Well, I saw the new CG Astro Boy last night. Like the TMNT movie that Imagi put out a couple years ago, the animation used in Astro Boy was really nice. However, some of the character models were a bit different than the original character designs. I miss Tenma’s “rooster” hairdo and Astro’s eyes were the wrong shape. Ham Egg was also much fatter than usual, but they may have done that intentionally to make him match his voice actor Nathan Lane (which by the way was one of the highlights of the movie as he made a very good Ham Egg).

Tenma, on the other hand, voiced by Nicholas Cage was what I feared it would be, a non-emotional, uninspiring performance where he used the same voice inflection for every line, every situation, no matter how bad or good the action on screen was. I prefer the Tenma (Dr. Boyton) of the 1960’s American Astro Boy dub over this performance; at least he got upset when his son died and actually conveyed the “mad” part of Tenma well. Tenma, was pretty much a boring, middle of the road kind of character and I didn’t particularly care for him one way or another. I simply could not connect to him or relate to him on the level I should have. Tenma could have gotten hit by a bus and that really would not have made me feel bad for him.

Another small sticking point for me was the mixing of English and Japanese names. They decided to go with the Japanese name for Tenma, but stuck with the terrible Elephun for Ochanomizu. I think I would have preferred they use a literal translation of Ochanomizu’s name (Tea Water) than to revert to the stupid 1960’s English name. Alternately, if you are going to use Elephun, you may was well use Boyton. Just pick a side people, and stick with it. Please.

Ochanomizu (Elephun in this one) wasn’t bad. I think he more or less was what I would have expected him to be. Ochanomizu is generally a “good scientist” in Osamu Tezuka’s world and he was pretty much that. Concerned with the environment, understanding and the voice of reason, I think Tezuka would have liked this version of Ochanomizu. However, you completely lose the good/chaotic mix between the two scientists with Tenma’s sub-par performance.

The movie fell short of a chance at awesomeness by making President Stone, an almost Duke Red clone, but not actually Duke Red. If they had Duke Red play President Stone, I think this movie would have gotten a bit more interesting. However, as it stands, President Stone pretty much only shares a nose with Duke Red and lacks Duke Red’s multi-dimensional personality and cunning. So, I suppose it is just as well that they did not go with a full blown Duke Red part, as Duke Red is so much cooler than that.

One nice touch was the addition of Osamu Tezuka as a background scientist character in the Ministy of Science. Fans of Tezuka’s works will also enjoy the many “patch gourd creatures” scattered throughout the city. Mustachio (Shunsaku Ban) also makes a couple brief appearances as Toby’s teacher and a background character.

NOTE: the rest of this entry is going to focus on plot points. Anyone who is familiar to the Astro Boy series will not likely be spoiled but if you prefer to see the movie yourself before I nitpick it, then you may want to stop here. (Scroll down for more).

 

 

 

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The story wasn’t as horrible as it could have been, but it left out some of the subtleties that Tezuka worked into his manga and other previous installments of the Astro Boy universe. I half expected Keenan Ivory Wayans to jump up and scream “MESSAGE!” every time there was some lesson to be learned a la “Don’t Be a Menace to South Central…” They didn’t leave anything up to the viewer to figure out for themselves, they spelled out pretty much everything.

One example comes to us when Tenma straight out says to “Elephun” that he may have made a mistake and that the robot Toby is not his real son, and merely a “replacement.” Osamu Tezuka respected the reader/viewer’s intelligence enough to use the “robot boys cannot grow” metaphor to convey this same fact. In the original story Tenma rejects Astro because he “cannot grow” when in reality if the viewer digs a LITTLE deeper they can infer that this is the point when the “mad Dr. Tenma” has realized that Astro is not his son, and you cannot replace a human being. But that would be too much work for your average American audience and God forbid we let parents debate any plot points with curious children, so instead they just throw the hard facts in your face. But since Cage made such a poor Tenma anyhow who never REALLY reached the classic Tenma madness breaking point, I suppose it is just as well, as such an emotional plot point would have been hard to glean from that performance.

Cage’s performance also reflected poorly on the plot in general. In this version of the story Toby is vaporized  by a giant, “peace keeping” robot, in a military experiment gone wrong at the Ministry of Science (this robot was aptly named “Peace Keeper”, though I think Megaman fans would have howled if they named him Gamma instead XD ). Tenma didn’t seem NEARLY as upset about this as he SHOULD have been. I mean 1) his son just got VAOPRIZED and 2) it was HIS robot that vaporized him! It just, didn’t sit well with me at all. The choppy animation of the 1960’s Astro Boy “car wreck scene” was more emotional and Tenma’s ensuing madness made more sense. (Though admittedly the whole vaporization thing was problematic as it is anti-climatic by nature. You’re here one minute then “poof” you’re gone, not much room for drama and not much closure in that. I assume this move was made to make it less traumatizing for kids but it also made it less “real.”)

