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Titanic Director to Make Battle Angel Movie
thelizman writes "Director James Cameron, who gave us the Terminator movies (I, II, III) , Aliens, The Abyss, and brought Dark Angel to the small screen will give us a new treat. According to AP, Cameron will direct a live action + cgi movie based on the Battle Angel Alita (GUNNM) book series. Slated for release in 2005-06, the movie will be available in 3D as well as 2D versions. Cameron will be using 3D technology developed for IMAX films to deliver the 3D versions (and on IMAX maybe?). Another twist is that the lead character will be CG, while other roles will be filled by live actors." Update: 11/25 22:42 GMT by T : Sunny Dubey writes "Terminator 3 was *not* directed by James Cameron. It was directed by Jonathan Mostow."
The Wikipedia entry is 4 paragraphs long but tells you NOTHING about the story. If you've have no clue what Battle Angel Alita is about, read more here.
The Abyss was my favorite movie for a long time. I absolutely loved it. And the Aliens were visually stunning (if lacking in story). But, what is this Battle Angel? And is it worth the Cameron touch?
If aspiration is a virtue, achievement cannot be a vice.
James Cameron didn't do T3, it was only based on characters he and gail Anne Herd had created.
Funny how not even the Wikipedia article mentions what this series is actually about. I'm getting the feeling, from the write-up, that the movie is going to be more technophilia a la Final Fantasy (which, coincidentally enough, is just a re-hash of Cameron's Aliens with some Gaia / New Age junk thrown in to add spice). Isn't there already a live-action Evangelion in the works? I like anime well enough, but does the world really need a spate of live-action adaptations? Have we learned nothing from Fist of the North Star and The Guyver?
Also, speaking of CG -- I have nothing against CG in general, but the idea of a CG main character fills me with a vague boredom and distaste rather than excitement. As a gimmick, it already feels played out. Gosh, MORE distracting computer graphics in a movie, you say? More actors making wooden deliveries to green screens and teamsters waving flags for them to react to? Sign me up!
I would rather see CG used in the environment where it really thrives -- animated films. I don't mean that CG should try to emulate reality as closely as possible -- you just end up with The Uncanny Valley, and the animation will displease people without them ever being able to put a finger on why (it will just look "bad").
I think CG has tremendous potential to show us things that can't be emulated in real life -- and make it look better than it ever has before. I don't think re-hashing an anime title is really going to fit that particular bill. Instead, we see people attempting to make CG look as realistic as possible, which has the effect of making it both "unrealistic" (i.e. distinguishable from reality), and kind of banal. Why would I want to see an animated Jonny Quest jumping onto the back of a moving train, when I can see Jackie Chan do it for real?
A lot of animated shows have added CG to the traditional forms of animation, and seen some tremendous success. I'd rather see the technology go in that direction.
All I can say is I'm glad someone wrote the story arc for him :)
-- INTX Grouch. http://www.midnightblue.net
The Terminator franchise became property of C2 pictures and was directed by Johnathan Mostow.
James Cameron actually specifically refused to work on Terminator 3... It was directed by Jonathan Mostow instead.
Please God, let me find my blue hat with the red trim. (Frances Farmer)
Cameron didn't give us Terminator 3. That was directed by Jonathan Mostow. Cameron didn't produce it either, just getting minor credits for character writing (i.e. he did the original ones so he is the guy that spawned the Terminator).
I'd like to think that nomatter what you think of Cameron at least he was smart enough to not touch T3 with a 50 foot pole.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
One thing, James cameron didn't make Terminator 3, though he gave his blessing.
As far as the character being CG, that has been a bit vague. It's not like the whole part will be CG through out but they use an actress and use CG to enhance her/ digital double when needed.
He hasn't done anything interesting in ten years, has he?
I don't trust Hollywood anymore. Even if the director made some quality action movies in the 80s, I'm still expecting this butchered.
This is a community of dorks and nerds. Who the heck thought "Director of Titanic" was going to get more attention than "Director of the Terminator movies." Hello! Titanic and is the kind of movie you go see with your girl friend and I don't think I need to discuss how few of us here have those.....
