(Look, he's back!) also Finally saw Alita, huge disappointment

[Avilan the Grey]

So, to begin with I am not an Anime, nor a Manga person. In fact, Japanese pop culture just don't jive with me at all (I have yet to play a JRPG for more than 30 minutes, I can't stand them).
That said, the trailers had me excited. I also knew enough about the original Manga to expect all the deaths I saw including the cute dog (not bother spoiling warning anything I think).
I also read thru the original thread on the movie subject and yeah... as I never saw the original works the differences did not bother me. Duh. :smallbiggrin:

My biggest problem of course is the ending. I am a simple man, I want a frakkin climax. That never happened. I just spent over two hours looking at cool robot fights and extremely cringy dialogue with 100% lack of payoff.

Second gripe is the rather awful dialogue. Just like George Lucas' writings this just comes off as a 13 year old boy trying to write love speeches. It is just awful. I get that she is well... a teenage girl, with the first crush of either of her two existences, but still. It's just Amidala and Baby Vader all over again. The only character I actually liked was her adoptive father. He also seemed like the only competent actor.

Third is less of a gripe and more to be expected: The CGI was well... too heavy and too obvious. All cyborgs except Alita herself (who ironically, despite her Uncanny Valley looks got away with it) who looked human enough it was easy to fake, and the most heavy machine cyborgs... everyone in between was extremely uncanny valley and also so very obviously fake.

Also, I am definitely of the opposite opinion to the last poster of the original thread: This is not a strong protagonist, this is a teenage girl giving up her everything for a teenage boy. Captain Marvel not only is a better character, but also a much better and interesting movie on top of that.

[Palanan]

I really appreciate that you posted this. I'd been going back and forth on whether to rent Alita, but after reading this I'm glad I didn't. Definitely not the sort of thing I would've enjoyed.

Like yourself, I'm not an anime/manga fan, so that aspect would've done nothing for me. And, gawd, if you're comparing the dialogue to Padme and Anakin...hard pass, with no regrets.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I went into it with no real expectations, so I can't say I was disappointed, but otherwise, yeah, agreed. Won't say it was as bad as SW dialogue, but it was definitely Hunger Games YA style. I also agree the adoptive dad was about the only "real" person in the cast.

The whole thing felt like a "best of" reel. I didn't become aware that it was based on a manga until after the fact, but it fits: there are "iconic" moments that they had to include, and that usually means the interconnecting tissue couldn't be fit in.

Grey Wolf

[Lord Raziere]

yeah, as anime fan, I as a rule don't watch western live actions movies trying to adapt anime. I've never heard one being particularly good, I know hollywood well enough that they probably won't do it well because they don't understand it or don't care enough to make a coherent story out of it, and basically the only reason they're being made at all is the same reason why old disney films are made live action now. the only reason I suspect comic book movies are doing so well is because of cultural familiarity and having a long time to become symbols you can do anything with rather than specific characters with specific stories.

[Lethologica]

Still somehow the best Western anime/manga adaptation this side of doesn't-really-count Edge of Tomorrow. Not that that's saying much.

[Avilan the Grey]

yeah, as anime fan, I as a rule don't watch western live actions movies trying to adapt anime. I've never heard one being particularly good, I know hollywood well enough that they probably won't do it well because they don't understand it or don't care enough to make a coherent story out of it, and basically the only reason they're being made at all is the same reason why old disney films are made live action now. the only reason I suspect comic book movies are doing so well is because of cultural familiarity and having a long time to become symbols you can do anything with rather than specific characters with specific stories.

The thing here tho is that Cameron is a HUGE fan of the original material, and is basically paying for this himself. Still not good, but from where I am sitting the problem is the original material. But as I said I have yet to find a single piece of Japanese pop culture that I like.
BUt yes, I get why the ending doesn't exist. It is not only Sequel bait (and the most obvious sequel bait since "Join Us Next Week, same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!!" at the end of every episode of TVs Batman), but also, I assume, because the original material doesn't have a proper ending either?

