World of Tomorrow (film)

World of Tomorrow
Directed by Don Hertzfeldt
Produced by Don Hertzfeldt
Written by Don Hertzfeldt
Starring
  • Winona Mae
  • Julia Pott
Cinematography Don Hertzfeldt
Edited by Don Hertzfeldt
Production
company
Bitter Films
Release dates
  • March 31, 2015 (2015-03-31)
Running time
 17 minutes
Country United States
Language English

World of Tomorrow is a 2015 American animated science fiction short film written, directed, produced, animated, and edited by Don Hertzfeldt. It features the voice of Julia Pott, opposite Hertzfeldt's then-four-year-old niece Winona Mae, who was recorded while drawing and playing. Her spontaneous, natural vocal reactions and questions were then edited into the story to create her character. Hertzfeldt is also credited as cinematographer, production designer, sound editor, sound mixer, and digital effects supervisor.

World of Tomorrow premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it won the Grand Jury Prize for Short Film. Critical response was overwhelmingly positive, with Indiewire calling the short film "one of the best films of 2015," The Dissolve naming it "one of the finest achievements in sci-fi in recent memory", and The A.V. Club describing it as "visionary" and "possibly the best film of 2015."[1]

World of Tomorrow was released on-demand on Vimeo in March 2015, simultaneously with its continuing theatrical run in film festivals. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

Development

Hertzfeldt had long been interested in science fiction but hesitated making a film set in a genre partly due to not wanting to be confined by it, noting, "it always seems to mean having to tread at least a little bit through overly familiar waters." [2] Still, aspects of science fiction appeared in his film "It's Such a Beautiful Day" and his graphic novel "The End Of The World". He felt that the science fiction genre would especially make sense for his first foray into digital animation.[2]

The design of the film was influenced by 1950's and 60 science fiction novels and magazine covers, and by Hertzfeldt wanting the film to have a storybook aesthetic.[2] He worked on the film simultaneously with his couch gag guest appearance on The Simpsons. Both projects were the first time he had used digital animation in his work.[2]

Plot

A communication unit in a white room begins to ring, and a little girl (voiced by Winona Mae) runs toward the machine where she excitedly presses a random series of buttons on the console until a live video transmission appears on the screen.

The person in the transmission is a woman (voiced by Julia Pott) and addresses the young girl as Emily. Speaking in a robotic monotone throughout their entire conversation, the woman introduces herself as an adult third-generation clone of Emily contacting her from 227 years into the distant future. The clone Emily then explains to the original Emily regarding the complex cloning process that humans have devised in an attempt to achieve immortality, as well as describing other crude forms of life extension that less affluent members of humanity can afford in lieu of the more expensive generational cloning method. The clone Emily goes on to explain how she was able to contact the original Emily through an experimental and dangerous form of time travel. The clone adds that physical attempts on using this form of time travel can be very deadly to the traveler unless the logistics are precisely calculated. The clone Emily proceeds to transport the original Emily into the clone's present time in the future via time travel.

The original Emily disappears from the white room and safely reappears inside an interactive space that the clone Emily describes as "the Outernet"—a neural network that is a technologically advanced version of the Internet. At this point, the clone Emily begins to address her original as Emily Prime. Emily Clone and Emily Prime briefly engage in drawing simple figures in the air, before Emily Clone invites Emily Prime to view a selection of her memories.

The first memory is one from Emily Clone's childhood and involves a controversial exhibit in a museum where a male clone without a brain was kept in a transparent stasis tube. When Emily Prime asks for the name of the male clone, Emily Clone responds that the clone was nicknamed David by the museum visitors. Emily Clone recalls her frequent visits to David over the years and expresses her sadness when he finally died at the age of 72.

The second memory that Emily Clone shows to her original is of her first job supervising solar-powered and sentient worker robots on the surface of the Earth's moon. Emily Clone reveals that she programmed the robots to cultivate a fear of death and darkness. As a result, the robots are compelled to be in constant motion, always walking where the light of the sun hits the lunar surface and avoiding the dark side of the moon. It was also on the moon where Emily Clone reveals that she fell in love with a large rock, though she admits that the romance was complicated because she did not yet realize her mental and emotional shortcomings at the time. Due to a recession in the lunar economy, Emily Clone was sent home after six lunar cycles and was separated with her rock. She adds that the robots she programmed were abandoned on the moon as they were considered too expensive to remove. Emily Clone also notes that the robots are in still perpetual motion due to their programming, as well as sending regular transmissions of depressed poems back on Earth.

