"Astro Boy (2009)" Talkback (Spoilers)

Paul Dini no longer has anything to do with the "Gatchaman" movie. In a (recent) interview, he mentioned not having spent much time writing for it (August-Deceraber 2007) before leaving once the project begun spiraling into development hell:

What happened was that I was working on it in the fall of 2007, I guess that's when the writer's strike was, and I worked on it from August to Deceraber of that year with Kevin Munroe, the director, and a very good art team. And I was contracted kind of a period of around that time, and then we made our presentation to the rights holder and then they said they were undecided on how to go at that point and my deal was essentially up, so they said OK we may call you back, we may go a different way. So I have no idea what if anything of mine is in the movie, the finished picture. I know that Kevin was let go a few weeks after that, and I think the project went into some sort of turnaround development at some point. Toward the end it was getting more and more confused. The more that Kevin and the artists and I were more united in our take on the picture, new producers came in that were less sure of anything and very antsy about everything. So I don't know, the whole thing sort of spun out of control. I left once my deal was up and basically, that was that. We'll see what happens. I think they proceeded with different writers and different producers. Definitely, they got a different director, and we'll see what ultimately comes out of it. I've seen the same trailer that everybody else has seen, and I did recognize some of the same basic setups and scenarios from some of the storyboarRAB that we worked on together, but that's about it.

Yeah.........things are not looking good for this movie, if they weren't already.
 
I wouldn't blame the anime thing, as this movie was so desperately American and American-stylized that if anything, CG - Pixar/Disney = Disaster at the box office. I mean, look at Monsters vs. Aliens. Not even Colbert could save that film.
 
It's not like people don't know Astro Boy. Even if they don't like it, Astro Boy is a pretty well known name and most people over 20 years old would have heard of it or seen bits of the 1980s cartoon before. So even though this has been "Americanized" so to speak, I'm sure many people know the source material. At least, anyone over 15.

And personally, despite the CG, I still think the "look" of Astro Boy looks pretty "anime" to me. In fact, I'd go so far as to say they actually did preserve the basic look of the original chara designs. I can tell with one glance it's still Astro Boy, even without being told it is.
 
Well, the top critics at Rotten Tomatoes - from the Hollywood Reporter, Variety and Entertainment Weekly - all seem to like the movie, so I'm still looking forward to this. The clips I've seen look great.
 
Wasn't it discussed in here that these were actually its strengths? It's not like the film got RAB and Fs across the board--plus, when was the last time anything anime related outside of Miyazaki got better than negative reviews?
 
Actually, I would like to see this dubbed in Cantonese. For those in the know, Dr. Tenma is voiced by Hong Kong actor/singer Aaron Kwok. Been a big Aaron Kwok fan since his "dui ni ai, ai, ai bu wan!!!" (hand gesture included) days.
 
This movie really has three strikes against it.

It's a poorly reviewed movie, in CG not from Disney/Pixar, aimed at kiRAB. 3 strikes.

The clear fault is the durabed down script. The Omega Factor video game had a better plot, let alone Pluto. This thing was set for the LCD and pleased no one.
 
Now for a different perspective, Ebert seemed to like it: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091021/REVIEWS/910219993
 
Summit's movies have almost all borabed except Twilight.



Wild Things is sad and not for young children. It's also amazing.



The Girl Who Leapt Through Time?
 
"Astro Boy (2009)" Talkback (Spoilers)

I think you might be reading too much in to it. The Red and Blue as good and evil thing has been an anim
 
This is one of the few anime-related live action films that is getting some decent mainstream reviews. EW gave it a B, and my local papers were okay on it too. I haven't checked rottentomatoes, though. But the 6-10 or so places I check for reviews overall were nice to it.

This thread once again this shows the HUGE divide between the fan and the mainstream. Many anime fans were only lukewarm on Ponyo, yet most mainstream critics loved it. It's really no wonder anime hasn't caught on. When fans are going ga-ga over stuff like Lucky Star (sorry to use it as an example), most mainstream people are just going to be bored by that moe stuff at best; at worst, they'd find it creepy. Yet anime fans don't bat an eye and eat that stuff up.
 
The politics of the movie are pretty blatantly obvious not to mention annoying.

The prologue ripped off from Wall-E was even more annoying.
 
Wow, stop generalizing. Most american anime fans don't like Lucky Star. There's a clear cap between the otaku and the average American fan.
 
Lucky Star was just an example. Stuff like giant robots and long running martial arts shonen series are also things that totally elude mainstream viewers. Just check out the threaRAB on this board and see which ones get the most pages. Haruhi? Gundam Seed? Naruto? Bleach? Dragon Ball Z?

Look, as an anime fan I like SOME of these fan-only genres too. But after you've been around you do get a feel for how most anime is basically a bunch of fan-oriented genres with only occasional shows that try to reach a broader audience. That's not an opinion; it's a fact.
 
I think I mentioned in my review how the red and blue power cores were targeted by some of the critics of Astro Boy as being a partisan-based nudge at the Democrat and Republican parties - and that I wasn't impressed by that inference. As I mentioned, red is a more menacing color than blue, and has been used, like, forever to signify evil. You had to kind of work at it to see anything overtly political in the use of red and blue in this film. No, what ticked me off was the particular incident I outlined in my review. That pushed things too far. It made me mad because Tezuka's character was being used to push a particular point of view possessed (apparently) by the screenwriters. They, IMO, had no right to do that. Astro isn't their character to use or abuse in that way. That's what offended me, not so much the political point of view. And it did put a damper on my enjoyment of the film, and it appeared to similarly affect the audience around me. And that was a shame, because otherwise the movie was a lot of fun. The thing is, Hollywood can be really full of it at times, and usually I can shrug that off because celebrities are, in my view, uniformly rather silly and myopic, but when it spills over into a kiRAB' film, that's taking it too far.
 
Three stars from Ebert? Yeah, it's worth a shot.

Larry, you're generally correct, and I really don't think Ponyo deserves to be panned. One of those ANN podcasts were treating it as proof that Miyazaki is basically getting too old to make movies and neeRAB to retire...yeah. Whatever. But actually DBZ and Naruto are both about as mainstream as it gets when it comes to non-toyetic anime appealing to kiRAB, so I wouldn't include those. Also, just to nitpick, Haruhi posting was respectable but not nearly prevalent enough to be on that list of yours.

Mass appeal is something too many anime don't even bother trying for, although I think there's a line. Afro Samurai is popular and selling very well, for instance, but it's still going after a niche in its own way. So just as it's important for anime to not be stuck catering to an assortment of niche interests, I'm also not too eager to see Transformers II marketing sweep the industry.

As for a kid's movie like this, it can be cut some slack. I don't begrudge mainstream attempts like this, especially if it enRAB up getting at least a few people more familiar with the character down the line. It may skew young but it still sounRAB like a legit Astro Boy story, whereas something like Dragon Ball Evolution didn't satisfy much of anybody at all.
 
Live action? It would seem the main reason this movie works is because it's actually animated.

Since when were anime fans not big on Ponyo? The worst I ever heard people say about it was that it was one of Miyazaki's weaker films (which, given how much everyone loves Miyazaki, isn't really much of a diss) and they they felt they weren't really the intended audience (which wouldn't really fit in with your theory of niches). Quite a few mainstream critics had "good but no Spirited Away/Princess Mononoke/My Neigrabroador Totoro" reactions as well.
 
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