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James Cameron's Alita: Battle Angel Released After Sixteen Years (rottentomatoes.com)
Slashdot reader Drakster writes: Hollywood producer and writer James Cameron, who is best known for his first two Terminator films, Titanic, Avatar, and Aliens, has released his most recent film this week, Alita: Battle Angel, to mostly mixed to positive reviews. First announced in 2003, based on Yukito Kishiro's Gunnm manga series, it was stuck in development for several years, finally starting production in 2008. Slashdot last discussed this fifteen years ago, so now that it's finally here. For those who have seen it, what did you think? Met or surpassed your expectations, or not worth the wait?
"the heroine's name is ATILA spelled backwards?"
And what pray tell is the significance of 'ATILA' ?
Everything is something spelled backwards. Did anyone notice that captquark is krauqtpac spelled backwards! I mean its true... but so what?
ALITA is also a near homophone for 'a liter', and if you take the i out it's ALTA which is sometimes an abbreviation for Alberta; and you can also rearrange the letters to "A TAIL" or "A LIT A" what's a lit "A" i wonder? :p
I went to see an early screening about 2 weeks ago in IMAX 3D. It's a fairly entertaining film. Probably the best 3D visual effects I have seen, vertigo inducing in parts. Without the 3D I imagine it would lose its entertainment value somewhat with some cliché scenes and gaps in the story. Good overall, I'd give it 7/10 in 2D and 9/10 in 3D
James Cameron is probably better known for directing films than for writing or producing them. Alita: Battle Angel was directed by Robert Rodriguez, not Cameron. The last thing Rodriguez directed that wasn't critically panned was the original 'Sin City'.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
The first posts on the 15 year old Slashdot article linked here suggest something darker and more interesting than what I watched last weekend.
This Alita was a remix of Pinocchio, Ben Hur and a few others. It looked very well made but to me it didn't feel really new. I'm just too old compared to the target audience, I guess.
Just got back from watching it, submitting the story before I did.
Overall, I was very impressed with it. When seeing the first teaser, I’ve got to say, the eyes of the lead was a bit much, but coming back from seeing the entire film, they ended up blending in very well, not at all being the distraction I thought they could be.
From the current review score, expected a generic Sci-Fi movie, but it surpassed my expectations, having good characters, story, setting, and action. Due to the nature of the story, had a good deal more heart to it as well.
Been a while since I’ve read it but diverts from the source material a bit, but overall, it's a faithful adaptation of the first few volumes.
I’d recommend it for any Sci-Fi fan.
As to why the name "Alita" was actually chosen, a quick Google provides a pretty good clue:
So, "elite", "special", "noble", and "chosen one", which form a much more blatant literary connection to the arc of the eponymous character in the film than a tenuous and almost certainly entirely coincidental reversal of letters to a mispelling of a historical figure.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Alita bita Monica in my life,
Alita bita Erica by my side,
Alita bita Rita is all I need,
Alita bita Tina is what I see...
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
I disagree.
Unlike something terrible like Ghost in Shell or Dragonball? Alita doesn't do a 1:1 adaption if that is what you mean. So we skip over the magical girlfriend arc that Alita started around, various enemies got mashed together, Motorball arc was rushed ahead and radically altered. Dr Nova even shows up to have a dragging angle to stage a sequel, even if his location and job seem to be altered drastically. If movie 2 skips over the Wasteland revolution arc in favor of the Tiphereth madness i will also be sad. Mostly because we will miss out of cloning, bodyjacking and marriage sheenigans.
As for what is enjoyable?
We got a movie where Motorball is the bloodsport it is, and so is Bounty Hunting. Alita's literal lust for blood also survived the adaption.
And junkyard is the shithole its suppose to be.
Its a great movie.
What i find most terrible about the adaption is that you get exposition being replaced by Hollywood language. Pacific Rim do suffer the same, but its far more blatant when you have read the orignal script and seen how its replaced. Pacific Rim also has a far simpler exposition, meaning easier to make it terrible and yet not too Hollywood.
In Alita a lot of the exposition sounds like terrible injokes to make fun of the characters ignorance. The Fall is a good one, because by the time Alita is around they have gone trough at the least 3. Yet the Hollywood script sounds like they are poking fun at each other for ignorance.
Father/daughter relationship didn't survive the language that well.
There is also some questionable changes, like she being named Gally until she remembers her name is Alita. Which seem a straight error by using the Viz translation instead of the source material. Tiphereth vs Salem is another one, which is easier to be indifferent to.
First of all, they tone it all down to fit the lowest age rating the board could decide on, which means the only connection this movie has to the comic is mostly in name only. In the comic, Ido kills for the thrill of it, and he goes hunting with Alita, and they bond in a lot of ways that shows how their sort of weird relationship is growing, and evolving.
Admittedly the comic itself is not the best story-wise, but at least it has interesting characters. Again, since they toned it down the characters are lame, and the cast of Waltz as Ido would be perfect if he got to be the Ido that was in the comic, not this chained-to-the-wall imitation we see on the screen because THEY GOT TO KEEP IT PG-13.
I could go on forever about this, but let me just say I am not that impressed. They should have gone Deadpool on this and stick to the source material. It has better designs, better character portrayals, and is better overall for this kind of silly sci-fi.
So, it was a great Imax experience - if you have a Giant Imax screen near you (not those small Imax Digital ones), like the 26m wide Laser Imax I had close to me, the way it looks alone is worth the admission. I don't like 3D in general, but this was actually shot in 3D so it looks good overall and the action sequences are gripping and well shot.
Now, the story is not very "original" nowadays, as we've seen a lot along similar lines these days. A friend asked me if it is a bit derivative to things like Ghost in the Shell - I had to point out the original manga was contemporary to the Ghost in the Shell manga, so you can't say it came a lot later. And in general this movie it is not very close to the manga (which I guess might be a good thing for the general audience - bad for those who like manga/anime).
But overall I would recommend just for the giant Imax screens which make it a great spectacle, for a small screen it is just a decent sci-fi but nothing to write home about...
PS. The part-CGI character is not annoying/uncanny at all - it helps that it is supposed to by a cyborg anyway and that cgi is more advanced than 15 years ago when this was first discussed on /.
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Speaking of LOTR, Peter Jackson, and The Hobbit (which I 100% agree with you) -- have you seen Lindsay Ellis' excellent 3 part documentary analyzing what went right (and wrong) with The Hobbit?
https://youtu.be/uTRUQ-RKfUs
I think you'll enjoy it -- it summarizes basically all the same criticisms I had with The Hobbit movie adaption.