Jules Verne: A Literary Pilgrimage - Part 3

As age and infirmity set in, Verne's family left their mansion of 18 years to return again to the townhouse at No. 44 Boulevard Longueville. The last five years of Jules Verne's life, from 1900 to 1905, were spent in this modest dwelling. At 3:10pm on March 24, 1905, Jules Verne passed away from complications due to diabetes. Behind him were left his wife Honorine, son Michel, and some eight to fifteen novels in various states of composition. Verne prided himself on being years ahead of his twice-annual publication schedule.

Towards the end of his life, Verne resumed some of his youthful cynicism and his latest novels betrayed an ever more pessimistic view of the effects of technology and industry on human life. His last years were also beset with tragedy. Honorine became an invalid in 1879, Michel took off to sow his wild oats, he was shot in the leg by a mentally deranged cousin in 1886 and crippled for the rest of his life, both Hetzel and his mother died in 1887, he suffered a facial neuralgia in 1890, and he developed cataracts in 1900 that severely impaired his vision. He also died regretting that he had never curried the favour of the French literary elite. As Sherard reports once again:

It was like the confession of a wasted life, the sigh of an old man of what can never be recalled. It was to me a poignant sorrow to hear him speak thus, and all that I could do was to say, with no unfeigned enthusiasm, that he was to me and millions like me, a great master, the subject of our unqualified admiration and respect, the novelist who delights many of us more than all the novelists that have ever taken pen in hand. But he only shook his gray head and said: "I do not count in French literature."

Jules Verne: A Literary Pilgrimage - Part 2

Jules Verne's mansion against the background of modern Amiens.
Photo © Laurent Rousselin – Amiens Métropole

Though born in Nantes in 1828 and living amidst the hustle, bustle and literary-artistic culture of Paris when he wrote his first novels, Verne's association with Amiens began in 1856 when he attended the wedding of a friend. Weddings are often efficacious for spurring new romances, and Verne fell for the sister of the bride, a widow with two daughters named Honorine. The following year the pair were married, but living in Amiens was still a long way off.

Jules Verne: A Literary Pilgrimage - Part 1

Few Disney live-action films have enjoyed the enduring legacy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Just as Jules Verne's works entered the public domain, Walt Disney took a gamble on fashioning that novel into his studio's first big-budget, Hollywood-made, live-action film. It was a gamble that paid off beyond anyone's wildest expectations. Walt, director Richard Fleischer, and screenwriter Earl Felton used the backdrop of Verne's original story to meditate on the anxieties of the Atomic Age. They captured the fears and hopes of a generation, and did so on a grand scale, with Cinemascope-sized screen, larger-than-life charismatic actors, beautiful underwater photography, and sheer spectacle. In so doing, Walt Disney helped create a new image of Jules Verne… Verne the icon of optimistic futurism.

Walt and Verne, the two optimists. Photo: Disney.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea spawned a whole genre of movies based on Verne's work, including Michael Todd's Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), Ray Harryhausen’s Mysterious Island (1961), and Disney's own In Search of the Castaways (1962). His adventures also translated well into three dimensions. Disneyland opened in 1955 with an exhibit of props from the film, Walt Disney World opened in 1971 with a 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea submarine voyage, Disneyland Paris opened in 1992 with a new version of Tomorrowland based on Verne's work, and Tokyo Disneysea opened in 2001 with Mysterious Island, where guests can embark on an expedition 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or take a Journey to the Center of the Earth. Trader Sam's Grog Grotto in the Polynesian Village Resort includes leftover props from the submarine ride and a Nautilus-themed drink. Verne has also popped up again, as the founder of a secret organization of geniuses in Tomorrowland (2015). 60 years after the film's debut in 1954, Verne's creations are still furnishing material for theme parks the world over.

Concept art for Trader Sam's Grog Grotto. Image: Disney.

Tomorrowland, Objectivism, Technique, and Optimal Behaviourism

After seeing trailers for Disney's latest attempt at a live-action Science Fiction film, Tomorrowland, I had my misgivings. It had an air of a creepy, Ayn Rand-style plot and ran the risk of making the same shallow statements of technological utopianism one finds so prevalent in Atomic Age futurism and modern Transhumanism. Still, I was cautiously optimistic and when Ashley and I went to see it last night, my fears were blessedly allayed. It didn't exactly subvert the issues I was concerned with, but it was not as bad as I was fearing either.

The following review will have the spoilers germane to a discussion about its themes and message, so if you're one of the many people who haven't seen it (based on its box office returns), you may want to exercise your own caution. The short review is that I enjoyed it. I didn't come out excitedly loving it, but then here I am writing an essay about it.

Tomorrowland: Origins of Plus Ultra Easter Eggs

This past week, Disney released a pair of animated videos explaining the origins of the mysterious "Plus Ultra" organization featured in the upcoming movie Tomorrowland. Originally slated to appear in the film itself - presumably in a scene set in the 1964-65 New York World's Fair - it was cut from final edit for time and posted online. The following are a few Easter Eggs we noticed while watching.

