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Astro Boy
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	David Bowers
Produced by	Maryann Garger
Written by	Osamu Tezuka (manga) Timothy Harris (screenplay)
Starring	Freddie Highmore Nicolas Cage Donald Sutherland Kristen Bell Eugene Levy Nathan Lane Bill Nighy Madeline Carroll Matt Lucas
Music by	John Ottman
Editing by	Robert Anich Cole
Studio	Imagi Studios Tezuka Productions
Distributed by	Summit Entertainment (US) Hoyts Distribution (Australia) E1 Entertainment (UK) Kadokawa Pictures (Japan) Destination Films (Canada)
Release date(s)	October 10, 2009 (JP, AU) October 23, 2009 (US)[1][2]
Running time	94 minutes
Country	United States Japan Hong Kong
Language	English Japanese
Budget	$65 million [3]
Gross revenue	$18,215,487

Astro Boy (original Japanese name: 鉄腕アトム, Tetsuwan Atomu), is a 2009 computer-animated 3-D film loosely based on the long-running Japanese series of the same name by Osamu Tezuka. It was produced by Imagi Animation Studios,^[4] the animation production company of TMNT. The studio announced the project in September 2006. It was directed by David Bowers and produced by Maryann Garger^[5] with Pilar Flynn as associate producer.^[6] Freddie Highmore provides the voice of Astro Boy in the movie.^[7] The film also features the voices of Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Eugene Levy, Matt Lucas, Bill Nighy, Donald Sutherland, and Nicolas Cage. A trailer of the movie was shown in the North American Home Theater of PlayStation Home from December 28, 2008 to January 8, 2009. The movie was released first in Japan on October 10, 2009, and in the US on October 23, 2009.

Plot

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The film begins in Metro City, a small city that floats above Earth, which is now covered in what's left of Soylent Green's dystopian portayal of 2022. Toby Tenma finishes a physics pop quiz ahead of all his classmates and is free to leave, so he rewires Orrin (the family servant robot) who takes Toby to the Ministry of Science.

Toby's father, Dr. Tenma, is at the ministry, meeting with President Stone and Dr. Elefun. They have captured two cores of The Fifth Element, a "positive" (good) core and a "negative" (evil) core. Toby is placed in a room where he is supposed to stay until the end of the demonstration, but he escapes and runs off to the demonstration room.

President Stone orders the Red Core to be placed into a robot called "The Peacekeeper" to power it. The Peacekeeper begins to malfunction and tries to attack the scientists, vaporizing Toby before the adults are able to deactivate the robot.

Soon after, Dr. Tenma is seen holding blueprints of a robot replica of Toby, in hopes of recreating his son. He takes hair from Toby's hat to access all his memories and place them in the robot. Dr. Elefun provides the Blue Core to power the very advanced Toby robot. The robot Toby comes to life, to the excitement of Dr. Tenma. Tenma then takes Toby home, at first excited to spend time with his son, but he quickly realizes the new Toby is not the same as the old Toby.

Dr. Tenma calls Dr. Elefun, fearing that he may have made a mistake. Dr. Elefun makes a point that Toby cannot be exactly duplicated. Dr. Tenma grieves over the fact that whenever he sees Toby, he is reminded that Toby is really gone and will never come back.

While in his room, Toby worries about his father, since he has never been that angry with him before. While Toby gets into a quarrel with cleaning robots outside his window, he discovers he can understand them but falls out the window only to discover that he can fly.

President Stone discovers Toby's energy signature and his blue core, and orders his troops to capture it. When Toby returns home he overhears his father talking with Elefun about deactivating Toby. Dr. Tenma reveals that Toby is only just a copy of the original Toby and that he no longer wants him since his face only reminds him of his real son and the pain of losing him. Devastated, Toby flies off but not before Elefun assures him that he has a place somewhere in the world.

Toby is ambushed by military drones and flying craft controlled by Stone's military. A barrage of missiles temporarily disables Toby, causing him to fall to the Earth's surface. Toby wakes up on the Earth's surface, covered in broken robots and the remains of what appear to be the events portayed in John Christopher's The Death Of Grass, where he meets a robot dog named Trashcan. Trashcan leads Toby to a trap where he is wrapped up and captured by a group of kids, but released when he appears to be a human. Toby is then abducted by the "Robot Liberation Front", who name him "Astro". They then warn him of Hamegg, who enslaves robots. Cora and the children break in to free Astro.

