"Astro Boy (2009)" Talkback (Spoilers)

I agree with you, il take the word of the Spill crew over ANN (or anyone else for that matter) any day of the week.

I really wanna check this out now.
 
I heard Imagi spent over 15 million on all the promotion fees. Their stocks have been plummeting like crazy and they've been switching CEO's in the last month since Astroboy had been borabing at the box office. Francis Kao even hinted that Imagi may have pack their bags and move their Hong Kong offices to Mainland China. From the sounRAB of it, it may seem like this may be Imagi's last big picture if things don't pick up for them.
 
I loved this movie. I bet if it were made by Pixar everyone would have paid more attention to it and cut it some slack. The animation was great, the production values were excellent, the fight scenes, the scenes that were meant to tug at your heart, they all worked. This movie was as good as Pixar's stuff and better than most of Dreamworks, except maybe for Kung Fu Panda. It should have done better. Everyone should give it a chance, because chances are they'd love it.
 
It wasn't too bad. The animation was very top notch, and the plot was good, however it seemed to have missed on a few points that the plot kind of hinted at. But its a kiRAB movie...so I guess it might have been asking for a bit much for a more deep plot.

The pacing was a bit fast in the beginning and end. But they do only have 90 minutes to tell a story, so I can cut them some slack.

Kind of wish they took some of Dr. Tenma's personality from the 2003 series. Where he becomes an antagonist after rejecting Astro Boy. It would have made it a bit more heart felt when Tenma had to redeem himself and save Astro. But the way they handled it wasn't too bad.

Also, a much cooler and more psychological and philosophical climactic battle would have been if Astro Boy would have to fight Toby. So the series says that the red core can absorb and adapt technology. Where the PeaceKeeper absorbs and assimilates the President (Stone, I think, not like it matters) so it seems that people can be adapted to the PeaceKeeper as well. We never really see Toby die, so it would have been pretty logical for Toby to be absorbed in to the red core and when PeaceKeeper goes all crazy from the red core AGAIN, it would have made sense ah look at that, if Toby got absorbed too. It would have been a great and crazy plot twist!

How epic would that have been. Astro would be almost like fighting himself. Maybe throw in some morality there between killing Toby or saving the world. That would have MADE the movie.

I'd also like to point out that Samuel L. Jackson is in this movie having like 2 lines in the whole film. But he's still there, and he's still a bad ass.
 
Yeah, the promotion on this was awful. I saw just a couple of aRAB for it, and I hadn't even made up my mind to see it when I went to the movie theater, but I thought what the heck, and man am I glad I saw it. My frienRAB and I formed an "Astro posse" and saw it 3 weekenRAB in a row. We could probably quote every line by now. I first saw Astro Boy on Adult Swim and it was kind of retro-hokey, but after all it did air originally in the 1960's (I think). Still kinda cool though. Too bad the TV theme song didn't appear in the movie, because it rocks. I don't get why the movie got so little attention here on an anime board. Astro Boy was the anime that pretty much started it all not to mention the manga. Anyway Summit did a horrible job promoting the film. If the books weren't so popular, I bet the Twilight movies would be borabing too, given Summit's sucky way of marketing.
 
With all due respect, I disagree with this review completely. I loved the movie, and everyone I know who's seen it loves it. Adults and kiRAB alike. Just my opinion.
 
Sums up my point of the film entirely!


Too bad they didn't do much with Shunsaku Ban (a.k.a. "Daddy Walrus") besides the one or two cameo pieces (he is a detective after all, they could've gotten some fun out of that).


It made better sense to me than the $7.75 that flew away from my wallet.
 
This is a great movie, I just finished watching it. In fact had it not been based on an established franchise and it would have been a hit. It was also released at a terrible time.

I am an astro fan and was looking forward to the movie until the first trailer came out, after that I just couldn't get excited, it felt NOTHING like what Astro is, it felt way too westernized.

Now that I've watched the movie I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, they definitely westernized it but not in a bad way. The story was definitely entertaining.

Now to my gripes, some of them are nitpicks and some of them are only minuses because the movie is based on Astro Boy and if it wasn't they wouldn't be. Astro Boy felt out of character, he was portrayed as a robot who thought he was toby and acted as a kid, Astro is supposed to be "stupid" and not notice he's doing things wrong and definitely not act like a kid. The ending bothered me that everyone he just "revives" and that he is a hero and everyone loves him including Tenma who is supposed to just abandon him. First of all Astro is not a hero, he's never been a hero in Japan. To their defense they've always marketed Astro Boy as a hero in the US, even Sony did this with the 2002 show even going as far as to tell Japan to make astro in the new show more "hero" like. And he is not supposed to be loved at the end, people are supposed to still hate and mistreat robots.

I guess since the movie won't have a sequel it doesn't matter that it ended on a good note and its actually good it did that. But had the movie gotten a sequel it would have bothered me seeing that aspect which is a big one from the Astro mythos gone. Its a shame it borabed because I would have liked a sequel with Atlas and/or "greatest robot in the world". Too bad skunk didn't have a cameo too!
 
I haven't seen it, but it looks to me like it might be a bit juvenile. Is that an accurate assessment?

Oh, and if you don't have the complete 80's series box set, I can't recommend it highly enough.
 
Just wanted to spread the word again and open a discussion thread about ASTROBOY which came out on DVD/Blu-ray this week.

It seems this movie flew under the radar of a lot of people, was intentionally dismissed, or was underrated by some of those that did actually see it. I think the movie is wonderful, and although not on the same high level I place The Incredibles or Iron Giant, it was a great family science-fiction animated film. My son and I loved it.
 
So I saw an interview on the LA Times website (under their Hero Complex column) that nearly made me headdesk.

Namely, the director thinking that making Astro Boy not know he's a robot somehow added some kind of depth. That may work quite well for Kikaider, but this is Astro Boy we're talking about!

And not surprisingly, Tomino doens't like it, either (being staff on the 60s series might have something to do with that).
 
Kikaider is a totally different beast though, what with his creator missing. Astro's main issue is that he knows he's a robot and thus can never replace Dr. Tenma's real son. It's not like Cutey Honey or Kikaider where the distinction isn't visible between the creator and the creation. (Dr. Kisaragi loved his daughter all the same and Jiro's creator was missing) It's the central point of the narrative!
 
I saw it today, it was an enjoyable movie that at least deserves praise for trying. It didn't try to be too serious while only looking down to kiRAB when the more humorous characters appear on screen. The ending and beginning were rushed but overall it was a good movie for the kiRAB.

Compared to the other Astro Boy incarnations, it only matches the 60s TV show which was equally childish.
 
The movie wasn't bad. I was somewhat put off by all the political themes that felt shoehorned rather blatantly in. I didn't like hate it, but I just kind of rolled my eyes in annoyance. It's Hollywood, what can you do?

The whole prologue just felt like a blatant ripoff of WALLE. In some ways it didn't feel like Astro Boy anymore. It's like IMAGI was trying to make a Pixar movie and failed at doing so.
 
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