Alita: Battle Angel - First Impressions [SPOILERS]

[Lacuna Caster]

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.

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.

Rodriguez managed to halve the production costs through careful direction, apparently, but even so, I'd agree that the mo-cap just for the sake of googly-eyes and general SFX blowout was far more than what was needed out the gate (especially when something like District 9 only cost 30 million dollars.) A lower-budget initial outing might have yielded a respectable RoI and lead to greater things in terms of sequels and spinoffs.

There's still plenty to enjoy- I agree the fight-choreography was spot-on (I will confess to gleeful enjoyment of Alita macerating anonymous cyborg thugs in mid-air), the acting was solid, the writing was... serviceable... and the narrative core to Alita's development is mostly intact-ish. I don't know how much of my personal enjoyment was purely derived from nostalgia, but overall audience reception seems to be positive, so I certainly wouldn't say not to go see it.
.

[RCgothic]

Alita broke $350M today, which is a Fox insider's reported break even point. Hoping so much for a sequel!

[lord_khaine]

The fights were some of the best ones i have seen in a movie of that type.
Alita's movements were surprisingly fluid and elegant. I did also love her tenacity though.
No legs? no problem :P

[Frozen_Feet]

More like "no two-thirds of my body? 'TIS JUST A FLESH WOUND! HAVE AT YOU!"

[Mordaedil]

She does seem to fight without parts of her body a lot of the time. Last Order she frequently cuts off her midsection, finale of the manga she fights entirely without her left arm and right leg.

And it's pretty badass.

[Lord of the Helms]

Alita broke $350M today, which is a Fox insider's reported break even point. Hoping so much for a sequel!

I think that one is probably a very optimistic estimate for a break even point, especially if the gross is overwhelmingly (something like 80%) foreign, but it certainly looks on track to get towards 450 million, give or take, which does seem like a realistic break even. That would be nice, because I liked it overall; great visuals, surprisingly faithful adaption at least of the 90s anime and decent acting. Weakest part for me were probably the dialogues.

[Mechalich]

I think that one is probably a very optimistic estimate for a break even point, especially if the gross is overwhelmingly (something like 80%) foreign, but it certainly looks on track to get towards 450 million, give or take, which does seem like a realistic break even. That would be nice, because I liked it overall; great visuals, surprisingly faithful adaption at least of the 90s anime and decent acting. Weakest part for me were probably the dialogues.

Also, I'm not sure Alita will actually make the 450 million mark, simply because it is about to get buried by the global release of Captain Marvel on Friday in essentially all major markets - including China - which is going to wipe it off screen after screen and probably provide destructive competition. In order to survive Alita has to hope that Captain Marvel bombs (which is a discussion for another thread already on this board let's not pollute this one) or at least has a very rapid drop off, so it can retain space throughout the rest of march. There's not really any other significant programming in the action space until April otherwise.

However, even 450 million is unlikely to hit break even without some sort of major accounting shenanigans. Supposedly the best comparison point for Alita is Ready Player One, made for about the same amount of money with a similar breakdown in the domestic/foreign gross ratios, probably a roughly similar marketing budget. Ultimately, the reporting is that it made something in the 20-50 million dollar profit range, and it grossed 582 million globally. If that's true, then at 450 Alita's looking at more like a 30-50 million dollar loss.

I really feel like if they'd manage to make this film for 25-50 million less the franchise, and anime adaptations overall would be in a much better place right now.

[Tyndmyr]

Well, I certainly hope it does. This film needs a sequel, and if making a pile of money gets it there, all the better.

[Lacuna Caster]

However, even 450 million is unlikely to hit break even without some sort of major accounting shenanigans. Supposedly the best comparison point for Alita is Ready Player One, made for about the same amount of money with a similar breakdown in the domestic/foreign gross ratios, probably a roughly similar marketing budget. Ultimately, the reporting is that it made something in the 20-50 million dollar profit range, and it grossed 582 million globally. If that's true, then at 450 Alita's looking at more like a 30-50 million dollar loss.

I really feel like if they'd manage to make this film for 25-50 million less the franchise, and anime adaptations overall would be in a much better place right now.

I'm probably woefully under-informed on this topic, but I'm really not clear why these enormous production budgets are needed? District 9, which has a not-too-dissimilar world-building premise and CGI I was perfectly happy with, only cost about 30 mil.

There's been some suggestion that Cameron himself has enough pull that he could probably greenlight a sequel or two. (Heck, with 700 million in his personal bank account, he could fund a dozen 30-mil sequels and still have change for marketing.)

[Mechalich]

I'm probably woefully under-informed on this topic, but I'm really not clear why these enormous production budgets are needed? District 9, which has a not-too-dissimilar world-building premise and CGI I was perfectly happy with, only cost about 30 mil.

