1981 theatrical poster
2009 remake theatrical poster
Doraemon: The Records of Nobita, Spaceblazer is a 1981 animated film, the second in the Doraemon Film Series, based on the second installment of Doraemon's Long Tales in the Doraemon franchise.
Nobita, after losing the baseball field he usually hangs out with Suneo and Gian, made a random promise that he'll find a new baseball field for his friends... just as a inter-dimensional space warp unexpectedly opens up in Nobita's bedroom. One leading to a spaceship belonging to an alien boy named Ropporu and his pet, Chammy, whom Nobita repeatedly sees in his visions. When Chammy inevitably ends up in Nobita's bedroom, Nobita and Doraemon decides to follow Chammy and find themselves in the beautiful Planet Koya Koya, who is facing destruction from a greedy, power-hungry, space mining corporation intending to destroy the entire land for the unobtanium within it's soil.
The movie gains a remake in 2009, titled Doraemon: The Record of Nobita's Spaceblazer, with more or less the same plot but with some new characters added.
Doraemon: The Records of Nobita, Spaceblazer contain examples of:
- Accidental Aiming Skills: When Ropporu tries demonstrating his father's blaster pistol to Nobita, by firing a shot at two trees. Ropporu scores a hit, which easily snaps the tree into half, and as Nobita and Doraemon compliments on Roppuru's skills he then sheepishly admits he's aiming for the other tree on the left. As in, one that was roughly a meter away from the destroyed tree. Whoops.
- Adaptational Badass:
- In the first movie adaptation, Doraemon uses the Reverse Mantle to deflect a few shots from the giant bull mecha before being knocked aside, unlike in the manga where he is reduced to Rummage Fail after the Air Cannon fails. He also plays an important part in saving Nobita and Ropporu from Guillermin and his mooks by using his weather-controlling machine to create a flood as a distraction, which is a scene that didn't happen in the manga. The remake walks the middle ground, as Doraemon is prevented from fighting back against the giant mecha by Guillermin using Ropporu and Morina as hostages.
- In the remake, Chammy takes down a few of the Garutite Mining Corporation's drones during the final battle, which didn't happen in the manga or first movie.
- In the remake, Clem is among the Big Damn Heroes who save Doraemon and Nobita from Guillermin's giant bull mecha, while she wasn't involved at all in action scenes in the manga or first movie.
- Adaptational Wimp: In the first movie adaptation, Guillermin is taken down unceremoniously after Ropporu (with Nobita's help) shoots him with a stun gun, and is then swept away in a flood. In the manga and remake, he instead has a climactic showdown with Nobita.
- Big Bad: Borgant, the Corrupt Corporate Executive spearheading the Garutite Mining Corporation's operations.
- Big Damn Heroes: When Guillermin and his giant bull mecha is about to run over Doraemon and friends, suddenly scores and scores of flying boulders from an adjacent valley starts crashing into Guillermin's mech, smashing several holes in it's controls. And in an adjacent valley, there's Suneo and Shizuka hurling boulders for Gian to hit and deflect towards Guillermin's mecha, destroying most of the machine and saving everyone.
- Brick Joke: Chammy and Ropporu first discovers their spaceship was unintentionally connected to the floorboards of Nobita's bedroom after Chammy smashed a hole in it in the dead of night, surprising a sleeping Nobita. After Nobita and Doraemon gets grounded and made to study under Shizuka's watchful eye, even as Planet Koya Koya is suffering massive destruction under the Garutite Mining Corporation's activities, an upset Chammy decides to smash through the floorboards again, this time breaking a hole through Nobita's study table, surprising Nobita, Doraemon and Shizuka.
- The Bully: A bunch of high-school bullies who took over the baseball field Nobita, Gian and Suneo frequents kickstarts the plot for Nobita to find a new baseball field, when they threatened to "beat up the local kids form interrupting their baseball practice". The problem eventually resolves itself as the bullies unintentionally pissed off the old neighbour living next to the field, who then threatens to call the police on them - the gang pretty much reclaims their old baseball field without a hitch.
- Canon Foreigner: Morina in the remake is an entirely new supporting character who didn't appear in the manga or first movie.
- Cephalothorax: Most of the animals on Planet Koya Koya are cephalothorax versions of earth animals, such as their pandas, elephants, and bisons having a rounded, puffed body supported by two legs. They're much smaller and bouncier than their earth counterparts as a result.
