First of all the movie wasn't as entertaining as the last time I watched it. Maybe I just wasn't as appreciative of the concept, which really is interesting and was probably why I enjoyed it last time. I seem to recall not particularly caring for it when I was a kid, though I could mixing in memories of the bizarre sequel(s?).

Simple summery. We follow a little boy, Bastion, who is bullied by the other boys(perhaps representing "the man") After one such episode of torment he hides in an old antique shop where his sticky fingers end up pocketing an old book. (nothing like steeling from old men to improve you self esteem) Then using his 7331 ninja skills he slips into the school attic where he is pulled into Fantasia. (It seems some of the teachers like to collect skulls and other odd things, which makes me wonder where the skulls came from. Old occult sacrifices or just something more ordinary like plague victims?)

It seems the land of Fantasia, is being destroy by the Nothing. After meeting some random denizens of Fantasia we shift to the palace of the Where we meet Atreu the hero of our story who has been really job. After being mocked by everyone around because he's short(a non hairy hobbit?) he has search for a way to save the world with neither weapons nor any clue on where to start. Things get off to a bad start when he loses his horse and only friend is lost in a swamp (of Despair?). Luckily after being blown off (literally) by ancient turtle Atreu is saved by a luck Dragon. (YAY) who takes him to a professor and a witch who help him upon his quest by pointing him to an Oracle. After some trouble with unclothes sphinx statues the oracle tells him the princess needs a new name from a Human child outside of Fantasia. Naturally Atreu is amazed a what lousy hand life dealt him, but he heroically flies off find a way out of fantasia.

As you can imagine he fails a is lost by his dragon friend. But after confronting and killing a bear (servant of "the man" or more likely a personification of Bastion's fears) with a sharp rock(would it have been better if he'd been aloud to bring some weapons with him?) He is found by the luck dragon and they fly back to the empress( she of too much eye makeup). There empress tells Atreu that she can be saved if the human child would give her a new name. Bastion, after some moments of angsty disbelief shouts out his mothers name (I wonder what Freud would think), Moon Child (Must sound better in the original Klingon German) as the empress new name and saves the day. Then the viewers are treated to happy scenes of Fantasia back to normal. (Including Atreu the hobbit with his horse bounding across the plains) And in the real world the bullies(Brownshirts) are chased by Bastion and his luck dragon.

Now if I understand the movie, now that humanity has moved into modernity this has caused the common man to lose interest in Fantasy. Thus causing Fantasia to disappear. Naturally the "Man" (Government? Corporations? T.V.? Aliens? oshiro-sama? ) is malevolently causing Humanity to become separated from Fantaisia so they will be without hope and easier to control. This seems to fly in the face of reality where people tend to be quite caught up in their fantasies weather it is fantasy Sports, the internet, Conspiracy Theories, and the ever present T.V. I suppose I'm probably thinking too much about a children's story, but sometimes you have to wonder what poisonous substance the writer was smoking...