Alita: Battle Angel - First Impressions [SPOILERS]

[Weimann]

WARNING: This thread will have all the spoilers!

I'm not one who goes to the movies a lot. I don't watch a movie in the theatres every year, and I don't think I've ever watched a movie on premiere night. That was true until yesterday, when I watched Alita: Battle Angel. Alita is among the first mangas I ever read, and the dangerous atmosphere and gruesome art was shocking and exciting. I never watched the OVA, and I dropped Last Order somewhere in the middle when they stopped selling them in my bookstore, so I don't know that much beyond the original manga (and even then, even if I've reread books 1-3 in preparation for the film, it's decades since I read it the first time). When I heard about the movie adaptation, I knew I had to see it on the first night.

And boy, do I have things to talk about.

The story

When rereading the manga, I kind of found myself wondering, "how are they going to make a film out of this?" While there are many benefits to the original manga, I'll be honest, it doesn't have the best overall structure. All of Alita's character arcs feel pretty disjointed, and her personality is pretty different between them. The movie mixing together the different arcs was expected from me, and I think the movie is stronger for it.

Of course, the movie changes a lot of other stuff as well: Alita being the name of Ido's dead daughter, and not, as in the manga, his dead cat. Alita's first body being the cyborg body Ido made for said daughter, instead of scrap pieces he got of the market, and the beautiful arms being the reason Chiren took notice of her. Alita finding the berzerker body in a crashed Martian airship, instead of it lying around in Ido's basement. Looking at it like this, it makes sense. The movie's solutions are much more efficient in terms of establishing the setting and characters. And I think it does a good job adapting the story to the film medium. While the different choices were surprising at times, I never felt like it stopped being Alita, but more like it was a different path through the same story.

The Alita character

Much like discussed above, Alita is a different woman. It would be strange if she wasn't, really: one was made in Japan in the early 1990's, one in America in 2019. 30 years and half a world between them, there's no way they'd be identical. My impression of the new Alita was that she was more expressive, laughed more, and was maybe a little bit more of an adrenaline junkie than the old one. Just like the story, she was shaped by her context and medium, but I still saw Alita in her all the time... exceeept perhaps for the last few scenes, when she pointed her Damascus blade up towards Zalem. She started to feel like an american super hero then. That said, in the end, I like her as a main character, and that's really what's important. But, frankly, what was even more important to me was...

The combat

One of my strongest impressions from the Alita manga was panzerkunst. Yukito Kishiro managed to convey a sense of identity to Alita's combat style that made it stand out among other combat-heavy mangas I read at the time. To me, the core motion of the art was spinning: roundhouse kicks, axe kicks, dodges and movement, all in a dancing, snappy, split-second, athletic series of revolutions. So, coming into the movie, my biggest question was "does she spin?"

She spins.

Combat and action scenes in this movie are beautiful. This is, perhaps, the thing that's most authentic to the original manga in the movie, and I'm so happy they managed to get it right. Even coming in blank, the fighting scenes are marvellous. Fast, detailed yet still eminently clear enough to read in the second it takes for them to flow from one strike to another. Particularly during the Motorball race, which unfortunately is pretty much only used as an opportunity for an (admittedly gorgeous) combat sequence, you'd think the amount of speed and motion would make it hard to follow, but no. The combat is A+ in this film.

The atmosphere

Unfortunately, this might be my biggest issue with the movie. The Scrapyard is just to... bright. It looks downright pleasant sometimes. Of course, you hear about all the problems, and you certainly see situations where it's obvious that something is wrong, and of course the people will make their living as enjoyable as they can, but... come on. In the movie, Yugo cuts at an assaulted cyborg with a sawblade a little. In the manga, he literally extracted their spine and held it up for examination. Where are the insane junkies, the dirt poor who have to eat rats and drink rain water runoff, the casual violence and extreme brutality?

The answer is, of course, that you can't show that on the movies. And yeah, even anime, known in the west for the crazy **** that happens in it, has that problem when adapting manga. Unfortunately, this was one thing that did make the movie feel less Alita for me. And another thing I really hated was...

