Discussion of Alita: Battle Angel

POSTED BY: JEWELSTAITEFAN
UPDATED: Saturday, July 27, 2019 17:51
VIEWED: 9506
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JEWELSTAITEFAN

Saturday, February 16, 2019 11:55 PM

I have not yet seen Alita a second time, but the other thread is already pushing Spoilers.

Because this thread is surely to have Spoilers, I won't start them in this post, but in the next post.

Thanks in advance for the input of all contributors.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Saturday, February 16, 2019 11:56 PM

The first topic I wanted to post about is The Blade.

I still consider this spoilerish, but I have seen promo images clearly displaying what I consider to be spoiler for those who have not seen the film. I have also not read any of the books or comics about Alita. In my review I mentioned it obliquely in order to not be spoiler while still praising the incorporation of historical Legend.

The Blade is first introduced as a weapon of Zapan. It is very sharp and strong, but does not display any magical or supernatural qualities. I don't recall if anybody else handles it.

When it is first handled by Alita, it alights Blue. In many backstories such a glow of Blue indicates that the Sword recognizes the bearer as a True Heart, a Champion of Good, a worthy and Honorable warrior. At one point Alita does declare she does not stand by in the presence of Evil. Some versions have Excaliber aglow in Blue when handled by Arthur. Also with Paladins. Further, a Blade can turn a blinding brightness of Blue or blue-white when it recognizes it's True Master. Which we do not see here.

Then I also thought we could discuss how Dr. Ido stops all the borgs from demolishing each other. He says "no more free repairs" or words to that effect.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Sunday, February 17, 2019 8:55 AM

Alita is Honorable, from her core.
She was fighting against the floating cities. The remaining floating city, Zolam, is portrayed as the benefactor of the folk on the ground.

So perhaps the folk are being misled.
Perhaps this is another scenario similar to Alliance, ruling over the Honest folk.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Sunday, February 17, 2019 9:32 PM

The cast credits.
I looked for the credit for Nova, but did not find it. Because this key character is not credited.

Also, Jai Courtney and Michelle Rodriguez are not credited for their roles. Not sure why this is.

Alita's age.
By the end of this film, in 2563, it is established that Alita is more than 300 years old, more than any human or other cyborg known.

So, future revelation could show that Alita's core or copied human is from our time, now.

SECOND

Monday, February 18, 2019 1:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
The cast credits.
I looked for the credit for Nova, but did not find it. Because this key character is not credited.

Edward Norton is Nova (uncredited)
www.imdb.com/title/tt0437086/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

Alita Movie Villain: Nova & His Surprise Actor Explained
https://screenrant.com/alita-movie-villain-nova-edward-norton-explaine
d/

In the Alita movie, Nova says he doesn’t enjoy immortality as much as he enjoys outliving people and watching them die. That attitude makes Nova the arch-villain. The Nova in the comic book is up to his tenth life, he is Nova X. When a Nova is killed, he has a new body that his old personality is reloaded into. But what about the Nova in the movie? Nova can't be the same as the comic book, which stretches the story over hundreds of issues. The movie cannot do that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Angel_Alita
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Angel_Alita:_Last_Order
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Angel_Alita:_Mars_Chronicle

Select to view spoiler:

Alita remembers in the movie her 300 year old mission was to kill Nova. Why did she fail? What happened?

I’d guess that it is Nova who had the technology to erase Alita’s memories and it is Nova who let Alita keep her very valuable power unit, her electronic heart, and then dumped her corpse where she could be found and rebuilt. He could have ran her through the crusher in the movie if he had wanted her irrevocably dead. Remember that her physician/mechanic was surprised that her brain was still alive after 300 years on a junk pile? It was no surprise. Nova kept her alive until the day before he dumped her for Christoph Waltz to find and repair.

It was Nova who left a berserker body in a crashed spaceship Alita’s friends knew about. Do your really think a spaceship has been sitting in a lake for 300 years and nobody went scuba diving to see what was inside? I don’t think so. Nova placed that berserker body there for Alita, and he did it just before she came looking for it.