- Chekhov's Gun: When Doraemon and Nobita first met Ropporu and Chammy in Ropporu's partially damaged ship, Nobita suggest that Doraemon can use the Time Cloth to undo the damage. That works. Right at the end of the story, as Guillermin's nuke is about to blow up the entirety of Planet Koya Koya as the countdown gradually reaches it's tip, suddenly the nuke starts counting in reverse, slowly turning backwards from red to orange and then green. As it turns out, during Doraemon's Rummage Fail haste in looking for a gadget, he accidentally discarded the Time Cloth just as the wind blows the cloth all the way from one end of the valley to the top of the nuke, reversing the time.
- Contrived Coincidence: What are the odds that the Time Cloth, randomly cast aside and ending up in the wind, gets blown a few hundred meters from where Doraemon is, onto the top of the building-sized nuke? There are certain WMG theories that the Time Cloth is designed to home into the nearest object, but given the distance it's still one heck of a coincidence. This is averted in the first movie adaptation, in which Ropporu picks up the discarded Time Cloth and, remembering how it was used to fix his ship, deliberately places it on the nuke.
- Demoted to Extra: While they are still in this movie, Shizuka, Gian and Suneo doesn't involve much to the plot until the climax.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The villainous Garutite Mining Corporation attempts this on the entirety of Planet Koya Koya, after realizing her inhabitants are unwilling to hand over their planet. One brought by their lead enforcer, Guillermin, with a countdown that gradually goes from green to red which can shatter Planet Koya Koya to rubble - at which point the Garutite Mining Corporation, in their ships, can simply salvage the gartite ore drifting around in space.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Being the second movie in the series and first that introduces a Girl of the Week, the movie has moments of Ship Tease between Nobita and Clem, never mind how later movies would establish Shizuka as Nobita's sole Love Interest. The franchise's characters running on The Team dynamic isn't set in stone either, with Shizuka, Gian and Suneo Out of Focus for much of the story. The remake does attempts fixing this by adding more scenes with the trio though.
- Fat and Skinny: The Garutite Mining Corporation's most recurring Those Two Guys pair of mooks, Uno and Doubt, who repeatedly harass Ropporu and Chammy and later booby-traps Ropporu's ship with a motion-sensor bomb in an attempt to kill the heroes.
- Fold the Page, Fold the Space: When they first met, Ropporu uses this theory to explain to Doraemon and Nobita on how dimensional rifts work, and how an unexpected hyperjump leads to Ropporu's ship accidentally connecting itself to Nobita's bedroom. Nobita, being Nobita, instead questions if the galaxy's indeed made of paper, how much paper would it take to create an actual universe. (Cue Ropporu doing a Face Fault at Nobita's idiocy)
- Giant Wall of Watery Doom: When Nobita and Doraemon makes a visit to of Planet Koya Koya for a second time... and realize the planet's surface is suspiciously barren. And then they're greeted by a tredmendous tidal wave, which they barely escape from until Doraemon takes out the Takecopter. Turns out it's the planet's hibernation period, and her inhabitants are in shelters while waiting for the new wave to wash away all pollutions while they regrow their farms.
- Green Aesop: Pretty much the entire plot. There's a beautiful planet bursting with life, an evil corporation out to destroy the balance of nature in order to harvest the planet's ores, scenes of mass pollution, the local fauna being threatened by said corporation's activities...
- Heavyworlder: The reasons why earthlings can gain superhuman abilities while on Planet Koya Koya, thanks to the weak gravitational pull.
- In a Single Bound: Earthlings on Planet Koya Koya, besides developing superhuman strength and durability, also has the ability to cover dozens of meters with a single leap, thanks to the planet's weak gravity. Nobita, Doraemon, together with Gian, Suneo and Shizuka - all three of the latter stepping foot on Planet Koya Koya for the first time - learns this the hard way when they attempted playing baseball on said planet, only to cover one side of the field to another with a single trip.
- Little Useless Gun: The pistol which is a heirloom left behind by Ropporu and Clem's father. It's ridiculously short, doesn't have a barrel, can fit in a child's pocket... and rips a tree into half in one shot.
- Narnia Time: After spending two days on Planet Koya Koya under the hospitality of Ropporu, Clem and Chammy's company, Nobita and Doraemon returns home and suddenly remembered they'll likely face the music for leaving the house unannounced. Nobita and Doraemon then sheepishly apologized to Tamako Nobi for dissappearing for two days... only for Tamako to look at them puzzlingly, saying it's not even dinnertime yet. At which point it's revealed that thanks to the dimensional rift, two days on Planet Koya Koya equals to a few hours on earth.
