Anna Fang, badass airship pilot and swordswoman extraordinaire. Like Shrike, she was not only resurrected as a Stalker but eventually became the Big Bad.
Although General Naga appeared briefly in Infernal Devices, he became a major character in A Darkling Plain, thanks to being a badass and likable general and his epic Heroic Sacrifice.
Harsher in Hindsight: The Show Within a Show features Hester being made conventionally attractive, a process which included reducing her scarring to a small cut. The film adaptation would end up doing exactly this, with the director and Peter Jackson saying that the character not being pretty made Tom being in love with her unrealistic, even though that's what happened in the book. Even worse, Word of God says Hester was made heavily scarred precisely so Tom would come to love her in spite of it, finding it more interesting than two glamorous people falling in love.
Heartwarming Moments: In A Darkling Plain, the scenes where Fishcake and Anna find Sathya's hermitage in the mountains, and start acting like a family... Especially the scene where Anna carves a toy horse for Fishcake, and he acts like it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Sniff.
Les Yay: Plenty between Sathya and Anna Fang. Sathya created the Green Storm and revives Anna Fang because of this. Even the Stalkerized Anna goes back to Sathya. Confirmed by General Naga in the last book.
Throughout Mortal Engines, Katherine Valentine discovers that the city she calls her home is not as shiny as she thought, that most inhabitants don't consider her as one of them anyway, and that the person she trusted the most is a liar, a thief and a murderer. Add the death of anyone else whom she ever cared for and by the end of the book, she's become a Determinator to the point it's heartwrenching.
Tom and Hester also count as one too.
Valentine might be a Jerkass Woobie; he did terrible things, but he wanted to make a better world for Katherine, and this backfired spectacularly.
The Film:
Audience-Alienating Premise: The movie never stood a chance in finding an audience given its premise. It was based on a niche Young Adult Literature book series whose premise of "city on wheels" seems too ludicrous for non-fans, while it also lacked popular actors besides Hugo Weaving and Stephen Lang. All of these issues hurt the marketing, which had to rely more on the promise of spectacle and Peter Jackson's involvement.
Cliché Storm: The movie was strongly criticized for its bland story, which took many, many common plot elements from other sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, or fantasy works, in particular Star Wars and Mad Max, without really doing anything new or unique with them.
Complete Monster: Thaddeus Valentine is the Deputy Lord Mayor of London who seeks the weapon MEDUSA for his own twisted ambitions. Prior to the story, Thaddeus murdered Pandora Shaw, the mother of his daughter Hester, before scarring Hester's face. To stop the heroes from interfering with his plans, Thaddeus unleashes the dangerous criminal Shrike to tail and dispose of them. Thaddeus's ultimate plan with MEDUSA is to use its power to turn the settlement of Shan Guo into his hunting ground, later killing London's Lord Mayor Magnus Crome when Crome discovers his plans. With his plans of utilizing MEDUSA rendered for naught, Thaddeus has the London control crew slaughtered and attempts to ram London into Shan Guo's wall, uncaring of the countless innocents that would be wiped out in the ensuing destruction.
Director Displacement: The name of producer and co-writer Peter Jackson showed up more in advertising and discussions than that of the actual director, Christian Rivers.
In the museum archives, during the chase of Seltzberg, Pomeroy shows concern over the "American deities" getting tipped over. The camera pans over to rusted over statues of two Minions.
While showing Kate around the museum, Tom briefly explains to her the Screen Age, AKA, our current modern age. Tom mentions to her that their tech was considered advanced enough that they might've forgotten how to read and write... while the camera pans to some iPhones in the display.
Tear Jerker: Shrike, of all people. If the yearning in his eyes when is working on his collection of mechanical puppets does not get to you, then his death certainly will.
They Copied It, So It Sucks!: One very common criticism of the film adaptation is how closely it apes Star Wars, with the last act being a nearly shot-for-shot reenactment of the Death Star run from A New Hope, and The Reveal that the villain is the main character's father, giving the impression the producers had little faith in the story's premise standing on its own, so it just rode on the coattails the most iconic Science Fantasy film franchise in an attempt to make itself more palatable to general audiences. If this was the intent, it backfired massively because one of the chief criticisms of the film was its weak and derivative story, and it became the largest confirmed financial bomb in cinema history.
WTH, Costuming Department?: A number of fans were quite vocally displeased with Hester’s Adaptational Attractiveness, believing that it lessened the arc of Tom coming to love her in spite of the (much more) disfiguring scars she had in the book.
and No Going Back