Tomorrowland is a the titular setting of the Disney Parks, "Land" of the same name. It has also appeared in many adaptations in other media, typically in different continuities. Tomorrowland is an idyllic utopia of technological and society innovation. Unlike most of the anachronistic lands in Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom parks, Tomorrowland is often treated as a diegetic location within the stories of its attractions.
Tomorrowland is a futuristic settlement located somewhere in California and might be the successor of Discovery Landing or Discoveryland, a similar settlement from the 19th/early 20th century located in Paris, France. Tomorrowland also might have been connected to the launching of the USS Nautilus in 1954 and its voyage to the North Pole in 1958, potentially connecting to its own Submarine Lagoon. It is also possible that Tomorrowland had connections to the 1964 World's Fair where Walt Disney displayed the Carousel of Progress, an attraction of robotic beings which would be moved to Tomorrowland.
When Tomorrowland first opened it was set in the distant-future of 1986; a date chosen due to it marking the return of Haley's Comet. By the 1980s, several different groups innovated a variety of sciences within. Of these was Professor Tom Morrow of Moonliner Flight Systems, a scientist who worked ground-control for launching the spaceship Moonliner to space. The organization Snowflake EFX Ltd. used a, "Mighty Microscope" to shrink specialized Atommobile vehicles for adventures thru inner space. Tomorrowland also accrued a fleet of nuclear submarines kept within Submarine Lagoon that made their own voyages to the North Pole and even the ruins of Atlantis.
A satellite orbiting the Earth known as the Space Station X-1 was also seemingly connected to Tomorrowland. Tomorrowland would be connected to the rest of the world via a monorail and the Disneyland Railroad, a train-service run by Walt Disney. Early features of Tomorrowland included the, "House of the Future" and the, "World Clock". This early Tomorrowland also is seemingly referenced as having been connected to the characters of Sam the Eagle and Ollie the Owl, two American anthropomorphic birds of unknown origin but who may have hosted musical revues in Tomorrowland.
Expansion[]
Tomorrowland had an apparent affiliation with another futuristic society which was Walt Disney's Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow also known as Progress City or EPCOT. The Tomorrowland attraction of robots, "The Carousel of Progress" and later Tomorrowland Metro Retro Historical Society would display models of EPCOT. Both EPCOT and Tomorrowland hosted the organization known as the Imagination Institute and a robotic successor to Tom Morrow called Tom Morrow 2.0 would become an EPCOT figure.
Professor Tom Morrow himself would make an apparent change from being a human to a robotic being. At some point, Moonliner Flight Systems achieved "Hyperspace penetration" used to make hyper-spacial travel to other planets such as Mars. These flights were overseen by one Mister Johnson in the place of Tom Morrow. One of these flights narrowly averted catastrophe during a crash on Olympus Mons. However, the Moonliner would eventually be considered to be an, "Antique" rocket with minimized usage, instead being used as a show-piece for businesses like Pizza Planet.
Tomorrowland's interstellar-travel instead shifted onto TLSpace Station 77 and Starport Seven-Five, two massive space-stations known as, "Space Mountain". These structures harboured spaceships which they could teleport to stations already in space for fast celestial transit. This lead to Tomorrowland becoming something of an interstellar space-port with a fair amount of extra-terrestrial immigrants and visitors. The intergalactic organization The League of Planets would move to Tomorrowland as their base of operations in their mission to promote intergalactic peace.
The League of Planets made their headquarters within Tomorrowland's Rockettower Plaza where they constructed the, "League of Planets Astro Orbiter" as an attraction to promote their cause. The League of Planets would also have apparent control over Space Mountain (or at-least Starport Seven-Five). The league was likewise affiliated with Professor Tom Morrow by around the 2000s. At some point in time, Morrow would become elected as mayor of Tomorrowland.
Tom Morrow would use his status as mayor to promote different technologies in, "Innoventions". Meanwhile, Mr. Johnson was employed to patrol within the Sky View Hovercraft-1 by the Tomorrowland Transit Authority and later in a control-tower by Space Mountain. Tomorrowland's Metropolis Science Institute would host, "The Timekeeper", a time-travelling robotic scientist employed by the Metropolis Institute of Time Travel. Timekeeper and his robotic assistant 9-Eye had previously shown off their time-travel technology in Discoveryland but hosted a demonstration in Tomorrowland.
