Here’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it teaser for the trailer for Brad Bird‘s Tomorrowland (Disney, 5.22). The real thing will play during Sunday’s Superbowl telecast. It’ll probably turn out to be a moderately satisfying commercial ride, but like I said on 10.9.14, the hand of Damon Lindelof scares me: “To me, Lindelof attached to a film or TV project constitutes a threat. They don’t mean ‘this movie will be shit’ but they do mean ‘okay, here we go on the fucking inconclusive Lindelof train to Meanderville.’

“After slogging through the frequently infuriating The Leftovers I’m convinced that Lindelof isn’t so much a story-teller as a situational explorer. He’s strikes me as this dorky, bespectacled, comic-book-generation guy who goes ‘Oooh, here’s a cool idea! What if this happened and that happened and then our lead character suddenly realizes…well, let’s not get hung up on resolutions but this is a cool realm…let’s play with it!’

“Lindelof was one of the many architects of Cowboys & Aliens but I’m sure he did what he could to imprint himself upon it, and I hated it. He rewrote Jon Spaihts on Prometheus and I double-hated that one. The Star Trek film he co-wrote was okay, but World War Z was basically a situational zombie slog with no way out, and then came The Fucking Leftovers.

“Now we have Tomorrowland (formerly 1952) to contend with — a magical fable dream-tale that Lindelof and director Brad Bird co-wrote.

“I’m betting that guys like Drew McWeeney and Steve Weintraub are going to coo and flutter and have kittens over this thing when it opens on 5.22.15, but let’s wait for the pudding. Bird is a highly disciplined guy who actually believes in stories that have texture and thematic resonance and actual endings so maybe his directorial authority will keep that awful Lindelof vibe from coloring this too much, but if the worst happens we’ll know who to blame.

“Here’s a Tomorrowland rundown from the EW guys. ‘What Hogwarts is to magic, Tomorrowland is to science,’ Lindleof says. ‘They are both easy to find if you are a wizard and very difficult to find if you’re a Muggle…[the plot] kickstarts when Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) finds a mysterious pin, which when touched reveals the place known as Tomorrowland.'”

“George Clooney plays a hermit and failed inventor who…wait, let me guess…finally finds his Nirvana when he visits Tomorrowland with Robertson, and who decides to stay there in the end.”