Aren't they all these days? Or does this mean it'll be something like Sky Captain and The World Of Tomorrow, with all scenes shot in front of a blue screen?
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
Hey, thelizman, I observed your clandestine omission of Cameron's masterpiece, Titanic. I'll punish you by including the lyrics to My Heart Will Go On. May these lyrics forever resonate within you:
Every night in my dreams
I see you. I feel you.
That is how I know you go on.
Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on.
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never go till we're one
Love was when I loved you
One true time I hold to
In my life we'll always go on
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
There is some love that will not
go away
You're here, there's nothing I fear,
And I know that my heart will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
Cheers!
Do you like German cars?
Because no matter how good a director Cameron is, there is no hope that he can capture everything in Gunnm that makes it awesome.
What will he cover, Ido discovering Gally in the Scrapyard?
Her relationship with Yugo?
Her time as an agent of Zalem?
Or MOTORBALL?
And damnit, he'll probably use the name VIZ gave to Gally (Gary?) in the early 90s when they were just getting started on it.
Are these really better suited for the big screen than a real live actor? Granted I know nothing of the story, so I don't know if it would be impossible for a live person to do the role or not, but once hollywood starts seeing that they can just conjour up an actor via computers for a probubly fraction of the cost will we start seeing a decrease in real actors in films? Reminds me of the TV reality craze that networks love because it's all normal people and they don't have to pay any professional actors. Maybe I'm just rambling, but what do you people think?
WikiAfterDark.com It's a sex wiki, go now!
He will cover whatever gives him a license to make sweepign excessively dramatic CG shots. As fitting with Hollywood's nature, there will be a lot which is "gritty" but not much which is artistic. So we will get a Gally who knows Kung Fu, Ido knocking down waves of people with his hammer from lots of camera angles, but none of the coverage of Ido's desire to keep Gally "pure" besides a standard movie "master, I am ready to fight!" "you are not ready to fight!" sort of thing. We will get a "postapocalyptic" setting in which we see lots of twisted metal and a run-down bar at the edge of it, and lots of big evil robots for Gally to fight, but the true scope and extent of the Scrapyard or the nature of the dual civilizations feeding off of each other the city represents will go unexplored.
Basically we'll get a revisit of the future setting from Terminator 1, with some characters from Gunnm spit into it.
Japanese anime is their equivilant of the western comic book. How is this any worse than putting Spiderman, The Hulk, Daredevil, Superman, and their various ilk on the big screen. I am a great fan of Anime. I find their stories have a great entertainment value. I hope that Cameron can do the genre the justice it so rightly deserves.
i mean, terminator 3
It didn't go very far but it covered the material it did touch on sufficiently, I thought. I was satisfied with it. I'd rather they do the first tiny section and then abort (Angel Sanctuary) than try to cover a bajillion mangas in two hours and reduce everything to a warpspeed blur (X).
yet another great manga work butchered by Hollywood
I highly recommend picking up an issue of this month's Wired magazine, which hit the shelves the other day. It's guest-edited by James Cameron, and focuses on exploration, from undersea to subterranean to outer space. There's an interview with Burt Rutan, and also an interview with a renown cave explorer/inventor who's designing a submarine to search for life on Europa.
...
Here's an excerpt from Cameron's intro piece, which I found to be quite powerful:
Space is a vacuum. There is, by definition, nothing there. When we talk about exploring space, we really mean exploring the objects careening around in space - planets, moons, the occasional comet. So space is a hurdle, an ocean that must be crossed to reach a destination. Unfortunately, for three-quarters of the space age it has been treated as a destination in and of itself.
The last time humans crossed space to a destination was the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. In the 32 years since, no man has seen, with his own eyes, Earth as that beautiful, solitary blue sphere, and - reality check - no woman has ever seen it at all. We've been only to low Earth orbit since 1972, and from that altitude of 220 miles, looking at the 7,900-mile-diameter Earth is like peering at a basketball with your cheek pressed against it. Yes, you'll see curvature, but you're not seeing the whole thing. We've spent 32 years "exploring space" in low Earth orbit. Exploring nothing. To stay in orbit you have to go 17,000 mph, or Mach 25. So we've spent three decades going nowhere fast.
