Alita: Battle Angel (July 2018)

I have said it before, I will say it again.
Asia is a continent.
Does no one remember the outcry over Memoirs of a Geisha?
I love Lucy Liu and her tendency to walk around with her knees on show in winter as much as the next man, but she probably shouldn’t be cast as the Major.

Regardless. The GiTs Movie did better than that. It cast people from all over.
The most high profile Japanese American actor I can think of is George Takei, and he would look silly in the thermoptic camoflage.
I haven’t seen Pacific Rim, but Rinko isn’t exactly A list megastar.

The film is SF. It appears to be set in HK, renamed NewPort. (At least partially) which is an interesting bit of world building, mirroring the Oshii film a tad.
It’s diverse cast makes it more interesting when you take into account Japan’s population problems, and the world it is showing.

This is also true of the the themes in the movie, and the questions about which identity is real for the Major. Which make it all work, and work particularly well as a comment on the homogenisation of the world accelerated by technology.

 

It was a quiet controversy at least....I only found out about it a couple of weeks ago.

 

I think it’s better than that, but people only do surface reads (though the change to story in post production making the baddie in Hanka probably confused things a bit.) and find it easier to say ‘eh robocop’ than look at all the stuff around identity and consent. Personally I would be hard pressed to really find anything truly like robocop in it.
The stuff about identity being in the eye of the beholder is right on the GiTS money as far as the anime is concerned, and the way that is spread to the other characters a little is also quite cool. I really love the scene with Bateau getting his eyes and worrying about the dogs, even though it’s like an origin scene we didn’t need.
The consent stuff is pretty good too. How can she consent when she is living a false identity? Mira might consent, but under that, Motoko didn’t consent to being Mira. And neither of those is entirely content in being the Major at this point, but they accept it as (a) they are expected to and (b) it gives them power. In the end, she refuses her consent to Kuze, and Major becomes the way in which both Motoko and Mira exist without wiping either out...after all, from the characters perspective they both feel as valid. It’s bit like a reverse Psylocke. (Whilst Mira might be a false construct, she feels real, was treated real, and therefore is real...whereas Motoko was definitely real, but her memories are lost or buried....the synthesis person is Major, and is *still* valid, because she too has an identity. It’s very interesting, and very Gits. The Major, essentially, is also the Puppet Master, and has sort of jumped ahead to the Motoko Aramaki stage by the end of the film in a way.)

I think the plot only looks cliche (though to be fair, evil corporation stuff is cyberpunk fare, and there simply aren’t enough films in the genre for it to really be a cliche.) rather than is. Outside of the other GiTS stuff, I would be hard pressed to find another film with anything close to its plot. (Robo has cyborg with repressed identity eventually finding his family again, and bad guy corporation...but that’s it.)

 

Actually, it was more the other way round. Alt-Righters and MRA people have a deep hatred for Captain Marvel, and consider Alita a movie where female characters are done right.

How Alita: Battle Angel Found an Unlikely Fanbase in MRA Trolls

The cult of ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ – alt-right parable or neglected classic?

Attack of the Tomato Killers: Captain Marvel haters lose it after Rotten Tomatoes blocks them from crapping on movies that aren’t even out yet

 

No its not that way round at all, the SJW's hated it because it didn't sideline males enough. (Its an adaption of a japenese property where they dont feel the need to do that to tell a story about a female) do you want me to go list all the posts on that?

 

If we want really consider the numbers, well, Alt-Right fanboys had inflated Alita's RT audience score to 94% and pushed Captain Marvel's want-to-see score to an abysmal 28% before the site took action.



So, while I concede that there was some lukewarm criticism toward the female representation in Alita, it's evident that the majority of rabid fans are all on the other side (because, if they had been equivalent in number on the both sides, they would have simply counteracted their respective votes).

 

While I'll admit, there was a lot of idiots who targeted captain marvel unfairly. I also advocate that mainstream media gave captain marvel massive support yet ignored alita entirely.

In my opinion both movies are of a similar quality and it's a case of "what you like" as to which one is better.

I'm tired of this culture war which seems to have decided on genre entertainment as its battlefield. When I watch these type of movies it's to rot my brain.

 

I missed this film in the theater, but was able to watch it over the weekend. If was fucking awful. Just complete crap from start to finish. The writing and acting, from everyone, was terrible. It was cringe worthy bad. Thank Crom I didn't piss away money at the movies on this.

 

It was rather good. Bought it on iTunes...my only real criticism is it tried to fit so much in it had to end on a cliffhanger, and it cut some of the more emotive stuff that even made it into the anime...including Ito getting parts from his bounties.
Alita herself was very very well acted and performed, and overall, it’s pretty good. Of course, it’s probably doo,Ed to not get a sequel and be sold in a two pack with GiTS...which also deserves a sequel.

 

^ I think we'll see a sequel; it'll just take awhile since Cameron is focused almost exclusively on Avatar.

Hopefully it doesn't take another 13 years to materialize like the first one, though.

 

Alita, I mean, Rosa Salazar joined Trek family as Captain Lynne Lucero of USS Cabot!

 

Alita was ass. The whole love story was some 13 year old boys fevered wet dream. She falls for the first dude she meets for absolutely no reason? A guy who turns out to be a piece of shit stealing people's parts and what does this dumb ass do? Literally offer him her superpowered heart.

 

Yes. It’s a film not a documentary.

 

You go to many performances of documentaries on Broadway?

Documentaries are usually films. Not sure what that has to do with my opinion of a shitty movie.

 

I think my point is, they are fitting a certain amount of story into two hours, and the whole history of certain genres of film, and indeed fiction, is populated by characters falling in love with the first person they meet, or the first to show them kindness; and it’s not like she merely cast eyes on him and dragged her heart out of its box. They actually show it develop, and show his shame at what he has done in the world portrayed. It’s sort of part of the point. (It’s also a counterpoint, unclear in the film adaptation, to Ito...because he’s doing the same thing as her boyfriend, just licensed. The opening to the film is somewhat condensed.) The whole thing is a borderline gothic fairytale. Jane Eyre with Cyborgs.

And yes...documentaries are shot on film, but do I have to use the Americanism of ‘movie’ to describe it? I think from that you can grasp I am unlikely to watch anything on Broadway.

 

Listen. Im glad you enjoyed the movie. I didn't. We obviously disagree. No amount of lobbying is going to change my mind and I don't really care to change yours. I like the Adventures of Pluto Nash which pretty much everyone agrees is a steaming pile of shit. So what.

 

I too occasionally have a tendency towards liking films that are...less than popular. You can probably argue this is one of those times. But I wasn’t so much about changing your opinion, as refuting the specific plot line you criticised and suggesting it was a mis-representation of what happened. Largely because if anyone wandered to this forum to see if it was worth watching, they should at least get honest info.
It’s only real failing in my opinion is that it doesn’t have an ending as such. There’s no sense of being a self contained story, and much is set up. (From an adaptation point of view, it needed 30 mins at the front end showing Alita getting her body a bit at a time. The anime adaptation chose to drop the rollerball and war stuff to focus on the characters/tragedy angel...but it was shorter.)

 

My opinion wasn't dishonest, it was different than yours mate and as equally valid. Maybe don't take criticism of your favorite media so personally?

 

Oh, I’m not, and I don’t think your review was dishonest.