BeachballSP

I've LOVED this movie since childhood! The animation is beautiful, the music is fun, the humor is quite funny, the story is intriguing and the character designs are special. A balloon race around the world seemed like the most awesome thing ever when I was a child and I really wanted to take part in one. I still do! ;)

I really enjoyed this movie, it had a wonderful story! The ants have great character designs (especially the wizard Zoc, he's in the picture for this movie's profile). The way they worked together and look out for each other is remarkable and gives Lucas a eyeful. Most of all, I loved Zoc, he's such a cool ant, he works with magic, and can zap enemies with energy from his staff. And he looks *fascinating* whenever he's angry or whatever reason his eyes are narrowed! If I could only give you one reason to see it, I'd say "See it because of Zoc!" ^_~

I am thrilled with the makers' fresh new take on the original story. Placing the setting way into the future and Pinocchio be a robot was such a great idea (I happen to love robots) and he's complete with his innocent and playful nature, he's awesome. Scamboli is one of the best villain names I ever heard of! Scamboli is among my favorite bad guys, hating the children sabotaging construction around his Scamboville yet giving them an amusement park to try to win them over. He's also got a nature loving, imaginative teenage daughter, Maurleen, who kinda gets on his nerves yet he tries to keep her happy...till a point. Scamboli's robot sidekicks Rodo and Cabby are real goofballs, well, Cabby more than Rodo. Rodo rocks for being a wind-up porcupine riding on one wheel! I adored Spencer, Geppetto's butler, a lovable robotic purple penguin who plays Pinocchio's conscience and as a fun bonus he mixes up metaphors! Whoopi Goldberg voicing Cyberina was a major plus! Geppetto was such a warm and caring father, I wish he was my grandpa. I really like every character in this, they're all so appealing. I'd like to mention one other character: the Scambocop. Poor guy suffers all kinds of abuse and humiliation yet out of all the robots in the movie he's got the coolest voice chip! ^_^

The songs "What's the difference (between a robot and a man)" and "Do the Robot" were really catchy. If I had this movie when I was a child, I would have been obsessed with it. It's just bursting with imaginative stuff kids would love. Like the Imagination Game Maurleen gets Pinocchio to play with her. That was so much fun to watch, I wished I could jump through the screen and join them! Dogfish the whale from the book even makes an appearance in Scamboland as a wicked cool ride!

I enjoyed Pinocchio 3000 much more than I did with Robots eight months earlier.

Great story and humor makes up for the visual department. Poor Japeth the Goat got stuck with a door-hinged mouth in order to carry out his song because the film had a low budget. The worst character designs were the boys and girls in the Schnitzel song. They all have the same frightening face.

****The Japanese version I'd give 3 and half stars!****

Wow. 4Kids couldn't have steered any further from the Japanese script cause they hit the limit. Give me the original anyday. Only things I liked in this dub was the score made specially for it even though the original's score can own it in a match and the interesting sound effect Mew now has when swooping about.

To top off the dub's utter humiliation, 4Kids ruined the climax by playing the worst song, which shouldn't have been anywhere near the top of the list of optional songs to play during this climax. They could have gone with instrumental music like the original had done. But noooo, 4Kids wanted to sell lots of the dub's soundtrack full of pop stars so the climax was saddled with the rotten egg, joy... And someone at Shogakukan in Japan had lots of money to throw around to make *another* copy of the movie all glitzed up with lots of CGI covering hand-drawn stuff. And that glitzed up copy happened to be the one that got dubbed so we get stuck with a yuckier quality version.

Fortunately, with each Pokemon movie that follows, 4Kids gradually improves their dubbing skills. This dub is the pits so going up is a good idea.