User reviews

I recently wrote an article for Influx magazine about Don Hertzfeldt and his wonderful animated short films. In this I mentioned that his newest film, "World of Tomorrow", will be debuting at the end of March. However, this film is different from the usual Hertzfeldt release because it's his first film done digitally as well as his first released directly on demand.

The film is an unusual sci-fi short that begins with a small child, Emily, being contacted by a clone of herself over two hundred years in the future. It seems that many folks living in our future are clones--often second, third or fourth generation clones. And, surprisingly, the adult Emily clone of the future wants to bring young Emily to her time to show her about and muse about life. As for young Emily, she sounds like a three year-old and seems sweet but oblivious to the importance of all the things her clone tells her about life. So much about the clone's life is empty and sad...and life in the future sounds that way in general. Even worse, the world apparently is about to end and the Emily clone just wants to see her original self to say goodbye.

If all this sounds maudlin, it sometimes is. The film is an odd combination of existential angst, loneliness and even dark comedy. For some, the film will obviously have some significance and deeper meaning. For others it will just be silly, absurd and good for a laugh. It's amazing how many of Hertzfeldt's films have various levels on which you can enjoy them.

As far as the quality of the film goes, all of Hertzfeldt's cartoons have stick figures and very simple animation and because of that I am hesitant to rate this film higher. However, because it is digital, it looks richer and more colorful than a typical Hertzfeldt film. But it's the strangeness and depth to the story that make it wonderful. And, the amazing voice of young Emily (Winona Mae) will make you smile or even laugh--despite the strangeness and seriousness of the plot. Overall, it's a heck of a film and I can understand why it was recently awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Short Film at the Sundance Film Festival.

UPDATE: I just saw this and the other nominees for the Best Animated Short Oscar. This Hertzfeldt film was, by far, the best of the films and I sure hope it wins on February 28th.

UPDATE: This film did not win but "Bear Story" (a nice nominee) won the award.

Don Hertzfeldt's seventeen-minute animated short World of Tomorrow, one of the Academy Awards' Best Animated Short frontrunners this year, does an amazing job of examining the flaw that most of us have as people and that's an inability to be satisfied or truly content with the present. We do not appreciate the present until it is the distant or the very-recent past, depending on how we deem the quality of our current situation. We look to the future as a relief or even a catalyst of the conditions we're currently facing, and we struggle to objectively define "self," especially in the age of the internet, where selves can be socially constructed or constructed in the lieu of the moment.

I realize I've proposed some lofty existentialist ideas with that first paragraph, but Hertzfeldt's beautifully detailed and immaculately animated short film effectively make your mind cycle through a whirlwind of feelings and thoughts about the human condition. The premise concerns a four-year-old girl named Emily Prime (voiced by Hertzfeldt's four-year-old niece Winona Mae, who was recorded while playing and drawing in order to generate natural dialog for the short), who has the typical wide-eyed wisdom and wonder that four-year-old girls have. Her days consist of playing with her precious cars, eating lunch, and wandering off to each adventure; her perceptions of happiness and sadness are heavily dichotomous and immediate. She is never both at the same time, and ostensibly never trying to avoid one or minimize another. Her moods are changing in the most obvious manner, but she's never one way for too long. She helps embody most of us in the way that we're occupied with life's trivialities and daily events.

One day, while playing with her cars, she's visited by an older Emily Prime (voiced by Julia Pott) via a transmission on a machine. This Emily is a third-generation clone broadcasting and communicating to Emily from two-hundred and twenty-seven years into the future. Older Emily explains to her younger, more idealistic self the cloning process, and how there are various methods for cloning; the wealthy can afford a safer process that permits time travel and such, successfully achieving immortality into adulthood, while the poorer members of society must settle for riskier cloning methods that could result in the very opposite - instant death.

This Emily takes her younger self on a journey through her life, which has seen her fall in love with rocks, robots, and eventually a fellow clone, who, because of his finances, had to settle for a less safe process. In addition, she walks younger Emily through a series of commonplace situations and features of the modern day, including a museum that houses a brainless human in a clear stasis tube where passersby observe him in a passive state while he grows older and withers before dying at 72.

In this futuristic utopia, memories are the most sacred part of the human experience, and increasing technological advances have allowed memories to be kept in small, black cubes in order to be stored for eternity - a process also afforded by society's most wealthy - or to be put on display in museums for humans to observe. These museums serve as the last piece of "real life" that humans can experience; most of the time, humans observe history, the day's events, and enjoy conversations with people through screens, severely limiting the idea of "reality."

