How invested are you ready to get in Brad Bird's Tomorrowland? The super-secretive project from the director of The Incredibles and Mission: Impossible-- Ghost Protocol is still doing its best to keep its details under wraps, but if you want to learn more about it-- and its connections to the Disneyland attraction of the same name-- the Internet has given you a way to do it. But be warned: you're gonna have to work for it.
An elaborate online scavenger hunt/game that only seems to be getting more elaborate by the day kicks off at The Optimist, which gives us the brief back story of "Walter Elias Disney" and his team of Imagineers then introduces us to Amelia, the young filmmaker at the center of the game, who has stumbled upon "a revolutionary secret." At her website, Story Orbit, you can follow her as she digs into a box of papers that belonged to her grandfather, a writer who was apparently involved with building Disneyland in its earlier days. Over the course of her hunt "Amelia" has come in contact with other Disney historians including Wallace, a cartographer who makes maps of Disneyland's past. What you see above is a map that Wallace made of Tomorrowland, which Amelia is investigating for clues-- like patent numbers at certain ride locations-- that are helping her figure out how her grandfather was involved in the building of Disneyland.
If you want to catch up on the digging that Amelia has been doing, this recent post is a good place to start. You can also get way, way more involved by following both Amelia and Wallace on Twitter. The best hint as to where this is all leading comes from Wallace, who is promising his presence at the D23 Expo in early August:
For those of you who want to meet me in person and talk about my work, swap Disney trivia or just say ‘hello,’ I’m going to be at the D23 Expo this August!Just before the Expo, I’ll be holding a live chat to talk art, D23 Expo, memories of the World’s Fair, visions of the future, and, well, anything you want to talk about! I’ll be tweeting out a link the day of the chat so you can ask questions ahead of time. I may even have a surprise for you.The live chat will be at:6:30 p.m. PSTAugust 6th, 2013.
The D23 Expo, which is essentially Disney's answer to Comic-Con, kicks off August 9, so "Wallace's" live chat could give a nice preview of what Tomorrowland has in store there. And while "Amelia" and her giant box of artifacts may not be specifically part of the movie's plot, the image that Bird tweeted earlier this year looks a whole lot like the box that Amelia is digging through, so there could be a lot more details in there than you'd imagine. On top of that, Britt Robertson was recently cast as Tomorrowland's female lead, "a high school girl with an unconventional understand of technology, launched on a journey to reclaim her future." That doesn't exactly sound like Amelia… but who knows? Is there a connection between the two characters we can't see yet?
Sure, the main draw at D23 is probably going to be whatever they have up their sleeve about Star Wars: Episode VII. But keep an eye on Tomorrowland. With this game they're building up a legion of devoted fans already, and they won't be the only ones curious to see this mystery box open up. D23 will just be a tease, of course-- production hasn't even started-- but all will be revealed when Tomorrowland hits theaters December 12 next year.