Productions budgets are a funny thing and there's lots of variations. District 9 is a semi-foreign film in that it was filmed in South Africa and not backed by a major Hollywood studio and used the south African military rather than the US military for support in action sequences. So they were probably able to pay the support staff the South African daily rate rather than an American (or Canadian, lots of films are made in Vancouver, BC for this reason) one. Also, District 9 did not have any internationally recognizable stars in the cast at all, while Alita is bursting with A-list and B-list celebrities.

And, Alita's VFX budget was clearly immense. Keep in mind that every single cyborg character in the film required extensive mo-cap filming to produce, so they were doing that even for background shots. They spent a lot of money making this film look great, and it does look great. Whether that was worth it or not, I suppose that depends on personal preferences, but this level of technical proficiency is largely considered necessary when intending to produce a modern wide release blockbuster.

In this specific case James Cameron wanted the film to look a certain way and invested in the technology to make it happen and he has the kind of pull to do that, but clearly Fox should have given him just a little less rope.

[S@tanicoaldo]

Am I the only one who hated the hunky guy love interest?

He just used her and we are supposed to feel bad about what happens to him?

She deserves better.

[Lethologica]

Alita deserves better and Hugo's a bad person in my books, but I still feel bad about what happens to him. The system grinds up good and bad alike, makes villains and then victims of those who dare to dream - unless they're as incredibly fortunate as Alita.

[Frozen_Feet]

Hugo's main sympathetic quality is meant to be that he does realize he's bad. He also doesn't use Alita - Alita falls for him basically on first sight, just look at her face! On the opposite: he is put in the perfect position to use Alita and circumvent latter half of the plot when Alita offers him her heart, and he doesn't take it.

It's meant to a tragedy: Alita's love begins redeeming Hugo but then he gets a bridge - errr, the defense ring - dropped on him.

[Tyndmyr]

Am I the only one who hated the hunky guy love interest?

He just used her and we are supposed to feel bad about what happens to him?

She deserves better.

Ultimately, I think one mostly feels bad for her, as what she puts her faith in ultimately ends up failing her, and she loses what she cares about. End of the day, his fate is a little sad, but not entirely undeserved....but from her perspective, she's losing quite a lot.

It's a more personal, tragic version of what happens in the bar. She's making an appeal to their better natures, and ultimately, that doesn't work out. It's a bit naive, sure, but it's fundamentally good in a way that most of the universe is....not. So, you get the tragic nature of the good person fighting a cold, uncaring world.

[GloatingSwine]

Hugo's story suffers a little without the backstory that shows why he's so obsessed with getting to Zalem. Him having his own overriding tragic obsession gives an extra dimension that lets you understand him better.

[Lacuna Caster]

Ultimately, I think one mostly feels bad for her, as what she puts her faith in ultimately ends up failing her, and she loses what she cares about. End of the day, his fate is a little sad, but not entirely undeserved....but from her perspective, she's losing quite a lot.

It's a more personal, tragic version of what happens in the bar. She's making an appeal to their better natures, and ultimately, that doesn't work out. It's a bit naive, sure, but it's fundamentally good in a way that most of the universe is....not. So, you get the tragic nature of the good person fighting a cold, uncaring world.

I felt like her pep-talk in the hunters' bar was actually borderline cringe-worthy. Partly because the dialog is so cliché, but also because she literally only started the job yesterday- she hasn't had the chance to build up any real rapport or steal kills or otherwise engage with her compatriots and earn some street cred, so the chorus of derisive laughter is a fairly predictable, even reasonable, result. Makaku/Gruishka also suffers from basically having... no motive behind his murder spree, which is only really alluded to briefly, whereas in the manga he's suffering from a crippling endorphin addiction that needs a regular supply of brains to treat.

I think this would have worked much better if the film had focused primarily on her extended tenure as a bounty-hunter and girl-crush on Hugo, and left the motorball clique and flashbacks to her time on Mars as background details for now. It's really a symptom of the larger problem of trying to squeeze four different plotlines from the manga into a single film.

[Lacuna Caster]

MovieBob came out with a pretty solid review, by the way. 7/10, which is roughly in my ballpark.




People seem to keep talking about all the various animé cliches embedded here, though. I don't actually watch all that much animé, so could someone unpack that for me?

EDIT: Also, I will just disagree with Bob slightly about the motorball scenes- I loved them and couldn't get enough. But they do create narrative clutter and probably didn't belong in this film. *sigh*

[Mordaedil]

Am I the only one who hated the hunky guy love interest?

He just used her and we are supposed to feel bad about what happens to him?

She deserves better.

Hugo was never a very good character in anyway I read him. He was always incredibly selfish, doing the wrong things while excusing himself by saying he had justification to do it. No matter how you slice it, no matter how bad he had it, it doesn't really excuse what he did.