The Damascus blade

If the atmosphere was my biggest problem with the movie, then the handling of the Damascus blade was the biggest inconsistency. Are you kidding me with this? First of all, Zapan never had the Damascus blade in the manga and he doesn't deserve it, the little snitch. But in the movie, it's portrayed as his signature weapon. It pissed me off. More importantly, though, they say the Damascus blade is Martian technology, just like the berzerker body. That's, like, the opposite of true. In the manga, the Damascus blade is a product of Earth, and in fact a product of the Scrapyard in particular. It's forged from a mix of different metals that, through its imperfections, make an alloy that's stronger than pure steel. It's a metaphor for Alita's background, sorrow over Yugo and other issues making her come out stronger for it in the end. IT'S NOT A GOD DAMN SPACE SWORD!

...hah... okay, in the end? Yeah, I liked this movie. I can't really say what the average of my pros and cons comes out to, but I'll say there are some things I love and some things I kind of hate, and they don't really cancel out.

I'll catch the sequel, for sure. Day one.

[Cikomyr]

I really had a good time during the movie.
Never saw the original manga, but my girlfriend did.

Twas fun, with original designs and good action. I also will want to see the sequel.

[Delicious Taffy]

I went in completely blind on this one, having only heard of the manga through lists in the back of my MegaMan comics. I have to say, the action is absolutely worth the ticket price, all on its own. I do think it was awful long and a few scenes could definitely have been condensed.

This is a very minor nitpick, but in an early scene, what's-his-face and Alita are talking about food, and he takes her to a guy selling chocolate. The bars he's selling are like an inch thick and roughly the length and width of a PSP game case. The things are absolutely massive, and I don't quite buy that someone would be making and selling these giant ornate bricks of chocolate in the slums. Where does he get the cocoa, for starters?

Other than the chocolate aircraft carriers, the long run time, and maybe the first half of the bar scene, I think this is a really solid movie.

[Weimann]

Yeah, that's an excellent example of what I mean by lacking atmosphere. Chocolate should probably be a Zalem only good, or some black market cocoa baked into a grubby blob. I'm not sure, but I don't remember Alita ever eating chocolate in the first few manga books at least.

[slayerx]

Saw the film and really enjoyed it. However i think what prevents it from being a really great film is that it actually tries to do too much with its narrative. There's just a lot of elements in this film that did not need to be there and only seem to develop a greater narrative that won't be completed until a sequel comes out which might never happen.

First, The sports game feels the most unnecessary; it made for a great action sequence but it wasn't needed for the main narrative of the film; it only serves to set up the film's sequel bait ending... Next is the berserker body. I feel like the armor didn't really add anything to the main story of the film. Yes the body is important to the origins of Alita's character but i think they were doing a perfectly fine job of going into her origins without needing the beserker body. Also i feel like the fights had less tension when she got that super advance body since it gave the feeling that she was now working with FAR superior technology than her enemies; i think seeing her have to get through everything with just regular tech would have been more compelling. The beserker body is an element i think should have been saved for a sequel if it ever happened... And then there's Nova. Again it feels like his only TRUE place in this film is to set up a future villain. Vector alone could have done a perfectly good job of being the main antagonist. Again he's another unnecessary piece

Get rid of those elements, and you basically just get a live action adaption of the anime OVA, but with more answers as to who Alita was, and i think that would have made for a stronger film. It would have felt much more self contained so that it doesn't feel like we are missing anything in case their is never a follow up, and a more self contained story i think would have made for a much stronger film overall.

This is a very minor nitpick, but in an early scene, what's-his-face and Alita are talking about food, and he takes her to a guy selling chocolate. The bars he's selling are like an inch thick and roughly the length and width of a PSP game case. The things are absolutely massive, and I don't quite buy that someone would be making and selling these giant ornate bricks of chocolate in the slums. Where does he get the cocoa, for starters?

Ya that's fair, though i would take it a step further and also include the oranges. In a city like that, Fresh fruit and fresh meat should be something of a luxury. For the regular people, their food would most likely come out of cans or in bar form. Only rich guys like Vector would be eating normal food

[DavidSh]

We do see farmland within walking distance of downtown. I wasn't thinking of the issue, so didn't notice whether the setting looked to have climate suitable for oranges. However, when I check now, at least some of the locations were shot in Texas, and Cameron is quoted as saying the setting was supposed to be (future) Panama, so maybe oranges are reasonable.

I'm even less clear about chocolate. Is there anywhere these days where all of the steps from growing the trees to making chocolate bars occurs in a single locality? Maybe this is synthetic or ersatz chocolate. It would be a kindness to design cyborg palates to be able to enjoy bad chocolate.