Tenma promises to President Stone that he will deactivate Astro when they capture him and give Stone the blue core for the Peacekeeper. Cora takes Astro to their home, filled with tons of children and the Fagin-like ringmaster Hamegg. However, Hamegg isn't as evil as he seems. Hamegg eagerly welcomes Astro into their family. Later that night, Hamegg talks with Astro and how he used to work in Metro City with Dr. Tenma, but was thrown away due to his "intimidating brilliance".

The next day while out searching for parts in Brazil, Trashcan tried to tell everyone else that Astro is a robot, but fails. (Trashcan eventually writes on the ground "He's A Robot" but then Zane comments "Makes me wish I knew how to read.") Astro finds a 100 year old robot named Zog. Using the power of his blue core, Astro revives Zog. They take him back to their home and fix him up for the robot games. But Astro is slightly upset when he discovers that it is a fight to the death. Before the games start, Hamegg electrifies Astro and reveals to everyone that he is a robot. So, Hamegg puts him in the games. At Yankee Stadium, Astro easily clears all the robots but is put up against Zog, who refuses to fight Astro. Hamegg, forcibly tries to get Astro to fight, but Zog attacks him (being over 100 years old, the rules of robots not being allowed to harm humans doesn't apply to him, since it has been the rule for 50 years). Astro then stops Zog, leaving Hamegg to wonder what kind of robot he really is. Just then the military arrives and Zog tries to defend Astro, but Astro stops Zog and goes with the military. Astro believes he needs he must fulfill his destiny, whatever it is.

Stone mockingly offers the captive Astro a "drink" of machine oil.

Astro is taken back to the lab he was made in and Dr. Elefun tells him that he is wonderful and none of this is his fault, but Astro believes that it is hard to fit in and that perhaps this is his destiny. Dr. Tenma takes out the blue core and apologizes to Astro, who says he shouldn't be sorry and apologizes for not being a better Toby. Astro then deactivates and dies. Dr. Tenma gives Stone the core, but repents of the evil he is doing and takes the core back, putting it in Astro. Astro wakes up wondering why Dr. Tenma has done that, but he replies that even though Astro is not Toby, he is still his son.

Astro escapes so Stone uses the red core to reactivate the Peacekeeper. The Peacekeeper absorbs Stone and heads to destroy Astro, with Stone's mind controlling it. With the Peacekeeper on the rampage, absorbing every weapon and structure it comes across, Astro flies into the city to protect it from the rampaging behemoth. Meanwhile, Cora and the others hijack Hamegg's car to head to Metro City and help Astro. In the resulting showdown, the city's power source is destroyed but Astro manages to hold it up and causing it to land unharmed before continuing battle with the Peacekeeper. He's captured by the Peacekeeper but when it tries to absorb him, it doesn't work. Dr. Tenma tells Astro that if the Blue Core and Red Core come together, Astro and the Peacekeeper will die. Knowing that the Peacekeeper must be stopped, even if it means sacrificing himself, Astro flies into the Peacekeeper's Red Core, resulting in a massive explosion that completely destroys the Peacekeeper, leaving Stone unharmed but arrested, and Astro dying since the blue core was drained in the explosion. However, because Zog was revived with the blue core, he is able to return some of the energy back to Astro, reactivating him.

Astro finds his place as a hero and everyone rejoices. Cora reunites with her parents. But before any celebrating can happen a large alien attacks the city and Astro, now at peace with his robotic nature and his destiny as a hero, immediately launches into action after reassuring his concerned father, "I was made ready!" The movie ends with Astro flying to fight the alien.

Production

In 1999, Sony Pictures Entertainment purchased the film rights to Astro Boy from Tezuka Productions, intending to produce a combination live-action/animatronics/CGI feature film alongside Jim Henson Productions originally slated for a Christmas 2000 release, with Eric Leighton (Dinosaur) attached to direct.^{[citation needed]} Nothing more came out of this announcement.