World of Tomorrow accomplishes so much visually and thematically that it's stunning to note how short this film is, let alone how quickly it races past. Its ideas are dense and detailed, and its articulation so brisk and elaborate that it immediately warrants multiple viewings. At the heart of its depictions of technology and constant progress is a simple demand to all those living right now and that is "live." "You are the envy of the dead," Emily's clone states, with her echoing, monotone voice that has come with years of stagnant disillusionment and the inability to feel significantly. Often we cannot see the truth in that statement because, circumventing to what I said earlier, we are so caught up in the optimism and the aura of the future or the nostalgia for the past that we rarely observe what is occurring in the present.

Emily's clone states that day-to-day life's trivialities and benign occurrences are always irrelevant, and it's living which is the most sacred gift of all. The conception of reality, in addition, is another thing that has greatly been disturbed by internet (the world that Emily's clone shows her is called "the outernet," according to her). The ability to see and discern history through a few mouse-clicks and make far-away places seem closer have gone on to make what was closest to us more distant. Emily's clone shows this through her tired and dreary persona; she and her peers have been so accustomed to living life by finding multiple different channels and locations to pursue and attempting to be everywhere and do everything at once, that personal relationships, human connection, and love have all suffered as a result. The close becomes the distant and the distant becomes the immediately accessible.

World of Tomorrow's ideas are so expertly communicated that it's unfortunate how the genius animation and look behind it finds itself a secondary feature. The art design and illustration, all handled by Pott, as well, communicates a beautiful, harmonious relationship between the old, traditionalist style of animation coupled with the new, more experimental side that shows that 2D animation can still exercise immense creativity and visual possibilities on a totally different playing field than its counterpart. The result, coupled with dense themes and a true zest to define the world we're currently inhabiting, make World of Tomorrow such a masterwork of animation.

Voiced by: Julia Pott and Winona Mae. Directed by: Don Hertzfeldt.

I know it may be strange to do a full length review on a short film, but I felt this one deserved it. Don Hertzfeldt is one of my favorite animators right now and he's done other work that I loved like "It's Such A Beautiful Day" (which I will review at some point in the future) and the disturbingly funny "Rejected". "World Of Tomorrow" is his most recent work, and probably his most critically praised. What do I think of it? I think its absolutely fantastic. Personally, I don't think its as good as "It's Such A Beautiful Day", but still great. Anyways lets continue.

One thing to note is the animation. Hertzfeldt is known for using a somewhat minimalistic but unique style for most of his work, and this is probably his most visual work, since it presents other planets and parts of space. It does use a lot of techniques to create this style like using live action, special blur effects and so on. The short also has an amazingly creative and original story, so creative that it kinda reminds me of those famous short stories from Phillip K. Dick. It does bring up these great concepts, but also has time for emotional and funny moments. There is also some nice voice acting with the clone of Emily and her younger self.

So in the end "World Of Tomorrow" is a creative, funny, and touching animation that makes you think long after you have viewed it. Honestly guys, go watch it now, its on Netflix its only 15 minutes long and I promise you that you won't regret it.

Final Score: 8.5/10

If you were to watch Don Hertzfeldt's very funny and still wildly outrageous short Rejected from 2000 and go to his latest film, World of Tomorrow, you would see a monumental level of growth as a filmmaker. This isn't to say that he's moved on from having crudely-drawn characters (by design, and delightfully so as absurdly cute, absurdist what-the-f*** things), and that's part of his style. But if you go from one to another there's a level of sophistication to the presentation that has developed. This also isn't to say that Rejected isn't genius on its own level, but watching World of Tomorrow is simply mind-blowing, shot to shot, and that it presents science fiction concepts with such a dead-pan expression emotionally (the voice of the older 'clone' of Emily is just this way) while expressing such seemingly limitless imagination.

We're basically taken, from one older adult clone to her much younger counterpart from the past, into what the future will hold. There's (messy) time travel, there's the 'art' of gathering up old memories that drift along like paintings that can be put on the walls, and there's things like people being put into glass containers to be watched by people like in an exhibit throughout their lives. Oh, and there's not the internet but the OUTER-net, where people just drift along through the neural-connections and some, indeed, become lost.

