The Unisphere in Flushing, New York is destroyed during this film’s climactic fight scene where Iron Man (Robert Downy Jr.) and War Machine (Don Cheadle) fight Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) at the Stark Expo, a blatant homage to the 1964 New York World’s Fair. In fact, nearly all of the Stark Expo is wrecked as civilians flee in terror from Iron Man-esque drones programmed to kill Tony Stark. It is a fitting end to a story that questioned the place of Iron Man in the modern world and how Tony Stark’s technology could be perverted if it fell into the wrong hands. However, the destruction of the Unisphere stuck with me.
At Disney World, there is a ride in Tomorrow Land called The Carousel of Progress. Patrons simply sit in a curved theater that turns every few minutes with depictions of everyday life being presented for each decade. The point of the show is to present how life changes from decade to decade and how technology has helped enhance life. Additionally, each portion of the show ends with the same song: “There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of every day.” This entire exhibit was taken from the 1964 New York World’s Fair and placed in Disney World for posterity. It is a simple experience that stands no chance against any of the other rides at Disney World, but its importance and message cannot be dismissed. Everyone needs to be constantly reminded that tomorrow is beautiful and waiting for us. If the fictional and non-fictional worlds can be cross-referenced for a moment, then that very same Carousel of Progress may have been a part of Tony Stark’s childhood as well.
Being the son of a highly successful tech tycoon in the 1960s, Tony Stark would have, undoubtedly, been to the New York World’s Fair in 1964. World Fairs used to house the newest and most innovative technologies for the world to experience before they became commonplace. And again, to satiate my passion for baseball (and specifically the New York Mets), the 1964 World’s Fair also celebrated the opening of Shea Stadium, one of the early dual-purpose stadiums in American sports. Regardless, the World’s Fair would have stood as one of Tony Stark’s defining moments as a young man.
Even the depiction of Howard Stark, Tony’s father, is ripped right out of ABC’s The Wonderful World of Disney with Howard Stark being filmed exactly as Walt Disney was filmed throughout the 1950s and 1960s television show. In the middle of the film, Nick Fury provides Tony Stark with old footage and blueprints from his father in order to help him synthesize a new element. In old 8mm footage of his father, Howard Stark touts the creation of the Stark Expo saying, “Everything is achievable through technology: better living, robust health, and for the first time in human history, the possibility of world peace.” The parallels between Howard Stark and Walt Disney are profound from the design of their offices to the models of cities they reference. But again, the themes of “tomorrow” and “progress” are present.
This leads back to the end of the film where the Stark Expo, the same that Walt Dis…I mean Howard Stark had declared would be the foundation for progress and peace, is completely destroyed. All of the work and all of the progress that had been celebrated over decades had been wiped out by Iron Man fighting killer drones. Those drones needed to be stopped, of course, but the destruction of that expo gave Tony a chance to reinvent himself. It served as the end of Howard Stark’s legacy and the beginning of Tony Stark’s. The destruction of The Stark Expo, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s World’s Fair, is Tony Stark’s “Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.”
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