"World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People's Thoughts" is a long title for a not so long movie and in the middle of it you see that this film is a sequel, namely to the second Oscar-nominated work by writer and director Don Hertzfeldt and this one here runs for little over 20 minutes, about 5 minutes longer than the original. The voice cast consists of Julia Pott and Winona Mae again. Pott is a 2-time Emmy nominee and Mae is Hertzfeldt's niece. The style and tone is really similar like in the first one, so I won't say too much about that. Anyway, you should watch the first one of course before considering seeing this one. It is not essential, but recommended. As for Hertzfeldt, I think I have seen all or almostg all of his works. He is a filmmaker I really really like because he is as good as it gets when it comes to evoking emotions (mostly negative, but also positive) for me. I really really like some of his older stuff. This one here sadly not as much, but really only because of how much I enjoy his earlier works. What we got here was still a satisfying watch certainly also elevated by the music used in the last third. I think the fact that I rate it roughly 2 stars lower than the average also has to do with the genre here. Science fiction has never been among my most favorite genres I must say and at times I even struggled to understand some of the references in this film that connects characters living centuries apart from each other actually. I think the introduction was really the best thing with the little girl totally acting like a little girl drawing who is just about to meet a new friend. And how her charms really have an impact on the clone. I think she was one right? I am so lost when it comes to sci-fi. Anyway, the dialogue writing by Hertzfeldt is spot-on for sure. As always pretty much. His takes on glimmers of hope (actual glimmers), on memories, on feelings and many other aspects from the human mind is so full of creativity. I also think that his stily is so easy to recognize. Of course this applies to his animation style (even if he uses a lot more colors nowadays), but also to how he writes the characters and what they say. You know it's him immediately. I'd be really curious to see a live action full feature film from him at some point because I believe in terms of animation he has really made the most (actually even more than that) of this genre in terms of his approach. Or if he could write a live action movie. It does not even have to be him directing. I would be so curious to watch that. As for this one here, it is really tough to criticize something that is not entirely subjective for me here, maybe the baby dinosaur which is not something fictitious because they actually existed, but yeah well in a small child's mind it probably is because he never even saw one in terms of how they actually looked. neither did we. You see I have to dig really deep here. I give this one a thumbs-up for sure and I must say I am a bit surprised that this did not get anywhere near the first WoT film in terms of popularity and awards recognition. It's not worse. Still have to see a film by Hertzfeldt that is not a good watch, considerably worse than everything else. His filmography is really close to perfect and I am optimistic it is going to stay like that with future projects. This one is just a little over 2 years old and I really can't wait to see what Hertzfeldt is going to come up with next. The one thing it is certainly going to be is heartfelt. As always with him.