In June 2004, Leighton was replaced with animator Genndy Tartakovsky with a scheduled 2007 release.^{[citation needed]} However, Tartakovsky later left the project to produce the Dark Crystal sequel, The Power of the Dark Crystal, also for Jim Henson Productions.

In summer 2006, it was announced^{[citation needed]} that Hong Kong-based animation firm Imagi Animation Studios would produce a CGI animated Astro Boy film as part of a three-picture distribution deal with Warner Bros. and The Weinstein Company, alongside TMNT, and Gatchaman. In 2007, Colin Brady signed on to direct the movie.^{[citation needed]} In 2008, Summit Entertainment took over the film's distribution rights. That same year, Brady was replaced with David Bowers.

Cast

• Freddie Highmore as Astro Boy^[8]
• Nicolas Cage as Bill Tenma^[9]
• Kristen Bell as Cora^[10]
• Charlize Theron as "Our Friends" Narrator
• Samuel L. Jackson as Zog
• Bill Nighy as Doctor Elefun/Robotski
• Donald Sutherland as President Stone
• Eugene Levy as Orrin
• Nathan Lane as Hamegg
• Moisés Arias as Zane
• Matt Lucas as Sparx
• Madeline Carroll as Widget/Grace
• Sterling Beaumon as Sludge
• Victor Bonavida as Sam
• Tony Matthews as Cora's father
• Ryan Stiles as Mustachio (Shunsaku Ban)

Dubbing into Japanese

• Aya Ueto as Astro Boy^[11]
• Kōji Yakusho as Doctor Tenma^[11]

Music

The score to Astro Boy was composed by John Ottman, who recorded his score with a 95-piece orchestra and choir at the world-famous Abbey Road Studios.^[12] A soundtrack album was released on October 20, 2009 by Varese Sarabande Records.

Marketing

On November 5, 2008, D3Publisher of America announced it will published a video game based on the film. The games are scheduled to be released for console and handheld systems in the fourth quarter of 2009 to coincide with the film's theatrical release.^[13] Astro Boy: The Video Game for Wii, PlayStation 2 system and PSP system is under development by High Voltage Software and Nintendo DS by Art Co. Ltd.^[14]

Beginning in May, 2009 and continuing thru Sept., 2009, IDW Publishing published a "prequel" and comic book adaptation of the movie as both mini-series and in graphic novel format to coincide with the North American release of the movie in Oct., 2009.

On May 29, 2009, a trailer for the film was released with the Disney-Pixar movie Up.

Model of Astro Boy waiting to be powered up in Hong Kong.

A model of a motionless Astro Boy waiting to be powered up was set up at Peak Tower, Hong Kong, outside Madame Tussauds Hong Kong in September 2009.

This film is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America.

A panel of the movie was held at the San Diego Comic-Con on July 23, 2009.

Design issue

While designing the characters for the film, Imagi Animation Studios wanted to change the design of Astro Boy’s face to look more grown-up because they thought his original face was too childish. Tezuka Productions, however, wanted no changes. Eventually, a compromise was reached, and Astro's face was altered to look just slightly more adult.^[15][16]

Reception

As of October 23, the film has received mixed or average reviews. The film currently holds a 47% 'Rotten' rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 81 reviews with an average score of 5.6/10.^[17] Another review aggretator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating from 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, gave the film an average score of 53% based on 22 reviews.^[18]

Most critics complained about the film having "a political agenda that may rankle some viewers", but nevertheless, "enough visual thrills to please its target demographic."^[17] However, Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B and wrote of the film having "little too much lost-boys-and-girls mopiness," but "Astro Boy is a marvelously designed piece of cartoon kinetics..."^[19] Glenn Whipp of the Los Angeles Times gave the mixed review claiming "The kids won't get it but will enjoy the big, climactic robot rumpuses, which owe a heavy debt to Brad Bird's The Iron Giant.^[20]

The film failed to make a splash in Japan, appearing at the bottom of the opening week's top 10 rankings and making only $328,457. Conversely, the film was very successful in China, breaking a box-office record for a CG animated movie. This follows the same pattern as Dragonball Evolution and Speed Racer, other American-produced films based on Japanese sources which failed to garner success in their land of origin, but sold well in China.^[21]

The film in the US opened at #6, grossing $6.7 million, overall, the film has grossed over $18 million, making the film a box office failure thus far.

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