This is extremely, massively heady stuff, but because of the context of it being between a little girl with notions like "I had lunch today" and "wiggle wiggle wiggle", and that this older clone has gone through a life of her own but with the sort of self-reflection that is very sad, we can relate to it. Or, at least, I could, and it just hit me on a profound level that is hard to describe after one viewing. Information is given out quickly, but nothing is too confusing if one is tapped into its peculiar, visionary science fiction head-space - there's even at one point a poem read by the older Emily about what it means to be a robot (a 'bad' poem, which is acknowledged).

The level of humor is still there for Hertzfeldt that one sees in Rejected or his Third Dimension shorts or any given work he's done. But something about World of Tomorrow is even more striking than his other work, and it may have to do with how he goes from one concept to the next, each shot and set piece with equal parts crazy veracity and almost simplistic grandeur (those shots of the "rich" people of the future uploading their consciousnesses as black boxes going out into space). This mix of incredibly complex and incredibly simple strikes the perfect balance and yet for the seemingly ridiculous angle of how the older Emily interacts with the younger Emily there's an immediate emotional bond, and even an ending that is incredibly emotional.

All I can say is if you have netflix, or a few bucks to spare on Vimeo, watch it and see if it affects you. For me, it's among the greatest short films ever made.

Don Hertzfeldt has become one of my favorite filmmakers! "Rejected" was always one of my favorite short films, and "It's Such a Beautiful Day" moved me more than any animated film since "Grave of the Fireflies". I'm glad to say that Hertzfeldt has absolutely amazed me yet again with his masterpiece "World of Tomorrow".

"World of Tomorrow" is a truly mind bending experience, and one of the greatest short films I've ever seen (along with greats like "A Trip to the Moon", "La jetee", and "Zero for Conduct"). It manages to always be thought provoking, hilarious, and bizarrely moving and emotional. It is an experience that I won't soon be forgetting, and I highly encourage seeing it as soon as possible, for this is one of the greatest films of 2015, short or feature!

Young child Emily is contacted by the third generation clone of herself from 220 years into the future. This Emily brings child Emily into the future and shows her the world that she will soon live in.

I have read quite a few user comments here that attempt to sum up all the themes and ideas within this short film, and mostly I think they both do it well but also do the film a huge disservice by so crudely laying it out with their words. The film plays out with a great sense of humor combined with angst, despair, beauty, hope, and death. The flat emotional tone of future Emily makes this mix work very well, and the contrast with the simple child Emily also adds to the emotional core of the piece. And this core does exist, although you would think it would struggle under so many darker ideas and themes.

The animation is at once simplistic (the Emilys are stick figures) but yet fantastic in the creativity of the world in which it occurs; everything is pretty minimalist in design but yet there is plenty of detail that makes it visually engaging and quite wonderful to watch. It is the dark gallows humor that sticks with me though, in particular the way that it is used to deliver a message about what is important in life. This short has been very successful and is very well known, so it doesn't need me to say much about it – but it is a great piece of work that is well worth seeing for how creative, intelligent, funny, moving, and entertaining it is.

Is time immutable? Where do we fit in the universe? What is our future? What happens to consciousness? If we were to be cloned what about the transfer of consciousness? Can consciousness be transferred? In this short animated feature, a little girl, Emily, who is only aware of her immediate surroundings, is met by her future self. She is told of all the things that will happen to her and to her world? What seems to happen is a sort of unified sensibility that simply is! Little Emily at no point understands her future self and that's the point. There seems to be a story to be told, but like everything in the continuum, all the verbiage really makes no difference. Past, future, present, all blend into one thing. This is a startlingly provocative seventeen minutes and should not be missed.

An incredible short animation. this was very thoughtful piece of work about the world around us. how easy Don Hertzfeldt describe the world. and I do believe in near future we will see such things in reality. and I should say the dialogs were perfect.

"World of Tomorrow" (United States, 17 min.) – This film tells its story by animating stick figures and laying them over simple, but colorful and imaginative backgrounds. A little girl who sounds like she's 3 or 4 is visited through her television set by a clone of herself (a few clone generations removed) from 200 years in the future. The future Emily tells "Emily Prime" about life in the future and how all this came to be, as well as taking Emily Prime into the TV so she can see a place called the "outer-net". This film is silly, but inventive, deriving its humor from the quirkiness of people in the future, their whimsical references to death and from the reactions of a toddler hearing and seeing things that adults would have a hard time understanding. The script also works in some social commentary and even a couple deep thoughts such as, "You only appreciate the present when it's the past." Enjoyable, but weird. "A-"

