Astro Boy (film)/Headscratchers

2009 film

• Zog, powered by the Blue Core, which represents all that is good and positive, attempts to stomp Hamegg in cold blood, and would have succeeded had Astro not intervened. -- User:Bryce Bryans
  • He was built before the Three Laws we required. Says as much himself. Also, it seems that the blue "positive" energy was more neutral where as the red "negative" energy was undeniably evil.
  • Good Is Not Nice. Zog likely thought for greater good, killing was necessary.
    • So he has the Zeroth law without the other three?
• Wouldn't Toby remember dying?
  • I don't think so. I was hit by a car at age 11 and all I remember of events is saying to my sister "I'll cross the road now" and then waking up on the pavement on the opposite side of the road. I guess Toby would possibly remember the robot waiting starting to fire and then waking up in his room.
    • It makes sense, possibly because the brain sometimes has a tendency to block out traumatizing memories in order to protect the person's sanity. Or, one could say that Tenma removed the memory of Toby dying so he wouldn't know.
• How exactly would Astro!Toby be surprised to find out that he was a robot after the first day or so? Even accepting that- this being a kid's movie of the non-grossout-humour variety- all the characters lack normal biological functions, he can't take off his boots. If he's got Original!Toby's memories, he must surely remember being able to go barefoot...
  • Well, regarding the boots, the original manga has shown that Astro can switch between shoes and boots, so it's possible that he can change his clothes.
• I have a few problems with this film. One, how did Toby's hat survive when he was vaporized by the robot? Is the hat indestructible? I wanna know! Two, I felt like a lot of scenes were rushed, particularly at the end where Cora meets up with her parents. That went by too fast, what was the deal with that? Three, I was annoyed at about how quickly Cora told Astro about her past. She just met him and she blurts out her biggest secret, a secret she hasn't told the people she's been hanging out with for years. Unless you interpret it as her subconciously wanting someone to know, it doesn't make sense.
  • Astro had just caught Cora trying to contact the city. If she hadn't told him, he might have teased her about it in front of the others. I forget exactly where the scene fell in the course of Astro's friendship with everyone, but he may have struck her as someone that would keep her secret once he knew how personal it was.
• How did Cora go down to the surface? -- User:Grandy
  • She sewed a parachute out of bedsheets. :)
• Pretty much all the movie in general. While it wasn't terrible, it felt rushed and didn't take advantage of some possible plot elements. Namely, Astro doesn't even have a bit of a existential crisis when he realizes he's a robot. Him and Elefun just suddenly talking about destiny like it's a casual subject, after Tenma disowns his robot son! The RRF felt tacked on, as did most of the robots are people too subject, and seemed to be just a plotdevice for the Jerkass villains. This goes into another complaint, Astro clearly says he won't fight the robots, then proceeds to massacre all but ZOG like generic Mooks without even being the least be bothered that he killed several robots. Finally, as some have pointed out, the ending seemed terribly rushed, nothing explains how Stone is suddenly fused with Peace Keeper (which at first seemed only able to merge with other non-organic things) and the alien at the end just seemed too sudden, like some toss up between that or a cheesy wave to the screen and fly off ending.
• It is resolved that the Good and Evil sides of the energy source are equal. In the movie, we clearly Astro Boy breaking off some of his energy to reactivate ZOG, so Astro Boy is weakened by as much energy as ZOG required to get online. So, when the two energy sources collided, the Good side would be weaker than the Evil side, and so the Good side would be completely cancelled out, but the Evil side would still have some excess energy, equal to the amount of Good energy left in ZOG. Does this make any sense?
  • I believe it's stated that the core is capable of limitless renewable energy, which means that if you remove a portion of the energy it would restore it's self back to full, so between the time he used a portion to revive ZOG and fix the phone it restored itself back to full.
    • To me, it's more that the blue (positive) energy is much more "generous" than the red (negative) energy. They're not so much "good" and "evil" as they are "kindness" and "meanness"--you can be angry with someone, or lose your temper, but it doesn't last, and it doesn't feel very good. I don't know quite how to explain it other than that. --Prime Evil
• Where did Tenma get Toby's memories from if Toby's whole body was vapourised?
  • Brain Uploading prior to the accident, like in Portal?
  • Tenma gives a handwave about Genetic Memories stored in hair follicles. Seriously.
• So what happened to Hamegg? Last time we see the little jerkoid he was being held by Zog.