Postby Ghost » 14 years ago
My theory with things like this; and not just Astro Boy is that when a movie adaptation gets into the hands of a Hollywood writer, producer, directer or whoever...
Is that the person doesn't get comfortable with original aspects. Like they may not have like the original death, or the character's costume, or looks. So they make changes to make the people working on it feel more comfortable. Or they make changes to make the content seem less offensive to the viewers.
In the case of the 2009 movie, the changes were mainly to make the movie more appealing to western audiences. They probably thought a car accident would be too graphic, so they had him vaporized so it wouldn't be as bad. (But even then, it still offended some people.) They also made him older because the producers wanted viewers to identify themselves more with Astro. And they also had Astro in his classic costume for only two scenes.
Obviously they didn't feel comfortable having a boy flying around in his "underwear" on screen, so they put him in clothes through most of the movie. There are a lot of reasons why Hollywood does things like this. Sometimes they can be understandable. But most of the time in adaptations unnecessary changes practically kill the movie.