[Delicious Taffy]

As far as oranges go, the guy who gives them to Ido says "My wife works out at Farm 22", so I'm going to assume Farm 22 is in a suitable area for orange growing.

[slayerx]

Its not bout the climate, but about the setting. We have a dystopian future where the untouchable elite live in a beautiful sky city while the regular folks live off their trash down on the ground. Yes there would be farms to provide fresh food, but you would expect all the fresh food would be going up to Zalem while the people down below eat cheaper processed foods. Its just one of the ways to create the atomsphere of a sad and broken dystopian world

[The Glyphstone]

Maybe one of the perks of working on a farm is access to its produce, either officially or unofficially winked-at theft?

[GloatingSwine]

Its not bout the climate, but about the setting. We have a dystopian future where the untouchable elite live in a beautiful sky city while the regular folks live off their trash down on the ground. Yes there would be farms to provide fresh food, but you would expect all the fresh food would be going up to Zalem while the people down below eat cheaper processed foods. Its just one of the ways to create the atomsphere of a sad and broken dystopian world

The best stuff goes up to Zalem, but not all of it makes it there. That's the core of Vector's pitch to Hugo in the manga. That he can have all the comforts he would have had on Zalem right there in the Scrapyard because he's in control of the system that sends things up and nobody notices if a few things fall off the wagon.

In practice as well the Factory farms produce more than Zalem can possibly consume.

Spoiler

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Also in the manga, Zalem only thinks it's the untouchable elite. It's a farm where cloned humans are grown to have their brains harvested for an organic supercomputer.

I expect if there is a sequel that element will probably be preserved, with the whole place actually just being Nova's playground.
(I'm not thrilled with the way they used Nova, he looks on point like everyone else, but in the manga he's basically the mad science version of Heath Ledger's Joker, an agent of pure chaos who does what he does just to find out what'll happen.)

[Ranxerox]

Its not bout the climate, but about the setting. We have a dystopian future where the untouchable elite live in a beautiful sky city while the regular folks live off their trash down on the ground. Yes there would be farms to provide fresh food, but you would expect all the fresh food would be going up to Zalem while the people down below eat cheaper processed foods. Its just one of the ways to create the atomsphere of a sad and broken dystopian world

Sure it creates a dystopian atmosphere and it is a genre trope, but it makes no sense and has been mocked by critics. If you can make cybernetic limbs you can throw together some green houses and grow food.

Well, in Iron City, judging by crowd shots, like 20% of the population has some cyborg limb or another. The heavy metals and rare earths need to manufacture these limbs aren't all being sent up to Zalem. The big, high tech stadium that they play moterball in hasn't been scraped to fuel Zalem. The robot sentinels and computers with there holoprojector screens are all down in Iron City. As are taxis, ambulances and private vehicles. So, all these signs of societal wealth are okay, but oranges and chocolate don't make sense?

[Delicious Taffy]

So, all these signs of societal wealth are okay, but oranges and chocolate don't make sense?

Alright, fair point. I was more thrown off by the size and apparent cheapness of the chocolate bars, honestly. Then again, I can go a few blocks to the grocery store and pick up a slightly smaller bar of alright chocolate for just a dollar, so maybe it's just lowish-quality stuff in the movie. Or maybe Hugo is just generous with cute girls, and didn't mind dropping a few extra bucks to make sure Alita had a good time.

[Magic_Hat]

WARNING: This thread will have all the spoilers!

Not wanting to sound like a jerk, but then could you kindly put those things in spoilers. This forum has a feature that allows you to do that. Look:

Spoiler: Example

Show

Now I can spoiler stuff and the people who haven't seen what I've spoiled will know not to click it.

I just want to know if the film is worth a watch. If other people aren't putting these things in spoilers I'll just avoid this thread. Again not trying to sound like a jerk. I'd just like to go in fresh.

[Olinser]

Not wanting to sound like a jerk, but then could you kindly put those things in spoilers. This forum has a feature that allows you to do that. Look:

Spoiler: Example

Show

Now I can spoiler stuff and the people who haven't seen what I've spoiled will know not to click it.

I just want to know if the film is worth a watch. If other people aren't putting these things in spoilers I'll just avoid this thread. Again not trying to sound like a jerk. I'd just like to go in fresh.

Not wanting to sound like a jerk, but the title of the thread has SPOILERS in big bold letters, and the first sentence of the thread again has SPOILERS in capital red letters, clearly telling you to avoid this thread if you want to go in fresh.