It's taken people a long time to wake up to this fact, but we finally have. Now Exploration with a capital E is in the air again, in what will hopefully become some kind of renaissance. Eleven billion hits to NASA's Web site during the Spirit and Opportunity rovers' exploration of Mars is an astounding groundswell of support. NASA is still blinking in surprise, trying to figure out why people love the rovers yet care less about the construction of the International Space Station than a new interchange outside Cleveland. It is only now sinking in that one is exploration and the other is, well construction.
If the next step is to send humans to Mars, then we must reexamine our culture of averting risk and assigning blame. We don't need any miracle breakthroughs in technology. The techniques are well understood. Sure, it takes money, but distributed over time it doesn't require any more than we're spending now. What is lacking is the will, the mandate, and the sense of purpose.
Something interesting is happening right now as you're reading this. NASA is scrambling, under presidential orders, to prepare for a renewed vision of human exploration beyond Earth. They've generated a plan, and it's a good one. I've sat on the NASA Advisory Council for the past 18 months, which is surely the most interesting period since the Apollo days. NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe has fundamentally reorganized the agency. NASA is figuring out post-shuttle solutions to get people into orbit, how to do the heavy lifting to get big payloads (like interplanetary vehicles) up there, and all the other critical tasks to create human exploration space-systems architecture.
The public understandably asks how this will be paid for. The answer comes with some good news and some bad. The bad news is that space shuttle operations and space station construction and operations (in other words, current human spaceflight) is sucking up about $8 billion of NASA's $15 billion annual budget. The good news is that when the shuttle is retired (2010) and the space station completes its mission (2014), $8 billion a year will be freed up without adding a dime to the NASA budget. Over time, one funding wedge tapers, and the other widens. From 2014 to 2024, you've got a cool $80 bil to send folks to Mars.
The problem is that government projects are subject
One of my favorite manga's but I am biased because I was first introduced to it through the anime:/ qid%3D1101421387/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr_11_1/102-09325 97-7737745/
9 310033/qid=1101421291/sr=8-3/ref=pd_csp_3/102-0932 597-7737745?v=glance&s=books&n=507846/ o rm/102-0932597-7737745/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000031EG6
It is excellent anime even if it is short. I highly recommend it. Classic anime with awesome animations.
The story is basically that Alita is a Cyborg of mysterious origins who looks innocent and harmless, but over time it becomes clear that she is a highly advanced battle cyborg. Much killing ensues.
here is a link to one of my favorites
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/156
and an amazon search:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-f
http://www.rippersanime.com/Torrents/[Manga]%20Bat tle%20Angel%20Alita%20(Volumes%201-9)%20[Rippersan ime.com].torrent
I read the whole thing in one sitting, and then I went out and bought it.
Being an avid fan of the series, I'm both thrilled and worried about how this will turn out. The manga is a terrific story, but while quite good the anime pales in comparison, because it is too short. The story needs to take its time to gain the momentum and texture that IMO defines it. No character remains a simple stereotype, and even the scenes and settings have what border on personalities. And everything changes.
It appears to me that the usual length of a movie won't be enough to do more than simply introduce the audience to the story, unless the production turns out to be a far, far departure from the usual Hollywood. BAA is violent and action-packed, but while that is usually what Hollywood picks up it's not what BAA is about. As for what it really is about... I've still to figure that one out.
All rites reversed 2010
Uhm, Princess Mononoke was a failure WHERE EXACTLY?
I heard early work about this last year - when he expressed interest in making this film. Back then, the talk was of covering the early stages - probably similar to that horrid anime take of the manga - and if it's popular, make sequels. Motoball was one stage he expressed great interest in doing, though not in this initial film.
;)
However, that information is over a year old: who knows what he may be thinking now. As a massive Gunnm fan though, I'll be there on opening night like a good otaku
-- Elric of Grans (who seems to have forgotten his account password *mutters*)
...this is a dupe.
