The Second Industrial Revolution took off in the middle of the nineteenth century, with machines ultimately producing increased power to support the mass production of the twentieth century. Detractors have pointed out that, as a consequence, hitherto unimaginable corporate greed trampled on the individual worker and over the pristine environment. Steamboy, an animé directed by Katsuhiro Ôtomo, recalls that crucial period in human history with a focus on three generations of a British family with the surname Steam. Preteen Ray Steam (voiced in the English-language version by Anna Paquin) is working in Manchester on a steam-powered unicycle, while his father Edward (voiced by Alfred Molina) and grandfather Lloyd (voiced by Patrick Stewart) work in Russian Alaska on a secret project in which there is a serious accident. Edward, disfigured by the accident, is nevertheless eager to use the project to enhance British military security, but the O'Hara Foundation, a front for a greedy American weapons manufacturing corporation, wants to sell the invention to military leaders at the London's 1851 Great Exhibition in Crystal Palace, thereby fueling an arms race in which certain American corporations will profit immensely. Lloyd, however, has had an epiphany from the way his inventions are being exploited; he articulates anti-war and anti-capitalist sentiments in opposition to his son, a scientist gone mad who has been recruited by the O'Hara Foundation. Ray, who does not want to choose sides between two role models, ultimately throws his lot on the side of good over evil after being kidnapped by O'Hara minions. The various steam-powered contraptions, which have an Jules Verne or H. G. Wells appearance but ultimately crash, eclipse a philosophical debate that might have been more thoroughly articulated. Instead, the screen is filled with fantastic artistry that took a decade to create. MH
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