[Olinser]

I went in completely blind on this one, having only heard of the manga through lists in the back of my MegaMan comics. I have to say, the action is absolutely worth the ticket price, all on its own. I do think it was awful long and a few scenes could definitely have been condensed.

This is a very minor nitpick, but in an early scene, what's-his-face and Alita are talking about food, and he takes her to a guy selling chocolate. The bars he's selling are like an inch thick and roughly the length and width of a PSP game case. The things are absolutely massive, and I don't quite buy that someone would be making and selling these giant ornate bricks of chocolate in the slums. Where does he get the cocoa, for starters?

Other than the chocolate aircraft carriers, the long run time, and maybe the first half of the bar scene, I think this is a really solid movie.

Yeah, that was kind of my nitpick as well.

I'm less opposed to the long run time in general, but very disappointed that they had a long run time with a lot of superfluous stuff, and THEN ended on a cliffhanger. They could have done a lot more story in the same run time if they hadn't wasted a lot of time.

It was a respectable movie, I enjoyed it, I just wish they'd gone further with the plot in the long run time.

[warty goblin]

Watched this on Saturday since there was a rare break in the perpetual blizzard that is February.

Overall I quite liked it, mostly because it was rather strange and different from the usual blockbuster fare. The motorball scenes felt generally somewhat pointless, but as festivals of pixels beating each other up go, they were at least engagingly choreographed and very well shot, unlike those endless and overly edited slugfests in Marvel movies*. Plus, the weird bit where you can do whatever you want to a robot and stay PG-13 meant that the fights had some really substantial physical consequences.

I really liked the ending, particularly since it was pretty explicit throughout that somebody was pulling the strings behind the scenes. Keeping that in the dark for a lot of the movie was fun, and shoving a final confrontation in there would seriously undercut that.


*Like, I love Black Panther, but after just how good the hand weapon duels were, the climax was two dudes in nearly identical PJs punching each other in a dark tunnel? It was like some sort of nadir of bad fight scene structure.

[Ranxerox]

Alright, fair point. I was more thrown off by the size and apparent cheapness of the chocolate bars, honestly. Then again, I can go a few blocks to the grocery store and pick up a slightly smaller bar of alright chocolate for just a dollar, so maybe it's just lowish-quality stuff in the movie. Or maybe Hugo is just generous with cute girls, and didn't mind dropping a few extra bucks to make sure Alita had a good time.

That's fair also. To be honest I was taken back by the size of the candy bar too, though that was mostly by the thought of what all that sugar and caffeine would do to Alita's 3 pounds of actual meat. Though thinking about, of course her high tech body would be able to store excess calories and nutrients for latter use.

Spoiler: Concerning Hugo

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Considering the killing that Hugo was making jacking cybernetic part and selling them, if he wanted to spend the equivalent of 20 buck buying a girl he wanted to impress the best candy bar that the vendor sold, he could do that.

[RCgothic]

I think this was my favourite film since Les Mis 2012. Gorgeous, emotive, action scenes you can actually follow! If I weren't working ridiculous hours right now I'd be going to see this repeatedly.

[Present 2.0]

The Thing I liked the most, was just how confident Alita was. I got the feeling, that this is a girl, that loves who she is.

[Mordar]

We saw it and liked it...particularly given what a disappointment Taken 13 Cold Pursuit was (having watched that the day before Alita). It restored movie going balance.

Saw the film and really enjoyed it. However i think what prevents it from being a really great film is that it actually tries to do too much with its narrative. There's just a lot of elements in this film that did not need to be there and only seem to develop a greater narrative that won't be completed until a sequel comes out which might never happen.

First, The sports game feels the most unnecessary; it made for a great action sequence but it wasn't needed for the main narrative of the film; it only serves to set up the film's sequel bait ending... Next is the berserker body. I feel like the armor didn't really add anything to the main story of the film. Yes the body is important to the origins of Alita's character but i think they were doing a perfectly fine job of going into her origins without needing the beserker body. Also i feel like the fights had less tension when she got that super advance body since it gave the feeling that she was now working with FAR superior technology than her enemies; i think seeing her have to get through everything with just regular tech would have been more compelling. The beserker body is an element i think should have been saved for a sequel if it ever happened... And then there's Nova. Again it feels like his only TRUE place in this film is to set up a future villain. Vector alone could have done a perfectly good job of being the main antagonist. Again he's another unnecessary piece

I agree with your point about trying to do too much, but maybe from a different point of view. Note that I have zero exposure to the original source material.

