Alita: Battle Angel

POSTED BY: JEWELSTAITEFAN
UPDATED: Wednesday, October 4, 2023 18:52
VIEWED: 8911
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JEWELSTAITEFAN

Thursday, January 31, 2019 2:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
I have seen more recent trailers or clips, and they look straight out of the Maidenhead.

They should have released for Christmas.

OK, I finally get it.

It has been widely reported that James Cameron has been working on Alita since 2005.
Hmmmm. I wonder what year the Maidenhead scene was first shown on the silver screen. No wonder the action looks like a copy.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Monday, February 11, 2019 10:05 PM

Alita supposed to come out on Thursday, and several other films have earlier release this week.

I probably cannot catch a Wednesday Midnight showing, but expect to see it before Friday.
Just checked. One local theater has 2 showings Wednesday, first at 7 PM. Another is showing 3D only, has those 2 showings plus a Tuesday at 7pm. That seems to be displacing Cold Pursuit (last show on Monday).

Who else is planning on seeing it in Cinema?

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Thursday, February 14, 2019 9:27 AM

I watched the first available 2D showing tonight.

Now I want to see it again.
Partly due to some story devices that I was slow to pick up on, and partly because there are some characters I want to visit again.

I've seen some extended clips lately during the promotional appearances, and they were good. But nothing I've seen was anywhere near the best scenes in the film.

The fight scenes reminded me of River.
The year is 2563, on Earth. So another half century into the future from our BDS.

I didn't even recognize Jeff Fahey until he spoke.

Some of the imagery of genre canon was unexpected, but I loved it. They seem to have wrapped it all together well.

It occurred to me that perhaps the last time I looked forward to a film this much was Valerian, and that ended up being disappointing. Alita leaves me with no disappointment, all of the things Valerian was short on Alita does not share. Alita delivers.

Looking back, I don't feel there were any slow spots. I might feel the story may have been even rushed, but it was subtle and only as compared to my preconceptions.

Like Star Wars, Arrival, Rogue One, Terminator, Edge of Tomorrow, at the end I was ready for more.

Seems this was filmed in Texas.
I have seen other works from Director Rodriguez, but this one exceeds all of his past work, by a far margin. This exhibits facets which only a Director can control, and he did it all very well.

A decent review should also cover the bad. So here is the bad: in a few scenes the color/brightness continuity jumped, stuttered, shifted. I saw no intent in this, so I assume it was error. As I mentioned, I saw the 2D showing, and the feel for this inconsistency was that it might have been in conversion between versions, so 3D might not have it.

SECOND

Thursday, February 14, 2019 11:58 PM

Alita: Battle Angel rises above its ugly ads, flies to a cloud city of awesome

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/02/alita-battle-angel-rises-above-
its-ugly-ads-flies-to-a-cloud-city-of-awesome/

It establishes a tidy universe about two post-apocalyptic metropolitan zones and sets into motion hopes and tragedies that appear to be tailor-made for a sequel.

The instant I got out of the theater, I began dreaming about that sequel — a thing I haven't done about a film in a long time as a skeptical, movie-going adult. What's more, Alita: Battle Angel delivers this impact by leaning heavily into Star Wars' original trilogy as an inspiration ... but also somehow skipping straight to Empire Strikes Back as a starting point.

I left my Alita preview screening with my heart full of equal parts tragedy and hope, much in the same way that Empire left me as a child. And it achieves this sensation by taking a surprisingly different path. Rodriguez got his film's aspirations to fit by juggling a heap of moving parts and slotting them into perfect places. Bravo. With that, I must insist: don't miss your chance to see Alita in a theater.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Friday, February 15, 2019 3:06 AM

I did not want to post any Spoilers, and I did not initially think I'd need to discuss much, because the story is really covering most bases.

But now I think I will start a discussion thread, likely after I see it again.

6IXSTRINGJACK

Friday, February 15, 2019 6:58 AM

So what's the deal with her eyes. She looks like a Playstation commercial from the late 90's.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

SECOND

Friday, February 15, 2019 5:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
So what's the deal with her eyes. She looks like a Playstation commercial from the late 90's.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

For the story: Alita is a machine shaped like a human with a machine-mind based on a long dead human's mind. The fans of Alita say "she discovered that her brain had been replaced with a brain bio-chip".
https://battleangel.fandom.com/wiki/Alita#Personality

Using a real human for a machine design, with a real personality full of twists and kinks, rather than a synthetic personality that is straight forward and smooth, will lead to all kinds of future complications when Alita is turned loose on the World. The machine was built with a very real and specific purpose in the mind of the machine's designer, unlike people, who are born without a purpose given to them by their parents or gods. The machine's designer wants the world to empathize with Alita's struggles, but the designer didn't want to keep it a secret that the machine is not human. That is the reason why the eyes are big. Or the eyes are big because that is how Japanese artists draw manga characters. Or the eyes are big because eyes were big in the movie Avatar (2009) and the executive producer of Avatar was also the producer for Alita. It is your choice what you choose to believe.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

6IXSTRINGJACK

Saturday, February 16, 2019 6:26 AM

The idea that the creator wanted to differentiate her from humans is interesting. Is that just a theory, or is that actually part of the movie (or whatever work it was derived from)?

I don't suppose the creator's AI would agree that was necessary once it was capable of self replicating.

I find that to be more compelling than what I thought at first glance. I figured they were just trying to draw in the Anime crowd. I didn't even know she was a robot, although I did pay attention to a commercial I saw at work to notice that she was the only one that didn't have normal eyes.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Saturday, February 16, 2019 6:53 AM

I didn't come to this right away, but there are some similarities to Bladerunner, with human/synthetic rules, enforcement, etc.

And yes, this is the best film of the year so far - Sci-Fi or otherwise.

The post following this one has SPOILERS.

SECOND

Saturday, February 16, 2019 6:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
The idea that the creator wanted to differentiate her from humans is interesting. Is that just a theory, or is that actually part of the movie (or whatever work it was derived from)?

I don't suppose the creator's AI would agree that was necessary once it was capable of self replicating.

I find that to be more compelling than what I thought at first glance. I figured they were just trying to draw in the Anime crowd. I didn't even know she was a robot, although I did pay attention to a commercial I saw at work to notice that she was the only one that didn't have normal eyes.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

In Blade Runner, Harrison Ford has great difficulty telling a replicant from a human. Several times he discovers they aren’t human when they try to kill him. That is a terrible identification methodology. The Alita movie says loud and clear that Alita is an extremely dangerous weapon, called a berserker (a real word with a long history), far more dangerous than any replicant.

If Alita’s designers are competent, they would avoid Blade Runner's "is it a replicant? / is it a human?" identity confusion by placing a mark on Alita. It could be numbers on her forehead that glow in the dark, but these designers are the best in all history and they picked the prettiest solution. The aesthetics favor changing her eyes. In the movie, Alita’s cybernetic surgeon was extremely impressed with this machine that thinks and acts like a human, so much that he named Alita after his daughter. Alita’s real name is a number.

Interestingly, in the Epilogue of Battle Angel Alita (comic book, not this movie, but maybe a sequel) "she was regenerated as a flesh and blood woman with long black hair and appeared to be taller than her typical height." I guess the comic wanted to have it both ways: Alita is all killing machine, but once her long war is over, she makes the round trip back to being a human. That must be Japanese symbolism. Once WWII was over, the Japanese renounced war and went back to being peaceful civilians who take over the world with Sony and Toyota.
https://battleangel.fandom.com/wiki/Alita#Appearance

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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