This has been announced numerous times over the past, oh, four years or so. Cameron's wanted to do it for a long time, but each time it looks promising, it gets yanked away. I doubt he's even started a screenplay yet.
As far as making a movie of it, I'd hope they were planning more than one, as there's no way you can tell the whole story arc in two hours.
It deserves to be made into a movie, but it also deserves to be done right.
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN CAN ONLY BE PUSHED SO FAR
Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F18
Your head a splode
IIRC, Cameron said he didn't think T3 should be made (hence he refused to direct it). He believed that Terminator 2 completed the Terminator story as he wanted to tell it.
Indeed, you can see in the wildly different styles of direction in T1/T2 vs T3 that James Cameron had no part in T3's production.
Also of note is that Arnie was refusing to play the Terminator again in T3 unless Cameron was the director. Ultimately, Cameron told Arnie to do the film but make sure he got an extortionate ammount of money for doing so.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
To see James Cameron, who has a good movie record going back to antics like what was used in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" is really pretty sad. For those of you who didn't watch that film, it involves people and the Disney and Loony 'toons working together to stop some evil guy. It was released like, 15 years ago.
James Cameron isn't a good choice... we need a director that has worked with sci-fi movies involving cyborgs and dark futures, one that is known for using cutting edge CGI, and can do some emotional manipulation to draw in more non geek movie goers... wait a second....
The short description you linked looks nice and acurate.
Do you want to include this text in Wikipedia's entry, if the author allows you to do it ?
(And if so, try to do this, before the article gets write protected due to slashdot-related vandalism)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
To clarify (contradict ?) the headline, Cameron did not direct T3, he helped with some of the character writing though. This helps to explain, I believe, why T3 lacked the impact that T1 and T2 had.
Never, ever lose a file again. Ever.
Exactly, Princess Mononoke (As an animator, I think it is one of the best films ever made, period. Anime or otherwise) was a huge hit! Ironically in a conversation about James Cameron, it was only his Titanic that narrowly beat Princess Mononoke's box office in its home country of Japan.
Mmmm, the smell of ignorance frying is spicy.
Yup...
It really was a pity that the anime got dropped after only two episodes. It'll be nice to see the rest of the story on screen.
qntm.org
Not the anime. The anime was utter crap. If you think that's the story for Gunnm (aka Battle Angel Alita) you're sorely mistaken. Get the Graphic Novels from Viz, you won't be dissapointed. And once you have those, get Gunnm: Last Order and enjoy the way it was meant to end (Written and drawn by Yukito Kishiro)
At least, I _hope_ they use the manga as a basis. Although, it's going to be fairly hard to make a movie on something like 7 graphic novels and a rich storyline.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
James Cameron owes "mad props" to Kate Winslet for aiding in inserting the Tits into his Titanic vision.
You'd think Slashdot of all places would have mentioned his Terminator directorial work instead of that other unmentionable piece of drivel.
Uhm, Princess Mononoke was a failure WHERE EXACTLY?
NO TENTACLES!!!
Oh, wait, there ACTUALLY was a scene with San and tentacles...
Way to go, that'll get the attention of dorks everywhere!
CG main character? I hope they aren't using ILM for the f/x, or we're going to end up with Battle Angel Jar-Jar.
I like the series. I find the combination of director and announced f/x to be quite worrisome.
What, no book pitch? Can't we buy something Dark Angel related on Amazon that we can buy and make you some money, you dishonest prick?
That this *GREAT* history ends up being c**p once in film, the manga IS awesome, it really gets you in the history, so I bought the Anime movie, what a )/&%($(/%$ is... an absolute subpar version of the manga , sigh... may I expect the same from the movie? at least Alita will be CG, by the original author? he had some 3d art of her in his site, moreso has HE a say on the movie? if not brrrrr...
Sooo.... Baywatch was rather successful. Surprisingly.
NO one cares for japanese cartoons!? have you seen tv in your life dude? do You have an idea how much $$$ goes in the anime/manga industry? no wonder some greedy westerners are looking east.
and its not cartoon is anime...cartoon ARE for kids, anime most of time is not(and ain't talking of p0rn).