To me the movie felt like it was trying to combine one or two (or maybe three?) seasons/arcs/volumes into one movie. From the construction of Alita up to the discovery of Ido as Hunter feels like Act 1, but also volume 1. The Hugo budding romance/discovery of the berserker body/Alita becomes a Hunter/second round with Grewishka is Act 2, but also volume 2...and has a very distinct tonal shift. Then the rest of the film (motorball/showdown/another showdown/reveal) feels like *at least* another volume, maybe 2, condensed into a short batch of setbacks and reveals and a rushed climax.

I thought the conflict progression was fine, given that as a movie instead of a TV or book series, particularly with a budget probably in the $250-300M range ($170M for production), you (a) can't automatically bank on sequels to fill out important parts of the narrative, and (b) have to provide some clarity to her instinctual combat ability and "alieness", so the Martian ship and Berserker body are efficient means to explain her background. Coupled with that it provides overt growth over the course of the film. Remember, as a blank slate she had no issue taking out Grewishka's crew in the opening fight, and would have handled Grewishka himself if he hadn't run. Similarly, she doesn't have any issue with the Hunters in the bar (though it did seem it had "bar fight" written all over it, so no really effort to kill). But Grewishka gets upgrades, and he handles her solo, and if not for a bit of monologue and a rescue, he had her cold. Then she gets her body upgrade...but perhaps more importantly, her weapon. That combo handles Grewishka's upgrades and we're back to square one...she outclasses him just like she did in the beginning.

I do think the motorball "tryout" felt very tacked on, and it could have been much better managed. The sequence could have better shown her ability to play the game, not just serve as a running fight scene, while also presenting a greater challenge than the bar fight because the scum were out to kill her. Instead we just get a distraction (with nice optics) because we needed Hugo to have his issues with Zapan and opportunity for her to come to the rescue...sort of.

I think that up until the (also tacked on, but I think was making a political point as much as anything) Hugo run up the tube, Nova was at a good distance from the happenings. Vector/Grewishka/Zapan were the necessary antagonists for this story, with Nova running things from the background (to make sure we knew that Zalem had people that were paying attention to Iron City...and were bad too). The breaking arm scene undercut Ido's quality of work, the run felt artificial and served only as a way to further personalize Nova as the bad guy. To me it was hamhanded and unnecessary, but again, I think it was making an overt political point.

Ya that's fair, though i would take it a step further and also include the oranges. In a city like that, Fresh fruit and fresh meat should be something of a luxury. For the regular people, their food would most likely come out of cans or in bar form. Only rich guys like Vector would be eating normal food

Its not bout the climate, but about the setting. We have a dystopian future where the untouchable elite live in a beautiful sky city while the regular folks live off their trash down on the ground. Yes there would be farms to provide fresh food, but you would expect all the fresh food would be going up to Zalem while the people down below eat cheaper processed foods. Its just one of the ways to create the atomsphere of a sad and broken dystopian world

I thought about this as well, but came to a different conclusion. People in Iron City have to work hard and hustle to live what we in the US would consider a lower-class lifestyle. Tenement housing, limited vehicle access, questionable utilities and public services. Still, there was food available, and technology seemed well advanced compared to modern era. And floating above was this unseen utopia where the garbage was of such quality that it was a primary draw to the area below, and its castoffs were used by the best doctors in Iron City to improve the way of life for the terrestrial residents. To me, Zalem is meant to be the US, and Iron City is [insert second- or third-world location here]. Some people from Zalem live in Iron City but have a better standard of life than most. Some of them provide doctors-without-borders style services. Some Iron City residents are local dictators propped up by "sponsors" in Zalem.

So I didn't think it was meant to be a Blade Runner (original) or full-grit cyberpunk style setting...more a commentary on the current world, with a dose of technological advancement that kind of makes us viewers feel like our lives match Iron City much more than Zalem, and achieves it without even having to show us Zalem. So the simple fresh foods aren't that big a deal...and don't forget, the oranges were presented in a way that implies they are reasonably rare and have greater value than they would today. I also thought it was a nice "To Kill a Mockingbird" kind of scene to show us what a good guy Atticus Ido really is.

