In its early days, when Twitter was at its most Twittery, circa 2012, executives called the company “the free-speech wing of the free-speech party.” That was the era when the platform was credited for amplifying the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Arab Spring, when it seemed like giving everyone a microphone might actually bring down dictatorships and right the wrongs of neoliberal capitalism. To Simon and those like him, it was hard to see Twitter as anything other than wasted potential. When he spoke about Twitter, it was often as if someone else were running the company. Dorsey, who was known for going on long meditation retreats, fasting 22 hours a day, and walking five miles to the office, acted as an absentee landlord, leaving Twitter’s strategy and daily operations to a handful of trusted deputies. Twitter had been defined by the catatonic leadership of Jack Dorsey, a co-founder who simultaneously served as CEO of the payments business Block (formerly Square). “Elon Musk is a brilliant engineer and scientist, and he has a track record of having a Midas touch, when it comes to growing the companies he’s helped lead,” he wrote in Slack. Luke Simon, a senior engineering director at Twitter, was ecstatic. (SOUNDBITE OF "TOMORROWLAND" SOUNDTRACK) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.In April 2022, Elon Musk acquired a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter, making him the company’s largest shareholder, and was offered a seat on the board. I wouldn't be surprised if they emerge inspired by a sense of purpose they did not have on the way in and a mission to get one of those T pins. The sentiments are certainly admirable and are, no doubt, heartfelt and are delivered so insistently and passionately that, while "Tomorrowland's" sermonizing left me feeling grumpy and feeling a little guilty for feeling grumpy, it may well have an entirely different effect on impressionable children, who are, after all, its target audience. This is, let's note, more sloganeering than imagineering, but let that pass. Starts getting swamped by a message that director Brad Bird seems determined to state and restate until the dimmest 10-year-old in the audience gets it - the message that there is simply not enough optimism in the world, that humanity has become apathetic, cynical, discouraged, and that we've really got to snap out of it, because by simply dreaming big, we could fix the world's problems. MONDELLO: Each location envisioned in theme-park-friendly ways, but pretty early on, the sense of fun in their carousing. ROBERTSON: (As Casey Newton) How is this a good idea? MONDELLO: Together, these three will have noisy, frantic adventures at the Eiffel Tower and a movie memorabilia store and a booby-trapped house. GEORGE CLOONEY: (As Frank Walker) Come on. Casey will join forces with a girl who's sort of an adolescent Mary Poppins and a one-time boy inventor who's grown-up to be a cranky, old coot played by George Clooney. Is any of this real? Is it the future maybe? Then, after a few minutes of visual enchantment, the T pin stops working and, in a sense, so does the movie, which is not to say nothing else happens. Where'd the T pin come from, she wonders. Anyway, Casey's thrilled by this shiny, happy place with its floating trains and shimmering skyscrapers and a kind of synchronized diving where it's the swimming pools that are synchronized, not the divers. ![]() MONDELLO: And suddenly, she's in a golden field of wheat stretching to the horizon and a glittering city. ROBERTSON: (As Casey Newton) I've never - (screaming). UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (As police officer) What's not yours? MONDELLO: That is a pin with the letter T on it, presumably for Tomorrowland - not the theme park, the real place.īRITT ROBERTSON: (As Casey Newton) That's not mine. UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (As police officer) One money clip, $47.32, one Florida state driver's license, one pack of Beemans gum and whatever that is. She hates the idea that NASA is giving up on space travel, and while her little act of sabotage gets her arrested, her enthusiasm for futile gestures gets her noticed by someone besides the police, someone who slipped something in with the belongings she gets back when she's released from jail. ![]() Bob Mondello says the movie version of Tomorrowland is designed, just like its theme park namesake, to celebrate optimism.īOB MONDELLO: Near the outset of "Tomorrowland," a teenager named Casey sneaks into Cape Canaveral in the middle of the night to disable the cranes that are dismantling the launch pad there. ![]() And now, like the Disney ride, Pirates of the Caribbean, it has lent its name to a big-budget movie. ![]() For decades, Tomorrowland has been a Disney theme park area.
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