While we're a long way from having flying robots with butt rockets, Astro Boy director David Bowers recently told Popular Mechanics that while the overall design is futuristic, many of the elements are relatable to our modern world.
"The robots are pretty fanciful, mostly sci-fi-y. They aren't humanoid, like Astro Boy—they're designed to do a job. I just really love the idea of nanobots, they're very cool. And if you're doing a sci-fi movie, you have to have military tech. You have to have robots with big guns.
I wanted the technology to be relatable. That's why the cars look vaguely like cars. I wanted people to understand without having to say, 'What the hell is that?'"
While Astro Boy himself might be a little far-fetched, Bowers said that Astro's nemesis, the Peace Keeper mega-robot, is based on current ideas about "modular robots" capable of self-assembly.
"When I came up with the idea [for the Peace Keeper], I thought, I have no idea how I'm going to achieve this! I wanted Astro Boy to be fighting a robot so huge and powerful that people would wonder how he could defeat it."
