Alita Battle Angel Movie Trailer!

[Pablolein]

Well, I was expecting this kind of reaction here. I freaked out at the eyes at first, obviously, but now they don't bother me at all. They remind me of my first impressions from the manga. The trailer was defiiately better than what I expected it to be, but I'm still insecure about the movie. I'll watch it no matter what and then decide for myself if it's good or not.

[Abaddon]

Re-watched the trailer again today and nope, I still don' like it. Is even worst I dare say:

- Alita's eyes are too distracting, I can't take her seriously when she is on screen... it's too bizarre and awful. I want to blame James Cameron for this one tho, trying to push his tech and make the main character look like a joke in the process.

- I don't like how "clean" everything looks. In my heart of hearts I was hoping that the movie will look like Fury Road but with cyborgs. But instead, this looks like the dystopian future from Idiocracy.

- And Vector also being Nova... you gotta be shitting me.

This should have been directed by George Miller, grandpa knows how to craft action movies more than any con man like Robert Rodriguez, who haven't directed anything watchable since From Dusk Till Dawn. And to make matters even worst, he is appointed to direct the remake of Escape From New York, one of my favourite movies of all time... fuck you Robert.

[kamugin]

whether you agree or disagree (i disagree btw), those giant eyes are meant to represent the doorway to the soul of something like that it's in this interview https://www.empireonline.com/movies/fea ... breakdown/

That's it, you put a masterpiece manga in the hands of some Hollywood hotshots (imbeciles) and they screw up completely. If Rodriguez think that the essence of her character is her eyes, he couldn't be more wrong, he wasn't able to go past the surface of the lake. He thinks that people will recognize Alita in that depiction, that's bullshit! Try to forget the trailer for a while, you crazy people, if you were to find that face alone while browsing the web, would you really shout "This is Alita!"?

I fear there won't be a beserker body in the movie at all.

I also wonder: Will Ido still be a serial killer (though legal and bounty hunting)?

I also fear that, MrFaber. Rodriguez seems to be so pleased by the depiction of her first arms (that I think it is good) that he won't let them go away, thus missing another major turning poit of her character that is the berserker body. Rereading the first story after many years, I found plain obvious that the berserker body unleashed the Martian warrior inside her, her true combat potential. The fancy arms were only part of Ido's Pygmalion/Galatea fantasy.

Speaking of Ido, they choose an actor too old to play him. I imagine Ido's age somewhere between 28 (yes, that young!) and 34 maximum. Christoph Waltz is 61, for Christ sake! Ido was rebuilding Alita to be his lover, when he realized he couldn't have that, he settled with the father role.

Mahershala Ali, appearance wise only, is good to play Vector, a minor character that has little contribution to Alita's maturing. However if, as the title suggest, Vector / Nova (Mahershala Ali), Rodriguez choose to fuse him with Nova, he couldn't be more wrong. Vector is just your average gangster, while Nova is our well known agent of chaos, a character more related to a Loki's persona, not good, yet not completely evil, a prankster in the essence. Nova has a huge role in Alita's growth, indirectly at first as the creator of Makaku and Jashugan and later directly toying with her. I barely remember the OVAs, I watched them almost twenty years ago, but if I remember well, Nova isn't portrayed in them, while Vector has a bigger role, so we can see again that those crappy OVAs are a major font of reference.

Chiren (Jennifer Connelly) - pointless to me since she is a character from the OVAs only. She was an expelled Tipharean that wanted to go back and instead got herself butched up by Vector, his only way to fulfill her wish.

Almost nobody here and elsewhere this discussion is taking place seemed to like the choice of Ed Skrein to play Zapan, to me he was one of the very few right choices in this mess, however he may have little time on screen, since Rodiguez put too many characters in the movie.

Keean Johnson as Hugo, just your average good looking boy. Actually way too much good-looking to portray the dirty small fry that Hugo was.

Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley) - another character from the OVAs? I don't remember, however he is filling the place of Makaku as your average brainless monster, not the tortured soul Makaku really was. After dealing with him, Alita was able to see that he was just another victim of a ruthless society and shed tears for him.

To wrap up, this movie will be a flop, like I was skeptically betting since the first rumors appeared many years ago.