- Portal Crossroad World: One that turns up in Nobita's bedroom. Thanks to a dimensional rift (occured when Ropporu and Chammy tried fleeing from the Garutite Mining Corporation through hyperspace) a hatch in the fuselage of Ropporu's spaceship gets connected to the floorboards of Nobita's bedroom. When Chammy tries investigating the hatch, she ends up smashing through Nobita's bedsheets, waking him and giving Nobita one hell of a scare as she pops out of his floorboards.
- Rummage Fail: The classic Running Gag from the Doraemon comics gets lovingly carried over into this one, when Guillermin pursues Nobita, Doraemon, Ropporu and Chammy into a canyon. While looking for a useful gadget, Doraemon goes through tons and tons of random gadgets (useless for their predicament) before they're forced to flee. One of those gadgets is the Time Cloth which Doraemon mistook to be the Reflection Cloth before discarding it in a hurry, but it ends up unintentionally saving the day.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Already disenchanted with Koya Koya when they find out that the planet's lower gravity makes it hard for them to play baseball, Gian, Suneo, and Shizuka decide to leave after being threatened by the Garutite Mining Corporation, as they had not expected to encounter any sort of danger during their visit. They return just in time for a Big Damn Heroes moment during the final battle.
- Shout-Out: The concept of humans on another planet with gravity much weaker compared to earth's, resulting in human bodies gaining extreme durability, near-indestructability, and capable of leaping entire miles in a single jump, seems reminiscent of the John Carter novels.
- Showdown at High Noon: The final showdown between Nobita and Guillermin. Nobita wins.
- Space Western: The setting, more or less, what with the villains having a spaceship shaped like a rampaging bull, their top mercenary Guillermin clad in a poncho and sombrero, and the final showdown between Nobita and Guillermin being a one-on-one pistol duel.
- Telepathy: In a bunch of scenes after Nobita momentarily loses consciousness after hitting himself in the head (like, after tripping while he's being chased by a bunch of angry high-school students), he would end up having visions of himself in Ropporu's body, stuck in Ropporu's ship and sees Chammy in the cockpit. Later on as Nobita finally meets Ropporu and Chammy, and exclaiming how Ropporu looks "just like the boy in his visions" Ropporu explains it's because of the dimensional warp causing them to momentarily share a mind in an unconcscious state.
- Truer to the Text:
- Chammy's design in the remake, with black sclerae and a longer tail, is more similar to the original manga than her appearance in the first movie adaptation.
- Guillermin being defeated in a duel against Nobita happens in both the manga and the remake. In the first movie, he is last seen being knocked out by Ropporu's stun gun.
- Uncertain Doom: In the first movie adaptation, Guillermin is swept away by a flood after being stunned by Ropporu's gun, and doesn't appear again.
- Unobtanium: Gartite ore, which Planet Koya Koya has an abundant supply of, and the Garutite Mining Corporation is excavating in massive amounts, plowing through entire forests, valleys, and causing widespread destruction everywhere they go. Culminating in the corporation's head approving the use of a nuke to wipe out the whole planet so they can collect the remaining Gartite ore scraps floating in space.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Borgant, the Garutite Mining Corporation's boss and his two flunkies attempt to flee in a shuttle after realizing Guillermin's nuke is about to blow, ditching Guillermin as well as the rest of their mooks. They didn't get far when they're arrested by the police, who promptly arrests them for trying to destroy a planet.
- Void Between the Worlds: When the dimensional rift occurs at the end of the story. The portal that leads directly from Ropporu's spaceship to Nobita's room had started drifting apart, with a blank dimension in-between a shrinking exit going further and further. Soon it will be lost forever, forcing Nobita and Doraemon to depart and permanently bid their friends on Planet Koya Koya goodbye.
- Woken Up at an Ungodly Hour: How Nobita and Doraemon first met their friends of Planet Koya Koya, Ropporu and Chammy. Early in the story, Chammy attempts to force open their spaceship's exit hatch, oblivious to the fact that the exit of their ship had connected to the floorboards of Nobita's bedroom because of a failed hyperspace jump. She finally managed to barged her way through, flipping over Nobita's futon in the dead of the night, causing a panicked Nobita to wake up (an equally-sleepy) Doraemon for help.
- You Are Grounded!: After Nobita and Doraemon and forced into a curfew for sneaking out one time too many, Tamako enforces a curfew forcing Nobita and Doraemon to stay in the house. To the extent of hiring Shizuka as a tutor to "supervise" Nobita and make sure he's studying. It takes Chammy ramming a hole through the floorboards in Nobita's room to finally break them out.