The next person she falls for is a lot better imo.

[Lacuna Caster]

Hugo was never a very good character in anyway I read him. He was always incredibly selfish, doing the wrong things while excusing himself by saying he had justification to do it. No matter how you slice it, no matter how bad he had it, it doesn't really excuse what he did.

The next person she falls for is a lot better imo.

Figure Four is kind of awesome. Y'know, for a non-augmented human.

Hugo is essentially a cheerfully amoral opportunist who got in over his head. In the manga he's not really central to Alita's development except as another incidental casualty ground up in the cogs of the scrapyard. Certainly the film version doesn't really flesh out his background enough to make him deeply sympathetic, or anything, and the relatively comfortable standard of living in the film version of the scrapyard doesn't lend any obvious urgency to his efforts at (literal) social climbing.

[Lacuna Caster]

However, even 450 million is unlikely to hit break even without some sort of major accounting shenanigans. Supposedly the best comparison point for Alita is Ready Player One, made for about the same amount of money with a similar breakdown in the domestic/foreign gross ratios, probably a roughly similar marketing budget. Ultimately, the reporting is that it made something in the 20-50 million dollar profit range, and it grossed 582 million globally. If that's true, then at 450 Alita's looking at more like a 30-50 million dollar loss.

Currently coming in at just over 390 million, so I don't know what kind of legs it's likely to have before it gets punted from theatres. The RT user score has been consistently excellent, more's the pity.

I've been re-reading the original manga and I'm struck by how... dark the original Hugo storyline was. There's actually an inversion of the 'man of steel, woman of kleenex' trope where Alita is actively concerned that she might physically rip Hugo apart if she got a little too... uninhibited.

[The Glyphstone]

You might want to de-link the actual essay there. People who want to read it can find it pretty easily, but it's decidedly NSFW in itself even without the artwork that accompanied the original printing.

[Olinser]

MovieBob came out with a pretty solid review, by the way. 7/10, which is roughly in my ballpark.




People seem to keep talking about all the various animé cliches embedded here, though. I don't actually watch all that much animé, so could someone unpack that for me?

EDIT: Also, I will just disagree with Bob slightly about the motorball scenes- I loved them and couldn't get enough. But they do create narrative clutter and probably didn't belong in this film. *sigh*

Complaining about anime cliches in Alita is definitely a case of Seinfeld is Unfunny.

The manga that this is based on - Battle Angel Alita - ran from 1990-1995.

Things that are overused anime cliches today were fresh and groundbreaking in 1990.

[Mechalich]

Currently coming in at just over 390 million, so I don't know what kind of legs it's likely to have before it gets punted from theatres. The RT user score has been consistently excellent, more's the pity.

Alita made a mere 1.9 million here in the US this weekend. It's probably got 2-3 weeks left in its domestic run, with the likely total gross around the 85 million mark (current it's at about 82). If the domestic/foreign ratio holds, that would mean it squeezes out an additional 15 million or so worldwide and tops out in the 410-420 million range. That's gonna be painful for Fox. Depending on exactly what portion of the Chinese box office they get to keep, they could be looking at a 100 million dollar loss.

Yeah, it's disappointing, especially because it's another blow against producing live-action anime adaptations. There is a market for a film like this, but it's maybe 2/3rds the size of what it needed to be to make a film like this work. Maybe is James Cameron had actually directed this instead of farming it out that would have made a difference. Not that I think Rodriguez is terrible or anything, but name recognition made a difference. I strongly believe Ready Player One only turned a profit because it had Spielberg's name all over it.

[Lacuna Caster]

The manga that this is based on - Battle Angel Alita - ran from 1990-1995.

Things that are overused anime cliches today were fresh and groundbreaking in 1990.

Yeah, but what are they though? I mean, I get that Tekkaman Blade is the prototypical grungy 90s antihero, but what's the distaff equivalent?

[Frozen_Feet]

Anything and everything? Seriously, it's adaptation of a 90s manga, by current anime standards everything in it has been done to death, from dystopian sci-fi setting to bizarre invented bloodsports to navel-gazing about human nature and cyborg aesthetics.

[Tyndmyr]

I felt like her pep-talk in the hunters' bar was actually borderline cringe-worthy. Partly because the dialog is so cliché, but also because she literally only started the job yesterday- she hasn't had the chance to build up any real rapport or steal kills or otherwise engage with her compatriots and earn some street cred, so the chorus of derisive laughter is a fairly predictable, even reasonable, result. Makaku/Gruishka also suffers from basically having... no motive behind his murder spree, which is only really alluded to briefly, whereas in the manga he's suffering from a crippling endorphin addiction that needs a regular supply of brains to treat.

