Arco

Arco

10-year-old Arco lives in a far future. During his first flight in his rainbow suit, he loses control and falls into the past. Iris, a girl his age from 2075, comes to his rescue and tries by all means to help send him back to his era.

7.420251h 29mAnimationAdventureFantasyFamilyScience Fiction

What if rainbows were people from the future traveling in time?

Summary

Warning: This summary contains plot details and spoilers.

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Arco Dorell is a ten-year-old boy in the year 2932, an idyllic future where humans live in the clouds and travel through time using rainbow flight suits. Arco is jealous that his parents and older sister can time travel while he waits at home, for children are not allowed to fly before age twelve. In the night, he steals his sister's time traveling cape and gemstone and attempts to travel to the distant past to see dinosaurs.

In the year 2075, robots perform most essential jobs and extreme weather events and wildfires are commonplace, though most infrastructure is protected by bubble-like barriers activated during such events. Ten-year-old Iris and her infant brother Peter are looked after by a kindly robot caretaker named Mikki while their parents spend the weekdays in the city for work. Iris and her neighbor Clifford walk to school through debris from the previous night's violent storm, unfazed by the wreckage. Excusing herself from class to sit outside and draw, Iris sees a rainbow speeding through the sky. She follows it to its end and discovers Arco crash landed in the forest. Three eccentric brothers named Dougie, Stewie, and Frankie encounter Iris in the forest and seem to be looking for Arco. Iris sends the brothers in the wrong direction, but they find the gemstone from Arco's suit. Iris takes Arco back to her home, where Mikki tends to Arco's wounds and mends his cape.

Arco and Iris bond. Arco tells Iris about how future humans have moved into the clouds to allow the Earth to rest and Iris sketches the design of the platform homes from his description. The three brothers are tracking Arco. Arco explains that he cannot fly without the gemstone unless it's raining and sunny at the same time, which rarely happens. Iris and Arco attempt to get him back home by turning on the garden sprinklers while Arco jumps from the roof in his rainbow cape. Mikki, unaware that Arco is from the future, calls the police in a well-meaning attempt to reunite him with his parents. Iris and Arco escape to her school to evade the police, while a massive wildfire rages over the town. Clifford sees Iris and Arco leave the house and follows them. The three brothers follow as well and all six of them end up in the school. Mikki shows up at the school with Peter, but the police robots at the scene will not allow them to enter.

The three brothers confront Arco and Iris but ultimately prove amiable and help them evade the police. They return the gem to Arco and he attempts to fly home from the roof of the school, but Iris begs to come along. As the wildfire grows stronger, a bubble barrier begins to close around the school and Arco climbs to the outside of it. Clifford, despite not wanting her to go, helps Iris get out of the bubble barrier too right before it closes. Arco agrees to take Iris with him, but their combined weight is too heavy and they crash into the middle of the forest as the wildfire burns through it. Mikki, with Peter in tow, follows the rainbow trail from Arco's flight and finds Arco and Iris unconscious in the forest. Mikki tries to carry them to safety out of the forest, but falling trees force them to shelter in a cave.

Iris wakes up safe in an underground area with Arco and Peter. She finds Mikki carving detailed images of their memories with Iris and the family into the cave wall, including one of Iris and Arco flying with a rainbow trail. When Mikki turns to face Iris, she sees they are badly damaged and on the verge of breaking down. As they die, Mikki tells Iris to leave them and go. Iris escapes from the cave with Arco and Peter. When they reach the outside, many rainbows descend upon them. Arco immediately realizes his family has finally come to his rescue, but when they appear, his parents are elderly and his sister is now an older adult. Arco's family explains that they have spent their entire lives searching through time for Arco and finally found him thanks to the cave art Mikki made. Iris and Arco say goodbye before he leaves with his family. It is hinted that Iris becomes an architect and designs the platform homes of the future, as well as beginning to invent time travel.

Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)