- “I heard that.”
- ―9-Eye
9-Eye was the deuteragonist of The Timekeeper.
Background[]
9-Eye was the assistant to Timekeeper, and the one who recorded the time travel experiment for the attraction riders. She was his latest development and travelled with him to the Metropolis Science Institute in Tomorrowland and the Visionarium in Discoveryland to show off their technology.
Appearances[]
Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast[]
When Le Visionarium closed in Disneyland Paris in 2004, the 9-Eye prop was moved to the first room of Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, as a reference to the attraction that existed in that place years prior. She can be seen behind Boxobot in the first scene.
Rockettower Plaza[]
9-Eye made a cameo in Stitch's Supersonic Celebration. Here, the Timekeeper and 9-Eye were shown alongside Tom Morrow 2.0 being sold by RoboMart, a subsidiary of the evil interstellar corporation X-S Tech.
The Timekeeper[]
American pre-show[]
Before the show, guests are introduced to 9-Eye (also known as "Circumvisual PhotoDroid"). Her nine eyes represent the nine cameras used in filming the show in the round, thus showing the view from them on each of the nine movie screens. Guests then can watch her training videos, which include a plunge over Niagara Falls, a flight into a barn full of dynamite in Topeka, Kansas, a swirling ride aboard a centrifugator, and hitching a ride on a space shuttle.
The film[]
After guests enter the theater, Timekeeper comes to life and has 9-Eye prepared for the journey through time. He then turns on the machine for its first use, then watches from his control panel as 9-Eye is thrust back to the Jurassic age period in Earth's history. She narrowly escapes a hungry Allosaurus as Timekeeper sends her to the last great ice age about 12,000 years ago. As she starts freezing up, Timekeeper sends her to 1450, for what should be a demonstration of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press. However, Timekeeper has yet again messed up and sent her to a Scottish battlefield in which one warrior comes after her. Finally working the machine's kinks out, he sends her to 1503, at the height of the Renaissance. The machine is placed right in the middle of Leonardo da Vinci's workshop, where he is painting the Mona Lisa and working on a model of his flying machine.
9-Eye, being curious, picks up an item close to her, and is quickly noticed by Da Vinci, who becomes fascinated by the strange female-programmed machine, and starts drawing her on paper. However, the meeting between them is unfortunately cut short. Her next stop in time is 1763 in a French castle, where a child named Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is giving a performance to a crowd, which includes King Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour. The meeting is again short as she is noticed by the people, who start chasing her through the hallways. Timekeeper decides to send her to the 1878 Exposition Universelle, but the machine is stuck on fast forward, so she witnesses the Paris skyline in such a motion that the progress of the Eiffel Tower, symbol of the 1889 Exposition Universelle, is shown in the background. Finally, Timekeeper has the machine stopped in 1900, just in time for that year's Exposition Universelle.
Timekeeper announces that guests are just in time for a meeting between H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. 9-Eye hides from the fair-goers but not so that Verne and Wells are hidden. After a brief conversation about their conflicting visions of the Future, Wells walks away, leaving Verne with a model of his time machine, which he has just criticized as impossible. After a sarcastic comment about time travel from him, 9-Eye rebuts his claim and appears to him. He decides to take a closer look at her and tries to grab her. Timekeeper seeing this tries to bring her back to the present, but he also takes Verne with her by mistake. He and 9-Eye, realizing their mistake, try to send Verne back, but he refuses after discovering he has finally arrived in the future he had always dreamed of. He begs them to show him the world of today in 10 minutes or less, so he can return to 1900 and deliver his speech at the Exhibition (which makes Timekeeper ironically reply that he did it in 80 days).
They agree, and Timekeeper sets the machine for the present. He sends Verne and 9-Eye to a dark tunnel, which Verne believes to be a "dark future". They are unaware they are standing in a railroad tunnel. The next thing to happen is a collision between Verne and a French TGV train, with the latter becoming a new hood ornament. From the train, he and 9-Eye explore the modern streets of Paris (with him walking among the traffic, nearly causing an accident), which leads him, curious, to try driving. As such, Timekeeper puts him in the front seat of a race car, and he takes off, albeit in the wrong direction. After that, he enjoys a bobsled run.
After the bobsled run, Timekeeper sends Verne and 9-Eye to the bottom of the sea, to show Verne how his novel, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. has come to life. The scene changes and goes from underwater to flying. Verne now stands in a balloon soaring over Red Square in Moscow, sharing it with a Russian couple on their honeymoon. Since his presence is inconvenient, Timekeeper sends him to Roissy Airport near Paris. The Russian couple is accidentally taken there as well, where they could start their honeymoon. As Verne witnesses planes (the "flying wagons" as he calls them), he begs for Timekeeper to let him fly. An employee soon arrives, discovers 9-Eye, and start talking to her. However, Verne, who ventured far from there, is arrested by policemen. With the help of the employee and Timekeeper's grip on time, he is finally freed (these two scenes were not part of the Walt Disney World version). The screen then shows a flight through the air above the European countrysides featuring Castles and Mountains. Verne is shown in a helicopter, sitting dangerously close to its open door. After flying over Mont Saint-Michel, Neuschwanstein Castle, English countrysides, and the New York City skyline (only in the Walt Disney World version), he requests to go even higher. They take him to space, in order to show that another dream of his, space travel, has come true from his book, From the Earth to the Moon. Time is running out, so Timekeeper and 9-Eye return Verne to the site of the Grand Palais of the 1900 Exposition Universelle. However, Timekeeper makes a mistake, and Verne is in the right place, but at the wrong time (in the 1990s). When they finally return him to his right time, Wells happens to go back to the site of his discussion with him, and therefore sees all that is going on with Timekeeper.
Wells is flabbergasted, and Verne and 9-Eye exchange goodbyes as Wells tries to understand what is happening. 9-Eye returns to the present, and now that guests have witnessed a "flawless" demonstration of his time machine, Timekeeper decides to see the future. He sends 9-Eye and selected guests to 2189, 300 years after the 1889 Exposition Universelle and the completion of the Eiffel Tower (both evidenced by Timekeeper's clock, and by the appearance of the number "300" on the Eiffel Tower). As they explore a futuristic Paris aboard a flying car named Reinastella, they see Verne and Wells appearing in what looks like the latter's time machine from 1900. A stunned 9-Eye questions how they got there, to which Verne replies, "In the future, anything is possible!" The show ends as they jet off, and Timekeeper wishes the guests well. As they leave, he makes plans to see other important events during history and in the future with his machine and 9-Eye.
Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover[]
While promoting the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor, ORAC-5 says, "Whether you have one eye or nine, take the time to see this show".
Trivia[]
- The Timekeeper and 9-Eye's employers at the Metropolis Institute of Time Travel are likely a reference to the influential 1927 German-expressionist science-fiction film Metropolis, directed by Fritz Lang.
Gallery[]