- M

[GloatingSwine]

To me the movie felt like it was trying to combine one or two (or maybe three?) seasons/arcs/volumes into one movie. From the construction of Alita up to the discovery of Ido as Hunter feels like Act 1, but also volume 1. The Hugo budding romance/discovery of the berserker body/Alita becomes a Hunter/second round with Grewishka is Act 2, but also volume 2...and has a very distinct tonal shift. Then the rest of the film (motorball/showdown/another showdown/reveal) feels like *at least* another volume, maybe 2, condensed into a short batch of setbacks and reveals and a rushed climax.

Partly correct.

In the manga, Alita being found up to the fight with Grewishka (Makaku in the manga) in the sewer is volume 1, and Alita gets the Berserker body (which has no wider narrative significance because the backstory is different) between the fight with him in the alley and the sewer. Hugo is volume 2 pretty much as presented in the movie except with more backstory for his desire to get to Zalem and no motorball. Chiren doesn't exist in the manga, she was created for the anime adaptation (and Vector survives).

Motorball isn't introduced in the manga until volume 3, where Alita is doing it to try and blot out her memories of Hugo. (Motorball is volumes 3 and 4).

Nova is barely mentioned during any of this, and isn't secretly in charge of anything. He's far too mad for that.


One thing that bears mentioning is just how physically accurate everyone is to their manga character. This is basically the result when someone with as much clout as Cameron decides to make a passion project adaptation. He can get exactly the right actors.

[Mordaedil]

I am a huge nerd of anime and manga and stuff, but Alita had been one of those I never managed to find in stores or even online, so I the movie was my first technical exposure to the material. I was very impressed and put it down as a "must-see if you are going to run anything Shadowrun or otherwise cyberpunk" as a game. The romance was awkward I thought, but whatever, it was a solid adaption in a sea of pretty poor manga-to-movie adaptions.

So after seeing it, I decided to more actively seek out the source material and I first found the OVA's (there's two) made back in the early 90's. I could easily tell that the movie pulled heavy inspiration from these, even plot structure wise and I highly recommend seeing them if you haven't yet, but you've read the manga and couldn't figure out what some of the new elements of the movie pulled from. It puts things more into perspective with regards to what they pull from.

And watching the OVA I learned that Battle Angel Alita actually goes by a second name; GUNNM. This was the key that let me find the mangas online (days before I discovered Humblebundle actually offered them at a pittance) So, if you want to read it, try look for that name instead. Reading the manga, I've passed the Motorball arc and I'm surprised at how faithful the movie was to adapt that, when I thought it was just a "star wars podrace" sequence. I mean, no perfect adaption, but good golly the old manga has goofy elements interspersed with tragic grim deep story beats. It's kind of amazing. I am very glad I am reading this, even if I am late to the bandwagon all things considered.

Alita has also made it pretty far up my favorite female main characters cross media, maybe even overtaking Lina Inverse.

I also just love how goddamned explosive everything is and how much body parts fly apart and people cheer at losing their hands and just change cyber-implants like we change socks.

Also, the relationship with Hugo or Yugo was always awkward.

Spoiler: Manga spoiler

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Figure Four is an absolute champion of a dude

[Lacuna Caster]

There was an earlier thread on this topic, by the way.

Sure it creates a dystopian atmosphere and it is a genre trope, but it makes no sense and has been mocked by critics. If you can make cybernetic limbs you can throw together some green houses and grow food.

Well, in Iron City, judging by crowd shots, like 20% of the population has some cyborg limb or another. The heavy metals and rare earths need to manufacture these limbs aren't all being sent up to Zalem. The big, high tech stadium that they play moterball in hasn't been scraped to fuel Zalem. The robot sentinels and computers with there holoprojector screens are all down in Iron City. As are taxis, ambulances and private vehicles. So, all these signs of societal wealth are okay, but oranges and chocolate don't make sense?

Yeah the movie version of the Scrapyard/Iron City doesn't really seem all that dystopian, relatively speaking. Where are the pools of open sewage? The crumbling masonry and rusted metal? The diseased beggars and deformed mutants? The ragamuffin urchins who can't afford real clothes? This is what Alita is all about, folks!

Spoiler

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(I'm not thrilled with the way they used Nova, he looks on point like everyone else, but in the manga he's basically the mad science version of Heath Ledger's Joker, an agent of pure chaos who does what he does just to find out what'll happen.)