In addition to the League of Planets, the Rockettower Plaza would also be home to the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, an organization which controlled transportation in Tomorrowland including the monorails and People-Movers. The Tomorrowland Transit Authority was a member of the Tomorrowland Chamber of Commerce, a capitalist guild of Tomorrowland businesses with large influence in Tomorrowland. Other entities within the chamber of commerce included the space-themed dining-service Aunty Gravity's Galactic Goodies, Space Mountain, the Tomorrowland Light & Power Company, the shop The Merchant of Venus, and, "Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin", an attraction revolving around the Buzz Lightyear franchise of toys and cartoons.
21st century[]
Around 2002, Tomorrowland was visited by the illegal genetic-experiment life-form Experiment 626 following a great escape from the United Galactic Federation's prisoner transport centre. During his rampage, 626 would find his way to Tomorrowland and be major news in both the Galaxy Gazette newspaper and the Tomorrowland News Network. 626 also hijacked a celebration of Tomorrowland's, "Galaxy Day" by stealing a large number of robots from the alien company RoboMart before making yet another escape.
Following this, RoboMart's parent-company X-S Tech would come to Tomorrowland following their detection of it via probe. X-S Tech was an evil alien corporation which supplied the United Galactic Federation with the tech for their prisons, owned the Pan-Galactic News Network, and through RoboMart had somehow obtained the Timekeeper, 9-Eye and Tom Morrow 2.0 as property. Seeing potential profit, X-S chairman L.C. Clench would make arrangements with the Tomorrowland Chamber of Commerce to garner a connection with Earth and Tomorrowland.
X-S Tech's demonstration was held in the Tomorrowland Interplanetary Convention Centre where they would demo the technology of the X-S Series 1000 Teleportation Tube. While the original plan was allegedly to send a human of Tomorrowland to X-S headquarters to meet with Clench, the chairman changed these plans last minute to have himself sent to Tomorrowland instead. This ended in disaster when X-S sent a giant carnivorous alien to the convention centre and lost L.C. Clench in the teleportation process. This alien killed several before being contained within the teleportation tube and seemingly destroyed.
The exact fallout of this event is a mystery though it is believed L.C. Clench would be recovered and X-S Ould continue its business in some variety; the event itself was front-page news in the Tomorrowland Times. A business which actually made connections with Tomorrowland around this time was Monsters Incorporated, a business from the parallel world of Monstropolis which was run by the monsters James P. "Sully" Sullivan and Mike Wazowski. Monsters Inc. accessed Tomorrowland via portal technology which they used to travel through doors on Earth and made an arrangement to host denizens of Tomorrowland within their, "Laugh Floor" to transform their laughter into energy used to power Monstropolis.
Super-heroes[]
At some point in time, another Tomorrowland was created in the city of Hong Kong. This Tomorrowland contained its own, "Space Mountain" in the form of HK Spaceport E-TKT and Astro-Orbiter in the form of, "The Orbitron". Around 2013, Tony Stark of Stark Industries travelled to this Tomorrowland and established the, "Stark Expo" in the vain of the 2010 Stark Expo held in New York City. Here, Tony Stark showed off his vehicle, "The Iron-Wing" Mark VIII only for it to attract an attack from the terrorist organization HYDRA and Dr. Arnim Zola who wished to steal his tech. Stark fought off HYDRA along with help from fellow super-heroes Ant-Man and the Wasp but the encounter gave Stark the idea to establish his, "Avengers Campus" initiative and make a permanent super-hero base in Hong Kong's Tomorrowland.
Around 2014, America's Tomorrowland would likewise host Stark Industries and affiliated superheroes within their Tomorrowland Convention Centre. This included the Captain America historic display, "Captain America: The Living Legend and Symbol of Courage", the tech show "Iron Man Tech Presented by Stark Industries" and an exhibit on Asgardian artifacts called "Thor: Treasures of Asgard" which was curated by Dr. Jane Foster and involved a bifrost portal created by Odin to promote peace with Earth. Incidentally, Tony Stark was creating his own advanced settlement in California known as, "Avengers Campus", potentially nearby Tomorrowland.
Points of interest[]
Avenue of Planets: The Avenue of Planets was Tomorrowland's effective, "Main Street", being located near gates of entry to Tomorrowland.
Metropolis Science Institute: This institute was used by scientists from the scientific settlement of, "Metropolis" to study and utilize their sciences.
Space Station 77: TL Space Station 77 is one of Tomorrowland's two, "Space Mountain" space-ports.
