A compilation of three Astro Boy episodes colorized and stitched together for theaters, this feels less like a film and more like what it is: a greatest-hits reel from a show that was already doing everything right. The color work on "Earth Defense Troops" finally lets you see Tezuka's actual compositions instead of guessing at them through black-and-white TV broadcasts. You're not getting a new story here, but you're getting permission to sit down and watch what mattered most about the series all at once, in a theater, treated like it belonged there.

Astro Boy: The Brave in Space is a 1964 theatrical film built from episodes of the Astro Boy television series. It gathers three episodes, "Robot Rocket," "Earth Defense Troops" and "The Last Day of Earth," into a single feature. For the big screen, all of "Earth Defense Troops" and a portion of "The Last Day of Earth" were redone in color. "Earth Defense Troops" is the only one of the three that grew out of Osamu Tezuka's story "Number 7," whose setting was carried over into Astro Boy. The film mixes action, adventure, drama, mecha and science fiction.