Don Hertzfeldt is a bit of a legend in the animation world, but not for the reasons you’d think. He doesn't do big-budget 3D renders or flashy celebrity voiceovers. Instead, he uses stick figures. Honestly, it sounds like something a middle schooler would doodle in the margins of a notebook, but the World of Tomorrow short film is probably one of the most significant pieces of science fiction released in the last twenty years. It’s weird. It’s hilarious. It’s devastatingly sad.
You’ve likely seen snippets of it on social media—a small, round-faced toddler named Emily Prime talking to a third-generation clone of her future self. The contrast is jarring. Emily Prime is a real kid (Hertzfeldt actually used recordings of his young niece, Winona Mae), and her dialogue is completely unscripted. She talks about "the triangle people" and "shooting stars" while her adult clone, Emily 3, calmly explains the heat death of the universe and the terrifying reality of digital consciousness.
It’s a masterpiece.
The Weird Genius Behind the Stick Figures
Most people stumble upon Hertzfeldt through his earlier work, like REJECTED or It’s Such a Beautiful Day. Those were great, sure. But the World of Tomorrow short film felt like a massive pivot. Released in 2015, it won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and grabbed an Oscar nomination, but its staying power isn’t about the awards. It’s about how it handles the concept of the future without any of the usual sci-fi tropes. No shiny chrome cities. No laser guns.
Instead, we get the Outernet. It’s a psychic internet where people’s memories and consciousness are basically archived forever. It’s messy.
Hertzfeldt creates these abstract, colorful landscapes using digital compositing that looks like a neon fever dream. It’s beautiful in a way that’s hard to describe. You have these stick figures floating through "memory galleries" or looking at "the museum of light," and despite the simplicity of the drawings, the emotional weight is heavy. Emily 3 tells the toddler, "I am a clone. I am the third version of you." It’s delivered with such a flat, robotic affect by Julia Pott that you almost miss the horror of it.
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Why the "Third Version" Matters
The lore here is deep. In this universe, the wealthy achieve immortality by constantly uploading their consciousness into new clones. But there’s a catch. The process isn't perfect. Each generation gets a little more degraded. A little more detached from what it means to be human. By the time we meet Emily 3, she’s barely "alive" in the way we understand it. She’s obsessed with the past because she has no real future.
It’s a critique of our own obsession with digital legacy. Think about it. We record every concert on our phones but never watch the video. We archive our lives for a future version of ourselves that might not even care. Hertzfeldt was predicting the soul-crushing boredom of infinite information years before TikTok or the AI boom really took over our brains.
That Ending Is a Gut Punch
People often ask why the World of Tomorrow short film ends the way it does. Emily 3 travels back in time to retrieve a specific memory from Emily Prime’s brain—a memory of her mother. Why? Because in the future, emotions have become so rare that they are treated like precious minerals.
"I am proud of my sadness," the clone says.
That line sticks with you. It’s a reminder that being able to feel loss is actually a privilege. If you live forever, nothing matters. If you can’t die, you can’t really live. It’s heavy stuff for a movie featuring a kid who wants to show you her "cool rock."
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The Technical Magic of Accidental Dialogue
One of the most fascinating things about the production is how Hertzfeldt built the story around his niece’s rambling. He didn't write a script and ask a four-year-old to read it. That would have been a disaster. Instead, he just followed her around with a microphone while she played.
When she says something like, "I had a very good day," he finds a way to slot that into a conversation about the end of the world. This creates a "found footage" feel within a high-concept sci-fi setting. It’s why the film feels so authentic. You can’t fake that kind of childhood wonder. You certainly can't script the way a child ignores a time traveler because they found a pretty leaf.
Looking Forward to the Sequels
If you’ve only seen the first one, you’re missing out. There are currently three parts to this saga.
- World of Tomorrow (2015): The introduction to Emily Prime and the Outernet.
- World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People's Thoughts (2017): A deeper dive into the psyche of a backup clone.
- World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime (2020): A much longer, more complex story about a man trying to find a woman he loved across time.
Each one gets progressively more complicated. Episode Three is almost an hour long and involves nested memories and complex time-travel mechanics that would make Christopher Nolan dizzy. But it never loses that core Hertzfeldt charm. It stays grounded in the idea that technology is mostly just a way for us to feel less lonely, even if it usually fails at that.
Misconceptions About the Style
A lot of critics call this "minimalism." I think that’s wrong.
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While the characters are stick figures, the backgrounds and the sound design are incredibly dense. Hertzfeldt uses "Vivaldi" and operatic scores to give the film a sense of "grand history." The visuals are layered with textures that look like oil paintings or glitchy VHS tapes. It’s "maximalist" storytelling hidden inside a "minimalist" aesthetic.
Also, don't go into this expecting a standard narrative structure. It’s a poem. If you try to map out the timeline perfectly, you’ll get a headache. It’s meant to be felt more than solved.
How to Actually Watch It
You won't find the World of Tomorrow short film on Netflix. Hertzfeldt is fiercely independent. He likes to control his distribution, which is why his work is usually found on platforms like Vimeo on Demand or through his own Blu-ray releases.
If you want the best experience, watch it on the "It's Such a Beautiful Day / World of Tomorrow" Blu-ray. The colors pop way more than they do on a compressed streaming site. Plus, supporting independent animation is just the right thing to do.
Next Steps for the Viewer:
- Watch in order: Don't jump to Episode Three. The emotional payoff relies on seeing Emily Prime grow—or rather, seeing the clones drift further away from her.
- Listen to the soundscape: Use headphones. The layering of Pott’s monotone voice over the chaotic sounds of the Outernet is half the experience.
- Check out the "World of Tomorrow" art book: If you’re a nerd for production design, Hertzfeldt’s process of digital layering is documented in various interviews and behind-the-scenes features that explain how he makes stick figures look like high art.
- Pay attention to the background text: There are jokes and world-building details hidden in the "ads" and "signs" within the Outernet that explain how this dystopian society actually functions.
The future is coming, and it probably won't be as bright as we hope. But as Emily Prime says, "Now is the envy of all the dead." Live in the moment before you become a digital ghost in someone else's archive.