Alita Battle Angel (2019)

[shevek]

This is a superheroine movie. It just came out, and led the pack on what was otherwise an abysmal President's Day weekend here in the US.
It's based on a famous manga, and stars a cyborg girl, who goes on a heroic journey and looks great in a tight black costume (time for some cosplay).
It's directed by Robert Rodriguez and produced by James Cameron.
Sounds like a no-brainer right? Something all of us should enjoy.

But of course the critics are whaling on it, and we see the usual disconnect between them and the moviegoing audience which has given it a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes (yes I know we've gone over this).

Anyone see it yet? I'm contemplating checking it out next weekend.

[tallyho]

I've seen the trailers. It just strikes me as a CGI fest

[Femina]

I've seen the trailers. It just strikes me as a CGI fest

It is... but it's CGI fest from the very best CGI festers... Avatar may not be the most popular film in the world ANYMORE but its cgi was all but seamless with its live action stuff. No different here.

It's based off an old Manga comic book anyway, so a certain sense of surealism isn't necessarily a bad thing here either.

It's good, it's not great. The love interest is fucking awful, and curiouser for how much of the run time shoves it down our throats most particularly for how basically inconsequential that SAME love story is in the actual Manga (where its more equivalent to like the shitty week long romances you get into in high school before you grow up) Mr. Cameron seems to have wanted to make this love story more important though, and James Cameron does not get what James Cameron wants because he is James Cameron anymore... James Cameron is old enough with enough legendary hits now that James Cameron gets what James Cameron wants FOR James Cameron... no matter what it takes from the source material which is otherwise a pretty solid telling of this first arc of Alita... which sadly was never really one of the better arcs of Alita to begin with.

It's an okay film that if it survives this earlier, lesser interesting arc it might just be able to get into and live up to some of the more thought provoking and superior later arcs of the series...... I just don't think it will get that chance.

[tallyho]

I've seen the trailers. It just strikes me as a CGI fest

It is... but it's CGI fest from the very best CGI festers... Avatar may not be the most popular film in the world ANYMORE but its cgi was all but seamless with its live action stuff. No different here.

I don't do popular I do good. Avatar was a pile of crap - classic style over substance - with a wafer thin plot that had been done a thousand times before and much better- company man goes native? Really? Thats original - oh no wait Dances with Wolves, Little Big Man, etc etc repeat to fade. And a super hi-tech military that cant blow up a tree. Its a TREE. You don't need a task force to bomb it or ground troops to assault it you need one missile. FFS.

From what I've seen of the trailers for this it DOESN'T look seamless is my problem, to me anyway. One of the perils of giving the lead permanently CGI eyes (ya know, eyes...that actors use for acting an' stuff) and this plot has been flogged to death - 'orphan' type character with special powers/skills loses her mentor/father figure and beats up the baddies. Its just Hanna 2.0 with CGI.

At least thats how it comes over to me.

Maybe its good. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'll watch it in 10 months and find out.

Anyhow enjoy it if this is your thing

[shevek]

It did $37 million at the box office on opening weekend which is low for a James Cameron movie in the US, but it hasn't opened yet in China and Japan.

And now you know you want to see it after Clownfish made this one!

[Femina]

I don't do popular I do good. Avatar was a pile of crap - classic style over substance - with a wafer thin plot that had been done a thousand times before and much better- company man goes native? Really? Thats original - oh no wait Dances with Wolves, Little Big Man, etc etc repeat to fade. And a super hi-tech military that cant blow up a tree. Its a TREE. You don't need a task force to bomb it or ground troops to assault it you need one missile. FFS.

From what I've seen of the trailers for this it DOESN'T look seamless is my problem, to me anyway. One of the perils of giving the lead permanently CGI eyes (ya know, eyes...that actors use for acting an' stuff) and this plot has been flogged to death - 'orphan' type character with special powers/skills loses her mentor/father figure and beats up the baddies. Its just Hanna 2.0 with CGI.

At least thats how it comes over to me.

Maybe its good. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'll watch it in 10 months and find out.

Anyhow enjoy it if this is your thing

O.O I mean, I'm sorry if Avatar offended you or something but Avatar was on the cusp of being an INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT film for about six years after its release and it made 3 billion dollars because of THAT, not because anyone was stunned silent by a story they were all fooled by. That being said stoning Avatar for being Dances with Wolves in space is that sort of 'non-critique' you give a film when you can't accurately pick a reason you didn't like it... it's like bitching about bombs dropping in space in the latest Star Wars, but always conveniently ignoring that there's SOUND in space in all the other Star Wars Films, rather than just explaining that you didn't like the most recent Star Wars film because it had script problems. Most movies today are 'that other film in this other setting' Spider-Man homecoming is just your average highschool nerd becomes self actualized film... WITH SUPERHEROES!