World of Tomorrow is a beautiful movie even if its story is pretty ehh. Every square inch of this film is pure eye candy. each character is drawn in such a unique way and the water color back rounds make the colors pop straight of the screen. The music was also pretty cool. It was a nice mix of retro and pop music creating something really cool. If you do watch this movie it would be pretty much a sixteen minutes of eye candy with cool music to it. The story is clearly not much of a focus in this picture but that thankfully does not hurt the short film so much seeing how it knows what it is and doesn't try and take itself to seriously . This allows the movie to be much more entertaining. Overall I recommend this movie for its beautiful animation, and unique music. 7/10!

The premise and style of this short film is very distinctive. Don Hertzfeldt put a lot of effort into this and it shows. I loved the way Emily speaks in a genuine way and the titular world of tomorrow. There were lots of neat and funny ideas that satirise our relationship with technology.

World of Tomorrow (2015)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Don Hertzfeldt's rather unique and original animated short deals with a young girl who is visited from the future by her third clone, which takes her into the future and show her how the world has changed in the two hundred plus years.

I'm watching this short a couple days before the Oscars are actually announced and I must admit that I'll be shocked if something beats this. Well, it's the Oscars so I guess anything is possible but this is a rather clever, original and unique little gem that manages to be rather smart throughout its 17 minute running time. The animation itself is rather laid back but I thought this approach actually worked extremely well and especially when you consider that it's the screenplay and story that is really selling the material. Both Julia Pott and Winona Mae are extremely effective with their voices and really sell the characters quite nicely.

I love the work of Don Hertzfeldt, and this is no exception. I was excited to see this, and it really did pay off. This is a case where I'd rather not talk about what happens, because it ruins the experience, and trust me, this experience is a grand one! The writing is smart, and actually made me think a bit, made me laugh a bit, and was also fairly sad... though, I didn't cry. Without talking about what actually happens, this is a bold look at Sci-Fi (Science-Fiction) through hand-drawn animation, and it really does work.

If you like Don Hertzfeldt, you'll probably like this, too... if you're unfamiliar with his work, it doesn't really matter, you might enjoy this overall.

The science fiction genre is no stranger to themes of artificial intelligence surpassing human capacity, the exploration of space and the discovery of space creatures, or even the pursuit of immortality through social media or other means of preservation. World of Tomorrow, the latest piece from Oscar nominated writer/director Don Hertzfeldt (Rejected), manages to wrap all of these themes into a 16 minute animated short film. Too much to cover in too little time you say? Hertzfeldt's short masterpiece will prove you wrong, taking its audience on a mind bending journey into the future and acting as a humorous allegory for the dangers of human disconnection in a world lived via the internet.

World of Tomorrow follows Emily, a young girl voiced by Winona Mae (Hertzfeldt's own four-year-old niece who was recorded at play with the recordings subsequently being fit into the film). Emily receives a video call from 227 years in the future when humans live between space and earth and survive in what is known as the outer- net, a vast empty space which is the...

Read the full review on David 'n the Dark!

https://davidnthedark.wordpress.com/2016/01/17/worldoftomorrowreview /#more-2061

"World of Tomorrow" is an animated stick-figure science fiction movie that breathes new life into the genre by exploring themes of innocence, emotional decay, and the cost of technological progress. Whilst "Bitter Films", as creator Don Hertzfeldt's production company is known, often aims for an edgy, nihilistic tone, the film reveals a surprisingly soft centre. At its emotional core are recordings of Hertzfeldt's niece, Winona Mae, whose spontaneous and curious interactions with the world form the basis of the character Emily Prime. What follows is a heart-wrenching contrast between the naïve wonder of childhood and the cold, detached future awaiting humanity if our current trajectory continues unchecked.

The film is also a chilling reflection on contemporary western living. Children are encouraged to play, learn morally, and value community, but adulthood ejects us into a world of atomisation and consumption, where moral learning ceases-regressing, even. Hertzfeldt amplifies this disparity in a sci-fi narrative of stunning originality. Emily Prime, the "original" of what becomes a lineage of clones, serves as an embodiment of childlike innocence . She is visited by her future self, an older version of Emily who is now hundreds of years old. She has come to steal Emily Prime's most cherished memory. This casual sociopathy-the willingness to ignore the rights of others-is not only a hallmark of this film but continues throughout the series (now up to Episode 3). It reflects a future where personal autonomy is disposable and ethical considerations are trivialised. But perhaps it is not just a feature of the future; after all, why do we lock our doors?

