Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron's Alita: Battle Angel

The funniest/stupidest criticism I've seen so far in regards to Alita is that her large CGI eyes are too creepy and unsettling, and that they'd be able to take the film more seriously if they were just Rosa Salazar's own eyes.

Although, trying to mark Alita and Captain Marvel both as bad films because of "female empowerment" is ridiculous. To me, they're just movies that happen to have a female lead.

Also, I think Rosa looked kinda cute with those CGI eyes....

The funniest/stupidest criticism I saw was movie suck because Alita is too sexualised and isn't any different from sexbot.

The weirdest/stupidest complaint i've heard is "Well, if Rodriguez/Cameron were real Alita fans, they wouldn't have made the movie at all and just would have commissioned a japanese studio/director to make an anime instead."

Sometimes anime fans really can't just accept a good thing when they get it, can they?

One of the most common forms of Fan Dumb is not wanting new works in general.

63M$ opening in China, 260M$ worldwide so far (out of a 170M$ budget). With a little more push it might manage to be barely profitable − depending on the marketing costs.

Doubt it's getting a sequel then. Last I checked, Hollywood cares about domestic figures above all else, and something that doesn't like double the investment might as well have never been born.

If it makes profit Cameron is likely push through for sequel regardless part of world money came from. And it's not like Holiwood isn't intererested in cattering China.

On unrelated note manga sales went through roof apparently. I wonder if there is no way to build similiar relationship between L movies and manga like anime does, even if money flows differently

I mean, Cameron might well sodding insist on continuing, I don't know. Or maybe he's content with making the one and will just go back to Avatar for the foreseeable future.

Cameron's favorite part of the manga is the next part. The motorball bit, that is.

I mean, they kinda already did that bit, more or less... yeah she hasn't beaten Jashugan yet, but...not much left to do. I think the sequel could very easily just go straight to Last Order.

That's a lot of material to skip.

It's a lot of dicking about in the desert, hunting Nova on behalf of Tiphares, when in the movie, Nova is already on Tiphares and seemingly in a position of significant authority. And Alita's last shot in the movie is her raising the blade towards Tiphares - that's a set-up that makes no sense if they spend most of the sequel doing stuff on earth. Act 1 is beat Jashugan and go up the gravity well, easily. Replace Trinidad with Nova for the big solar system games, and you can go straight into Last Order's badass tournament arc very quickly. Maybe set up Erika for possible trilogy.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Feb 27th 2019 at 3:04:10 PM

I just think Last Order content is a bit of a pipe dream.

I mean, I thought an Alita film itself was a lovely James Cameron pipe dream for a long time, but here we are.

TUNED, Barjack, Figure Four and Kaos are far more enjoyable than most of Last Order.

I behemently disagree.

Well if Alita go up it make sense for Nova not waiting to get killed and escape to desert. I mean for potential movie Nova. Manga Nova doesn't really care how many time he get killed.

Honestly I think Kaos and Den would make great sub-plot for second movie.

Edited by Tenzen12 on Feb 27th 2019 at 4:34:42 PM

To be fair, it's been a little while since I dove into that end of the manga. I think the last part I read was Last Order and Mars Chronicles.

For the record, the original manga can work as a self-contained story. In fact, it is likely what Cameron has in mind, as Last Order started 5 years after it ended.

To most people who liked the manga back in the 90's, Last Order and Mars Chronicles are not what they have in mind. Specially Last Order, as its quasi-shounen tournament arc is quite contrasting with the dystopian postapocalyptic cyberpunk setting of the original manga.

Also, TUNED is very easy to approach: Alita ends up having to work as Nova's agent in the surface, possibly after Berserk business.

Well, wasn't the original manga concluded because of illness or something? And then the ending retconned at the start of Last Order to allow the story to continue?

That's a bit stretch, it would mean completely rewrite Kaos/Den origin

Yep. The last part of the original manga is ignored by Last Order to continue the series, and it starts off very much in tune with the original.

Then the tournament arc happens and drags on and on, and then gets interrupted by a flashback arc, and then goes on and on some more.

I honestly got bored at some point and didn't finish the manga because of that.

Alternatively, in the first act Nova's activities are discovered by Zalem and he has to leave, with Alita being hired to hunt him down in the rest of the movie…

I don't really consider the ZOT to be one arc; it's more like a bunch of mini-arcs tied together by the tournament.

Also, Last Order gave us some of my favorite characters, like Sechs, Zekka and Zazie, so I can't hate on it too much.

Oh no, if this manages to continue, Sechs and his sisters definitely need to show up. That's just way down the road from where we are.

Having seen the film, it did not disappoint, I hope it's box office does well.