First of all, of course, is the style of the cartoon. It is very much in line with the "Tomorrowland" episodes of the Walt Disney's Disneyland television series: Man in Space, Man and the Moon, Mars and Beyond, Magic Highway USA, and Our Friend the Atom. The following scene is even a direct homage to a scene from Our Friend the Atom...

Scene from The Origins of Plus Ultra

Comparable scene from Our Friend the Atom.

The short was narrated by Maurice LaMarche, most famous for giving his voice to The Brain of Pinky and the Brain and Animaniacs. In this he is likely trying to channel the spirit of Orson Welles, who he also portrayed satirically in Animaniacs. Welles achieved notoriety for his 1939 radio performance of The War of the Worlds, which purportedly convinced America that martians actually were attacking. In reality, only a relatively small segment of the radio-listening public who didn't hear the show's introduction thought that an invasion was actually happening, and they assumed it was an invasion by the Nazis, as the Second World War had already begun in Europe. Nevertheless, Welles was one of the first to test the public's credulity of mass broadcast media.

"Since the dawn of recorded history,
mankind has boldly pursued its destiny...
TO TRY AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"

In our next scene we catch a glimpse of the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris, France. The Eiffel Tower was originally constructed for this Exposition as a temporary monument. But floating around the Eiffel Tower is a rather obscure Disney reference: the Hyperion airship from Island at the Top of the World. In the 1974 film, it was built by a French aeronaut and employed by a British industrial magnate to search for his lost son in the far Canadian Arctic where a colony of Vikings have survived to the Edwardian Era. It is more frequently seen today in the entryway to the Café Hyperion at Disneyland Paris. It is also an Easter Egg in The Great Mouse Detective, acting as Ratigan's dirigible.

The Hyperion in The Origins of Plus Ultra.

The Hyperion in Island at the Top of the World.

Model of the Hyperion at Disneyland Paris.

Cafe Hyperion, Disneyland Paris.

Ratigan's "Hyperion" pursues Basil.

According to the video, the Eiffel Tower hosted an illustrious gathering of learned Victorian men who founded Plus Ultra: Thomas Edison, Gustave Eiffel, Jules Verne, and Nikola Tesla. I'm not convinced that four Victorian men would come up with a name for their organization that sounds like a brand of laundry detergent, but I'll let that rest.

A little less forgivable is how Tesla and Edison carried on one of the great scientific rivalries of all time. The main contention between them was electricity, the so-called "War of the Currents." Edison (top) backed Direct Current while Tesla (bottom) back Alternating Current. Of course, the mythology of their conflict has built up over time, and this Forbes article does a good job of dispelling some of them. This page from the U.S. Department of Energy gives a good overview of their considerable accomplishments. 

Gustave Eiffel is best known for the tower that bears his name. He was already an architect and engineer of renown before constructing the Eiffel Tower, including the design of the Statue of Liberty three years before the Exposition. France's gift of the Statue of Liberty to the United States is commemorated at Disneyland Paris in the Liberty Arcade that runs behind Main Street USA. His long list of credits count numerous bridges, viaducts, gasworks, cathedrals, theatres, hotels, and train stations. Whether or not Jules Verne and Nikola Tesla were there, Eiffel did host Thomas Edison in his offices at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Mannequins replicate this scene in those same offices.

Edison meets Eiffel.

As evidenced by this short, Tomorrowland is going to appeal to the myth of Jules Verne as a technological optimist who was just shy of being an inventor himself. Verne, of course, is the author of Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, In Search of the Castaways, From the Earth to the Moon, and Journey to the Center of the Earth, each of which have been made into films, rides, or both by Disney. Due in no small part to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Disney has largely been responsible for creating the image of Verne as a technological optimist. I will discuss this at greater depth in a future series of articles, but for the time being, suffice it to say that Verne had a keenly observant mind that didn't always like what it saw about humanity. He was still a deeply humane writer - for example he could never bring himself to unleash the kind of devastation on humanity that H.G. Wells practically salivated at - but grew weary and increasingly cynical in his old age. Here we get the Disney version of Verne, complete with Harper Goff's design of the Nautilus.

In the offices of Plus Ultra, the film shows an army of draughtsmen (and women) hard at work making plans for Progress City... er, Tomorrowland. Dan Jeup, animator of this sequence, acknowledges that two of the engineers are references to Imagineers Mary Blair and Marc Davis. Blair's attraction It's a Small World will feature prominently in Tomorrowland. 

Silhouettes of Mary Blair (left) and Marc Davis (right corner).

Mary Blair.

Marc Davis.

And one last reference for the Disneyphiles... Did you catch Space Mountain in the model of Tomorrowland? That is a nice reference but actually isn't new, since it had also been spotted in the official movie trailers.

Are there any other Easter Eggs you noticed? Leave a comment below!