Movies - Steamboy

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	Movies - Steamboy

Steamboy (2004), is director Katsuhiro Otomo's second major (anime) release, following Akira
. The movie was released in Japan on July 17, 2004. With an initial production cost of $26,000,000, Steamboy is the most expensive full length Japanese animated movie made to date.

The Japanese release featured the voices of Anne Suzuki, Manami Konishi and Masane Tsukayama. The United States release, held in a limited number of U.S. theaters on March 18, 2005, and expanded to additional theaters on March 25, was released in two formats: a subtitled release featured in fewer cinemas, and an English dubbed version cut down by 15 minutes that featured the voices of Anna Paquin, Alfred Molina, and Patrick Stewart. This movie was distributed by Triumph Films. The DVD was released in Japan on April 15, 2005, in Australia on June 22, 2005, the USA on July 26, 2005, and the UK on July 27, 2005. Both the edited English version and the original Japanese version will be available on DVD, with the longer version being sold as the 'Director's Cut'.

Thematic Style

In keeping with the Steampunk subgenre of science fiction, the movie employs alternative history: it is set in a factual 19th-century context, yet it features several geopolitical and industrial circumstances that developed differently or at a different pace, sometimes as a result of advanced technological paradigms that were accomplished via the science already present in the given zeitgeist.

As evidenced by one of the early production sketches, Steamboy was envisioned as an amalgam between a Frank Reade Scientific Romance; a swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks cliffhanger (similar to The Rocketeer
); and a Republic Pictures serial (similar to The Wild Wild West and Indiana Jones). An optimistic result which contrasts considerably from the earlier Lang/Tezuka -inspired retro-futuristic dystopia setting of Metropolis.

Nods

Cat's Cradle

There are elements that bear a certain similarity to Kurt Vonnegut's 1964 Cat's Cradle, such as a respected scientist who helps develop a new and potentially dangerous source of power, the transgenerational relay of techno-political responsibility, an artificial fuel which is an alternative structure of water (and which also catalyzes the molecules of liquid water into a solid ice), and a fictional island as a Deus ex machina.

Laputa

The Steam Castle is probably also a reference to Laputa, the flying island from the book Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift. The people of Laputa are fond of mathematics and technology, but fail to make practical use of their knowledge. This has long been regarded as a satire on a state ruled by a Whig government, as opposed to the Tory government Swift personally advocated. Laputa is also featured in the Hayao Miyazaki movie Castle in the Sky
.

The Rocketeer

The Rocketeer
is a comic book created by Dave Stevens.

Characters

James Ray Steam

The main character is a 13 year old boy living in Manchester, England. A young inventor following the paths of his father and grandfather. He possesses a mechanical talent that was inherited from his family, and demonstrates this in at least two instances by building a steam-powered riding wheel and a steam-propelled flying device. He has a youthful idealism and sincerely dislikes the employment of technology for harmful purposes. During the film his motivations are alternately swayed by the influences of his father and grandfather.

Lloyd Steam

Ray's idealistic old grandfather. The original conceiver of the Steamball, which he succeeds in developing with his son Edward. A difference of opinions with his son Edward leads to friction between them. While Edward believes that science is an instrument of power, Lloyd simply wishes to use it to help people. They both develop distinctly different visions for their ultimate invention, the Steam Castle. It's later revealed that Lloyd intended the Steam Castle to be a sort of flying amusement park, but Eddy scoffed at such a premise, denouncing it as a "fairy tale vision."

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