The rental DVD is out for this year's Doraemon movie, "The New Record of Nobita Spaceblazer" as it seems to be officially known and someone was kind enough to dump it onto the web. I've only watched half of the original 1981 movie because the VCD copy I have is missing the second disc so I won't be able to make a comparison but, it seems they still have the new direction continues to be focused on character development and comedy.

The movie starts off fairly much the same way most Doraemon movies do. Nobita gets into trouble with Jaian again - This time because he couldn't "reclaim" the pitch they usually play in from some middle school students. Along the way he dreams of a spaceship being caught in an energy storm while migrating to another planet.

One night, Nobita feels the tatami mat moving underneath him and thought it was an earthquake. However, they eventually find out it was a creature called "Charmy" trying to leave the spaceship that had broken down while warping to escape some space pirates. They help Ropple fix their ship so that they could return home to their Planet Koya Koya.

When they thought their meeting was over, Nobita finds their spaceship was still connected to his room and decide to drop in for a visit. They arrive at a very barren looking planet but later find out it was the season for floods before the planet's soils would become fertile. They also learn that Ropple and his people had only migrated to the planet seven years ago but were already being threatened by the Gartite Mining Industry to leave because they wanted to monopolise the rich mineral resources "Gartite" from the planet.

When Nobita and Doraemon discover the gravity was lighter on the planet and time flowed quicker, they decide to help protect them because they were like supermen.

Although things started out smoothly at first, it became more than they could handle as Guillermin decided to destroy the planet. With the help of Morina who hated the people for abandoning her father, they almost manage to cut off the gateway that let Nobita and the others returned.

However, with the great hope of Charmy and Creme, they manage to connect the gateway again. Nobita, Doraemon and his friends manage to stop the Guillermin's plan and Morina finds her father, Professor Vans who she thought was dead.

Thoughts

Not a bad movie except I think it was a bit lacking in building towards the movie's climax because the enemies were being taken out so easily. We didn't see much of Planet Koya Koya either so there wasn't much scene setting. With the Green Giant movie, at least we saw a strong relation being built between Nobita and Kibou but, can't forget this is supposed to be a children's movie ^^;

Anyone notice the "Nobita's Dinosaur" reference in the first screenshot's calendar?

Doraemon's Name Change in Asia

Also finally got round to finding out why Doraemon's name was changed in HK from "Ding Dong (叮噹)" to "Doraemon (多啦A夢)". Apparently Doraemon was given different names in Asia such as "The Robot Cat" so there wasn't a set standard and people got confused when they tried to talk about the show. In the end, the creator left in his will that he wanted it to be the same and that's why it was transliterated to the way it is now.