[comicshorse]

The thing here tho is that Cameron is a HUGE fan of the original material, and is basically paying for this himself. Still not good, but from where I am sitting the problem is the original material. But as I said I have yet to find a single piece of Japanese pop culture that I like.
BUt yes, I get why the ending doesn't exist. It is not only Sequel bait (and the most obvious sequel bait since "Join Us Next Week, same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!!" at the end of every episode of TVs Batman), but also, I assume, because the original material doesn't have a proper ending either?

As I understand it the original Manga has quite a lot of stuff, in fact its still going so hasn't reached its end. The film adapted multiple chapters of the Manga and pretty much stopped half way through one

[Avilan the Grey]

As I understand it the original Manga has quite a lot of stuff, in fact its still going so hasn't reached its end. The film adapted multiple chapters of the Manga and pretty much stopped half way through one

That makes sense. I know her story is still going, AFAIR, in the manga, so yes.

[tomaO2]

My biggest problem of course is the ending. I am a simple man, I want a frakkin climax. That never happened. I just spent over two hours looking at cool robot fights and extremely cringy dialogue with 100% lack of payoff.
...
Captain Marvel not only is a better character, but also a much better and interesting movie on top of that.


By "climax", you mean an ending battle that wasn't a complete one sided affair? Alita had one of those, before she got her new body, and I thought that was pretty dramatically done. Down to one arm and just barely pulled out a win. I'd say that the climax was her boyfriend dying, and how she went to the mat to save him, only to have him die anyway. Climax doesn't mean big battle, by necessity, it can happen in other ways (although there was a very large battle that happened as she was rushing to save her boyfriend from the hunter that she was not allowed to kill). I thought was it an extremely unusual, and interesting, series of twists.

Tell me again where Marvel had that. What trouble did Marvel have? Was there a single fight that Marvel had where you honestly felt she was in danger? What little risk there was became gone after she realised that she could just use her super powers and then one shotted everything. If you want to complain about Alita not having a good climax, then you gotta say it double for Marvel.

Since the climax is the most important thing, doesn't that mean that Marvel is worse?

[Chen]

The problem is the end of the motorball scene and initial rescue of her boyfriend seemed more climactic than the fight with Grewishka and the talk with Vector/Nova. Even if the fight there was the climax it was like 30 seconds long with no payoff.

Not sure where the captain Marvel non-sequitor comes in but there was a clear climax in that when she destroys the kree ship. Sure they werent a threat to HER but they were a threat to earth so it felt like there were some stakes.

Going by the same logic again the climax of Alita is probably her rescuing her boyfriend. And then you’re just going through the motions for the rest of the movie. The falling action lasts too long in that case which robs the climax itself of its impact.

[tomaO2]

The final "fight" with Grewishka is more like Marvel's final fight with Yon-Rogg. Neither is the climax and both were incredibly easy. The Alita confrontation was probably more impactful of the two because it set up Alita for her new goal of getting to the sky city, whereas Marvel Talking to Yon was just so she could dismiss him out of hand.

The climax for Marvel is probably blowing up the massive ship, which required barely any effort, and the climax for Alita was her saving her boyfriend from a guy that she could beat fairly easily, but was not allowed or else she would become a criminal. Alita has a MUCH harder time of it.

Whether or not the Alita should have ended sooner is fine to debate, I personally didn't think it was all that long in Alita after saving boyfriend until the end of the movie, but don't mistake what the climaxes are.

And I brought up Marvel because the OP made a direct comparison between the two, I had intended to include that as part of my quote. *fixed* Since the OP said the most important thing is the climax, I interpret that as meaning that he felt that the Marvel movie had a better one, and I fail to see how that could be the case. Was the Earth at risk from the mega ship? Sure, was there any worry that Marvel could destroy it? No. On the other hand, Alita had a much harder time saving her boyfriend the first time. There was a genuine worry that she wouldn't be able to do it, which made the scene far more exciting. The quality of a climax is not dictated by how many people could potentially die, which is what I feel like you are implying by saying that Marvel had more stakes because the planet was at risk.