To simplify this for you:
Battle Angel != Dark Angel
If you click the link, you'll note that James Cameron is in the credits as a writer.
I'd hate for you and the other yahoos to strain yourselves.
And mod down all these idiots who point out that Cameron didn't direct TIII, even though it was never stated that he did.
...doesn't say he did. He was a credited writer.
It will suck. Period.
That project was in development a few years ago, but wasn't picked up. That would have been a fun movie. Like "Van Helsing", but with a female lead.
The article doesn't say Cameron directed T3. Its mind-wobbling - but not suprising - that even /.'s editors make this glaring lapse in reading comprehension.
Yes. See parent post. Japanese cartoons involving collecting cards for children are big hits. Beyond that, they go no-where.
"and its not cartoon is anime"
Anime is a subset of cartoon.
It failed miserably in an obscure market known as the United States. I guess if James Cameron does not care about this market....
Slashdot had an article on this last week.
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
Boy People Have Short Memories.
Let's recap the movies he's done, shall we. So far he has directed:
Piranha II (hey, everyone's gotta eat)
Terminator
Aliens
The Abyss
Terminator 2
True Lies
Titanic
He also wrote the script for the movie "Strange Days"
There are over-riding themes throughout all his films:
-Strong Female Character
-Use and misuse of technology
-The strength of human spirit in adversity
-Self sacrafice for the greater good
-The struggle of technology subsuming humanity
-The hubris of man who think (and usually a he) they have nature and technology under control
For anyone who has read the manga and watch all the James Cameron movies (especially the director's cut), it would be immediately obvious why James Cameron picked this project. As a matter of fact when I was reading Battle Angel I was saying to people that it felt like a James Cameron movie done by a japanese manga writer.
Battle Angel is not just another manga. Like Akira before it the books introduced many philosophical questions about humanity, and always asks many existensial questions. Those are the type of questions that were probed in James Cameron movies, even in Titanic. Rose was not just questioning her status as a woman in high society of early 20th century, she was questioning how she should live her life.
I have full faith in James Cameron. He is no fly-by-night fanboy. He is meticulous in the planning of his movies. I am sure he will focus on just one of the story arcs of Battle Angel. He is known to produce sequels, and he has already mentioned that he wants to "break up" the whole arc of Battle Angel if the box office would let him. I think that he's doing the main character in CG so he can really spend time on this project. There's no other way to keep a 200 year old cyborg girl that looks like 20 looking like 20 for 3 movies if it takes him 3-4 years for each movie. The 3 movie part is just my speculation.
For me, my vote goes to the Hugo story as the first arc because it's when the tone of the whole series begin to change and she starts to grow. But knowing what James Cameron has done he will probably do the Bounty Hunter story who was given the Imaginos Body by Dr. Nova that was wreaking havoc on the Scrap Yard. That story got all the elements of a good James Cameron movie.
Another twist is that the lead character will be CG
Oh yeah. Jar Jar Binks Rulez.
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
Star Trek TNG or "Battle Angel", cause except for the sex it exactly describes one of TNG's episodes.
... that you chose "Titanic Director" to describe James Cameron. I think that's technically an insult.
I would have used "Abyss Director" or "Aliens Director" or "Terminator 1/2 Director" or...
You get the idea.
This was one of the first anime titles to appear in both anime and manga form in the US. It's a great series, and I've heard James Cameron's name tied to a film version back in the 1990's. Glad to see that the project is finally coming to fruition.
AnimeNEXT anime convention
Does this mean the Battle Angel anime DVD will be released again some time in the future? I remember a few years ago that the DVD stopped being produced right about the time it was announced that James Cameron bought the rights. Naturally, I had been putting off buying the DVD for quite some time and when I finally wanted to pick it up, it was completely gone.
My first reaction was - holly shit, that's awesome. However, that excitement lasted for about 5 seconds, and then I remembered the quality of holywood book/commic book adaptations as of late. Except for LOTR every attempt to port some written or drawn story into a holywood movie was always total crap.
