MOVIE REVIEW: “Astro Boy” (2009)
I’ll admit right up front that I’m not really familiar with Astro Boy. I know he’s a hugely popular Japanese character, and has been since the early 1950s, I know that there have been many cartoon and manga (or as they call it in Japan, “Comics”) iterations of him over the last half century, and I know that a lot of people are fanatical about him. I’ve even seen a few minutes of cartoons here and there over the years, and I recognized him on a poster in one of the later episodes of Macross/Robotech (In the newstand the three Zentradi spies are running)
I don’t know anything *about* him, though, other than he’s a Robot and he flies around in big red boots and black underwear. I don’t know his backstory, origins, the major high-points of his career, the supporting characters (Though there’s a little round-headed guy who’s hypocratically bald and has a ludicrously large nose who turns up a lot), I got nothing on any of that. While this might be a problem in the hands of a less talented, or even a less arrogant reviewer, however, I have decided that this actually makes me uniquely suited to review this film. Why? Because in this instance, I’m *not* a fan boy, I don’t have a zillion expectations that it can’t possibly look up to, I’m a feeble newb, a dane, who can just take the story as it is and tell you if it works or not, rather than get caught up about internal continuity, changes to the characters, or the fact that they totally ignored the hoobajoooba aliens of hoobajoobulon-H, who played such a massive role in the development of the supporting character who turns up half way through this story, who couldn’t have logically been in this film. I’m not the guy who’s going to bitch and moan about how Alicia Silverstone’s origin as Batgirl differed from the comics, ok?
So with that firmly established, let’s take a look:
PLAY BY PLAY
At some point in the Not Too Distant Future, the city of Metro City sees the world going to hell, so they decide to move. Through some unexplained process, they take their entire city, and the central mountain it’s built around, up a couple miles in to the air, where they live a utopian Hugo Gernsback kind of existence, with Robots doing everything, and humans, you know, just kind of living their great big fat, dumb, happy Laputan existence. When robots get old, or break, or whatever, just chuck ‘em over the side. Over the next century, the city has fallen out of touch with the ground, and no one really cares what’s going on down there, though they assume it’s nasty.
Toby is a boy genius, son of the adult genius who runs the Ministry of Science. Toby’s dad is a jerk. Neglectful, inattentive, distant, obsessed with work. He quite literally phones it in as a parent. Toby gets out of school early one day, and goes to visit his dad at work, where they’re demonstrating a new weapon, “The Peacekeeper” for the president of Metro City. The Peacekeeper bot is powered by a mystical doubletalk energy source called “The Blue Core,” which is good, and which is antithetical to the “Red Core,” which is basically the Loc Nar
Tags:
- Republibot 3.0's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Latest Status Updates
| Republibot 3.0 but he has no other genre credits." It seemed like a cool idea to me. 6 weeks ago |
| Republibot 3.0 If we were interviewing James "Scotty" Doohan, we'd say say "He played on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Space Academy, 6 weeks ago |
| Republibot 3.0 The concept was, "Hey, let's pretend Trek didn't exist, and just cover the rest of the genre." 6 weeks ago |
| jkirton2 Gonna take a few minutes to look around. 6 weeks ago |
| jkirton2 @Republibot 2.0 Will do 6 weeks ago |
| Republibot 3.0 » Jake Was Here "Jake Was Here" has been a member of our little blog family for exactly one year and three hours. THREE HOURS! 6 weeks ago |
| Republibot 2.0 @jkirton2 Welcome, John--- make yourself at home! 6 weeks ago |
| jkirton2 Reading Republibot for the FIRST time online! Yeah, go figure! 6 weeks ago |
| Republibot 3.0 I once had an idea for a magazine called "No Trek" which would only cover non-Trek SF. It was pretty funny. Details to follow... 6 weeks ago |
| wolf It might work, they have several steampunk conventions around and that's still the sort of movement that most people can't even describe. 6 weeks ago |
| nwkeys01 thinks a Eureka/Warehouse 13 con should be created 6 weeks ago |
| Republibot 1.0 @neorandomizer I would heartily endorse that. 6 weeks ago |
| neorandomizer @Republibot 1.0 How about a convention where Star Trek and Star Wars never happened. 6 weeks ago |
| Republibot 1.0 Wouldn't it be nice to have a big SciFi convention in which anything Star Trek related post TOS would be verboten. Thoughts? #SDCC 6 weeks ago |
| neorandomizer Might need to place this at the top of page 6 weeks ago |
Comments
27 December 2008
6 hours 15 min
Not just Japanese stuff, either, but faux-Japanese stuff too. For instance the M. Night Shalyman version of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" looks not at all good. (Ask R1 to give a rundown on the kid's martial arts skills, or lack thereof)
24 July 2009
13 hours 37 min
The only two versions of GHOST IN THE SHELL I've liked are the original manga and the TV series Stand-Alone Complex -- the series being the only adaptation, coincidentally, in which the original author (Masamune Shirow) had more than just nominal creative input. It's interesting to see how Shirow's ideas have evolved over ten years.
24 July 2009
13 hours 37 min
I can't stand the idea of Hollywood getting its hands on this stuff. It's fine the way it is, damn it -- you people just don't have any better ideas. (I especially don't trust James Cameron not to fuck up "Battle Angel Alita" after seeing the AVATAR previews.)
Evangelion's worth a watch, I think, as long as you keep in mind that the Judeo-Christian and Kabbalistic imagery is not meant to be taken seriously; the series creators wanted to introduce hints of a secret but coherent set of supernatural rules, and since less than 5% of the Japanese population is actually Christian... well, you see? One note of disagreement, however: I do NOT recommend you watch only the movies before seeing the TV series.
I suspect that the new Evangelion-reboot film trilogy currently being released in Japan will be a far more coherent and concise take on the story, when I get around to seeing it.
27 December 2008
6 hours 15 min
I never read any reviews before I watch a film myself, I want to see it completely free of expectations, and there's generally little reason to read a review after I've posted one, so I frequently don't. I hadn't thought to check what other sites thought of the movie, but it's interesting that the liberals themselves dissed it's overstated, pointless subtext. Crazy.
I'm assuming they weren't an island in the sky in the original?
And yes, Ghost in the Shell will be terrible. Firstly, the lead actress will not be naked all the time. Secondly, they'll completely throw the story out, but still manage to avoid fixing the one flaw the film had (The abrupt ending which reders the preceeding film mostly pointless) And thirdly, it'll be set in the US rather than a small nonexistent pacific nation.
27 June 2009
2 hours 29 min
I have not seen the film but from your description they threw most of the Astro Boy cannon out except the why of his creation.
Reviews on normally liberal sci fi sites call the Bush bashing the worst part of the film because of the heavy handed and meaningless why it was done. Why they did is anyone guess since the film is partly aimed at people like me who vaguely remember the anime from there childhood in the early 60’s.
Like most things that Hollywood tries to do with Japanese stories they screw it up when they Americanize it. I really hated what they did to ‘The Guyver’ when they made it an American live action film and I have been too scared to watch ‘Speed Racer’. The ‘Witch Blade’ TV show was horrible so it does not surprise me they dropped the ball a little on ‘Astro Boy’.
There are a few projects that I have heard are in production that I think Hollywood are going to trash ‘Ghost in the Shell’, “Battle Angel’ and ‘Cowboy Bebop’ scare the hell out of me and I thank god that ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ is in development hell.
note if you want to see a really mind blowing take on the end times watch the two Evangelion movies.