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Casey Newton
Casey Newton
Played by: Britt Robertson
- An Aesop: Casey retells her father's parable about the "two wolves" to encourage him not to lose hope. An Establishing Character Moment montage has her attending classes in which teachers list numerous problems in the world while she struggles to get them to acknowledge her question, "What's the solution?"
- "Don't be so obsessed with your destination you forget to watch where you're going." This is figurative with Casey's attempts to keep NASA's last shuttle gantry from being dismantled - which get her arrested. It becomes very literal when she finds the Tomorrowland pin, is dazzled with wonder and starts blindly wandering the virtual landscape - into walls, down staircases and into lakes until it runs out of power and she has to find her way to Tomorrowland for real.
- Armor-Piercing Question: When one of her teachers recites one of the calamities facing the world, Casey asks him "Can we fix it?". He is completely speechless after this.
- Artistic License – Biology: Losing "90% of your blood sugar in 1/100th of a second" is survivable. The highest ever recorded
in someone who survived was 2,656 mg/dl, and people are known to still be conscious at 27 mg/dl - let's just Hand Wave that powder Frank and Casey ate beforehand was some kind of ultra-tech "hyper sugar" meant specifically for this purpose. The catch is that climbing back up again is a living hell; Frank warns "You're gonna wish you were dead" but people usually have to lie very still for some time while their body assimilates the cup of honey or whatever they gulped down to save their lives - in many cases people have had to be hospitalized. - Buffy Speak: Casey tends to use this a lot when talking - for example, she describes Athena's default shutdown mode (which it isn't - it's just what Athena does when she's tired of answering Casey's constant questions) as Athena's "automatic shutoff thingy".
- Despair Event Horizon: Comes close to one when she sees what Tomorrowland has become, until her "Eureka!" Moment pulls her out of it.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Casey has one that shakes her out of her Despair Event Horizon, when she realizes that the Monitor was broadcasting negative images in people's minds, to hasten the End of the World.
- Fun with Acronyms: In the expanded materials, the word PIN (in this case Casey's Pin) stands for Proximity Inversion Node.
- Glamour Failure: This is how Casey realizes that Frank's guard dog is a hologram. It doesn't leave any footprints.
- Just Got Out of Jail: The trailer starts with Casey picking up her possessions from a police station property room. Say, what's this pin...
- Meaningful Echo: Casey at one point tells her father the story of The Two Wolves, a story he used to tell her, reminding him that the wolf that wins is whichever you keep feeding. She later realizes that Governor Nix has been broadcasting apocalyptic images in people's minds, causing them to "feed the wrong wolf".
- Meaningful Name: Casey's family name is Newton. Likely after the famous scientist Isaac Newton (although her father, Ed Newton, could double as a nod to Brad Bird's frequent collaborator Ted Newton). Her first name comes from Cassandra, the prophetess whose admonitions were never believed.
- Even more style points, Casey's name comes from Isaac, when spelled backwards is Caasi (pronounced as "Casey").
- A Minor Kidroduction: After a very brief shot of her in the present day, interrupting Frank again, we cut to Casey as a kid, identifying various stars and declaring that she wants to become an astronaut.
- Missing Mom: Casey's mom is seen in the intro, then never again, possibly implying she died in between, though it's never explicitly stated. This might also have added to her father's embittered air. However,
Word of God reveals that Casey's mother (along with extended family members) were cut to streamline the story. The Junior Novelization retains Casey's mother and her extended family in the present day time period. - Nerds Are Sexy: Coming from a family of scientists, Casey is definitely a nerd. And a beautiful one, too.
- The Oner: Casey's first full look into Tomorrowland, what Frank calls "a commercial," is this.
- The Pollyanna: Casey. Her boundless optimism breaks all of once in the entirety of the film. And even then, it takes but a few short seconds to snap her out of it.
