Plus Ultra's cancelled 1984 reveal would have taken place at Epcot Center
Ties to Disney aside, Plus Ultra member Ray Bradbury was involved in various attractions at the park such as Spaceship Earth and the original concept for the Space pavilion. However, another attraction would function in the same manner as Small World did in 1964: Horizons.A celebration of the brand of futurism Plus Ultra represented as a whole, and very much in the spirit of rides about the future Plus Ultra backed in the 30s, the attraction's queue starts in a location known as the Futureport and the ride's opening lines of "Next Stop: The 21st Century!" bring to mind the "Next Stop: Tomorrow" station sign hidden beneath Small World. The suspended vehicle design facing inward could make dropping guests through to a hidden portal room a little more discreet. When the attraction was torn down years later, the story about a sinkhole was actually a cover for Plus Ultra's efforts to destroy the gateway beneath the pavilion. This movie was derived from a Genius: The Transgression campaign.
It has all the elements: Tomorrowland itself is a bardo, all the Genius tropes show up... This movie is propaganda from the future.
It was created by the citizens of a dystopia in the future with the intention of convincing people to be hopeful so the world they live in wouldn't be created. Other members of Plus Ultra included:
- Alan Turing: a computer scientist and cryptologist who broke the Enigma code in WWII, he was one of the early pioneers in artificial intelligence research. After being found guilty of being gay and sentenced to chemical castration, Plus Ultra decided to not let his genius end in a world where he had gone as far as he could. They took him and faked his death from cyanide poisoning. After taking him to Tomorrowland, they treated him for the castration and once he was well, Turing went back to work on artificial intelligence. Within a few years, he made the breakthroughs necessary that made Athena possible.
- Gene Roddenberry: His show Star Trek: The Original Series was an optimistic portrayal of the future, something that Tomorrowland supported to the point of naming their initial space vessel Enterprise. However, by the 70s, Gene, in his frustration over trying to get the show back, came into creative differences with Plus Ultra and eventually was exiled.
- George Lucas: Star Wars is a futuristic story that claims that a group of idealistic underdogs will overcome their corrupt overlords and that Rousseau was right. Indiana Jones is about an Adventure Archaeologist who seeks truth and knowledge and fights the anti-intellectual Nazis working for their own gain. Seems like the kind of stories Plus Ultra would promote. Note
- If we can go ahead and claim that the organization is older than we have been led to believe, then throw in Galileo, Leonardo, Archimedes, most graduates of the Museum of Alexandria, etc.
The test that Casey scored a 74% percent on according to Athena measured optimism and determination.
- The movie never specifically mentions what it measures, but says Casey scored 74% and Frank's score was in the fifties. If they're looking for dreamers, it would make sense that the test measured those qualities.
Frank and Casey used some of Tomorrowland's supertech to solve the worst of earth's problems.
- Shutting down the broadcast removed some of earth's problems, but wouldn't have prevented the environmental damage. The supertech from Tomorrowland was used for the rest, but with only two months, they could only use it on the worst of the problems, and only to buy themselves time.
In parallel universes, Andrew Ryan and Father Zachary Comstock were members of Plus Ultra
Can there be any doubt? Rounding up the chosen ones, promising them a place in a new world modeled on your futuristic technology and outlook... it all fits! Hell, Comstock's city of Columbia even debuted during a World's Expo, and where did the first Plus Ultra members meet? Tomorrowland takes place in the same universe as The Rocketeer and Hugo.
They're all ideologically compatible. Plus, we know from Tomorrowland promotional materials that Howard Hughes (who invents a jet pack in The Rocketeer) was a member of Plus Ultra, and Tomorowland the film establishes that Paris is a traditional hub of Plus Ultra activity. Ray Bradbury met Governor Nix in a Tomorrowland cafe one day...
And had an epic argument with him over the usefulness and validity of dystopian fiction. (Bradbury for it, Nix against it, of course). Bradbury kicked Nix's butt in the debate and got banished from Tomorrowland.- Bradbury would later write "The Toynbee Convector", inspired by his time in Tomorrowland, about a tech-industry multi-millionaire who showed the world a vision of a bright future which he claimed to witness via a time machine he had invented. Later in the story, after his vision of the future had become reality, he revealed that he made up the whole time-travel story to give the world a goal to aspire to. Essentially the opposite of what Nix tried, and failed, to do.
Tommorowland is unintentionally hurting the Earth through a Brain Drain.
By recruiting the best and brightest away from Earth, Plus Ultra has prevented them from solving Earth's problems.- Debatable; For centuries, we have debated the relative contributions of nature and nurture in the creation of human potential. The horror of the 'nature' argument: What if Einstein had been born in a gutter in Calcutta? The horror of the 'nurture' arguement: for lack of the proper environment and training, our jails and ghettos are filled with Mozarts, Jim Thorpes, Sun-tzus, Joans of Arc. But either way, potential is wasted outside of an environment where it can develop. Tomorrowland is a place where the best and brightest can develop their potential freely, so it's unlikely its recruits would have been even a fraction as successful on Earth.
- Well, there's another facet of this problem. Potential needs an occasion to become reality. Creative people can't solve problems they're being kept away from, in an ivory tower where nothing they make really changes a thing. They'd turn cynical or hedonistic, see Nix.
The Disaster depicted in the film was caused by the confrontations between the United States and North Korea.
because of the loss of the signal from the Monitor was causing everyone in charge to move towards the disaster