I think this would have worked much better if the film had focused primarily on her extended tenure as a bounty-hunter and girl-crush on Hugo, and left the motorball clique and flashbacks to her time on Mars as background details for now. It's really a symptom of the larger problem of trying to squeeze four different plotlines from the manga into a single film.

Oh yeah. It was definitely somewhat cringy. It established her as a little too naive/idealistic(shown again with literally offering her heart). I would have been highly disappointed if it had actually worked, but the fact that it hilariously did not was for the best.

I definitely think some stuff could have been elaborated on more thoroughly, particularly world building wise, but it was a fun watch anyways.

[Mordaedil]

Figure Four is kind of awesome. Y'know, for a non-augmented human.

Hugo is essentially a cheerfully amoral opportunist who got in over his head. In the manga he's not really central to Alita's development except as another incidental casualty ground up in the cogs of the scrapyard. Certainly the film version doesn't really flesh out his background enough to make him deeply sympathetic, or anything, and the relatively comfortable standard of living in the film version of the scrapyard doesn't lend any obvious urgency to his efforts at (literal) social climbing.

And now I finished Last Order.

Spoiler: Spoilers probably for the future movies

Show

Holy crap Desty Nova. What a ****ing character. I've never had such a roller-coaster of emotions for a guy that I should hate, that I end up loving while he's doing his most vile ****, dropping the largest exposition dumps, surviving the most insane stuff and being written in such a way that you constantly think to yourself "he's not dead, not really. He's too clever for that." and wabam! That tournament went on way too long though, and the epilogue was just a repeat of the first manga ending, confusing me greatly. Except with a hook for the current series which I plan to read soon.

But fuuuck me man, the secret of the Zarems got me good. And the way they start cutting themselves open to find out just hits so hard. Alita does a lot of stuff I don't see modern anime do anymore and it's been a huge eye-opener reading all the way. Some interesting, some boring, some twisting. Like the guy that Alita one-shots like it was nothing ends up tormenting her through the rest of the series until she actually kinda overcomes the delusion on her own is pretty great and I didn't see it coming at all, for bad and good.

[GloatingSwine]

And now I finished Last Order.

Spoiler: Spoilers probably for the future movies

Show

Holy crap Desty Nova. What a ****ing character. I've never had such a roller-coaster of emotions for a guy that I should hate, that I end up loving while he's doing his most vile ****, dropping the largest exposition dumps, surviving the most insane stuff and being written in such a way that you constantly think to yourself "he's not dead, not really. He's too clever for that." and wabam! That tournament went on way too long though, and the epilogue was just a repeat of the first manga ending, confusing me greatly. Except with a hook for the current series which I plan to read soon.

Spoiler

Show

Expanding on the first manga ending was the point of Last Order. The original run was cut somewhat short when Yukito Kishiro got sick and he didn't know whether he'd be able to carry on. So he did a hasty version of the ending he had planned. Then when the manga got adapted into a PS1 game (Memories of Mars) he expanded it a bit for the last part of the game, then resumed publication of the manga to do it For Reals.

I suspect the tale grew somewhat in the telling, giving us a 23 book tournament arc.

Plus he switched publisher halfway through.

[Blackhawk748]

So I watched it last night, and I thought it was a solid film all around. Two complaints.

1. The pacing feels a bit frantic. Things happen very, very fast and I felt like I never had a second to breathe.

2. The ending. I don't feel like I need to say much else honestly.

[Weimann]

Am I the only one who hated the hunky guy love interest?

He just used her and we are supposed to feel bad about what happens to him?

She deserves better.

I mean, I never liked him, in the movie or in the manga. In the movie, I feel like he cares a great deal more about Alita than he does in the manga; not that he ignores her, but his dream of reaching Zalem is definitely constantly his main priority, to the point where Alita feels like a hangaround. In either case, I definitely feel like Alita is more smitten with him than he is back.

Then again, I also feel like the point of Hugo wasn't to give Alita a good relationship story. At the beginning of the movie, Alita was definitely a child or teenager. Hugo fits into that as a "first crush" guy, the kind you look at through rose coloured glasses because you've never felt this way before. The audience can see that he likes Alita, but that the relationship lacks the commitment to last in the face of the rest of their lives. I like it because it shows that side of growing up.

I also didn't feel bad about what happened to him to the end. But I did feel bad for Alita, and for the loss his death meant to her. Those are two different things, I feel.

So I watched it last night, and I thought it was a solid film all around. Two complaints.

1. The pacing feels a bit frantic. Things happen very, very fast and I felt like I never had a second to breathe.

Fair enough. It does go really fast.

2. The ending. I don't feel like I need to say much else honestly.

I'm curious, what exactly where your problems with the ending? I know what mine are, but I'm interested in yours.