- Rule of Symbolism: When Casey uses the monitor to peer into the future, she watches as the gantry she was protecting is dismantled. Just as the gantry is completely gone - symbolizing how mankind no longer plans to launch rockets, and thus has given up the future - the prediction dissolves into static, and when it clears an indeterminate time later, the entire world is in ruins.
- Screw Destiny: Casey pretty much says this word for word in a conversation with Frank about what she would do if he could tell her exactly when she'd die; that yes, she'd want to hear it, but only so she could refuse to believe it. This causes the probability of an Apocalypse How to drop from 100% to 99.9994%.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: 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 believe. This answer is what causes the 100% probability of doom to go down by 0.0006%.
- Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: In contrast to Frank, Casey maintains this attitude.
- Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: Lies on the Free Will side of the debate.
- So What Do We Do Now?: 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.
- Teen Genius:
- Teleportation Sickness: The teleporter used to take the main characters to Paris also causes a good loss of blood sugar. While Frank and Athena aren't so badly affected, Casey is.
Frank Walker
John Francis "Frank" Walker
Played by: George Clooney, Thomas Robinson (young)
- An Aesop: "Never give up." As a child, Frank refuses to give up on his jet pack when his father tells him he'll never fix it. He also refuses to give up after Nix rebuffs him. His pamphlet for The World's Fair has "I'll never give up!" scrawled on it. In the end, Frank sends out a new wave of recruiter animatronics with pins, telling them to "Find the ones who haven't given up. They're the future."
- Anti-Hero: Frank is a cynical old Jedi master-type character who's seen the pins for what they really are and is quite rough around the edges.
- Artistic License – Biology: Losing "90% of your blood sugar in 1/100th of a second" is survivable. The highest ever recorded in someone who survived was 2,656 mg/dl, and people are known to still be conscious at 27 mg/dl - let's just Hand Wave that powder Frank and Casey ate beforehand was some kind of ultra-tech "hyper sugar" meant specifically for this purpose. The catch is that climbing back up again is a living hell; Frank warns "You're gonna wish you were dead" but people usually have to lie very still for some time while their body assimilates the cup of honey or whatever they gulped down to save their lives - in many cases people have had to be hospitalized.
- Brick Joke: Frank uses a jetpack in the beginning and at the end of the film, and both times he performs an epic Slapstick crash landing.
- Child Prodigy: Used to be this before he went to Tomorrowland.
- Crazy-Prepared: Frank's house has secret escape routes, traps including magnets and laser cutters for robots and an escape pod for insurance. Lampshaded by Casey once it's all over: "You were actually prepared for that?!?"
- Driving Question:Frank: What if there was a place... a secret place... where nothing was impossible? A miraculous place where you could actually change the world? You wanna go?
- First Love: Athena is this to Frank. Which is why he's so bitter when they meet again, he never got over her even after his exile.
- Gadgeteer Genius:
- Historical In-Joke: According to Frank, Tesla discovered the alternate dimension, and then Edison tried to take credit for it because the two hated each other.
- How We Got Here: The movie begins with Frank telling his story, with Casey interjecting running commentary, in the present day, before cutting to the main action. The movie ends where they leave off, revealing that Frank and Casey are telling their stories to a new line of androids, who will take on Athena's role to distribute newly-minted pins to the dreamers of the world, to invite them to Tomorrowland.
- I Want My Jetpack: That, and a whole lot more, are available in Tomorrowland.
- When Nix asked ten-year-old Frank why he built a jetpack, Frank answered "I got tired of waiting for someone else to do it."
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Frank is this when he first meets Casey, flattening her with the house defense system. He does eventually get his idealism back.
- Laser-Guided Karma: When Frank first encounters Casey, he uses a wave cannon (likely in case of robots), pushing her away from the door, and leaves her outside in the rain. When Casey stages a diversion to get Frank out of the house, she turns the tables by locking him out of his house, using the wave cannon on him, and leaving him outside in the rain.