[The Glyphstone]

If I had to peg Captain Marvel's climax, it would be her headspace confrontation against the Supreme Intelligence. That's the crucial turning point of her character arc in the movie, and it has a very satisfying emotional payoff. Not the irrelevant 'will she win or die', because that's an inane criteria when you are talking about the main character of an action movie, but the understanding that it's the Kree half of her heritage holding her back, not the Human half. Everything prior to that builds up to it, everything after that is the consequences of it (in this case, effortlessly curb-stomping her enemies).

[GloatingSwine]

The whole thing felt like a "best of" reel. I didn't become aware that it was based on a manga until after the fact, but it fits: there are "iconic" moments that they had to include, and that usually means the interconnecting tissue couldn't be fit in.

Grey Wolf

As a member of the specific target audience of just me and James Cameron it was to an extent a highlight reel of the first two books and I appreciated that because I could be spotting setting elements and characters and knowing who they were.

I liked the fact that it was Alita that found the Berserker body, that’s a solid improvement for her early character, it could have done without Nova and Motorball but it needed a hopeful ending to be a Hollywood movie so it couldn’t end on just Hugo’s death.

Oh well.

[Avilan the Grey]

By "climax", you mean an ending battle that wasn't a complete one sided affair? Alita had one of those, before she got her new body, and I thought that was pretty dramatically done. Down to one arm and just barely pulled out a win. I'd say that the climax was her boyfriend dying, and how she went to the mat to save him, only to have him die anyway. Climax doesn't mean big battle, by necessity, it can happen in other ways (although there was a very large battle that happened as she was rushing to save her boyfriend from the hunter that she was not allowed to kill). I thought was it an extremely unusual, and interesting, series of twists.

Tell me again where Marvel had that. What trouble did Marvel have? Was there a single fight that Marvel had where you honestly felt she was in danger? What little risk there was became gone after she realised that she could just use her super powers and then one shotted everything. If you want to complain about Alita not having a good climax, then you gotta say it double for Marvel.

Since the climax is the most important thing, doesn't that mean that Marvel is worse?

There was no ending battle. That's my point. I wanted her to get up there, kill the main villain. Instead... "I am going to point my sword at him while playing sports". NOT a climax. Hence anti-climax.
The movie should have either ended after killing the big monster guy, or been long enough so she brought down the "Last Floating City" and killed the evil overlord. As it is now it is just a frustrating sequel bait. Again, that's all it is: It's a "Wasn't this cool? Don't you want to wait another three years and pay another 20 dollars (plus popcorn) to get the final battle?" Heck, it almost feels like Bioware mandatory story DLCs. "What? You want to actually talk to Jarvik? Pay 20 dollars, LOL".

As for Marvel: She fought to get those powers. And the payoff was to become who she really is, the MCU's most powerful being. SO yes, she "one shotted" everything. And it was AMAZING and GLORIOUS.

[Lethologica]

Hahaha...If you want to make the movie long enough for that, I hope you brought a few meals with you.

[Delicious Taffy]

"What? You want to actually talk to Jarvik? Pay 20 dollars, LOL".


The Javik DLC was $10, not $20. Still obnoxious, though.

Also, what cinema are you going to that charges $20 for a single movie ticket? My local AMC only charges about $8 normally, $6 on promo days or if the movie is on its way out. You're getting ripped off by about 150% extra.

[The Fury]

I sort of resent that Alita has sort of become the anti-Captain Marvel. Mainly, they're not even the same kind of movie which makes comparisons between the two kind of weird. Mind, there are plenty of legit criticisms to level at the Alita movie on its own. Like others have already mentioned, Alita's boyfriend/crush was a pretty boring character.



Second gripe is the rather awful dialogue. Just like George Lucas' writings this just comes off as a 13 year old boy trying to write love speeches. It is just awful. I get that she is well... a teenage girl, with the first crush of either of her two existences, but still. It's just Amidala and Baby Vader all over again. The only character I actually liked was her adoptive father. He also seemed like the only competent actor.


Oddly, when I was watching Alita a different notoriously bad movie came to mind-- Terminator: Salvation.