So I'm actually concerned now. It's true that Cameron did few good movies, but he did some crappy ones as well... And cgi main character scares me as well. There is no way you can have convincing, emotional exchanges if you tell the actors to act against blue screen...
Other questions: will he use the american naming conventions (alita, thriparies) or the original (gally, salem). Is he going to base it on the anime or on the manga? How far will the story go? Is this only going to be just some section of the overal story, or will he take us all the way to the end (gally's sacrifice, and the transformation of salem).
Questions, questions, questions...
is whether this will be lame anaglyph 3D (eg spykids 3D where you use colored lenses) or stereoscopic shutter lenses. (since it said IMAX, i would assume stereoscopic shutter because my home IMAX collection is all from that technology and is MUCH BETTER than those lame red/blue glasses). In fact, not even 5 minutes ago I finished watching a 3D movie on my home theater. It is just too cool. The problems with filming real life objects in 3D is probably why the main character will be computer generated. (my guess anyway). There aren't many 3D movies (after the 1960's anyway) that have been made. Not all IMAX theater released features make it to DVD in 3D. The only thing my home theater needs to match IMAX is the moving seats.. (Ok, my screen is on a single floor too ;)
Hey, anyone out there make a force-feedback pod (like at Dollywood ride) for home? I am going to embarq on that for myself and wondered if someone came up with something better than hydraulic (although I can readily get that complete with control remote and is not hard set it up and weld to a frame).
On a tangent.... what is with 80% of the posts to this article simply to correct the fact that Cameron did NOT direct T3. Really? what was your first friggin' clue?? The other 120 posts already to this article that point that out.
Trolls SHUT UP. me too! me too!
Of course, if they ever try to pull of something like what was done in SIM0NE, where they don't actually _tell_ the public that a character is CGI before the film is released, if it turns out to be able to successfully dupe the general public into not realizing where the CGI is and where it isn't, it might go a long way to convincing die-hard CGI skeptics like myself that this is an idea whose time has finally come.
Hey, fuck you very much for the "redundant"
Did it ever occur to you that when I wrote this, the other person's comment hadn't appeared yet?
Not much talent, he just knows how to make a movie with aesthetic appeal, just like all those other idiots. Except Kubrick, of course.
Have you seen IMAX 3D? This movie doesn't need a story. It will be *the* shit.
i was going to say, this was announced a LONG time ago. There WAS a reason the original Battle Angel dvds went of of print ya know ;)
The public understandably asks how this will be paid for...
Umm... use the budget set aside for the next James Cameron movie?
Woob woob woob!
Does this make my brain look big?
Of all the movies Cameron did, using "Titanic" in the headline of this article seems an odd choice for Slashdot.
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
I wonder what stupid mistakes will get though on this one, despite the director and huge numbers of underlings who are obviously too scared to ever say no. I suspect the bunch who did live action sailor moon could do a better job on this with same tiny budget as their previous effort.
All kinds of shiny effects don't disguise the problem when something just doesn't fit. Better getting a sticker out of a red lunchbox than the stuff appearing out of mid air in "Lost In Space" (effects copying the Stargate movie and getting it stupidly wrong).
Besides, CGI really just is animation anyway, look at anything Gonzo Digimation has produced in the last few years.
"Battle Angel is a very real possibility and that's the film that I fully intend to direct, that I will direct - the issue is will it be the next film, or will it be the one after the next film? That's really all there is to it at this point. We've done a tremendous amount of design for the film, we're fine-tuning the script, it's just a matter of time."
Guess the question about when he's going to make it has now been answered. Anyway...
"What I like about it is that when we first meet Alita she's very young, she's sort of pre-pubescent in a way, and she actually matures throughout the story. I like that, that the development of her mind actually affects her physicality. There's a lot of really great things about it, and there's a lot of things - whether the artist really intended it or not - that I read into it, and so I think it'll be a good fusion of what Kashiro created and how I would do things."
Will it be faithful to the original manga?