Class is another poignant theme, with cloning becoming a metaphor for social stratification. The precariat-those who live in instability and rebellion-are left to navigate upheaval, while the wealthy preserve their identities across generations, much like aristocratic families passing down titles. Progress, in this future, is deeply stratified. The Outernet, a fully-realised metaverse, serves as a space where the lower classes disappear into obscurity. Hertzfeldt suggests that technological and moral progress are not moving in tandem, rejecting the popular misconception that they're tied into a three-legged race.

Beneath the film's surreal humour and clever sci-fi constructs runs a seam of sadness, reflecting the emotional isolation of the future. As time 'progresses,' love becomes increasingly elusive. Adult Emily, emotionally stunted by the coldness of her society, falls in love first with a rock, then with a fuel pump on Quaoar (an actual celestial body in our solar system-an obscure astronomy nod that demonstrates nerd cred). The future is marked by rapid technological advancement but emotional glaciation and increasing isolation. Emily adopts heart-breaking principles, taking pride in her sadness because it makes her feel more alive-an achingly familiar sentiment. After all, time drags when there is no love in one's life.

In its 17-minute runtime, "World of Tomorrow" offers more than a glimpse into a possible future; it holds up a mirror to our present. Hertzfeldt's surreal landscapes and biting humour belie a deep sadness-a realisation that in the rush towards progress, we may risk losing what makes us most human. He also explores what it means to be human, how we are defined by external threats and internal constraints.

Each subsequent episode in the World of Tomorrow series builds on these themes, expanding the story in distinct ways. Episode One offers a guided tour of the future, Episode Two delves deeper into the internal landscape or innerspace of identity, and Episode Three leans fully into drama, exploring the emotional and philosophical depth of this remarkable series even further.

18 January 2016. It is from simplicity and a few lines that the power of story and story lines, almost like an oral story-telling that gives this animated short its brilliance. With animation enhancing an already superlative story, the synergistic fusion of a mind-expanding and mind-numbing future becomes a real psychedelic trip into techno-fantasy. There is a down-trodden, cynical tone, yet there is also a small flame of optimism from the cold and dark places. There is loss and yet there is humanity somewhere discovered in the past and future. This singular voice from the future, vibrates with the wonder of the innocent present. One of the most poignant experiences to come out of 2015.

Brilliant! Not a fancy Pixar/Disney-like animation, and at times looks silly and extremely simple, but that's the case with the animation only. The plot is very, very serious, despite the fact that at times seems funny (like a dark comedy), absurd and pointless (just like the life itself is). In what kind of world of tomorrow are we going to live and die? What kind of creatures (read: monsters) the technology makes us? Why are we living, and what are we looking in our lives? Is it important? And what is important? Is it better for us to get lost in our memories, or to lose our memories? And lot more questions that this film questions, but leaves you without answers. You decide whether you will think about them later, or leave them unanswered, just like Emily, a child at the age of three does.

I have a lot more to say about this 16 minutes long animated short that resonates in me more than most of the full-length pictures nowadays, but I won't do that now.

A one to remember, for sure!

...minimalistic animation, and nothing short! Show how important the story and idea is. Bravo

While I believe this the weakest of the WOT trilogy, it's still pretty great.

'WORLD OF TOMORROW': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

A 17 minute science fiction animated short; written, produced, directed, edited and animated by Don Hertzfeldt (who's previous animated short films, have been nominated for Oscars twice before). This short, tells the story of a young girl, who's taken on a tour of the future; by her future clone. It stars the voice talents of Julia Pott and Winona Mae (Hertzfeldt's 4-year-old niece). It's a very dark, and gloomy, story; but it's also packed with witty comedy (mostly dark humor, of course). The social commentary, and scientific ideas, explored in the film, are spot on. I think it's a brilliant little movie, and the best of 2016's Academy Award Nominated Animated Shorts!

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The thing about short films is that they are "short" for a reason. The difficult thing is to create something with meaning -- something that after the 17 minutes is over, the viewer is left with something they didn't have before. Sometimes film directors do not even possess this skill. I have to commend Don Hertzfeldt for his original idea and use of aesthetically pleasing images and representation of the future world: colorful, intangible, imaginary.

This specific short film raises many philosophical questions regarding who we are as a generation and whether our consciousness is transferable.