Escape From Tomorrow - Discussion (with Spoilers)

[lashbear]

Hello all !! Gee, haven't popped in here for a while !!

I have now watched Escape from tomorrow and there's a couple of things I wanted to note.

I'm putting the spoilers a little further down, so it doesn't show in the preview in the main list, but I will NOT be using spoiler tags due to the name of the thread. Forewarned is forearmed.

So after all that, the filmography was terrific. I thought the green screen was well integrated, and the whole thing looked like a totally sanctioned production.

The script confused me a couple of times.

**Here comes the spoiler**

Was the Hairball Hacking Vampy French Chick reality the real reality, or was the second family arriving to start the vacation all over again the real one? I think the scene under spaceship earth established that the first reality was the fantasy one, yes?

Also... Hairballs, Cat flu ?? WTF?

And... Huge LOLZ at the Prozzie Princesses. :D

I'll post more, but I gotta get to bed. It's 2:30am here. Still it was worth sitting up and watching, IMO.

[€uroMeinke]

I think that is left intentionally ambiguous. Is the second "Dad" perhaps a Seamins animatronic replacement? With a sexier wife?

[flippyshark]

Imagine my surprise at hearing my own voice in this movie! A little snippet of my Walt Disney Railroad spiel shows up masquerading as the People Mover spiel early on, when the dad and his son are riding the Tomorrowland Transit Authority in pursuit of the Parisian girls. That's at least two layers of unauthorized right there, but even the mouse doesn't give me a royalty on that, so I'll just enjoy the notoriety.

I found the mom and dad just too irritating to care about. (There is a way to write interesting bickering. This wasn't it.) The kids both did fine jobs in their roles. And it got more interesting to me as it grew weirder. I'm not sure any of it can be sorted out logically. And I immediately picked up my cats and told them they better not give me Cat Flu!

[lashbear]

I think that is left intentionally ambiguous. Is the second "Dad" perhaps a Seamins animatronic replacement? With a sexier wife?

Oooohh, I like that. :snap:

[lashbear]

And I was going to show it to the family on the big telly when.. whoops, Boobies.

[€uroMeinke]

So, I hit the other Disney message boards to see the reaction to this film from the Disney fan base. I figured hard core Disney fans would enjoy this film the most. I was surprised to see how many people were angry at the film maker for doing this project without Disney's approval and their general "sneakiness" about the making of this film. I guess this is a situation where I clearly lean anarchist.

[alphabassettgrrl]

I'm hoping I get a chance to see it. I'm not sure if I approve or not, but it's made, so I might as well see it if I can.

[lashbear]

Funny, I appreciated the film more for the fact that it had to be filmed clandestinely, and they did such a professional job of it. Maybe I'm leaning towards the anarchic view too... despite Disney's best attempts at mousewashing*.



*[disclaimer: I still cry at Disney movies.]

[Ghoulish Delight]

I heartily applaud the achievement. My overriding thought through it was that it was thoroughly cinematic. I can't think of a better complement to give the creators.

I've been seeing it repeated by we geeks that it was hard to concentrate on the story due to geeking out on the setting. For much of the film that worked in its favor. And not JUST because the story was a little-to-very lackluster and the distraction was welcome. For me, staring at the familiar backdrop with the dialog and action at the periphery of my attention triggered very vivid and very specific sense memories of being at the park, just idly enjoying the views, and catching snippets of people's Disney days - in particular those meltdown moments you can't help but glance towards and eaves drop on.

The reality/fantasy blurring was well balanced through most of it. But I think the ending threw that balance off. Wish they had kept the tone of the fantasy/nightmare on an even keel, leaving it completely ambiguous, allowing you to believe that either extreme (it was ALL in his head, or NONE of it was in his head) could be true. The Brazil ending kinda ruins that, takes away the "ALL in his head" option - it definitely says that SOMETHING out of the ordinary is going on. Even though they left what that SOMETHING is ambiguous it still shuts down an avenue of ambiguity.

[lashbear]

Do you think that the bathroom Cat flu scenario ruled out it was all in his head, given that we later see 'him' (or a very good AA of him) arriving as a guest again.

Someone said this is an allegory for how "all Disney Guests look the same to cast members of the hotels after a while". Not sure that was the intent, however.

I did like the Disney Hazmat team, with their cool calm handling of the clean-up, like they've done it hundreds of times before.

...and on the cinematography, it was a bit lush (and for me, mind boggling), to see 'crane shots' in there as well.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I was curious so I looked this up (http://www.metro.us/newyork/entertainment/movies-entertainment/2013/10/09/randy-moore-interview-film-escape-from-tomorrow/):
Once we got a distributor that’s when we started vetting the film to lawyers.

Is that why the name Disney is bleeped out in the dialogue?

Actually that’s in the Sundance version. And that was just more kind of a dark joke. We emphasized a few things more to make it obvious that we were parodying these corporations.I thought so. The idea that they would need to bleep the name Disney after showing everything else was silly. Interesting that music rights trump all else.