[kamugin]

Re-watched the trailer again today and nope, I still don' like it. Is even worst I dare say:

- Alita's eyes are too distracting, I can't take her seriously when she is on screen... it's too bizarre and awful. I want to blame James Cameron for this one tho, trying to push his tech and make the main character look like a joke in the process.

- I don't like how "clean" everything looks. In my heart of hearts I was hoping that the movie will look like Fury Road but with cyborgs. But instead, this looks like the dystopian future from Idiocracy.

- And Vector also being Nova... you gotta be shitting me.

This should have been directed by George Miller, grandpa knows how to craft action movies more than any con man like Robert Rodriguez, who haven't directed anything watchable since From Dusk Till Dawn. And to make matters even worst, he is appointed to direct the remake of Escape From New York, one of my favourite movies of all time... fuck you Robert.

We are in the same wavelenght, man!

[jjaquinta]

I fear there won't be a beserker body in the movie at all.
I also wonder: Will Ido still be a serial killer (though legal and bounty hunting)?

I don't think there will be enough time in the movie to add in the whole beserker body thing. At least not in any way more than "hey, I had this in my closet. It has a mysterious past." Similarly I don't think there will be enough room for Nova. Not on-screen anyway. It's the sort of thing to put into the after-credits surprise bit at the end; to set up a sequel.

I do think Ido will be a bounty hunter. I think we see a scene with Ido and his jet hammer with the sword armed cyborg. That's almost straight out of issue #1.

[gcoppini]

I don’t know what to say guys, I want to leave a possibility for myself to actually be able to love this movie, but if I close my heart to it that won’t be possible! Obviously, like the OAV, it’s going to be different. Vector dies in the OAV, and they never continued the story, but had they that decision means he would have no role with the Barjack, the rebuilding of the tower etc... for example and it seams like this is using the Anime material heavily.... We must look past our fandom to some extent. In a way it’s more important that people who’ve never heard of this fall in love with it. I hope it’s obnoxiously successful to the point of having to overhear frat boys talk about how awesome it is while cringing in silence knowing that something they love about it wasn’t in the manga. Point being, I want this movie to succeed beyond our hypercritical fan base. The eyes where a risky choice, if they’re super careful enough to pull it off throughout the entirety of the film to where they aren’t a distraction then I am on board AF, because they really look like Alita imho!

[00_unit]

I don’t know what to say guys, I want to leave a possibility for myself to actually be able to love this movie, but if I close my heart to it that won’t be possible! Obviously, like the OAV, it’s going to be different. Vector dies in the OAV, and they never continued the story, but had they that decision means he would have no role with the Barjack, the rebuilding of the tower etc... for example and it seams like this is using the Anime material heavily.... We must look past our fandom to some extent. In a way it’s more important that people who’ve never heard of this fall in love with it. I hope it’s obnoxiously successful to the point of having to overhear frat boys talk about how awesome it is while cringing in silence knowing that something they love about it wasn’t in the manga. Point being, I want this movie to succeed beyond our hypercritical fan base. The eyes where a risky choice, if they’re super careful enough to pull it off throughout the entirety of the film to where they aren’t a distraction then I am on board AF, because they really look like Alita imho!

Hey doesn't matter what I think of the movie, if the movie is popular enough for anime studios to recognise it's potential and lead the franchise to getting an anime that is really good and faithful to the source material, than I'm more than happy for it. So far the villain seems one dimensional by the sound of it in movie (which I admit many hollywood movies have) and we have more than enough of those thank you. Removing the depth to the villains would hurt the quality of the series quite noticeably.

[gcoppini]

Ok so, I have to make a confession, I am very curious about how faithfully the “deckmen” will be portrayed. It’s, at least for me, bizarre quirks like chubby cheeks and lipped facial parts, that are supposedly human because they have a consciousness, but are otherwise metal cylinders, that draw one in to this bizarre world. Believe it or not, for me at least, the proper rendition of the deckmen, will play a role in me loving this!