"No, I don't really think that's possible. Not only is it not possible, it's not desirable. I think it's not possible because the manga is very discordant - it's not internally consistent, meaning sometimes she looks like one thing and has one set of abilities, and at the whim of Kashiro he'll go off on a different tangent. It needs to be fused and focused and given a centralised storyline. But the character will be very, very true to Alita as she is in the manga."
Motorball?
"Motorball might find its way into the second film - I definitely want to do more than one film. I want to create a world and a character that can go through at least one more film, possibly more. And that's not just for the usual financial reasons, it's just that I think there's a possibility for a real mythology here, so I feel that this is a good canvas to do something big that's got more scope."
You must think in Russian.
"The man who brought us Jessica Alba"
The opening isn't that original. Old man finds young girl who lost her memory but was once an ultimate weapon. Oh it adds the twist that she mostly has a robot body (I think it is closer to cyborg is I remember correctly) and is rather damaged when found.
So he repairs her and the first "story" is her suspecting the old man of killing humans to supply some of her organic parts.
Later she falls in love with a boy who is really killing humans to sell their parts so he can buy his ticket to a better live.
This is were Gunnm starts to get better then the average overly violent manga. Alita has a shred of humanity left, the idea that killing "innocents" for your own goal isn't right. Most of those around her have no morals including the boy she loves. Since this is early in the story and the full story is about her search for a place to belong it is no suprise the boy gets killed.
But he isn't redeemed. He is not a hollywood scoundrel. He is an evil selfish piece of work who kills innocent people to get a better live and doesn't even take his girlfriend with him. Hardly a hollywood character. He got better motivation then that exec guy in aliens but when he gets splattered you feel sorry for alita not him.
Anyway on with the story, wich is long. Basically it either has Alita being abused into a position where she has to splatter things, temporarily forgetting her humanity so she doesn't feel bad about splattering things OR finds a place that is nice but soon gets splattered. There is an end to the orignal manga but even the author didn't like and he is now busy with an alternate ending.
If anything the story reminds me of the later Mad Max movies but with a less sympathetic set of characters.
Can cameron do it? No.
Why not? Well simply look at the movies he is listed for. All of them got very simple lines between "good" and "evil" characters. Perhaps if ripley had been madly in love and tried to save burk before he got snacked or if the robots in terminator had been shown as quit likable while killing humans left right and center THEN perhaps he might have been capable of doing Gunnm. But all his movies have been straight hollywood flicks. No duality at all in the characters. The best hollywood can do with duality is Darth Vader. Evil bastard all the time then suddenly saved by Jesus Christ in the last 10 minutes and 1 tiny selfish action equals forgiveness for 3 episodes of being evil.
Anyway gunnm has already had the movie threathment. It has been turned into an anime wich is widely regarded by fans of the manga as crap. To short and leaving out important details.
As for everyone complaing about the CG lead they really got no choice. It is like complaing the in Dragon Heart Sean Connery was replaced by a cg character. Well fucking duh. No amount of make up could turn a human being into a big flying dragon and no amount of make up is going to turn any actress into a limb loosing fighting robot.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"First big Cameron flop?"
That would be The Abyss, which is still a cult favorite.
I would expect that Cameron will be able to strip out the Japanese specific aspects and concentrate on the action and plot. Much the way that Sergio Leone adapted Yojimbo into A Fistful of Dollars.
Vanilla Sky
Solaris
City of Angels
The Ring
The Grudge
I might as well have a moan about how the films made by Takeshi Kitano in the US are pale in comparison to his Japanese ones. Compare Sonatine, Gonin and Zatoichi to Ghost Dog and Brother. No real comparison. Ah well, at least it's turning some people on to the real stuff.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
I had to listen to it through reading the manga, but if Cameron's reading these posts, I feel that I should point it out.
Muse makes some excellent music and would be exceedingly perfect for the soundtrack. Between Origin of Symmetry and Absolution, you pretty much have the entire soundtrack wrapped up right.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
> Update: 11/25 22:42 GMT by T: Sunny Dubey writes "Terminator 3 was *not* directed by James Cameron. It was directed by Jonathan Mostow."
...and that's why it sucked !
Must-not-watch TV!