Remember, Nova said he was immortal, but he’s not magic. His immortality involves machines to reincarnate him. I think an immortal and very bored Nova wants the excitement of Alita attempting to kill him, with no possibility of Nova X returning as Nova Eleven. But if Nova kills Alita, he will erase her memory again, and after a rest period of decades the contest starts over until Alita wins and Nova goes to his final death with no resurrection. It would please Nova if Alita wins, but he will be fighting against her with all his might. Otherwise, why bother? He could erase himself without troubling Alita, but where is the fun or the contest in committing suicide?

Nova is only playing a game, but for Alita it is all real, which is what Nova wants from her – her very best effort to annihilate him. If there is a sequel it should be called Alita: Vendetta. She is out for revenge for all the humans she loved (and a cute puppy dog) that Nova killed in this movie. I want to see Alita’s Vendette. I want Nova dead just as much as Alita does.

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

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Monday, February 18, 2019 9:46 AM

Duh.
Not Credited often means the same as uncredited.
Duh.

SECOND

Monday, February 18, 2019 4:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

By the end of this film, in 2563, it is established that Alita is more than 300 years old

The science of cyborgs like Alita: Battle Angel
https://cosmosmagazine.com/the-future/a-robot-that-can-touch-each-and-
sleep-the-science-of-cyborgs-like-alita-battle-angel

Could a brain survive for 300 years?

Even while you sleep, your brain still needs a constant supply of oxygen. Brain damage from a lack of oxygen starts becoming irreparable after about 20 minutes without it, although with noted exceptions.

Brains can be temporarily put into a state of suspended animation by cooling them down dramatically, and operations like heart transplants are sometimes done this way today.

But keeping the brain cold also requires power, and a brain can only currently be kept alive like this for a few hours, not the 300 years portrayed in the movie.

Verdict: A little brain-dead.

(In the comic book, the solution to real human brains dying from old age is to copy the brain into a brain bio-chip. The next step is the most important: don't let a copied person know they were copied. To know is always psychologically harmful. After Nova accidentally discovered he was a bio-chip copy, he becomes a nihilist arch-villain viewing humans as guinea pigs, including Alita's boyfriend.
https://battleangel.fandom.com/wiki/Brain_bio-chip

"Nihilism is not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one's shoulder to the plow; one destroys." (Will to Power - Friedrich Nietzsche)
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Nihilism )

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

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Monday, February 18, 2019 10:09 PM

The movie has Dr Ido explaining that Alita's heart has enough capacity to power all of Iron City for several years.
So power production is not an issue.
Has nobody actually watched the film before pretending to discuss it? Or did everybody sleep through it?

SECOND

Tuesday, February 19, 2019 6:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

The movie has Dr Ido explaining that Alita's heart has enough capacity to power many of the entire floating cities like Zolam.
So power production is not an issue.
Has nobody actually watched the film before pretending to discuss it? Or did everybody sleep through it?

JewelStaiteFan, I saw the 2-D version. I give it 4 stars out of 5. I want to see a sequel.

As for Ido's description of Alita's heart:

Safety is the issue. Unless Alita was designed as a suicide bomber with a built-in antimatter bomb to destroy Zalem and Iron City at same time, the engineers who designed her would not pack that much energy into her heart. That would make Alita a gigantic hazard to everyone, everywhere she goes. Who would be smart enough, yet also crazy enough, to build a megaton bomb heart that can decide when to blow itself up? Nova is who.

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

AURAPTOR

Sunday, February 24, 2019 3:08 AM

I'll get into the weeds and details later, but for now, I just wanna add my 2 cents on the making of this movie.

The vision, and the desire for those who made this movie , for the fans of the story which goes back to it's 1990 origins, I have to say - is impressive.

IMO, it's on par w/ Serenity when it comes to being a work of dedication and desire by James Cameron, to see an idea finally become realized up on the big screen.

No, it's not perfect. But for all the chatter and noise we got from Avatar, I liked this movie much more. Primarily because it wasn't a thinly veiled retelling of Pocahontas, but in space. But also because of the CG and the advancement of motion capture. As Avatar upped the game when it came out, so has Alita.

It's a differnet type of movie, and in a world of Marvel and DC, very refreshing to see.

For me, there's an added bonus of one of the villains , Ed Skrein, because of his role in Deadpool.

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