Don Hertzfeldt isn’t a household name, but he should be. Since the release of his Academy Award-nominated film Rejected in 2000, Hertzfeldt has been steadily carving out his place in the history books of animation, and is now considered among the greatest animators of his generation. His relatively low profile can be attributed to several factors, but perhaps the most significant is also the biggest reason behind his success — that his work consists almost entirely of shorts. Short films have always struggled to stand out from their feature film siblings, and in the age when every week brings 10 new shows begging for your attention before they disappear into the streaming archives forever, it’s easy for something that’s already halfway done by the time you’ve settled comfortably into your chair to get lost amidst the competition, especially ones that fetch the same price as films triple their length. But such tightly controlled experiences can lend themselves beautifully to ideas that would struggle to maintain a longer runtime, and for proof one needs only to glance at Hertzfeldt’s filmography.

The greatest example of this is World of Tomorrow, a trilogy of science fiction shorts that are quickly becoming the accepted pick for Hertzfeldt’s magnum opus. Each entry sees Hertzfeldt taking full advantage of his chosen format to deliver a science fiction tale like no other, striking a delicate balance between rip-roaring hilarity and heartbreaking tragedy that echoes the work of someone like Douglas Adams but always remains distinctly its own creation. At times they’re laugh-a-minute comedies not dissimilar to Rick and Morty, and then on a dime they’ll shift to a Black Mirror-esque examination of technology that posits the theory that such advances have done more harm than good. They flirt with nihilism but ultimately take a hopeful outlook, doing what all good science fiction does by analyzing the present through the vector of an imagined future. Any one of them could count themselves amongst the greatest examples of 21st century sci-fi, and if counted as one large project (albeit one that clocks in at a mere 74 minutes), that distinction extends to one of the greatest examples period. If you’ve never had the opportunity to experience the brilliance that is Don Hertzfeldt, there’s no better place to start.

Short but Sweet Sci-Fi Films

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The first episode, simply titled World of Tomorrow, is the perfect showcase for the series. It clocks in at 17 minutes, a time that would just about reach the first ad break in a network TV show, but Hertzfeldt is sure to make every second worth your while. The film opens with a little girl called Emily (wonderfully voiced by Hertzfeldt’s 4-year-old niece Winona Mae) being contacted by her third-generation adult clone (voiced by Julia Pott) from 227 years in the future, who promptly whisks her away on a zany time traveling adventure. During her visit to the future, Emily Prime discovers a multitude of both wonders and calamities that the human race has to look forward to, all delivered through a series of absurdist set pieces so overflowing with ideas you’ll feel like your screen is about to burst from creativity. The segment ends with the clone Emily extracting a forgotten memory from Emily Prime, hoping it will bring her comfort before Earth is destroyed by a meteorite. After this, Emily Prime is transported back to the present, happily resuming her afternoon like she’s already forgotten everything that just happened.

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The chemistry between the two Emilys is the film’s greatest strength. The incoherent babble of Mae juxtaposes marvelously with the monotone droll of Pott, resulting in an unlikely double act that drops comedy gold with every line. It never gets tiring watching the clone Emily expound long diatribes about hefty subjects like love and the importance of making connections with others (complete with harrowing flashbacks that show how she came to these conclusions), only to cut back to a bemused little girl who only has an “okay” to offer in response. However, their interactions also highlight the film’s sad undertones. There’s something quietly tragic in watching the clone Emily reveal such intimate secrets about herself to someone more interested in drawing triangles or bragging that they ate lunch today, creating an odd mixture of tones that allows Hertzfeldt to subtly integrate serious messages into their discussions. Emily’s speeches are often funny and frequently powerful, and learning that they were constructed around unscripted phrases Hertzfeldt recorded Mae saying makes them even more impressive.

The following episodes, The Burden of Other People's Thoughts and The Absent Destinations of David Prime, continue in a similar vein. The former sees Emily Prime being contacted by a sixth-generation backup of her third-generation adult clone who wishes to replace her mind with a copy of her younger counterpart (leading to an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind style odyssey through both of their subconsciouses), while the latter sees yet another version of Emily contacting David, a lonely man whose future clone is destined to fall in love with a future version of herself. “I may never be able to encounter a version of you again, but maybe it is possible for one of our distant copies to one day reunite. They would be so happy to see each other,” she says before enlisting him on a universe-spanning quest to bring happiness to his future self, but not before sacrificing his current form in the process.

