Tomorrowland : Atlas Shrugged reimagined by Mickey Mouse

Tomorrowland: 'Atlas Shrugged reimagined by Mickey Mouse'Is director Brad Bird's film an "insidiously political" argument for the value of individual achievement?


Charles Paul Freund | May 27, 2015


Spritz


Walt Disney PicturesBrad Bird's Tomorrowland is "the most insidiously political blockbuster ever made," writes Barry Hertz at Toronto's Globe and Mail. Like Ayn Rand, Hertz argues, director Bird "pines for worlds where incredible people can be free to do incredible things, and to hell with everyone else."


This is a theme that some of Bird's critics have been pursuing for years: The New York Times evoked Rand when it reviewed The Incredibles in 2004. The Guardianthought that film's message—"powerful people must not be held back by the mediocre masses," according to the paper—was more out of Nietzsche than Rand. As for critic Hertz, he believes that all of Bird's films have projected an "Objectivist message," one that has "allowed him to build an IMDb profile that would make Ayn Rand blush."

The Iron Giant (1999)? "On the surface, it's a charming cartoon about a boy and his alien robot. Yet the film spends an awful lot of time and energy developing a deep mistrust of government forces, especially military bureaucrats whose sole purpose is to destroy  something they don't understand, something spectacular."

The Incredibles (2004)? "Here, an ungrateful (i.e. complacent, average, worthless) public bands together to force superbeings into a life of mediocrity, so terrified are they of anything powerful or special. The film's villain, who embraces envy as much as Rand rejected it, also has a half-cocked scheme to mass-produce superpowered weapons, laying out Bird's guiding philosophy in one tidy pull quote: 'When everyone's super, no one will be.'"

Ratatouille (2007)? That film "employed lush speeches on the importance of elitism and the dangers of complacency, albeit speeches delivered by a talking rat." Hertz could have done better than that: ex-reason staffer Julian Sanchez wrote in 2007 that "Ratatouille is essentially an animated version of The Fountainhead, except that cooking replaces architecture, Ellsworth Toohey eventually has a Grinchian change of heart, and Howard Roark is a rodent."

Hertz writes that Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol (2011) doesn't really count, since Bird didn't write the script. Still, he asks, "isn't Tom Cruise's superspy, Ethan Hunt, just an ass-kicking John Galt?"

As for the new film, Hertz characterizes it this way: "Tomorrowland was constructed by the world's 'best and brightest,' who were able to realize their visions only by being 'free from government, bureaucracy' and other forces of mediocrity that would quash the gifts of the exceptional."

Bird dismisses the Rand comparisons as "ridiculous" whenever he's asked. "I'm definitely a centrist and feel like both parties can be absurd." Hertz includes the denial in his essay, but he's not buying it. "One or two ideological slips are easy to brush off," he writes, "but with Tomorrowland, Bird has produced four unmistakably Objectivist tracts. There are coincidences, and then there's proselytizing.

Sillje - You find the most interesting articles. Thanks.

It seems to me the critics are over-thinking this movie (and maybe taking the opportunity to show off a little -"Look how smart I am. I know who Ayn Rand is!") The adults who do understand this argument have already taken sides a long time ago. lIMO. the target audience for this movie is kids and they wouldn't know Ayn Rand or her elitist philosophy if it walked up and bit them.

What they will take away from this film is the challenge to make their world a better place and the idea that they are responsible for the future. Whatever Bird's political philosophy, that's not a bad thing.

HaHaHaHaHaHa!!!!

With this, it is official that the critics have officially gone from straining for flaws to losing their fucking minds.

'Atlas Shrugged.' That's hilarious. "Look at me! I'm the misunderstood and secretly intellectual loner ninth grader."

Absolutely agree Lizzy.  And just to follow up on your point about critics.  There are some who come across as so smug and arrogant when they review movies and especially if it's a negative review.

My 13yo daughter and her friends saw Tomorrowland and really liked it.  (I couldn't go..had to work).  I for one, was happy that it wasn't another dystopian movie theme, which are all the rage now.  I really hate those kinds of movies.

Well, this is what we get when a Washington blogger and The Atlantic magazine contributor (possibly no children?) reviews a film from Disney............

Idg, I highly recommend the film. If you find some free time, be sure to check this out in a theater.