Astro Kid

Willy is travelling in space with his family when their ship is wrecked. An escape pod puts him down on an unknown planet, separated from his parents. All he has with him is a damaged survival robot called Buck. He also makes friends with a native creature. The rescue will take a long time, and he has to stay alive until then. Eric Tosti directs for the French studio TAT Productions. The French title is Terra Willy. The notable thing is that it builds science fiction as a Robinson story. There is no enemy in space, no villain, and the subject is not war: it is finding water, building shelter, working out which plants are poisonous, and learning the planet's ecosystem. The design of the planet's life is the most carefully made part; the plants and animals are drawn to resemble nothing on Earth and each of them carries a function in how the story moves. The French animation sector works with far smaller budgets than the large studios, and this is a characteristic example of that scale: technically plain and ambitious in design. Who it is for: families wanting science fiction animation for children. Who it is not for: the story is very simple and the tension is low. For an adult it is predictable and the characters are thin.