So, the new ‘Tomorrowland’ Trailer. It’s very… Bob Heinlein.

A bit less Disney’s Atlas Shrugged than the first teaser suggested.

On the other hand, there are proper spaceships that go up on a pillar of fire, and come down on a pillar of fire, as God and Bob Heinlein intended*.  In fact, the entire thing looks pretty damned Heinleinian, mid-Campbell era: heroic engineers, technophilia, and the primacy of competence. Whether it also shares in Heinlein’s characteristic optimism remains to be seen. I certainly hope that they can manage the trick.

Also: giant fighting robots. They really should have put that in the first trailer.

Moe Lane

PS: One last note: if this movie ends with Britt Robertson in a Disney Princess of the Spaceways dress I am going to laugh until I risk an aneurysm.

*I forget where I heard that first. [UPDATE: It is a paraphrase of a line from Mindscan by Robert J. Sawyer, which I actually don’t think that I’ve read.]

11 thoughts on “So, the new ‘Tomorrowland’ Trailer. It’s very… Bob Heinlein.”

  1. I think that a sci-fi movie set in the Traveller universe would be very interesting to see.

    “This is the story of the trader “March Harrier” as its crew tries to make the most of their free time off-payment, and finds something they never thought they would find….”

  2. “…the primacy of competence…”

    As I get older I find myself marveling more and more when simple competence is displayed.

  3. “A city where the best and the brightest came together to make a difference…”? Sounds darned optimistic to me.
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    I dig the secret-clawfoot-bathtub-escape-pod though.

    1. Sounds like a recipe for high-energy squabbles in the city council meetings. The kind of squabbles where the motion to vote funding to repair of the central swimming pool is lost as each group uses the stage to preen.
      Sort of like San Francisco – or the Senate of the Galactic Republic.
      (I swear, Episode One had me converted to supporting the Empire. Yeah, there’s a reason Octavian Caesar had a lot of support.)

  4. The “as God and Robert Heinlein intended” quote is from Jerry Pournelle, dating back to the DC-X program in the early nineties. The earliest ref I can find on a quick search is from ’96, here: http://articles.philly.com/1996-08-12/news/25643631_1_manned-mission-dc-xa-manned-expedition

    It’s possible G. Harry Stine said it first, in the late-eighties meetings (CACNSP) that led to DC-X – my memory for details isn’t the best that far back – but Jerry also may have come up with it, and he definitely popularized it in public.

  5. Remember, Heinlein and Walt were almost the same generation and cultural background. While Heinlein was consulting on on a movie about going to the moon, Walt was planning a ride that simulated it.

    Some of that spirit still lives in WED and the Imagineers. When “Mission Space” opened at WDW, the obligatory gift shop stocked classic sci fi — and the ride itself is right out of a Heinlein juvenile.

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