That's true, now that you mention it. Nova is very much not an authoritarian figure in the conventional sense.

And watching the OVA I learned that Battle Angel Alita actually goes by a second name; GUNNM. This was the key that let me find the mangas online (days before I discovered Humblebundle actually offered them at a pittance) So, if you want to read it, try look for that name instead. Reading the manga, I've passed the Motorball arc and I'm surprised at how faithful the movie was to adapt that, when I thought it was just a "star wars podrace" sequence. I mean, no perfect adaption, but good golly the old manga has goofy elements interspersed with tragic grim deep story beats. It's kind of amazing. I am very glad I am reading this, even if I am late to the bandwagon all things considered.

Yeah, I'm a pretty big fan of the original Manga.

I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, but I do think it suffers from considerable overcrowding- the amnesiac-future-soldier subplot, the romance arc, the motorball arc and the bounty-hunter arc were too much to cram into one movie and still have room to breathe. (Also, FWIW, I'm rather disappointed that Makaku/Gruishka was converted into a generic hulking bruiser. Which I worried was exactly what as going to happen.)

[Weimann]

Yeah the movie version of the Scrapyard/Iron City doesn't really seem all that dystopian, relatively speaking. Where are the pools of open sewage? The crumbling masonry and rusted metal? The diseased beggars and deformed mutants? The ragamuffin urchins who can't afford real clothes? This is what Alita is all about, folks!

Absolutely. That really is my biggest issue with the film. For me, the plot of the manga was never the focus. It's pretty disjointed and, while hardly standard, not particularly inspired either. The characters are good and interesting, and the manga wouldn't survive without them, but what I think about first when I think Alita is aesthetics. The feeling of the world, the mindset of the people living there, the neon-drenched rain hitting pavement and people with no discernment. That sense of brutal, ironclad hopelessness is, in much, what gives Alita's struggles legitimacy. In the movie, she's fighting Nova. In the manga she's just fighting the world.

For example, we are shown that the cutter defense thing that shredded Hugo in the movie was sent by Nova. It was an attack, by the villain, on something that hero cared for, and it motivated her to struggle on to reach Zalem by becoming the motorball champion. In the manga, it's just an automated defense mechanism. There's no intention, no impulse behind Yugo's death. There's no specific one for the hero to avenge his death against. It's just how the world is.

Likewise, even Ido shows signs of this. In the movie, he's the perfect father figure. Kind, moderate, caring and protective, but also trusting in Alita. When Alita asks why Ido became a hunter, he essentially puts it as a moral decision: he could put a bit more civility into the business. In the manga, he doesn't tell Alita, but he admits to himself that he likes the thrill of the kill. Not only, of course, but let's appreciate that even the kind Dr. Ido has a murderer inside him. Then, later, during the start of the motorball arc when Alita has run away to the stadium and Ido is looking for her, he walks past a girl literally getting raped and goes "mm, that's not Alita" and walks on. Aaaand then he only gets a couple steps and catches himself and walks back and saves her, because he's freaking Ido, but still.

I'm not saying I'd want a rape scene in the movie. But the message is clear: no one is so pure that the world doesn't get to them. And this movie just doesn't convey that. The aesthetics are too bright, too clean, too merciful.

[Mordar]

I'm not saying I'd want a rape scene in the movie. But the message is clear: no one is so pure that the world doesn't get to them. And this movie just doesn't convey that. The aesthetics are too bright, too clean, too merciful.

While I had 0 contact with the source material (in either form), I understand your point. Coming into this de novo, I enjoyed it superficially and I think I received a message from the production (see my previous post, basically "haves vs have-nots" perhaps reflective of current geopolitical conditions).

The grit factor, for lack of a better phrase, could certainly have been turned up. However, I think there would be very serious concerns about moving the viewing demographic into potentially niche territory.

So my question (to those with a significant connection to the original sources) is: Having seen this product, would you have rather they didn't make Alita: Battle Angel?

- M

[GloatingSwine]

While I had 0 contact with the source material (in either form), I understand your point. Coming into this de novo, I enjoyed it superficially and I think I received a message from the production (see my previous post, basically "haves vs have-nots" perhaps reflective of current geopolitical conditions).

That's a much stronger element of the original story, but not so much in the first few books. The idea of class struggle between the surface and Zarem is much more pronounced in books 6-9. (and then again on a different scale in Last Order, though it sort of gets lots in the weeds of the mother of all tournament arcs)

So my question (to those with a significant connection to the original sources) is: Having seen this product, would you have rather they didn't make Alita: Battle Angel?