BTW the film was cut by 14 minutes since Sundance, and he's saying they weren't censorship, just tightening the narrative. Fourteen MORE minutes? That would be excruciating.

[Ghoulish Delight]

..given that we later see 'him' (or a very good AA of him) arriving as a guest again.


That's the part that closes the door on the "all in his head" angle. It made whatever the inside-spaceship-earth nonsense was talking about concrete - explicitly saying, "Yep, something weird is happening. He's not JUST in his own head losing his grip on himself."

Either he's real and the classy version we see at the end is some sort of replica or fantasy..or the classy guy at the end is real and the tool we see during the movie is some sort of alternate nightmare...or some other thing.

Honestly I haven't spent much energy trying to read into WHAT it meant because honestly I don't get the feeling the filmmakers put much energy into it themselves. I think their goal was to make it intractable and unsolvable and don't have an answer themselves. Which wouldn't have bugged me IF the ending didn't imply that there IS an answer. If they left it completely ambiguous, then I'm okay with them not having an answer in mind. But throwing on an extra layer of, "Ooh, look how weird an mindblowing THIS twist is," without anything coherent behind it just doesn't interest me.

I mean, that's all a bit of over-analysis for what it was - a cheesy story as an excuse for a ballsy and unique method of film making. So it doesn't really matter. I just felt like they actually were flirting with doing something with the fantasy/nightmare angle that was a little beyond the ordinary and predictable (even as the acting and dialog were pretty poor) and was disappointed that they undermined it in the end.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

The pull and push of the film is summed up in the Cat Flu thing. I enjoyed the nurse scene, with the cast member treating the kid exactly as you'd expect. The part where she breaks down about cat flu was funny and weird and unexpected and worked well. However when it came around in the end it made no sense, was beat to death in ok-we-get-it overly long sequence, and undermined the rest of the film.

This is a rare film, because I enjoyed it less than GD did. To be honest I think I couldn't let myself completely go because the whole "thinking with his dick" aspect totally put me off. I'm ok with that as a plot device but it was so endlessly repeated, allowing it to seem worse and worse. Perhaps once with a kid around, once from far away, once in a close encounter, once when you realize they're ridiculously young, and maybe even once more with them eating bananas, but they did it about twice as much as that. At least they made his wife every so slightly insufferable to counter balance a tiny bit.

[Ghoulish Delight]

To be clear, I make no defense of the "plot" and do not disagree about the over-done drawn out lecherousness. That part was pretty irretrievably bad.

[lashbear]

I agree it was too drawn out. As far as I can see, it was almost suggesting that the girls kept leading him along, glances back at him, that kind of thing, for the sole purpose of leading him to the Siemens chamber - thus her offer for him to go with them, and the obvious regretful alternative of infecting him with the cat flu when he rejected the idea, hence the security people having to forcibly bring him there instead.

Are they running around the park deliberately spreading the flu to guys if they don't succumb to Siemens? Is that their purpose?

Sorry if I sound like I'm analysing it too much, but I enjoy plot speculation as much as the geeking out at the location bit. :D

[Ghoulish Delight]

Speaking of draw out lecherousness, CP at some point asked, "Is this really what it's like to be a guy?" After a bit of thought I responded, "No...it's just what we fear it's like."

[€uroMeinke]

I don't know, seems reasonable for a sexually frustrated man struggling with monogamy. I have no doubt that one of the experiences the film maker drew from was navigating the park with his father pursuing hot age inappropriate foreign girls. Perhaps exaggerated a bit for cinematic effect, but that didn't force me to suspend my disbelief.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I have no doubt that one of the experiences the film maker drew from was navigating the park with his father pursuing hot age inappropriate foreign girls.Really?? Pretty horrifying on so many levels.

[€uroMeinke]

Eh, perhaps there's some cinematic exaggeration, but next time you're in the park, keep an eye on some of the dads

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Eh, perhaps there's some cinematic exaggeration, but next time you're in the park, keep an eye on some of the dadsSure, young girls catch the eye. They catch my eye. But actually following them? Seriously, diverting your course, so you can follow them?

Maybe I've been reading too much about our "rape culture" but the very concept of following them turns my stomach. Take out the spouse or child in tow, and you're still a grown man, following underage girls.

Sure, look. They want you to look. I'm fine with looking, always have been. But anything beyond that is crossing a line for me, unless you are an underage boy.

[Ghoulish Delight]

...but that didn't force me to suspend my disbelief.I didn't find it unbelievable, I just thought from a film pacing perspective they drove the point into the ground. Didn't need to see 15 scenes of him perving around, I got the idea after the first one.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Sure, look. They want you to look. I'm fine with looking, always have been. But anything beyond that is crossing a line for me, unless you are an underage boy.

That's where my "what we fear we're like" read comes in. The question of when does "looking" become "leering" is never far from the mind.