We are planning on taking a family outing to the movies over Memorial Day weekend to see the new SciFi themed movie #Tomorrowland which hits theaters in the United States on Friday, May 23, 2015. This movie is aimed to be family viewing experience with a PG rating that is being marketed as a story that will entertain both kids from 6 to 16 plus the parents that take them to the show. From viewing the trailers, the movie seems very much in the same vein as Back to the Future, E.T., Flight of the Navigator, National Treasure, and The Karate Kid which were all fun live action adventures that parents could feel comfortable taking their children together for an entertaining time out for the whole family. Hopefully Tomorrowland will live up to this billing and be a hit with our family.
Taking a cue from the Pirate of the Caribbean movies, Tomorrowland is loosely themed on a Disney theme park attraction but that is more inspiration than actually incorporated into the movie. It is the story of a brilliant but disillusioned teen named Casey who has been stirring up trouble over her angst about the down-sizing of NASA and the closing of the installation her father worked at. Her actions lead her to getting arrested and when she is released from a police department holding cell, Casey finds a mysterious pin included in her possession that when she touches it cause her to have visions of a futuristic world.
Casey wonders if these visions are a "real place" someplace in time or space and begins a search to find out more. This leads her to a former boy genius named Frank who is all grown up now and played by George Clooney. It appears as a youth, Frank was invited to Tomorrowland but did something to get himself kicked out and access to the wonderland by others from Earth shut down. Now fearing Clooney's character will return and cause havoc the leader of Tomorrowland begins hunting down Casey and Frank with his robotic henchmen. Where is Tomorrowland, will Casey and Frank get there, and what will they find there? We'll all have to go see the movie to find out!
Walt Disney Studios provided A Geek Daddy blog with some amusing Tomorrowland activity sheets to share with our readers that could be put to good use over the summer as a distraction during a lazy summer day or while traveling for a family vacation. We have some activities, mazes and coloring sheets you can scroll through to select, download and print out.
These paper fortune teller games bring back memories of third and fourth grade when everyone in my class would screw around and waste time in class - so maybe summer is just the right time to play around with these.
Who is ready for a jet pack balloon race?
I enjoy doing mazes like these almost as much as my kids do. My wife and children often tease me for looking forward to completing them on the kids' restaurant place mats when we go out to eat.
Can you spot the difference in these scenes?
Enjoy these free coloring pages! I wonder if coloring book publishers are suffering from all the free coloring pages you can find online now. We post a lot of them on various posts for A GEEK DADDY blog make sure to come back and keep an eye out for them if that is something you are interested in.
Here are some fun facts Walt Disney Studios also shared with us about Tomorrowland that like me, you'll probably understand more after you've seen the movie:
When the concept of 'Tomorrowland' was just percolating in writer/producer Damon Lindelof's mind, Sean Bailey, president of production at Disney told him about a box that had been discovered accidentally in a closet at the studio. The 'mystery box' contained all sorts of fascinating models and blueprints, photographs and letters seemingly related to the inception of Tomorrowland and the 1964 World's Fair.
For the 1964 World's Fair, the Walt Disney Company created four attractions - 'It's a small world,'' Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln,' 'The Carousel Theater of Progress' and 'Ford's Magic Skyway.' The 'It's a small world' ride is the one that people remember the most. It is quaint by today's standards, but back in 1964, it was revolutionary in how it used robotics and ride technology to create a thematically rich experience.
In recreating the 1964 World's Fair for 'Tomorrowland,' filmmakers were lucky to find that one of the iconic pieces, the Unisphere, was actually in Flushing Meadows, New York, standing outside of the USTA National Tennis Center. The huge globe's fountains are still in place as well as the gardens. The filmmakers dispatched a photographer to New York to take photos so that they could use the real images as a composite element in the scenes.
When it came to creating a city built by visionaries with advanced technologies, filmmakers knew it had to look like one and finding such a place was not an easy task. At first it seemed as though the whole of Tomorrowland would have to be built from scratch, an expensive and time-consuming proposition. But then in a series of wonderful coincidences, Tom Peitzman, the visual effects producer and the film's co-producer, stumbled upon a car commercial early on in production; the location in the commercial looked so futuristic that he recorded the ad on his phone and brought it to director Brad Bird. The location turned out to be the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain, and was designed by Santiago Calatrava whose work was already serving as an inspiration for production designer Scott Chambliss. The discovery also dovetailed with director Brad Bird's preference for physical locations over virtual sets
For the filmmakers, the bizarre memorabilia emporium, Blast From the Past, was a fun - and nostalgic - set to create. Set decorator Lin MacDonald spent months curating the extensive display of collectibles, consisting of thousands of pieces, both purchased and manufactured by the production, and many originals - some from Brad Bird's own collection. There are shelves and shelves of comic books and items such as classic sci-fi movie posters, an original Luke Skywalker action figure from the 1970s, and even items from 'Space 1999.' The production design team literally built a store and set it in the middle of a sound stage.
Designed by illustrator Tim Flattery of 'Men in Black' fame, the plasma ray guns used in the comic-book store scene feature interactive light that spills out into the environment, adding to their air of authenticity. The guns were built with a very small but powerful wireless battery pack that fits on the end. Upon the actor hitting the trigger, the gun throws interactive light out the front. When the 'plasma' is empty, a red light goes on and, as the gun recharges, the lights turn blue again.
The Bridgeway Plaza took six months to build and was about half the size of a football field. The set was so enormous that no sound stage existed that could house it and considerable height was also required for the intended aerial work above the set and for the cranes big enough to hold the lights required to illuminate the set. Adding to the complexity was the fact that the set had to serve different time periods over the course of the script: 1964, when young Frank first visits; 1984, the period in Casey's pin-induced vision; and 2014, when the remainder of the story takes place. This required six-week intervals between shoots to allow the production design crew time to redress and alter the set for each time period.
The film started principal photography on a farm in Pincher Creek, Alberta, where the filmmakers paid a farmer to grow winter wheat that had a particular shade of amber - director Brad Bird's vision of rural perfection. Then the crew moved to a farm in Enderby, in British Columbia's Okanagan, to shoot the Walker farm and its cornfields, also grown specifically for the production.
In addition to sets in Spain and Canada, locations included the 'It's a small world' ride at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, Calif., a beach in the Bahamas and a second-unit shoot in Paris. In total, the film had over 90 different combinations of sets and locations, and moved ten times.
If you are looking for an intellectual stimulating movie that will be a contender for Best Picture at the Oscars than Tomorrowland most likely won't be your cup of tea, but if you are looking for a movie that your whole family can just sit back and enjoy a fun adventure while scarfing down some popcorn I have a pretty good feeling this will be a good movie to enjoy during your kids' summer break.