I mean I didn't say Avatar was good or great, I said it was 'no longer popular' like it used to, but it WAS popular for a reason. People went to see that film 3 or 4 times in the theater because they KNEW somewhere in the back of their minds, this was going to be the only chance they had to see a movie that way. Holywood later pissed away 3D tech, but if all the movies that used 3D after Avatar had lived up to that, we would still be watching 3D films today without complaint and Avatar would be remembered as the pioneer of this great new film making tool. The STORY was never why it was a popular or an 'important' film EVEN when it had the potential to be an important film (which it doesn't anymore, just to be clear, but its still an interesting point of discussion in retrospect because so much of its non impact in films today is entirely the fault of films that came after it). It was purposefully 'serviceable' (No ones going to accuse James Cameron of being a gripping scriptwriter... just listen to the dialogue in Titanic?).

As for Alita, the post I put up above remains all I have to say on it. Take it or leave it I don't really care? Except that..

orphan' type character with special powers/skills loses her mentor/father figure and beats up the baddies. Its just Hanna 2.0 with CGI.

This isn't the plot of Alita, not the Manga nor the Film and if it were than Hanna would have been Alita 2.0 with more 'Jason Borne influence' not the other way around. Hanna didn't even beat Alita to the screen since Alita's been adapted into an Anime somewhere along the line already. Best not rake on the plot of something you haven't actually read or seen? Alita's story is at the very least predating many of the popular story tropes. That's sort of like accusing the Lord of the Rings of being to trendy cause its got elves. Everything's got elves now sure, but Lord of the Rings was what popularized elves in the first place and the source material was written before they were cool so it gets a pass. That's the Alita situation... but even the tropes it has aren't any of the ones you indicated there. Watch the movie or don't, share your concerns about the CGI you've seen in trailers that's fair, but you don't get an opinion on the plot of something you don't actually know anything about.

[tallyho]

I'm not raking on anything - I'm just saying how it came over in the trailer to me.
I'm doing what you are doing - commenting on the trailer.
If Christolph Waltz isnt her pseudo father/mentor figure and if Christolph Waltz doesnt die and if she doesn't beat the baddies then I stand corrected. Like wise if she has parents rather than a creator then you are correct she isnt an 'orphan type character'. But my guess is she doesnt so to me then that makes her as I described.

I hope its good and I hope you enjoy it. Its just not my thing as the story is old news and no amount of CGI is better than my imagination

I am allowed to not like Avatar just as you are allowed to like it. Because something is immensely popular doesn't make it good, and the story IS company man goes native which has been done to death so I stand by my opinion.

[chase251]

I've seen the trailers. It just strikes me as a CGI fest

It is... but it's CGI fest from the very best CGI festers... Avatar may not be the most popular film in the world ANYMORE but its cgi was all but seamless with its live action stuff. No different here.

It's based off an old Manga comic book anyway, so a certain sense of surealism isn't necessarily a bad thing here either.

It's good, it's not great. The love interest is fucking awful, and curiouser for how much of the run time shoves it down our throats most particularly for how basically inconsequential that SAME love story is in the actual Manga (where its more equivalent to like the shitty week long romances you get into in high school before you grow up) Mr. Cameron seems to have wanted to make this love story more important though, and James Cameron does not get what James Cameron wants because he is James Cameron anymore... James Cameron is old enough with enough legendary hits now that James Cameron gets what James Cameron wants FOR James Cameron... no matter what it takes from the source material which is otherwise a pretty solid telling of this first arc of Alita... which sadly was never really one of the better arcs of Alita to begin with.

It's an okay film that if it survives this earlier, lesser interesting arc it might just be able to get into and live up to some of the more thought provoking and superior later arcs of the series...... I just don't think it will get that chance.

You've seen South Park recently haven't you? Lol I must link up their theme for James Cameron after reading your post.

[Femina]

I'm not raking on anything - I'm just saying how it came over in the trailer to me.
I'm doing what you are doing - commenting on the trailer.
If Christolph Waltz isnt her pseudo father/mentor figure and if Christolph Waltz doesnt die and if she doesn't beat the baddies then I stand corrected. Like wise if she has parents rather than a creator then you are correct she isnt an 'orphan type character'. But my guess is she doesnt so to me then that makes her as I described.

I hope its good and I hope you enjoy it. Its just not my thing as the story is old news and no amount of CGI is better than my imagination

I am allowed to not like Avatar just as you are allowed to like it. Because something is immensely popular doesn't make it good, and the story IS company man goes native which has been done to death so I stand by my opinion.

Fair enough. I mean I'm NOT doing what you were doing, I actually saw the film which is why my first post there that you quoted was taking about how it was good/not great and I've explained in my last post that your assumption about the plot was ENTIRELY incorrect (Although while you didn't actually make any assumptions about it, the love story crap probably IS exactly what you thought it was just by what one would see in the trailer for the most part. It's easily the dumbest part of the film).

I just don't much like for people who have no idea what the story is popping into a forum like this seeing a comment saying 'the film is just your average 'this and that'' from someone who doesn't actually know what the story is all and get it in their heads 'oh well I probably better steer clear of that!!' Especially since I do hope for the second arc to get produced as that's really the act of the Alita series that starts to express themes and ideas that make the series special. Alita's first arc was ALWAYS a little bit 'eh' and that definitely translates in the trailers I'll give you that.