The third memory shows Emily Clone's succeeding job as a supervisor for construction robots stationed on a deep space outpost. Emily Clone admits to having fallen in love with a fuel pump in her new job location, and adds that it was more gratifying than her previous romance with the lunar rock. In the same memory, the clone shows Emily Prime a nest of abandoned alien eggs that are purple and conical in appearance. Driven by curiosity, Emily Prime opens one of the eggs to reveal a black shapeshifting creature that speaks gibberish. Emily Clone discloses that she named the alien lifeform as Simon. Emily Clone and Simon gradually fell in love over the course of seven years, and often went on balloon flights over Mars for vacations. But as Emily Clone narrates, she missed Earth and longed for something deeper and substantial with her life. Following her instincts, Emily Clone made a conscious decision to be reassigned back on Earth in order to interact more with humans, and notes that going back home resulted in the best years of her life but has also left Simon inconsolable, as she had left him behind.

As a prelude to showing Emily Prime the fourth memory, Emily Clone explains how memories are harvested from deceased humans and what they look like upon extraction. Emily Clone then shows to her original that upon her return to Earth, she opened an art gallery that displayed anonymous memories. It was in her art gallery that Emily Clone met her husband: a descendant clone of David, the male clone who was displayed in a museum when she was a child. But as Emily Clone notes, her husband showed many signs of deterioration due to being a clone stemming from a much older generation. Despite this, Emily Clone says that she loved him "as though we were originals". Their marriage was brief, as Emily Clone states that her husband died suddenly; thus, ending the David clone lineage. Emily Clone proceeded to harvest her deceased husband's memories, and shows one of her favorites to Emily Prime: a view of David descending a staircase while he observes a large plant's leaves fluttering in the wind as if in applause.

At this point, Emily Clone stops and reflects on her melancholia upon reliving the memories with her clone spouse, concluding that she "no longer falls in love with rocks".

The last memory that Emily Clone shows to her original is more recent, as the clone reveals that in sixty days, Earth will be destroyed by an incoming meteor. Emily Clone explains that due to the hysteria surrounding the impending apocalypse, humans have resorted to leaving the planet through different and extreme means. Wealthy individuals have uploaded their digital consciousnesses in special cubes and launched them safely into deep space. The lower classes have opted to use a discounted form of the dangerous time travel method that Emily Clone has described earlier. But because of the unpredictable and unstable nature of physical time travel, millions of humans have transported themselves in the fringes of the Earth's atmosphere—dying instantly while hovering in orbit and creating the effect of "shooting stars" when the corpses crash back down to earth during nighttime while they burn through the atmosphere. Despite the horrible fate of humanity at this time, Emily Prime reacts with joy upon the sight of the burning corpses streaking through the night sky and becomes inattentive by counting the "shooting stars" while her clone rattles on about the bleak fate of the human race.

Emily Clone returns them both to the Outernet, and she reveals the true reason on why she contacted Emily Prime in the first place: to retrieve an important memory from her original source before she is to die. Using a handheld extractor, the clone aims the device at Emily Prime and the young girl reveals that the memory the clone had forgotten and wanted to remember was of the original Emily and her mother walking together. With the memory successfully retrieved, Emily Clone graciously thanks her original and adds that the specific memory will comfort her in the days leading to the destruction of Earth.

Before they part ways, Emily Clone dispenses some final words of wisdom to Emily Prime as the Outernet slowly begins to disintegrate around them:

Do not lose time on daily trivialities. Do not dwell on petty detail. For all of these things melt away and drift apart within the obscure traffic of time. Live well and live broadly. You are alive and living now. Now is the envy of all of the dead.

Emily Clone states that she is honored to have met Emily Prime and that she will not contact her again. The clone informs her original that she will transport her back to her timeline. After saying goodbye, Emily Prime is accidentally transported by her clone into the distant past where she seen standing in a grassy field and surrounded by falling snow. The music gradually swells to a dramatic crescendo and it appears that Emily Prime is left to perish in the desolate landscape, but she is seen transported back into her present timeline; back into the white room containing the communication unit where she answered Emily Clone's call. Emily Prime surveys the familiar space with a smile and notes in a singsong voice on "what a happy day it is" before she joyfully scampers out of the room.

Cast

Accolades

As of December 2015, the film has won 41 awards, including:

The movie was nominated on January 14, 2016 for a 2016 Academy Award for Best Short Film, Animated.[4]

In December 2015, Hertzfeldt received a special award from the Austin Film Critics Association, "in celebration of a career of remarkable short filmmaking and contributions to animation spanning two decades, with 2015’s award-winning "World of Tomorrow" being recognized as his best work to date."

References

  1. ↑ Murray, Noel. "A cartoon about a clone from the future may be 2015’s best film · For Our Consideration · The A.V. Club". Avclub.com. Retrieved 2015-04-16.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Bramesco, Charles. "Animator Don Hertzfeldt on not trusting happy people". The Dissolve. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  3. ↑ "Palmarès 2015 : Prix du Jury – Compétition internationale de courts-métrages". Utopiales.org. 2015-11-02. Retrieved 2015-11-06.
  4. ↑ "Oscars 2016 Nominations: Complete List of Nominees". Eonline. January 14, 2016. Retrieved January 14, 2016.

External links

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