Astro Boy: Battle Among the Stars

Astro Boy: Battle Among the Stars, known in Japan as Tetsuwan Atomu: Daiuchū no Bōken (鉄腕アトム 大宇宙の冒険 Mighty Atom: Adventure of the Universe), is a 1965 Japanese animated sci-fi adventure film directed by Eiichi Yamamoto, it is the second film based on the Astro Boy anime series from 1963, the other being Astro Boy: Hero of Space (1964) however, in contrast to the other film which was basically a 3 episode compilation, this one is completely new footage, made completely in Color and was made Solely for the US market, the film was released in Japanese cinemas by Toho in November of 1965, however it wasn't released in the US until April 1968 by Universal Pictures, who picked up the film for International distribution months prior.

Plot
in Metro City, rains of meteors come crashing down, causing damages, and a voice of a supposed alien dictator from the planet Cruelty named "Armon the Cruel" (Akuma in the Japanese version) from the sky is warning people of earth that that he will enslave all.

in response, Astro Boy meets a young scientist named Dr. Warhol (Professor Miyamoto in the original version) to go along with him and leave Elefun at earth due to his advancing age, they along with The team from Hero of Space, go in a rocket ship to space to fight off Armon.

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Japanese

 * Mari Shimizu as Atom and Uran
 * Hisashi Katsua as Professor Ochanomizu

English Dub

 * Billie Lou Watt as Astro and Astro Girl
 * Ray Owens as Dr. Elefun
 * Peter Fernandez as Dr. Warhol
 * Paul Frees as Armon the Cruel/Soviet Space General
 * Jackson Beck as Brutie
 * Vincent Price as Chandor the Magician
 * Carl Andy as News Reporter/Henchman

Production
After watching the compilation film Hero of Space, Fred Ladd thought of the idea of a color Astro Boy feature-length movie with original material, Ladd contacted Mushi about the idea, they agreed, however not wanting to interrupt the schedule of the series in Japan, Mushi decided to split the team in two, one for the series and the other for the movie, Eiichi Yamamoto was chosen as sole director, Shinichi Sekizawa was chosen by Tezuka after Godzilla producer and friend of Tezuka, Tomoyuki Tanaka, reccomended him due to his track record of Science-fiction screenplays like Mothra, King Kong vs. Godzilla and many others. meanwhile, Ladd set up a writers room for the dub of the film as Ladd was getting the dallies of the film imported from Japan, one of the writers was former Famous Studios employee Carl Andy, himself a friend of Tezuka and a member of Ladd's writing room on the series dub, Andy changed some names such as changing Professor Miyamoto to Dr. Warhol and adding some double entendre such as naming the wormhole the "Large Space Dimension" (LSD) due to the scene's trippy nature.

the US dub was extended from the original Japanese cut's 80 Minutes to 93 to add in a prologue scene of Astro fighting an evil Soviet space army, this scene was animated by Mushi specifically for the Non-Japan releases.

production ended in mid 1965 and was released in November in Japan, in the US however, Ladd struggled to find a US distributor, Columbia, American International, Embassy and United Artists all passed on the film, eventually Universal Pictures (whom prior distributed Pinocchio in Outer Space, produced by Ladd) made a deal to release the film outside of Japan, it eventually it saw a release in the US in April of 1968.

Music
a Music album was released in Japan by Nippon Columbia featuring snippets of dialogue from the Japanese version, in the US a traditional score album was released by Decca Records, with later reprintings by MCA Records in the 70s and 80s.

US Home Video releases

 * 1981 MCA Videocassette VHS/Betamax
 * 1986 MCA Home Video VHS (reprint of 1981 VHS)/Laserdisc
 * 1990 GoodTimes Home Entertainment VHS (under license from Universal)
 * 2001 Universal Studios Home Entertainment DVD
 * 2010 Universal Pictures Home Entertainment DVD, new trailers, same transfer
 * 2017 Scream Factory Blu-Ray (under license from Universal)

Trivia

 * The Name Dr. Warhol in the English version is a play on the Photographer Andy Warhol.
 * The original Japanese version was accidentally destroyed in a fire after the US release, it was considered lost. However, a 35mm print of the original version was found in a private film collection in Hokkaido, Japan on February 1, 2017, this print was later included with the 2017 Scream Factory Blu-ray.
 * the film was showcased on Turner Classic Movies twice, first during Friday Night Spotlight on Space Travel movies, the second during TCM's 100th Birthday Salute to Osamu Tezuka in 2028.