History Film / Tomorrowland

* {{Hypocrite}}: David Nix, who criticizes Earth for giving up and embracing the Earth's destruction, when he too has given up and embraced the Earth's destruction, to the point that he purposefully tries to sabotage the heroes' attempts to save it. However, it's heavily implied by his TheReasonYouSuckSpeech that it was ''humanity'' apathy that lead him to his DespairEventHorizon

** Brad Bird tweeted a picture of the soundtrack album with the message "Another film, another great score by [[Creator/MichaelGiacchino @m_giacchino]], and most importantly, another bunch of crazy-ass cue titles--" which this time around include "You've Piqued My Pin-Trist," "Boat Wait, There's More!," "Home Wheat Home," "Pin-Ultimate Experience," "People Mover And Shaker," "What An Eiffel!" and "Sphere And Loathing." Giacchino stated that his music editor came up with most of the track titles, but Giacchino did admit he named the final cue on the album... "End Credits."
** The soundtrack also continues Giacchino's RunningGag with "World's Worst [[spoiler:Shop Keepers"]].

* {{Hypocrite}}: David Nix, who criticizes Earth for giving up and embracing the Earth's destruction, when he too has given up and embraced the Earth's destruction, to the point that he purposefully tries to sabotage the heroes' attempts to save it.

** Frank later refers to the trope by name upon the discovery that not only is [[spoiler:the Monitor, the machine Frank built, predicting the end of the world]], is also actually [[spoiler:the thing that is making it happen]]. Governor Nix, in an attempt to prevent disaster, [[spoiler:zaps the prediction into people's minds so that they can try to keep it from happening. Instead, it made people accept the idea and even embrace it]], thus ensuring that the disaster does happen, much to his disgust.
* ShoutOut:

* SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids: Frank's exile from Tomorrowland helped harden him into a pessimistic loner. [[spoiler: He regains a measure of optimism before it's all over.]]

* SoWhatDoWeDoNow: [[spoiler: Frank and Casey end up asking this once Nix is dead and his plot to destroy the world is undone. They decide to begin rebuilding Tomorrowland with help from Casey's dad, a NASA engineer, and start sending out new pins to the dreamers of the world, to invite them to Tomorrowland.]]
* SpiritualAntithesis: The movie is best described as Creator/{{Disney}}'s take on ''VideoGame/BioShock'', only with Rapture working instead of going to hell.

* ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow: Building a machine that predicted the future turned out not to be such a great idea. [[spoiler: When people became aware that it had predicted TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, they gave up hope and [[SelfFulfillingProphecy actually brought the world closer to that outcome]].]]

* UnexplainedRecovery: [[spoiler: The Monitor predicted [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt inevitable doom]] for the Earth in as little as 56 days but, after it is destroyed and governor Nix dies [[NoEndorHolocaust absolutely nothing happens at all]]. While it is reasonable that without its influence nuclear war could be averted - and it's implied the foreseen environmental collapse is a result of humanity's death throes(see Series/LifeAfterPeople) - but if the planet was in such a catastrophic nosedive that TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt was less than two months away, you'd think there would be more consequences, even if they're not world-ending, but when the new recruiter [=AAs=] embark to hand out new pins, they find a world stumbling along as usual. Frank goes so far as to completely {{handwave}} it by saying "We shouldn't even be here, but we are".]]

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: The violence is toned down for this PG film by making most of the villains robots, so their deaths don't really count... except for Athena, whom our heroes recognize as a living, sentient being by the end. So all those robots they've been killing were also people.

* DarknessInducedAudienceApathy: Invoked in-universe: [[spoiler: Nix projected images of TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt into people's minds in order to steer humanity away from destroying itself. This resulted in people becoming desensitized to the inevitable, prompting Nix's FaceHeelTurn as he decided that HumansAreBastards and should be put out of their misery.]] The film implies this is what spurred on the popularity of dystopic literature (1984, Brave New World, etc) and bleak, grimdark media being popular.

* AltumVidetur: Though "Plus Ultra" appears a kludge of TotallyRadical words, in Latin it means "Further Beyond."[[note]]It's a reversal of the Latin phrase "Non Plus Ultra" (nothing further beyond), and represents the society's continuous search for new knowledge. Plus Ultra is also the motto of Spain.[[/note]]

** Hugo, the [[spoiler:robotic]] proprietor of the Blast to the Past store is named for Hugo Gernsback, creator of ''Magazine/AmazingStories''. His wife, Ursula, is named after Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin, winner of multiple UsefulNotes/{{Hugo Award}}s.

* ShoutOut:

** The Monitor is essentially a disproportionate homage to the Trylon and Perisphere of the 1939 New York World's Fair.

* TheAestheticsOfTechnology: Best demonstrated by the methods used to reach Tomorrowland. NikolaTesla's designs are {{Steampunk}}; a wood, brass and steel spaceship out of Creator/JulesVerne. The equipment Frank finds under the 1964 World's Fair is RaygunGothic. The modern "bridgeway" is basically [[EverythingIsAnIpodInTheFuture a giant IPod]].

** A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHE0UjBSbfI&t=387s deleted scene]] explains that Nix was able to turn to turn Frank's invention into the most best clean energy source ever discovered, and it is now Tomorrowland's primary source of power. [[spoiler:This neatly explains why he doesn't want to turn it off]].

** A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHE0UjBSbfI&t=387s deleted scene]] explains that Nix was able to turn to turn Frank's invention into the most powerful energy source ever discovered, and it is now Tomorrowland's primary source of power. [[spoiler:This neatly explains why he doesn't want to turn it off]].

** A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHE0UjBSbfI&t=387s deleted scene]] explains that Nix was able to turn to turn the Monitor into the most powerful energy source ever discovered, and it is now Tomorrowland's primary source of power. [[spoiler:This neatly explains why he doesn't want to turn it off]].

