I agree completely. As soon as I saw that, I thought, "This is not my Astroboy." I understand the ecology message for a younger generation, but Astro was created in part to deal with a different social issue: the fear of nuclear war. Astro was a way for children to deal, culturally, with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and with fears over atomic energy.
Tezuka saw Atomic energy's better qualities and what better way than to put it into this powerful robot kid who could crush a car, rip apart a spaceship or blast away an asteroid.....
And yet he loves dogs?
I didn't like the Blue/Red energy track, I didn't like the human bashing, anti-human, humans wiped out mother earth schick. To be honest, a bunch of people put their political propaganda into this film.
I don't go to movies to get a two hour propaganda film like "The day after tomorrow" or the heavilly anti-industrial, pro-green trash that was Speed Racer. I go to movies like "Where the Wild Things Are." to escape the real world for a few nice moments.
And did anyone catch the banner on that building just before the Peacekeeper crashed through it and tapped on the podium?
"NOT THE TIME FOR CHANGE."
What was that all about?!
I had to get this off my chest, I really loved the CGI and some of the moments but overall the whole film's background political schicks left me upset.