To celebrate the release of Tomorrowland, let's take a look at the many Easter Eggs
and references in Disney's live-action adventure movie.
Writer and director Brad Bird may have turned down the opportunity to direct Star Wars Episode
VII because it clashed with his schedule for making Tomorrowland, but he still managed
to include several Star Wars easter eggs in his movie.
As Star Wars fans know, those movies have a little thing for chopping characters arms
or hands off!
So, in a nod to Star Wars, Tomorrowland shows George Clooney's character, Frank, chopping
off the hand of one of the baddies who's attacking Britt Robertson's character Casey in Frank's
home.
And there are tons of other Star Wars nods in the movie too in the Blast From The Past
store.
When Keegan-Michael Key's character, Hugo, makes his dramatic entrance, you can hear
John Williams' Star Wars theme!
There's a life-size replica of Han Solo in carbonite from The Empire Strikes Back.
There's a poster of Yoda on the wall.
And there's also a Yoda head on a shelf by the life-size Stormtrooper.
There's also what looks like an All-Terrain Scout Transport on the shelf.
And there's an R2-D2.
And did you notice the Millennium Falcon, the various TIE fighters hanging from the
ceiling, and what looks like a Death Star?
And check out that photo of C3PO & R2-D2.
And let's not forget the bunch of light sabers on the wall, the Stormtrooper helmet, & Darth
Vader helmet on the shelf, and the illuminated sign that says Star Wars: The Empire Strikes
Back.
Plus there's a brass lightsaber.
And there's a Stormtrooper figure on the shelf.
And then of course there's all those Star Wars comic books.
And check out Kathryn Hahn's hair in the movie!
As Ursula Gernsback, she sports Princess Leia-style buns on the side of her head!
When the movie's art department designed the 1984 version of the jet pack we see in Tomorrowland,
they were influenced by Star Wars, particularly in its shiny, white metallic finish, which
was inspired by Storm Troopers.
Of course, there's a wealth of other Disney easter eggs and references too.
There's a photo of Walt Disney, who created the Tomorrowland section of Disneyland in
1955.
And if you look carefully there are a few Mickey Mouses hidden about the Blast From
The Past store.
Plus there's an album cover from the soundtrack of Disney's sci-fi movie from 1979, The Black
Hole!
When Tomorrowland opened it had on show the sets of the Nautilus from Disney's live-action
sci-fi movie 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, which was released in 1954 and was based on
Jules Verne's 19th-century novel of the same name.
Which is interesting because the look of the rocket ship in the movie Tomorrowland was
inspired by the design of the Nautilus submarine from the movie 20,000 Leagues.
And, if you look carefully, you can see a 1965 vinyl record of “Jonny Quest in 20,000
Leagues Under The Sea” in the Blast From The Past store.
And there's lots of Jonny Quest collectibles including a Questworld Cyber Copter.
Jonny Quest was an animated sci-fi series from Hanna-Barbera that started in the mid-60s
and followed a boy's adventures with his scientist father.
During the World's Fair in the movie, you can spot The White Rabbit from Disney's 1951
film Alice In Wonderland and the Big Bad Wolf from Disney's short film Three Little Pigs,
which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film in 1934.
Among the stuff Casey gets back from the local police is a pack of Beeman's gum, which is
a nod to The Right Stuff, an early 80s movie about military test pilots in America's first
efforts at manned spaceflight.
In The Right Stuff, pilot Chuck Yeager asks for some Beeman's gum before a flight.
The same gum also saved the day in the plot of 1991 Disney movie The Rocketeer, which
brought to life the jet-packed superhero created by comic book artist Dave Stevens.
When Casey tells Frank that she knows how gadgets and things work, Frank replies, ‘Well,
zip-a-dee-doo for you.'
That's a reference to the song Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah which featured in Disney's live-action and
animated film Song Of The South and won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1947.
Tomorrowland features Disneyland's It's A Small World ride, which, in the movie, acts
as a portal that takes a young Frank to the futuristic city of Tomorrowland.
The ride was created especially for the 1964 World's Fair in New York and is made up of
animatronic dolls representing the children of the world.
The ride's accompanying song It's A Small World (After All) was written by Robert and
Richard Sherman, who wrote many movie scores including Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang
Bang.
The song's optimistic theme of world peace and international unity was a response to
the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In the movie, as well as It's A Small World (After All), you can also hear the brothers'
song There's A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow, which they wrote for Disney's Carousel of
Progress attraction at the 1964 World's Fair!