Admittedly, it's somewhat more competently written, but the deal with Alita saying that she'll give Hugo (Yugo?) her heart. Literally! And it's a special heart that was made using lost tech and can be used to power a whole city! It's the same sort of heavy-handed symbolism that was used by cyborg Sam Worthington's human heart. At least in Alita's case it didn't raise questions like "Why the hell would you build a cyborg that way?"

In case any of you were wondering, no, Alita did not have a special heart in the manga. That was made up for the movie, which makes it even stranger.

Manga!Alita does offer her literal heart to someone after a fashion. Rather she bets it on an arm-wrestling contest to show that she's not intimidated.

[Avilan the Grey]

I sort of resent that Alita has sort of become the anti-Captain Marvel. Mainly, they're not even the same kind of movie which makes comparisons between the two kind of weird. Mind, there are plenty of legit criticisms to level at the Alita movie on its own. Like others have already mentioned, Alita's boyfriend/crush was a pretty boring character.



Oddly, when I was watching Alita a different notoriously bad movie came to mind-- Terminator: Salvation.

Admittedly, it's somewhat more competently written, but the deal with Alita saying that she'll give Hugo (Yugo?) her heart. Literally! And it's a special heart that was made using lost tech and can be used to power a whole city! It's the same sort of heavy-handed symbolism that was used by cyborg Sam Worthington's human heart. At least in Alita's case it didn't raise questions like "Why the hell would you build a cyborg that way?"

In case any of you were wondering, no, Alita did not have a special heart in the manga. That was made up for the movie, which makes it even stranger.

Manga!Alita does offer her literal heart to someone after a fashion. Rather she bets it on an arm-wrestling contest to show that she's not intimidated.

Well the reason for that (your first point) is fairly obvious, but that's a reason, and a topic, we can't discuss without heavily dipping into "politics".

Oh and i can see that comparison. Thanks for telling me about the original situation: Definitely more badass.


Hahaha...If you want to make the movie long enough for that, I hope you brought a few meals with you.

So we will never see that climax unless somehow the sequel makes much more money than the first so a third movie can be made? Makes the whole thing even more pointless.

[The Fury]

Well the reason for that (your first point) is fairly obvious, but that's a reason, and a topic, we can't discuss without heavily dipping into "politics".

Oh and i can see that comparison. Thanks for telling me about the original situation: Definitely more badass.


Oh, I'm aware of the... thing that we can't get into. It's just really unfortunate that the two movies are compared for arbitrary reasons that have little, if anything, to do with the actual content of either film.

As for the original... yeah, the manga version Alita is significantly more badass than her movie counterpart. Though I try not to make to many comparisons between movie and source material as a general rule. Mainly because it makes discussing movies with me more difficult. This time, I felt the context was appropriate.

[Malphegor]

I haven't seen the manga, so what I got out of watching the movie is 'wow this reminds me so much of the Astro Boy movie, I should rewatch that one day'.

Seriously, so much of this movie feels to me like it follows some of the same beats and looks of the Astro Boy movie that I wonder if it was a influence on the manga at all.

[GloatingSwine]

I haven't seen the manga, so what I got out of watching the movie is 'wow this reminds me so much of the Astro Boy movie, I should rewatch that one day'.

Seriously, so much of this movie feels to me like it follows some of the same beats and looks of the Astro Boy movie that I wonder if it was a influence on the manga at all.

It's probably harder to find a sci-fi manga that wasn't influenced by Astro Boy....

[The Fury]

It's probably harder to find a sci-fi manga that wasn't influenced by Astro Boy....

True, though I think the movie may have been more strongly influenced by Astro Boy.

It's not super spoiler-y but I'll put the spoiler tags on anyway for anyone curious about the manga and wants to go in blind.

The movie version of Ido names Alita after his daughter who died of a terminal illness, sort of like how Dr. Tenma built Astro Boy to resemble his dead son. Ido even gave Alita the cybernetic body he built for his daughter.

The manga version of Ido named Alita after a cat he used to have. (Originally he meant it to be a placeholder name until she remembered her real name.) Ido later builds Alita's first body out of used parts.