Was Astro Boy (2009) worth it?

[Majora Fi]

Okay, 17 years have passed... Was this movie a good Americanization of the franchise?

 

[Jeff]

I find it not too bad. It's better to be CG animation instead of live action like Dragonball Evolution and Speed Racer. It's a shame it flopped at the box office and no one really talks about it because it's not around Disney or Pixar levels of quality. Though it does follow a little bit to the original source material even though Astro is wearing clothes probably because viewers don't want to see a half naked robot boys that shoots bullets from his almost bare butt?

Anyway, it's a decent adaptation and I was hoping other classic anime that follows Astro Boy should get an animated film adaptation like Gigantor and Tobor the 8th Man and get a similar treatment without Hollywood destroying them.

 

[Majora Fi]

I find it not too bad. It's better than making it CG animation instead of live action unlike Dragonball Evolution and Speed Racer. It's a shame it flopped at the box office and no one really talks about it because it's not around Disney or Pixar levels of quality. it does follow a little bit to the original source material even though Astro is wearing clothes because censorship of half naked robot boys is a no-no for the US?

Anyway, it's a decent adaptation and I was hoping other classic anime that follows Astro Boy should get an animated film adaptation like Gigantor and Tobor the 8th Man and get a similar treatment without Hollywood destroying them.

Perhaps part of its quality lies in the fact that it's a co-production with Hong Kong (the studio hired to animate it came from there), and flop makes the film seem below average.

 

[Bakuma1997]

I kind of loved it

I saw it for the first time in a cinema as a prize for passing 5th grade, never saw the OG Astro Boy, but when i saw it i got Omega Factor, so i was like "Hey, is that the movie of the spiky robot on my Gameboy", it was more or less templated of your usual kid flick, but it was surprisingly dark (Hamegg enslaving robots for gladiator combat, President Stone in general and the fact Tobio's death still is there, only changed to a "cleaner" death via disintegration) and once i came back, now having seen the 2002 anime and thus more in context, i managed to appreciate some call backs to the main Astro Boy

I am not exactly calling it a masterpiece tho, as mentioned the plot can be linear, sometimes it forgets it is an adaptation of Astro Boy and if you get past President Stone's creepy plan to destroy a by ramming a floating one into it, he is a bland villian that in the US dub had a flat voice

Still a nice watch if you simply want to watch a movie

 

[Majora Fi]

I kind of loved it

I saw it for the first time in a cinema as a prize for passing 5th grade, never saw the OG Astro Boy, but when i saw it i got Omega Factor, so i was like "Hey, is that the movie of the spiky robot on my Gameboy", it was more or less templated of your usual kid flick, but it was surprisingly dark (Hamegg enslaving robots for gladiator combat, President Stone in general and the fact Tobio's death still is there, only changed to a "cleaner" death via disintegration) and once i came back, now having seen the 2002 anime and thus more in context, i managed to appreciate some call backs to the main Astro Boy

I am not exactly calling it a masterpiece tho, as mentioned the plot can be linear, sometimes it forgets it is an adaptation of Astro Boy and if you get past President Stone's creepy plan to destroy a by ramming a floating one into it, he is a bland villian that in the US dub had a flat voice

Still a nice watch if you simply want to watch a movie

Although total disintegration seems much worse because there isn't even a body to bury

 

[ConanTheDestroyer]

I'd say it's a decent animated film that's fun time and it did hint at him being more like the original version of the character towards the end(something origin stories like to do). I am curious what approach a sequel would've taken, ideally they would've started introducing more elements from the source material (kind of like how these new Sonic films seem to doing). I'm not as much of a fan of CG animated films but I'll admit it did look pretty good in this film.

 

[Majora Fi]

@ConanTheDestroyer If they had made a sequel, I would have preferred it not to start from the cliffhanger (my nitpicking is that the film focused so much on developing villain's motivations, but the epilogue is a generic monster attacking city without any context)

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

I kinda liked it for what it is. Another adaptation of a classic anime. Though it came at a time when people still has that memory and feels of the 2003 anime reboot. That's probably what gave people high expectations. Though like I said l like it for what it is as one doing its own thing.

 

[Majora Fi]

I kinda liked it for what it is. Another adaptation of a classic anime. Though it came at a time when people still has that memory and feels of the 2003 anime reboot. That's probably what gave people high expectations. Though like I said l like it for what it is as one doing its own thing.

I believe the film was released in CGI instead of live-action solely because of Astro's semi-nudity (and even in CGI he didn't escape censorship).