As well as writing the score for Tomorrowland, composer Michael Giacchino also makes a cameo
appearance as the operator of the It's A Small Word ride at the 1964 World Fair.
Giacchino also composed the music for Tomorrowland director Brad Bird's movies Ratatouille, The
Incredibles and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.
It's interesting that it's a pin that takes Casey to the city of Tomorrowland as Disney's
theme parks have long sold collectible pins, and the tradition of Disney Pin Trading has
been around since Disney World's Millennium Celebration in late 1999.
For the Tomorrowland pin, the movie's design team used the orange and blue colours of the
1964 World's Fair.
According to director Brad Bird, they wanted something that felt a bit retro but also classic,
and they used the universal symbol of the atom like a rising sun in the background.
As for the letter T, they tweaked it a bit to make it look like a jet pack that's blasting
off.
Among the buildings we see on the skyline of the city of Tomorrowland is Space Mountain,
the popular ride that opened in 1975 in the Tomorrowland section of the Magic Kingdom
theme park in Florida's Disney World.
There's also a bunch of references to the work of Tomorrowland director Brad Bird and
Pixar.
So, there's a Bart Simpson doll hanging from the shelf in the Blast From The Past store.
Bird was executive consultant on The Simpsons for many years and directed several episodes
as well as the music video Do The Bartman.
Which is interesting because the Bart doll in Tomorrowland is wearing the purple mask
of his alter-ego, The Bartman!
Other Simpsons easter eggs include: a plush toy of the show's comic book superhero
Radioactive Man, whose catchphrase is ‘Up and atom!'
and a figure of The Collector, who's the villainous alter-ego of Comic Book Guy and appeared in
Season 11's Treehouse of Horror X.
Brad Bird directed an animated feature film called The Iron Giant, which is about a young
boy and a robot in the 1950s.
And there's a whole host of The Iron Giant collectibles, including figures and artwork,
in the Blast From The Past store.
Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots is a boxing robots game created in the mid-60s.
It features a Red Rocker and a Blue Bomber and the idea is for the players to knock the
other robot's head loose!
The Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em robots have a speaking cameo in Pixar's Toy Story 2, and can also
be seen among Bob Parr, aka Mr Incredible's things in The Incredibles, which was written
and directed by Tomorrowland director Brad Bird!
And there's loads of other pop culture goodies around the Blast From The Past store too.
And scattered throughout the store there's more geeky goodies.
Keegan-Michael Key and Kathryn Hahn play Hugo and Ursula Gernsback.
The name of Key's character is a nod to publisher Hugo Gernsback who launched Amazing Stories
in 1926, which was the first magazine devoted to science fiction.
There was actually a 1920s copy of Amazing Stories in the box labelled 1952 which was
discovered in the Disney archive and sparked the idea for the movie Tomorrowland.
Interestingly enough, Brad Bird's movie The Incredibles featured in a much later edition
of Amazing Stories!
There's a lot of Marvin the Martian collectibles, including toys, a snow globe, folder, and
cups on the counter and the shelves.
And from The Day The Earth Stood Still there's a life-size version of the robot Gort.
Toy Story 2's Darth Vader-esque evil emperor Zurg, who's Buzz Lightyear's arch-enemy, also
puts in an appearance in the store.
Plus there's a Strobot Robot 3000, a 1980s walking robot with flashing red eyes and laser.
And there's a Chief Robotman, a popular Japanese robot from Yoshiya in the 1960s.
Another robot, this time from the 50s, is the wind-up Space Robot, Sparky, who walks
and sparks from his mouth!
Plus there's the Lilliput Robot, which is considered the first tin toy robot made in
late 1930s Japan.
There's a nod to Marvel with the Spider-Man box that you can make out behind the Chief
Robotman toy in front of it.
Also on the counter we see Omnibot a small personal robot made in the 1980s, that had
a cassette player, digital clock, the ability to carry objects including a tray, and much
more!
Thanks to a T-shirt in the shop there's a nod to Flash Gordon, who was the hero of a
sci-fi comic strip created by artist Alex Raymond in the 1930s, and the star of a movie
serial, various live-action and animated TV series, and, of course, the cult 1980 movie
Flash Gordon.
There's a poster for the sci-fi horror movie Dr Cyclops, about a mad scientist in the Amazon
Jungle who shrinks his colleagues.
The film was directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and released in 1940.
Schoedsack also co-directed, with Merian C Cooper, the 1933 movie King Kong, which you
can see a figure of on the counter.
Now what other easter eggs and references did you spot in Tomorrowland?
Let me know in the comments below!
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Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!