Starport Seven-Five: Starport Seven-Five, also known as Tomorrowland Station MK-1 or more popularly as, "Space Mountain" is one of Tomorrowland's primary space-ports. It was operated by the League of Planets.
Tomorrowland Interplanetary Convention Centre: This was a convention centre which hosted shows for and from individuals across the galaxy.
Tomorrowland Light & Power:
Tomorrowland Speedway: The Tomorrowland Speedway also known as the Tomorrowland Super Highway was a specialized automobile track used to ease the flow of traffic in Tomorrowland.
The film revolves around the titular location being in a pocket-dimension where Governor David Nix ruled it with an iron fist, unopposed for many decades, having banished all the creative thinkers and dreamers including Frank Walker from it.
After Nix's death and his plan to let the impending disaster unfold so that he could build a new Earth was ultimately foiled, Frank and Casey Newton begin running it together and in addition to revealing it to the outside world, begin recruiting more people to join them.
Tomorrowland makes a cameo in the episode Space Walkies when Mickey Mouse lands his rocket in Tomorrowland. In the background, Space Mountain, the Moonliner and a hub for Star Command are all visible.
Before Tomorrowland is a novel which serves as a prequel to the 2015 film Tomorrowland.
In this story, the dimension that came to be known as Tomorrowland was first discovered in 1899 by Nikola Tesla and other Plus Ultra scientists, who had been seeking a private locale to test and experiment new ideas and technologies with minimal interference. An effort to open a portal into this new dimension began in earnest and in the Siberian wilderness in 1908, a super-powered nuclear bomb was used to open a hole in space and time to access the dimension, causing the Tunguska Event. It worked, but Plus Ultra sought less destructive means of travel between the two realms. In 1928, a particle beam created by Nikola Tesla allowed for less damaging means of travel, but an experiment gone awry the following year lead to a delay in human settlement. However, construction by robotic workers continued within the other dimension to create powerstations and infrastructure for Plus Ultra's needs and by the mid 1930s, Plus Ultra was ready to resume their work.
They planned a reveal of the alternate dimension at the 1939 New York World's Fair and a contest to name the realm. The city was to be held as a publicity stunt, though Howard Hughes, one of Plus Ultra's biggest backers, had already been insistent on referring to the alternate dimension as "The New Frontier". However, a conflict between Plus Ultra, a group of Nazis lead by scheming ex-Plus Ultra scientist Werner Rotwang, and Henry Stevens, a young Plus Ultra inductee turned vengeful cyborg, lead to the reveal plan being shelved and numerous setbacks delaying any further work.
The beginnings of the city known as Tomorrowland itself would result from the work of a redeemed Henry, who built new robot workers and lead them to begin constructing the city before his power sources drained for good in the mid 1950s.
In this attraction's backstory, it was created by the League of Planets as a display of good-will with Tomorrowland, representation of unity amongst the worlds, and training station for young astronauts.
Tomorrowland is advertised in the Coruscant sequence and the original Star Tours was set in the, "Tomorrowland Starport". The opening scrawl for Star Tours: The Adventures Continue mentioned the Spaceport being the first intergalactic terminal in the Earth system. On Coruscant, "Tomorrowland" was written on a building in aurabesh.
This attraction was set within Tomorrowland's Metropolis Science Centre, a facility operated by the Metropolis Institute of Time Travel. Allusions to ongoings in Tomorrowland were scattered throughout the queue.
The train-conductor provides an in-universe explanation of Tomorrowland while passing it on this ride. He also mentions, "New neighbors" including Stitch (whom he mentions causing trouble), Buzz Lightyear (who he says is recruiting new cadets), and the monsters of Monstropolis (whom he claims are funny looking).
Trivia[]
In the parks, Tomorrowland is most frequently identified with being located in California. This has been referenced since Rocket to the Moon showing the Moonliner leaving from California up to MCU exhibits in Innoventions having Dr. Jane Foster mention Tomorrowland being located within California.
While Tomorrowland is themed to a single, cohesive setting, there are several attractions within Tomorrowland which are not set within Tomorrowland. This includes Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage (set in Australia), Matterhorn Bobsleds (set on the Matterhorn in Zermatt, Switzerland), and Stitch's Great Escape! (set in the United Galactic Federation's prisoner transport centre off-Earth).
There are several attractions and properties often referenced alongside Tomorrowland but are of unclear connection or setting. This includes America Sings, Matterhorn Bobsleds, TRON, Star Tours, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