[tallyho]

i'd mistaken your post for Sheveks at the start of the thread where said he was thinking of going to see it, hence my comment about us both commenting on the trailer. My bad. I think they made her eyes smaller than they were in a trailer I saw a few months back - any plot reason why they are enlarged or is it just a nod to the manga cartoon in that regard?

[girlofsteel]

While I haven't read the manga, I enjoyed and recommend the film. It's definitely in line with the heroine genre. See it on the biggest screen possible - it's worth the money.

It's also Roberto Rodriguez' best film in a long time. And while I too was concerned about the eyes, they're not an issue once the film gets rolling.

The only criticism I have is that it felt like they crammed too much into it - especially at the end. You could also argue that Jennifer Connelly and Mahershala Ali could have been better used, but this is nit picking. To my taste, it's a solid film. And, even though it does have flaws, it's unfair to call it a CGI fest. I hope they make a sequel.

[Femina]

i'd mistaken your post for Sheveks at the start of the thread where said he was thinking of going to see it, hence my comment about us both commenting on the trailer. My bad. I think they made her eyes smaller than they were in a trailer I saw a few months back - any plot reason why they are enlarged or is it just a nod to the manga cartoon in that regard?

Light spoilers ahead

Spoiler

She had larger eyes than normal in the manga... which was an anime with characters that have large eyes so... yeah. She's supposed to look a little bit doll like and not ever really 'mistakable' for an unenhanced human... but still not be mistaken as a full all an all machine to those humans who are 'enhanced. When the Manga was made 'kick ass heroine in a small package' was a much less explored concept... but even in terms of Anime TODAY, Alita is still outside the mold of the typical anime heroine since its mostly a genre where the heroines can only ever be 'almost' as good as the nearest heroic male character... Alita definitely doesn't fit that time honored Anime trope. I don't remember if she had the doll like appearance in the Manga before she got 'remade' though. The guy who fished her out of the garbage has issues.

[shevek]

This video is going to make you cry. Seriously. I have to see the movie this weekend!

[Dogfish]

I might check it out. Western attempts to do manga/anime/kaiju justice are usually a disaster but they're due a good effort.

[Imagineer]

The producers probably have the focus group numbers to prove otherwise, but I left thinking they would have provoked fewer uncanny-valley moments from me if her eyes had been bigger. As it was, every once in a while I'd catch an angle where my brain told me I was just looking at a girl not a mangabot, and the mental flip-flopping was a tiny bit unsettling.

Overall I enjoyed it fine. No clunkiness ruining the fun.

But it's a bummer that it wasn't less conventional, and yet the box office numbers might nonetheless choke off a sequel. It really has been a rough 2019 for the movie business.

In ten years Alita will make a good prestige series.

Tangentially related, Amazon can f-off with Hanna. That movie was too sharp to get the remade-as-a-series treatment.

[Femina]

The producers probably have the focus group numbers to prove otherwise, but I left thinking they would have provoked fewer uncanny-valley moments from me if her eyes had been bigger. As it was, every once in a while I'd catch an angle where my brain told me I was just looking at a girl not a mangabot, and the mental flip-flopping was a tiny bit unsettling.

Overall I enjoyed it fine. No clunkiness ruining the fun.

But it's a bummer that it wasn't less conventional, and yet the box office numbers might nonetheless choke off a sequel. It really has been a rough 2019 for the movie business.

In ten years Alita will make a good prestige series.

Tangentially related, Amazon can f-off with Hanna. That movie was too sharp to get the remade-as-a-series treatment.

It's killing in China, don't worry, the numbers for it are fine. I to wish they'd not gone so conventional. They played up all the conventional stuff from the manga and played down the weirder stuff... maybe that helped it generate a support base IDK, I'm still more interested in the stuff to come than I ever was in this act.

[Dogfish]

Yeah it'll do well in China they love CGI and nonsense. Especially if they don't have to have watched forty years of build up movies to properly enjoy it.

[Imagineer]

Will we have to wait ten years for the sequel? Maybe only three? Need much more Rodriguez much less Cameron

[ivandobsky]

Enjoyed this. Visually interesting, good 3D, made me feel something. FWIW, I thought Avatar was boring. Just don't think too hard about the story logic!

[Lurkndog]

I liked Alita, I thought it did a better job of bringing the story across than the 1993 animated OAV did. The anime focused a little too hard on robots, violence and gore, this one puts the focus on Alita and she comes across very well. They also did a good job casting the supporting characters, particularly Christoph Waltz as Doc Ido.

[theScribbler]

Premieres on HBO tomorrow, Saturday Feb 1

[Lurkndog]

The blu-ray for Alita is beginning to be discounted, you can get it for under $20 now in most places. Well worth it.

[Bronson881]

Saw it a few days ago and I liked it. I don't listen to what critics say. I prefer taking a look myself and have my own opinion.