- Like an Old Married Couple: Frank and Athena are butting heads like this almost constantly. Made both extra funny and creepy by Frank being (visually) almost four times as old as Athena.note
- Made of Iron: As a kid he survives get driven into the dirt at high speeds by his jetpack instead of suffering any serious injuries. It also takes his body a few seconds to disintegrate when shot with a raygun in a potential timeline, unlike everyone else who disintegrates instantly.
- Also he doesn't seem to need to replenish his sugar levels due to Casey taking his Coke.
- Meaningful Echo: Frank at one point describes the T-pin as "an invitation to a party that never happened." At the end of the movie, Frank says that they should "put the party back on and print out new invitations."
- A Minor Kidroduction: While the movie starts with Frank in the present day telling his story, with Casey interrupting, the story kicks in with a young Frank visiting the New York World's Fair, where he meets Nix and Athena and first discovers Tomorrowland.
- Nostalgia Ain't Like It Used to Be: A Decon-Recon Switch; Frank is a cynical and paranoid outcast because he was exiled from Tomorrowland after inventing a machine that showed Earth was coming to an end, which he believes proves that the optimism that built it was all a lie. After discovering that the machine broadcasts its predictions, creating a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, he realizes that he was the one who made it a lie, by giving up on the future. Thus, the past wasn't "better", it was just more optimistic - despite the myriad problems that those eras faced, people who lived in them believed they would ultimately be solved. The modern world's cynical view of the problems it faces - pollution, sickness, war, hate - has made those problems appear unsolvable, and embracing the optimism of earlier eras will help solve them.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Refers to the trope by name upon the discovery that not only is the Monitor, the machine Frank built, predicting the end of the world, it is also actually the thing that is making it happen. Governor Nix, in an attempt to prevent disaster, 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.
- Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Frank's exile from Tomorrowland helped harden him into a pessimistic loner. He regains a measure of optimism before it's all over.
- However, Frank truly lost his idealism when he found out Athena, his first love, was actually a robot. This was what led to his exile.
- So What Do We Do Now?: 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.
- Title Drop: Done by Frank himself at one point in the movie.
- Turn Out Like His Father: Young Frank tells his dad he's never giving up. By the present day, he's given up and is treating Casey the same way.
David Nix
David Nix
Played by: Hugh Laurie
- All There in the Manual: A deleted scene explains that Nix was able to turn Frank's invention into the best clean energy source ever discovered, and it is now Tomorrowland's primary source of power. This neatly explains why he doesn't want to turn it off.
- Apocalypse Cult: How Governor Nix sees the world he was born to. He warned everyone the end was coming and they turned it into entertainment.
- Character Filibuster: Governor Nix's speech about society's obsession with dystopia/post-apocalyptic fiction generating complacency with the Earth's degrading state.
- Despair Event Horizon: Governor Nix crossed it when his warning to the people of Earth was completely ignored, triggering his Face–Heel Turn.
- More than that, it was triggered by humanity in general crossing it and simply deciding to stop trying.
- Did Not Do the Bloody Research: Governor Nix's very last words are "Oh, bollocks", this was enough to get the film a 12A rating in the U.K. despite the film being rated P.G. in America.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Governor Nix is fond of Athena, despite the fact she's working against him. He is even horrified at shooting her by accident due to her taking the raygun shot meant for Frank.
- Evil Brit: Governor Nix. He's played by Hugh Laurie, what did you expect?
- Hand Wave: David Nix's lack of aging between Frank's backstory and the present timeline is explained away as a shake he drinks every morning.
- Hypocrite: 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 "The Reason You Suck" Speech that it was humanity apathy that lead him to his Despair Event Horizon.
- Jerkass: Governor Nix's Establishing Character Moment consists of him being an asshole to a 10 year old kid for no good reason.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Kind of. Governor Nix casually dismisses Casey as a "flicker" and in many ways, he's absolutely right. Her wide-eyed idealism only has the smallest of impacts on the probability of the world being destroyed, reducing it by less than a thousandth of a percent. However, this was the entire point of her character: She's just one little candle flickering in a sea of darkness, but as the old proverb goes, it's better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.