Following Up on 'World of Tomorrow's Success

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Creating a follow-up to one of the most acclaimed films of the 2010s would be no easy task, but Hertzfeldt knows what he’s doing. Rather than wallowing in the shadow of previous successes, frantically trying to recapture a bolt of lightning that’s already zipped to the other side of the world, Hertzfeldt takes the sensible approach of using World of Tomorrow as a jumping-off point to explore new ideas. While the original felt like a time-traveling holiday with the clone Emily serving as a robotic tour guide, future episodes focus more on the individual people within this imagined future and how all those fascinating new bits of technology little Emily was so amazed by have proven to be as much of a hindrance as a help. The increased focus on introspection gives them a different flavor that may disappoint those who enjoyed World of Tomorrow for its sci-fi quirkiness, but there’s still plenty of Hertzfeldt’s trademark dark comedy and awe-inspiring visuals to keep everyone happy. The result is two sequels that were made not for money, but for the love of this world and its inhabitants — a passion that is rarely felt these days.

But the most impressive aspect of these films is how effectively they build upon World of Tomorrow without feeling like they’re retreading old ground. If Episode 1 was a vibrant journey into a cybernetic future that took us to the outermost edges of the human condition (both literally and metaphorically), Episode 2 retreats inwards, spending almost its entire runtime lost in a labyrinthine network of memories that seamlessly builds off the work left by its predecessor. The clone Emily from before was only searching for a single memory to comfort her during her final days, but now the same disaster that kills her is also responsible for stopping her latest clone from being transferred the lifetime of memories that were supposed to bring her purpose. Quite an annoyance this end of the world is turning out to be.

“It is easy to get lost in memories,” is the original’s most defining line, and on the surface much of Episode 2 seems to run contrary to it, but Hertzfeldt knows better than to throw away such a compelling sentiment for the sake of some amusing, Charlie Kaufman-esque set pieces. Emily’s clone is an empty shell so desperate to find her place in the universe that she’s resorted to stealing the consciousness of her ancestor, but her attempts at copy and pasting happiness do nothing to quell the gaping hole in her body. It’s only when she embraces her previously forgotten dream about becoming a dancer (a “glimmer of hope” that adulthood was more than happy to crush) that she finally achieves serenity, a beautiful moment that encapsulates the series’ philosophy. Finding purpose is not as easy as stealing memories from your distant ancestor and hoping their pleasure translates to you — instead it is something we must create for ourselves, influenced but never overpowered by those around us. We’re only here once, so we might as well make the best of it with the best people, a lesson this once-hollow version of Emily learns. “I’m glad we were both alive at the same time,” she says toward the episode’s conclusion. It’s the final two words that matter the most.

Moving Beyond Emily and Her Clones

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These installments form a near-perfect couplet that would be hard for Hertzfeldt to top, so instead he moves away from Emily Prime for Episode 3 to focus on David, a man who spends his days staring gormlessly at adverts until adventure is thrust upon him by the disembodied voice he clearly feels a strong attachment to even if he can’t put into words how or why (a recurring problem from him given that he doesn’t say a single word in the film). Unfortunately this voice takes up so much space in his internal memory banks that he’s forced to delete most of his basic functions to hear more, and watching a man with such little direction in life casually remove their ability to walk just so their future clone can have a fleeting relationship is the sort of tragi-comedy only Hertzfeldt could write. What follows is a plot reminiscent of 12 Monkeys and La Jetée, with David bouncing around time and space in pursuit of an idealized romance that is doomed from the word go, in turn reconning scenes from previous episodes into being part of a far larger story. World of Tomorrow didn’t seem like a franchise that called for expansive storylines that spanned multiple films, but Hertzfeldt pulls it off with such ease you’ll wonder if this was always part of the plan. Couple this with what is easily his best work as an animator (stick figure drawings on photorealistic backgrounds have no right looking this good), and you have a stunning capstone to a stunning series that’ll have you rewatching the entire series just to see how all its pieces fit snuggly together.

It's interesting to reflect on World of Tomorrow now that it’s a trilogy. The first entry told a powerful story that had a clear beginning, middle, and end, but that didn’t stop Hertzfeldt from making two more episodes that each managed to expand a seemingly unexpandable story in continually intriguing ways. The Absent Destinations of David Prime, with its ruminations on death and a story that brings things full circle with the original, feels like a natural place to end things, but such sentiments were also expressed when the second episode dropped. Only time will tell if Hertzfeldt takes us back to his dreamt-up version of the future once again, but even if he doesn’t, what he’s created is more than enough to get his name in the history books of science fiction too. If you’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Emily Prime and her assortment of clones, do yourself a kindness and take a visit into the fantastical future of the World of Tomorrow. It isn’t a long trip, but it is a rewarding one.