- M

I've been looking forward to it for 20 years. I have my own things I wish they'd done differently (not change the backstory, there's no war in the manga, earth is ruined because of an asteroid impact and Zarem was built after the world recovered from that, not change Nova but that's hard to do without breaking the link between the Makaku story and the Hugo story as they're separate in the manga)

[Weimann]

So my question (to those with a significant connection to the original sources) is: Having seen this product, would you have rather they didn't make Alita: Battle Angel?

No. This movie is awesome. I loved it. It's definitely not the same Alita, but in the end, at least for me, it's still Alita.

And, on a more general note, adaptations are supposed to be different. This movie was made by people 30 years and half a world away from where the manga was published. It's bound to deviate. In a way, it's the deviations that make it have value. I might have preferred it another way, but the choices made in the film speaks to that same film, and were made for a reason. I absolutely appreciate it for what it is.

Just saying though, they didn't even steal one measly little spine. :(

[Lacuna Caster]

So my question (to those with a significant connection to the original sources) is: Having seen this product, would you have rather they didn't make Alita: Battle Angel?

I don't know. I think Weimann was able to articulate the thematic divergence and/or overall shortcomings of the film much more coherently than I was able to. The adaptation clearly comes from a place of fondness for the material and sincere effort to represent it faithfully, but I do think Rodriguez and Camerson have missed the point in subtle but consequential ways, quite separately from any independent artistic flaws of the film itself (and I think there are a few.)

Making Nova into the primary antagonist of the setting, in particular, is going to have some pretty significant ramifications on the structure of any sequels, because that's not really a role the original version is qualified to fill, and you'd lose a good deal of the character's nuance and ambivalence in the process. There is a very distinct Evil Patriarch up in the sky in the form of Aga Mbadi, and Last Order is such a general funhouse of crazy that you'd probably need to change things up substantially regardless, but I'm worried that future development will be a bit rudderless as a result.

I think that this was a film with tremendous room for improvement, in a 'less is more' sense, but I suppose it's hard to articulate some specific way that the franchise would be better off without it. If they don't go overboard with "here is one specific bad man that is the source of all your social problems", maybe it'll be a net plus.

[Mechalich]

Making Nova into the primary antagonist of the setting, in particular, is going to have some pretty significant ramifications on the structure of any sequels, because that's not really a role the original version is qualified to fill, and you'd lose a good deal of the character's nuance and ambivalence in the process. There is a very distinct Evil Patriarch up in the sky in the form of Aga Mbadi, and Last Order is such a general funhouse of crazy that you'd probably need to change things up substantially regardless, but I'm worried that future development will be a bit rudderless as a result.

There are unlikely to be any sequels to this film.

Alita was made for ~170 million in production budget, meaning something in the range of 250 when marketing is included. It needs around half a billion dollars in box office to turn a profit. As of this posting, it's made 267 million and has opened in all major markets except Japan. Its overall US gross is currently 63 million after two weeks, meaning that it is almost certain to top out below 100 million. To reach profitability it has to have an incredible hold in the Chinese market, which is possible, but highly improbable. My guess is that it'll come in between 400 and 450 million globally, which won't be enough. When all is said and done I bet Fox is taking a 20-50 million dollar loss on this one. That's not a Ghost in the Shell style disaster, but modest losses don't get sequels any more than big ones do. Also, Fox is about to become part of Disney, and Disney doesn't really need to try and sustain a marginal sci-fi action franchise, especially one without any strong ancillary markets (Alita toys exist, no doubt, but it's not a mass market).

I wish they'd made this movie for less money. I feel like there were key places where they could have saved some cash, such as the completely unnecessary anime-style digitization of Rosa Salazar's face, the Moon flashback, and perhaps by covering up some of the cyborgs a bit more. I feel like James Cameron stumped super-hard for this project and managed to talk the studios into putting up more money than was ever justified.

[Mordaedil]

It's worth noting that most 3D animators and designers are hardcore anime fans and if you tell them they get to work on it they will produce vastly higher quality stuff cheaper.

It's not always a matter of every polygon costing money, a lot of it can be produced purely from being incredibly fanatical.

So saying things like "I wish they'd cut back on scenes like..." is a bit of a misnomer as it might have cost less than certain other parts of the production.