- Karmic Death: Athena ends up Taking the Bullet when to protect Frank from a ray gun shot from Nix. She then has Frank take advantage of her activating self-destruct mechanism to blow up the Monitor... which then proceeds to fall directly onto Nix.
- Masquerade: Governor Nix says that, in the old days, Tomorrowland would work to have the Eiffel Tower turning into a huge rocket dismissed as a hoax. However, with the world ending in less than two months, he's not going to bother keeping it a secret. It didn't stop his androids from atomizing those three cops when they started asking uncomfortable questions though.
- Meaningful Name: "Nix" means "nothing" or "to end." He's content with doing nothing to prevent the end of the world.
- Moral Myopia: Governor Nix has a very long and angry rant about why the people of Earth deserve doom, but never stops to ponder that by doing nothing to prevent it, even though he has the means and technology to do so, he's just being as apathetic as they are. He has so few craps to give that he doesn't even bother to stop the Monitor from broadcasting, even though he knows full well it's only making things worse.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Governor Nix, when he inadvertently shot Athena when she took his raygun shot for Frank.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Nix's androids default to murdering witnesses or those who seek Tomorrowland with shockingly little provocation or without non-lethal alternatives.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Governor Nix saw that, the way things were going, the Earth wouldn't last forever unless something was done to save it, so he used the Monitor to subconsciously project the images of doom it had predicted in the hopes that it would scare the people into action. Instead, the only thing it achieved was to desensitize people to the possibility of armageddon which actually hastened it dramatically.
- Precision F-Strike: Nix says, "Oh, bollocks!" as his last words.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: 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. 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.
- Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: Lies on the Fate side of the debate.
- Villain Has a Point: Governor Nix's plan wasn't actually evil. At first he believed 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 any way, shape or form? 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.
- We Will Have Perfect Health in the Future: Governor Nix appears exactly the same after fifty years, thanks to a morning shake which keeps him in perfect health.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Nix believes that the future shown by the Monitor is inevitable.
Athena
Athena
Played by: Raffey Cassidy
- Action Girl: She rescues Casey from the Sci-Fi memorabilia store with gadgets, a blaster, and her fighting skills. However, she is revealed to be an Audio-Animatronic®, aka a robot.
- Benevolent A.I.: Wants to find Dreamers and fix the world. She even performs a Heroic Suicide at the end of film to save Frank and destroy the Monitor.
- Black Comedy: Athena (the little girl robot) getting run over by a pickup truck. She walks it off.
- Right before she has Frank drop her self-destructing body in the Monitor to destroy it, she tells Frank why he could never make her laugh: "You're not funny."
- The Chooser of the One: Athena senses in Casey the qualities she's looking for and gives Casey the means to see Tomorrowland. This is actually her job, Frank was her first personal candidate; later after her passing, we see that Frank and Casey have set up a whole slew of new young recruiter units out to do exactly as she did.
- Grew Beyond Their Programming: In addition to her relationship with Frank, is the one who comes up with the idea to use her self-destruction to destroy the Monitor, despite an earlier comment about how she doesn't have ideas.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Athena is damaged beyond repair when she takes an energy blast to the chest intended for Frank.
- Heroic Suicide: Athena self-destructs to destroy the Monitor.
- Just a Machine: Frank originally says this about Athena, but later amends it.
- Like an Old Married Couple: Frank and Athena are butting heads like this almost constantly. Made both extra funny and creepy by Frank being (visually) almost four times as old as Athena.note
- Little Miss Badass: Athena can even beat up adult-sized robots.
- Little Miss Snarker: Athena can be this quite a bit, especially when she's running out of patience such as lying that she's got an automatic shutoff function if someone asks her too many sensitive questions. She's really just playing dead because she found Casey annoying.
