The amazing, incredible, delightful, sorrowful World of Tomorrow is getting its own clone from the future. Don Hertzfeldt‘s 2015 short film will have its DNA spliced and studied, then copied, and will eventually create the basis for a new cinematic lifeform that could then, theoretically, travel back to 2015 to have a conversation with its source code provider.
— don hertzfeldt (@donhertzfeldt) August 18, 2017
The indie animator made the announcement for The Burden of Other People’s Thoughts on Twitter, followed by details on how to get a limited anthology of his work which includes World of Tomorrow, modern ruminations like It’s Such a Beautiful Day, cult favorites from the early 2000s like Rejected (yes, I know your spoon is too big), as well as examples of late ’90s student work and some surprises.
Even if you don’t dish out the totally reasonable $30 for the omnibus collection, you can re-watch World of Tomorrow on Netflix, until Hertzfeldt decides to create his own streaming network like fellow animation powerhouse Disney.
This is an overwhelmingly welcome announcement. The adventure of little Emily as she interacted with one of her clones from two centuries into the future was an outstanding exploration of time and space and what it means to be human, and a follow-up should be more of the glorious same. Hertzfeldt has mastered a unique tone, crafting worlds that both stand slightly askew from our own while mirroring our emotional reality exactly.
His work is like someone who pisses everyone off by wearing clown shoes to a funeral, but then makes everyone cry with his eulogy, then hands out balloons, then reads a book about death in the corner. In a way, that tonal consistency (and complexity) and the stick figure style makes every new work feel a bit like a sequel to the last. A long line of one continuous story of us. That said, you couldn’t ask for a better launchpad for a direct sequel than World of Tomorrow. Can we invent time travel to get it here sooner?
Images: Bitter Films