Tenma does not seem that upset while he spends, about oh… maybe a week making his new robot son (it took a year in the manga and other versions of the story which just emphasized how obsessed he really was). The big sticking point in this process was the fact that he did not program this version of Astro, rather he “copied” Toby’s memories into the robot, with a hair.

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I think anyone over the age of 10 knows that your memories are recorded in your BRAIN not your DNA. I guess they couldn’t very well have Dr. Tenma walking around with a chunk of Toby’s brain that somehow survived the vaporization, but COME ON. They could have had a flash back sequence where he and his son used some kind of mind-to-computer recording device to download his memories… or maybe he could have supplemented programming with old digital photos and video of them… but to extract memories from hair? I’m not sure if I should be annoyed at the bad science or impressed with Tenma’s mad skillz ;p

This story also touched on Osamu Tezuka’s environmental messages. The story begins in Metro City, a floating city in the sky which was raised to escape the garbage pile they created on earth. Metro City is shiny, new, clean, and is maintained largely by servant robots. This also felt a little like Wall-e in that respect. Ochanomizu has a dream of cleaning up the pollution they left behind on the ground below and returning to their old life.

The people dwelling on the surface at least in the immediate area, seem to spend most of their time sifting through Metro City’s trash that they throw out of the city quite literally. They never really explain why there are so many ORPHANS on the surface. Ham Egg has a collection of these orphans who he sends out in search of robots and robot parts that can be salvaged and rebuilt into working robots. (It is later revealed that he does this to win money at the “Robot Games” which are similar to the “Robotting” tournaments from the manga).

This is where some of the robot right’s elements of the Astro Boy story start to play out, but do not make much progress in this movie. On the Earth’s surface, Astro encounters a rag-tag band of 3 robots calling themselves the “Robot Revolutionary Front” (RRF). This band of communist-worker-party style revolutionaries who have posters of Lenin and Trotsky’s name glued all over their hideout, are hardly likely leaders in a movement to win robots the right to be free from human ownership. This freedom is granted relatively early in the original Astro Boy narrative, partly due to Ochanomizu’s efforts. However, in this movie the robots are granted little more than a brief show of appreciation at the very end of the film. As readers of the manga know, granting one freedom is not the solution to the problem of changing the minds and hearts of humans. So, perhaps this was a bit too much information (or too much thinking) for your average viewer of PG rated movies.

They also used the RRF to briefly mention Asimov’s laws of robotics, and there was a minor suggestion that Astro may be free of those laws due to his human memories. But other than that, they didn’t go much beyond referencing the first law and avoided the complexities and issues that the other laws suggest.

One final thing that was somewhat annoying was the fact that Astro “gives his life” to save the city, and is promptly revived. Which made the whole self-sacrifice thing a bit pointless… I also could have done without the stupid random alien attack at the end to further ram home the point that the world needs Astro and he’s a !HERO!.

Overall, the story was ok, though I didn’t need to be beaten over the head with the obvious all the time. It certainly was better than I expected. However, that didn’t stop me and my husband (and later my friends) from listing all the actors we would RATHER have seen playing Dr. Tenma. We eventually concluded that they would have been well advised to have cast just about ANYONE in Hollywood to be Tenma except: Nicholas Cage and Keanu Reeves because they both suffer from the same problem, one-dimensional, non-emotional, uninspiring characters.

In general, the movie didn’t really add anything special to the Astro Boy universe, but I don’t think Tezuka is spinning in his grave over it. However, I think Dr. Tenma was easily the worst part of the movie and they would have done better with the traditional zany Dr. Tenma than “unemotional, awkward, but somewhat loving father Tenma.” But I guess having Tenma outright reject Astro would be “too traumatizing for kids,” and pressure from American censors was probably partly to blame for that 9_9 Though, I never thought much good comes from sheltering kids TOO much, and his rejection of him was perfectly acceptable in the US 1960’s version. Tenma never really HURT Astro (just chased him with a broom in the manga). He simply sold him, and being a robot this was an acceptable practice in their universe. So, I think someone wussed out on that one.

Go see it… see what you think. The animation was nice, Nathan Lane was entertaining, Nicholas Cage was not. There are enough amusing bits to keep you interested, even if they are beating you senseless with the obvious sometimes.