- Meaningful Name: Named after the goddess of wisdom, inspiration, artisans and strategic warfarenote among other things, who was born from the head of Zeus. She is the one who seeks out dreamers, encourages them to act on their ideas, and is a pretty decent fighter when she needs to be. She's also the one to come up with the final means to destroy the Monitor at the end.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Athena briefly tries passing herself off as a Girl Scout to explain why she wants to see Casey. Her brother doesn't buy it because 1) she's not even wearing a uniform, and 2) the "Girl Scout cookies" Athena is holding are a box of Oreos.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: The later robots sent to hunt her down slide too far into the Uncanny Valley. Even the robots built to succeed her mission don't have her liveliness. However, her successors are fresh off the assembly line while she had decades to become more human. Given some time and care, the new recruiters are more than likely to become like her eventually.
- Screw Destiny: Does this when she sees a tachyon image of Nix shooting Frank, Taking the Bullet for him.
- Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: Athena is almost entirely absent from the trailers despite being one of the three main protagonists and appearing in most of the film.
- Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Athena was built for finding special people and giving them a special pin. All she needs for that is to be a charming little girl. She's also kitted out with gear and superhuman abilities that rivals or surpasses the Terminator, including having X-Ray vision.
- Taking the Bullet: Athena sees a tachyon image of Nix shooting Frank, and dives in front of the blast instead.
- This Is Not a Floor: Since Athena hands out her pins without any context or warning whatsoever, thinking that they are transporting the user to Tomorrowland instead of just showing it is a very easy mistake to make. Also a very dangerous one, as Casey discovers by banging into real objects. Or falling down staircases. Over and over again until it runs out of power. While she's waist-deep in a lake.
- Translation: "Yes": One of the robot mooks in Paris shouts something at the group in French. Athena translates this to "about what you'd expect."
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: 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, sapient being by the end. So all those robots they've been killing were also people.
Eddie Newton
Eddie Newton
Played by: Tim McGraw
- Never Trust a Trailer: The trailer makes Casey's dad out to be a Jerkass Fantasy-Forbidding Father when in the actual movie he's… a NASA engineer who's facing unemployment as Cape Canaveral is getting closed down, but still is a loving and supporting father despite being left a tad embittered and bearing a somewhat fatalistic viewpoint over being on the verge of unemployment. His angry outburst seen in the trailer is entirely justified because he just bailed Casey out after she gets caught breaking into NASA and sabotaging the demolition efforts, and he plans to ground her for it.
- Southern-Fried Genius: He's a NASA engineer living in Florida played by Tim McGraw.
- Supernatural-Proof Father: Casey tries to convince her father that the pin is showing her another world but it doesn’t work on him, as it only make him think Casey was fooling around, prompting him to confiscate the pin from her, reprimand her and then seemingly ground her. Justified because Athena was earlier seen encoding it to Casey’s DNA.
Ursula Gernsback
Ursula Gernsback
Played by: Kathryn Hahn
- Meaningful Name: She's named after Ursula K. Le Guin, winner of multiple Hugo Awards.
Hugo Gernsback
Hugo Gernsback
Played by: Keegan-Michael Key
- Black Comedy: In the "Blast from the Past" shop, Hugo shoots the blaster into the ceiling to show Casey they're serious. A dead bird then falls out of the sky.
- Meaningful Name: Hugo, the robotic proprietor of the Blast to the Past store is named for Hugo Gernsback, creator of Amazing Stories and the namesake of the Hugo Awards.
Mr. Walker
Mr. Walker
Played by: Chris Bauer
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Frank's father, who says his attempt to build a jetpack is a waste of time.
Nate Newton
Nate Newton
Played by: Pierce Gagnon
- Alliterative Name: Nate Newton
- Product Placement: Can be seen using what looks like a PSP or PS Vita.
Dave Clark
Dave Clark
Played by: Matthew MacCaull
Jenny Newton
Jail Desk Jockey
