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Alita: Battle Angel

Goose

By Goose,
in Film, TV & Radio

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Bazjam

Bazjam

Posted
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I’ve just finished reading volume two of the deluxe edition of the manga, and now want to see a sequel more than ever. Seeing that motorball story being fleshed out over a whole film would be amazing. Fingers crossed, the Chinese seem to be loving it. Currently £285,675 on its box office take.

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Broker

Broker

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I worry that they've already skipped over a lot of the good motorball stuff, though I guess you could have the story with Jashugan fairly early in the movie and then use the rest of the movie for the Berserker story that comes next.

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CarloOos

CarloOos

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I have some serious blockbuster/comic book burnout but just had an absolute riot watching this on IMAX. The confidence and choreography of the action scenes was far more Cameron than Rodriguez, whose influence felt almost entirely absent aside from some of the casting choices (that cheesy love interest looked and acted like he walked straight off Spy Kids).

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  • 3 weeks later...
linkster

linkster

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Second time of watching. Knowing the weak aspects I could just enjoy it, and got to say was even better.

 

there were kids of eight or nine and I was kind of embarrassed to be there as I find much of it pretty shocking 

 

it is this empowering love story, MechaPinnochio, built on top of an absolute fucking nightmare. It’s ultra violent, emotionally savage, has a simply wonderful central character who is not  just a badass but in many ways a monster 

 

I love it, for every reason I thought Captain Marvel was utterly without merit

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linkster

linkster

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5 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

Well, that sounds more intriguing than the trailers suggested.

I really loved the trailers. The first time I saw it, I thought it was great fun, but dumb as a bag of chisels. Knowing that going in second time I didn't feel even vaguely so bothered by the script and silliness, I just had mouth open at how brutal it is for a 12.

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matt0

matt0

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I ended up going to see this in the end and... It wasn't terrible? 

 

I was surprised by how pumped I was to see some key moments from the comic reproduced in film.

 

It's got some serious problems though, mainly that Iron City looks like quite a nice place to live. In the comics it looks like a living hell, in then film, just looks like the hub area from Destiny or something. And everyone lives in the city because there's nowhere else to go... except when they go out to the wilderness it looks lovely and there's trees everywhere.

 

So when people are banging on about how the city corrupts everyone I just kept thinking, "maybe it's you. Maybe you're all just a bunch of twats"

 

It's still pretty violent but there's none of the gratuitous gore, which is understandable, but still contributes to the sanitised feel. 

 

And I couldn't get over how Alita looks in the film. Apart from the ridiculous eyes they've CGI'd her to have the same proportions as she does in the comic and it looks weird as photorealistic CGI alongside real actors.

 

But then it does a great job of condensing a few different plot arcs in to one tight story and it's full of brilliantly realised depictions of great moments from the comics.

 

Not amazing but way better than I thought it would be. 

 

 

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  • 3 months later...
Stig

Stig

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Just watch this. Was enjoyable enough and thought it looked extremely impressive. I really liked the character designs and the setting. Would make a wonderful game (CyperPunk anyone?) The script was absolute tosh is parts though (mainly the stuff between Alita and Hugo). 

 

A solid and enjoyable 3/5.

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squirtle

squirtle

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I thought this was pretty poor, if I'm honest. It never went anywhere, plot strands were never followed up, and it just felt like an expensive pilot for a TV show. FX were good, but most of the actors were wasted. Disappointing.

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Benny

Benny

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Just got round to watching this: it's ultimately an extremely attractive nothingness. There's some impressive CGI all used in the service of a script that is utterly tone deaf and incoherent.

 

The animated film is half as long and mostly nonsense, but I much prefer its style, and the entire tone of the story only works as intended when it's set in an ultra violent hellscape that people want to escape from. In this version it looks like most people in the city are pretty happy - they have oranges and giant bars of chocolate for God's sake.

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Nick R

Nick R

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9 hours ago, Benny said:

The animated film is half as long and mostly nonsense, but I much prefer its style,

 

I'd been intending to watch the anime for over a decade (since I first heard that Cameron had said he intended to make his version), but whenever I'd looked in the past the DVD was out of print and expensive. So it wasn't until after the live action version came out that I saw that the whole thing had been put on YouTube.

 

I watched it a few months ago, and I realise this could be just because I saw the dubbed version, but I really didn't enjoy it. The live action version was flawed, but I think back on it positively because not only was it spectacular, it was likeable in a way that the anime wasn't. I'm glad I didn't spend much time or money seeking out the DVD years ago!

 

Maybe it was amazing for people discovering it in the '90s as James Cameron and Guillermo del Toro did? But in my case I can add it to the list of anime that I haven't liked: Ghibli films and Cowboy Bebop are still the only ones I've seen that have lived up to their reputations.

 

 

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Benny

Benny

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It's not particularly good - it came out around that specific formative time in the 90s when people in the UK were just starting to discover adult anime via Manga Entertainment films and suchlike, so it's a nostalgic curio more than anything else.

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Yobo Ahoy

Yobo Ahoy

Posted
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1 hour ago, Bazjam said:

I've watched this quite a few times now, and I really like it. Maybe I'm carrying over my love of the manga a bit, but it really works for me.

 

No need to be ashamed of that! Familiarity with the source material is what drives a lot of superhero films, not that many stand up as very good films in their own right. 

 

Personally I'm not into western comics or manga so I'm a perfectly objective (and uninformed ^_^) judge... 

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Yobo Ahoy

Yobo Ahoy

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TBC. Apparently it did similar numbers to Warcraft and The Mummy, both stillborn potential franchises. Most places suggest it turned a profit but 'sources' suggest the budget was much higher than declared. 

 

 

https://deadline.com/2019/02/alita-battle-angel-box-office-bomb-1202558922/

 

 

I would absolutely love a sequel and it's depressing how liberally the phrase 'bomb' is attached to films these days.

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Broker

Broker

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I think it probably depends how they’re calculating the budget. If the project James Cameron has been working on and doing CGI tests for for 12 years is somehow part of the budget of this then it’s fucked from the outset, because only Titanic and Avatar make enough money to cover that type of shit. 

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Treble

Treble

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6 hours ago, Yobo Ahoy said:

TBC. Apparently it did similar numbers to Warcraft and The Mummy, both stillborn potential franchises. Most places suggest it turned a profit but 'sources' suggest the budget was much higher than declared. 

 

 

https://deadline.com/2019/02/alita-battle-angel-box-office-bomb-1202558922/

 

 

I would absolutely love a sequel and it's depressing how liberally the phrase 'bomb' is attached to films these days.

 

 

It's because of Hollywood accounting and yep, it is dispiriting.

I've made a post on this before, but I thought I'd do a quick EXCEL SPREADSHEET OF HOLLYWOOD ACCOUNTING OF FUN OF LIES OF FUN.

 

Take the reported budget, double it for advertising, add 10% that they 'forgot' to report, take away 30% from the North American take and a full 50% (at least) from the 'foreign' take for the distributors' cuts and Bob's your uncle, Fanny's your aunt! The real number. Well, as close to the truth as we're ever gonna get.

 

Oh, and Netflix considers a film 'AAA' if it makes $100m in North America alone.

 

Now you'll see why something has to make a billion to be considered a success... here's Alita's numbers. Please take this as fact!!!!

 

alitaaa.thumb.jpg.07b81e267fecabc7da72b5398cbea8ec.jpg

 

 

 

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