Just found time to watch it tonight after getting it from the usual site where I get my Anime RAWs from.

This is a remake of the 1980 animation which was the very first Doraemon theatrical feature.

I don't know how the original movie's story starts off because my VHS video copy has a good chunk of the beginning cut off. Probably half an hour or so... However, reading the synopsis at the anniversary website they should be the same.

Read on ahead for a comparison if you don't mind spoilers.

Story

It starts off in a typical Doraemon fashion. As usual, Suneo is showing off as usual and this time it's a dinosaur fossil of a Tyrannosaurus' claw. Nobita once again gets ignored and doesn't get to see it in detail like his other friends. Disappointed, he vows to find a fossil too.

Nobita runs home to seek Doraemon's help but he refuses to aid him because the Tyrannosaurus never lived in Japan. Hearing that, Nobita decides to do the work himself, spending some time learning about fossils while Doraemon watches over him with "caring eyes".

The next day, Nobita goes off to an area where fossils are supposedly found, working hard to try and find a fossil. Eventually he finds what appears to be a fossil egg and brings it back home to show Doraemon, dropping my Suneo and Jaian's home to say he found a fossil. However, back home Doraemon puts it off saying it's probably just a rock. Leaving the room, he secretly leaves the Time Cloth behind for Nobita to use.

While waiting, Suneo and Jaian arrives but the reversal process wasn't finished yet. The two laughs and walks off thinking Nobita's lying as usual. Annoyed as usual, he runs after them saying that it was something much better than a fossil - a real living dinosaur. After much waiting, Nobita finds out he really did find an actual real egg and goes as far as hatching it himself!

A cute little dinosaur is soon hatched and Nobita names it "P-Suke", keeping it as a pet. As P-Suke grows bigger, Nobita begins to find it increasingly difficult to conceal him from the public. A mysterious man also appears before Nobita, seeking to buy the dinosaur from him. Knowing that P-Suke could no longer be safe in the modern world, Nobita decides to return him to the era when dinosaurs lived with the help of Doraemon.

However, when they find out they returned P-Suke to the wrong place, they journey back again to find him only to end up with a broken time machine. Now they must find a way back to their world...

Differences with the Original

Besides the obvious changes visually, the remake stays pretty similar to the original. They've added in quite a lot of comic relief such as the expressions Doraemon makes when he was saying "I'll watch over him with caring eyes." There's also the saliva dripping T-Rex that ends up distinguishing the camp fire.

And I don't know if it's because I only watched the HK version of the original (they usually edit the fan service out of their Anime shows) but, they seemed to have added in some fan service to this supposedly young children's show too... Suneo grabbing onto Shizuka's skirt so that she's flashing her panties and then making her wear a bikini instead of one of those full swimsuits. Then again, the fan service is much greater in Manga such as Shonen Jump which is also for young boys. Well, boys in their early teens that is.

Fan service aside, they also use some "darker" scenes. We see blood being splattered across the screen, dinosaurs being chained and tortured, head trophies being presented in a slightly more horrific way.

There is now less focus on Doraemon's gadgets because they aren't presented in quite the same wonderful way they had before. For example, the wondrous coconut shell meals are gone, and the movie dives straight into the scene where they set up the golf ball camps. In the original, you actually saw how they were set up, how you enter and what each of the interiors were like. However, I did like how they decided to add animated clocks to the Time Cloth!

The focus is more on action sequences and interaction between the characters this time with the, "We'll do it together! You're not alone" theme common to Anime.

As for the ending, it's slightly different. In the original, the Time Patrol takes Nobita and his friends directly back to the modern day Japan but in this remake, the gang continues on their journey alone to where the time portal for their time machine opened. They still end up leaving in tears as they separate from P-Suke however.

I actually thought this was a good remake (apart from the unnecessary fan service) but, I prefer the original a little more because it focused on the journey itself and gadgets more.

I guess this remake move they've decided to go with is a good idea because a lot of the recent movies haven't been very good. Maybe it's because they're not by the original creator, Fujiko who has unfortunately passed away now.

This just happened to be one of the best Doraemon movies made.

Related Links:
• Doraemon: Nobita no Kyouryuu 2006 Official Site
• Doraemon: Nobita no Shin Makai Daibouken 2007 Official Site
• Doraemon 25th Anniversary - All Movies Ever Made