There isn’t a ton of movie news planned for New York Comic Con, but we were lucky to attend to the Tomorrowland panel; and we were greeted with quite a surprise. We were first introduced by director Brad Bird and writer Damon Lindelof. Moderator, Chris Hardwicke, grilled the two of them for information about the film; but he was mostly met with more misinformation and veiled answers.

tomorrowland-george-clooneyLindelof does most of the talking and explains that they wanted a Close Encounters of the Third Kind vibe. He spoke with Jeff Jensen from Entertainment Weekly to do research on Walt Disney‘s mysterious Tomorrowland box and ideas of the famed futurist.

Shortly after Lindelof explains his ideas for the film, him and Bird are joined by co-stars in the film: Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie and Raffey Cassidy. The three of them gave more coy answers, stating that Disney and Brad Bird would have them whipped if they said more. What they did do, was show off the first teaser.

Shortly after that, Laurie went on to talk about how much George Clooney was a pain to work with. He was constantly yelling on the set and you could tell Laurie was having a good time with it. A minute into Laurie going on about it, Clooney himself came out to an uproarious applause. Clooney explained that he didn’t care that the studio wanted him to keep quiet, he was
going to give us more footage. A description is below.

  • In the teaser you see a glimpse of Clooney as Fred Walker. Britt Robertson’s character, Casey, goes to visit Walker to ask him about Tomorrowland. She feels the need to go back.
  • Walker will not answer his door, and in fact does all that he can to keep her away. He has cameras all around his creepy house and when Casey knocks on the door, she is flung back by a powerful force.
  • She is not thwarted by Walker and sends a flaming tractor after his house as a way to distract him from leaving his house. He unlocks around 10 locks, clearly a recluse.
  • As he grabs a wacky fire extinguisher that is in fact an freeze gun, he bolts out and engulfs the flaming tractor in ice. Unbeknownst to him, Casey has snuck into his house. He turns to go back into his house and Casey slams the door in the face.
  • She explores his house and sees a room filled with televisions depicted tragedies around the globe. As she’s watching, Fred sneaks back into the house through a hidden basement door.
  • He’s about to throw her out of the house, when they notice a smiling man with a space gun on the camera. He calls out to Fred and tells him that he’s harboring a fugitive and to give her up.
  • This causes Fred to jump into action and he grabs Casey to have the two of them lock down the house. As he’s closing a metal door, it gets stopped by a foot. The metal door keeps slamming on the foot, and we can tell it’s being stopped by a robot
  • The footage takes off from there as a bunch of androids with ray guns bust into the house and attack Casey and Fred.
  • Fred fights with an attacker and struggles for him to be pushed into a Portal. Yes, THE PORTAL from PORTAL. He can’t quite push him in and Casey grabs the Portal machine and puts it over half of the android’s body.
  • Fred and Casey head upstairs and Fred activates a button on the wall. It magnetizes the wall and an android gets stuck to it. So does a hand that’s wrapped around Casey’s body from the Portal fight. Fred frees her and they make their way to the bath tub
  • As they enter the bath tub, an android gets on it and starts attacking them. Fred activates another button and a cover encases the tub, and the android is stuck on top of it. Finally, the tub then rockets out of the top of the house and jettisons the android from the top and the two escape. End Footage.

pics via Entertainment Weekly and me.

tomorrowland book
I’ve loved Brad Bird since Iron Giant and continued with him from his other animated films to his first feature, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. I’ve only seen 6 or so minutes of Tomorrowland; but what I saw was enough to convince me this will be Birds best movie.

Attendees of the panel received a free preview of the Tomorrowland book that comes out in April 2015. They also received the mysterious Tomorrowland pin that is rumored to contain properties of scientific proportions that could change the very fabric of time and space. The film opens on May 22nd, 2015.

tomorrowland pin