* AltumVidetur: Though "Plus Ultra" appears a kludge of TotallyRadical words, in Latin it means "Further Beyond."

(Note: ''Tomorrowland'' is not connected with a [[DisneyChannel Disney Junior]] animated series, ''WesternAnimation/MilesFromTomorrowland''.)

* UsefulNotes/DisplayTechnology: Frank Walker sure likes his [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixie_tube Nixie tubes]].

* NoExceptYes:
--> '''Casey:''' Is that like a portal to Earth?\\
'''Governor Nix:''' No, it's a ''bridgeway'' to Earth.

** Discussed when Frank asks Casey a hypothetical question in which, if it were possible for her to know the exact moment of her death, would she want to know. Casey ponders this, thinking out loud about whether accepting your death would be what brings it about in the first place. She comes to the conclusion that the correct response is that she should know, but refuse to beleive. This answer is what causes [[spoiler:the 100% probability of doom to go down by 0.0006%]].

* TheAestheticsOfTechnology: Best demonstrated by the methods used to reach Tomorrowland. NikolaTesla's designs are {{Steampunk}}; a wood, brass and steel spaceship out of JulesVerne. The equipment Frank finds under the 1964 World's Fair is RaygunGothic. The modern "bridgeway" is basically [[EverythingIsAnIpodInTheFuture a giant IPod]].

* DoomsdayClock: [[spoiler: Frank has one at home. It predicts that our planet has 56 days left to survive due to nuclear war, ecological meltdown and natural disaster.]] [[spoiler:There's also a probability counter, showing the chance of that future coming to be an 100%, until Casey comes along and it drops just a bit]].

** Casey at one point tells her father the story of [[http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TwoWolves-Cherokee.html The Two Wolves]], a story he used to tell her, reminding him that the wolf that wins is the one you keep feeding. [[spoiler: She later realizes that Governor Nix has been broadcasting apocalyptic images in people's minds, causing them to "feed the wrong wolf".]]

* CrapsackWorld: Our mundane world is this, with societal unrest, climate change, threats of nuclear armageddon, etcetera and this complacency with humanity's self-destruction is associated with the widespread popularity of apocalyptic/dystopian science fiction. Additionally, the continued decline of NASA is a major part of Casey's story, with Neil Degrasse Tyson's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc We Stopped Dreaming]]" speech being one of the major points of inspiration for the film's writers.

** This is how Casey realizes that Frank’s dog is a hologram. [[spoiler: It doesn’t leave any footprints]].

* InsistentTerminology: The human robots being referred to as "AAs" or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio-Animatronics "Audio-Animatronics"]], a MythologyGag as that's the term Creator/WaltDisney coined for all his company's robotic figures.

* InsistentTerminology: The human robots being referred to as "s," a MythologyGag as that's the term Creator/WaltDisney coined for all his company's robotic figures.

* HiddenElfVillage: Tomorrowland. Notably, they didn't intend to ''stay'' secret, they just decided it wasn't a good idea to share everything they created with [[spoiler:a world that they warned of a coming catastrophe, but not only refused to change but ''[[CosyCatastrophe idealized]]'' it]].

* VillainHasAPoint: Governor Nix's plan wasn't actually evil. At first he believed [[spoiler: showing humanity a possible apocalyptic future would scare them into trying to prevent it. However, he lost faith when instead of trying to prevent the apocalypse, humanity ''embraced'' the idea of it. How do you save someone who doesn't ''want'' to be saved? Even better, why would you want to interact with them in anyway? This is why the killer robots attempted to assassinate Casey, Frank and Athena; after it became blatantly clear that Earth didn't want to be saved, it was simply a manner of ''survival'' - if the nihilistic masters and masses could get to Tomorrowland, they'd almost certainly destroy it too. Secrecy was its shield. The robots were simply operating on orders received ''decades'' earlier. NotSoDifferent from Athena.]]

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Nix's speech about the state about the modern world to the heroes at the climax is essentially this towards society as a whole.
--> '''Governor Nix''': Let's imagine, if you glimpsed the future, were frightened by what you saw, what would you do with that information? Would you go to... The politicians? Captains of industry? And how would you convince them? With data, facts? Good luck. The only facts they won't challenge are the ones that keep the wheels greased and the dollars rolling in. [[spoiler:But, what if? What if there was a way of skipping the middleman, and putting the critical news directly into everyone's head? The probability of widespread annihilation kept going up. The only way to stop it was to show it, and to scare people straight. Because, what ''reasonable'' human being wouldn't be galvanized by the potential destruction of everything they've ever known or loved? To save civilization, I would show its collapse. But, how do you think this vision was received? How do you think people responded to the prospect of imminent doom? They gobbled it up! Like a chocolate eclair! They didn't fear their demise, they repackaged it! It can be enjoyed as video games, as TV shows, books, movies – the entire world wholeheartedly embraced the apocalypse, and sprinted toward it with gleeful abandon. Meanwhile, your Earth was crumbling all around you. You've got simultaneous epidemics of obesity and starvation! Explain that one! Bees and butterflies start to disappear, the glaciers melt, algae blooms... All around you the coal mine canaries are dropping dead and ''you won't take the hint!'' '''In every moment there is the possibility of a better future, but you people won't believe it. And because you won't believe it, you won't do what is necessary to make it a reality!''' So you dwell on this terrible future, you resign yourselves to it. For one reason — because that future doesn't ask anything of you ''today.'' So, yes, we saw the iceberg, we warned the Titanic. But you all just steered for it anyway, full steam ahead. Why? Because you ''want'' to sink. You ''gave up.'' That's not the ''Monitor's'' fault. That's ''yours.'']]