I’ve never actually seen any of the Astroboy cartoons or read the mangas, so I can’t tell you if this English version of the Astroboy character (or what little we see of it in this very short teaser trailer) bears any resemblance to the original character. What I do know is that, well, this is probably very kid-friendly, so anyone over 10 probably won’t have much use for it, unless that is, you grew up with the character, in which case you’ll probably find things to nitpick about it. Then again, my nephew is 7, and this teaser didn’t do a whole lot for him, either. Oh well. Here’s your first look at a moving Astroboy, coming in 2009.

I’ll be damn if the new Dreamsworks CGI flick “Monsters vs. Aliens” doesn’t look like it has all the makings of another major international hit for the company. I’ve always thought that “The Incredibles” by Pixar was one of the best CGI movies I’ve seen, and although I’m not sure if “Aliens vs. Monsters” will approach that other movie’s many levels of pure entertainment, it could come close. Or at least, it’ll be really funny. Although I think the title should probably be, “Monsters vs. Alien”, as from this trailer for the movie, all I really see is a bunch of monsters fighting one alien dude in an indestructible ship. But hey, I guess “aliens” sounds better. In any case, “Monsters vs. Aliens” hits theaters March 2009 according to the voiceover guy at the end of the trailer.

Although I kind of enjoyed the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off show Angel for a while there, I never really got into the Buffy show itself. I don’t know, it just never really appealed to me. But man, do the show’s fans love it. I mean, these guys are fanatical about the show and its universe. Which is probably why they were all ga-ga over the possibility that Joss Whedon, their God and King, was making an animated TV series based on the Buffy character. But alas, the show never made it to air, although a 3-minute trailer of shorts (more like the first 3 minutes of a scripted episode) was produced, although no one has been able to get their hands on it.

From Heroes to Astro Boy? It would seem to, as news from SuperheroHype is that Kristen Bell (you may know her as Elle Bishop on Heroes, or Veronica Mars on the show, well, Veronica Mars) has landed the leading female role in the movie “Astro Boy”. Well, she’ll be landing her voice, anyway, as “Astro Boy” is a CGI animated movie. And not just any movie, either, a pretty big one, if the cast already assembled is any indication. They include Nicolas Cage, Donald Sutherland, Bill Nighy, Nathan Lane, Eugene Levy and Freddie Highmore as Astro Boy himself. Now that’s a cast!

George Lucas and company have released more images from their upcoming “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” movie in front of the film’s impending August 15, 2008 release date. Now those of you who have seen the cartoon show that the movie is based on probably won’t feel this way, but man, the animation style on this thing is kinda freaky. Seriously, the characters look like marionette dolls minus all the rope. The creepiest part of the characters are the faces. Wow, I mean, this thing might give me nightmares. Anyways, more new pics from the image below.

It’s definitely good to be a Japanese anime fan nowadays. With “Robotech”, “Akira”, and “Ghost in the Shell” already gearing up for the big Hollywood treatment (with very notable names behind them, to boot!), fans of “Cowboy Bebop” can expect to see their show turned into a live-action movie sometime very soon. I’ve seen the “Bebop” movie, but not the series, so I don’t really have a firm grasp on the series’ universe. From what I saw, it’s an interesting series, and could make for a good show. Kind of like Joss Whedon’s “Serenity”, actually.

An official trailer for George Lucas’ “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” animated movie has finally arrived online. Dave Filoni directs this story, which takes place between the events of “Attack of the Clones” and “Revenge of the Sith”. It follows Anakin Skywalker as he investigates the kidnapping of Jabba the Hutt’s kid by some evil Jedis. Or something like that. See the trailer for yourself below.

The MarketSaw blog posted these images from Ilion’s upcoming animated movie “Planet 51″ last year, but, well, I didn’t get to it then, but I’m getting to them now. The blog also had videos from the movie, but they had to remove it when Ilion “asked” them to — i.e. do it or we’ll sue you. You know, the same crap these movie studios always pull for the sake of maintaining some semblance of control. As if, right? Once it hits the Internet, you can forget about it, movie studios. Anyhoo, here are the pics that were released last year.

Walt Disney Pictures and Robert Zemeckis’ ImageMovers have a great project coming your way — “Calling All Robots”, a sci-fi adventure romp that will use the same performance capture technolog that Zemeckis used for his “The Polar Express” and more recently, “Beowulf”. The project will be directed by Michael Dougherty (pictured, left), who wrote “Superman Returns” and before that, “X2″. For those who didn’t think the characters in “Express” was very lifelike, they had to be express by the improvements shown in “Beowulf”. And now, it stands to reason that the animation for “Calling All Robots” should be nearly flawless, right? Or at least, greatly improved once again.

The bearded one himself, George Lucas, was in Vegas over the week to premiere a 5-minute clip from the upcoming “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”, which according to Lucas, is set between the events of the second and third movie (i.e. the prequels, not the original ones). As for the animation style he’s using, he describes is as “stylized”, and “Gerry Anderson style”. Empire also got him to talk more about the upcoming live-action Star Wars series that he’s planning. Read on.