Astro Boy
Today I finally saw Astro boy on cable. Astro Boy is part of my childhood memories as one of those cartoons that were incredible good and entertaining, but at the same time, dramatic and cruel. The history of Astro Boy is dramatic by itself, in which a very prestigious scientist's son, Toby (or Tobio in the old series I think), dies and his father, Dr. Tenma, attempts to defeat death by resuscitating him as a robot using science (instead of religion or magic, the usual way in movies/stories) to do so. This robot can never be fully human and fails to accomplish becoming the Toby to his father, Tenma becomes desperate and frustrated by this and abandons Astro, which is later "adopted" by one of his father''s colleague (in the cartoon). So many moral dilemmas are involved in this story like: 1) Attempting to bring a lost one back from the death 2) Using a robot as the vessel which, no matter what, will never be fully accepted as a human 3) Tobio''s own acceptance as a robot even thought it retains the memories of Toby, 4) His father''s reject as Astro no longer is Tenma's son and 4) A robot with a human mind/soul in between the moral dilemma of if robots deserve the same rights as humans since they have artificial intelligence or if they should be slaves/servants of humans.
Only a few of these dilemmas were followed during the movie and in a very light/simple way. People who never watched the original tv series might feel it is a good movie, but people like us, who saw the previous tv show, consider it way inferior, or at least I do. I also didn't like the mixture of science/magic they used for the blue and red cores. (Disclosure: I didn't see the first part of the movie so I don't know anything about the cores, the rerun of the movie is in two hours, so I hope I can see the first part!!!) I will change this post depending on my opinions about the first part.
This movie pales in comparison to the latest Astro Boy cartoon where Astro Boy fights all these situations and the impressive ending where father and son finally face the impossibility of having his real son back. Because this is the real moral of the story: The final acceptance that his real son is gone and a new son has been born from the ashes, similar, but not the same.