Escape From Tomorrow - Discussion (with Spoilers)
 

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.

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

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!

Oooohh, I like that. :snap:

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

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.

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.]

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.

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.