiro’s microbots to fit his own quest for revenge, he starts to represent what Hiro would become if he continued to forgo the selflessness of his brother and only acted on selfishness with his use of technology. By showing what Baymax becomes when Tadashi’s programming is removed, he becomes a mindless weapon only bent on destruction. This demonstrates that while technology may be developed for its own sake and for whatever reason, it is up to humanity on how to use it to build a better tomorrow, through altruism over personal selfishness.
From 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes to Ex Machina and The Mitchells vs. The Machines, popular science-fiction posits man’s relationship with the future and its technology as a folly that will lead only to doom as man uses technology to play god. Since Walt’s time, Disney positions its use of the genre to color the prospects of technological evolution, innovation and exploration as the tools needed to make a glorious new future. What is seen in other sci-fi titles as the fearful means of which man will be its own undoing is personified in Tomorrowland, Wall-E and Big Hero 6 as the means we have today to create a better tomorrow.