[gcoppini]

Ever since I saw the trailer a couple days ago, I’ve been obsessed with one scene, which is both in the manga as well as the Anime. Hugo’s death. It’s make or break and could easily be politicized as well.... A tragic metaphor for those “blinded by ambition, the climb to the better place,” deeply relatable for so many... If they can at least nail that scene, at the very least this could be a cult classic for a wider audience....

[kamugin]

Ok so, I have to make a confession, I am very curious about how faithfully the “deckmen” will be portrayed. It’s, at least for me, bizarre quirks like chubby cheeks and lipped facial parts, that are supposedly human because they have a consciousness, but are otherwise metal cylinders, that draw one in to this bizarre world. Believe it or not, for me at least, the proper rendition of the deckmen, will play a role in me loving this!

I bet there won't be any deckmen in the movie and, if there are, they will be radically different than the funny characters we know.

[Snailygoat]

I fear there won't be a beserker body in the movie at all.

I also wonder: Will Ido still be a serial killer (though legal and bounty hunting)?

There is a short scene in the trailer with him holding his trusty rocket hammer. And we do see Alita in the Berserker body. Notice the difference between the light coloured body at the start and then the body she has when she offers Hugo her heart. We're getting a Berserker Bod!

[kamugin]

There is a short scene in the trailer with him holding his trusty rocket hammer. And we do see Alita in the Berserker body. Notice the difference between the light coloured body at the start and then the body she has when she offers Hugo her heart. We're getting a Berserker Bod!

Pretty good observation, man. Now if we get a better face, this movie could be bearable.
Rosa Salazar is like this, pretty face. That monster doesn't resembles her at all.

[Chrome]

First impressions: Finally! Wait.... Those eyes. WTF?

Second watch: The eyes suddenly seem less obvious for some reason. Why is Ido missing his mark?


The story seems... Odd. Makaku is in there, Vector is in there, Hugo is in there. It doesn't seem entirely taken from the anime or the manga, but elements of both. It feels just odd.

That said, i really dig the overall look. The cybernetics was one of the things i was worried about but you have to give them their dues: They nailed that part. Zapan looks amazing, with one caveat though: Skrein looks a hell of a lot like a young Peter Weller.

One thing is obvious: We are not getting a one to one adaptation of either the manga or the anime. This is to be expected, but people still act surprised all the time. That said, there do seem to be some core deviations: I am hoping that the Nova/Vector thing is just a misunderstanding (Ali is still only listed as Vector on IMDB) and that Ido's lack of a mark will be explained.

Still, a feature length, live action Alita film? I'll be in the cinema regardless of what happens. Just like everyone else here.

EDIT: It looks like she's getting the berserker body. Remember people she fights Makaku twice in the manga. The first scene in the trailer looks like the scene where she loses her original body with the spin-thing she does: The last scene we see doesn't have to be the bar scene where she jumps down. It may just be her doing her first hunter-warrior gig, like in the manga.

[Cahir]

First post here. Hello!

Trailer looks okay to me. These eyes really scared me for the first time. Now I am able to bear them, but yeah, they need to reduce its size, like this - https://goo.gl/jLuDy2.
I mean, girl still would be CGI, which looks good (is not it from early post-production?), expect that fight against "Makaku".

Ido missing the mark probably means that he fully rejected Zalem and Chiren did not.

Also, Junkie Xl is the composer. That is a good news, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wD5tamhwXo
Similar OSTs could really fit motorball and my guess is that next trailer will be action-packed, because they wanted to focus on motorball and... there was no motorball here.

Rodriguez basically described Makaku, but called him Nova
And title resembles to Alita's marks from her face, so... where are they?

[Cahir]

- I don't like how "clean" everything looks. In my heart of hearts I was hoping that the movie will look like Fury Road but with cyborgs. But instead, this looks like the dystopian future from Idiocracy.

Yeah, there are no retro grandpas here, but come on, it is 26th century and they still are using Beats, punk style and all? There must be something wrong there, it is just that colors are pretty

We have no futuristic heaven here and it can't be a dystopian future if "In Iron City, there's no cops so citizens have to go do the dirty work themselves of cleaning up the town". There still is a hope
And Fury Road is more likely for the sequel.

- And Vector also being Nova... you gotta be shitting me..

But that is impossible. Vector = Nova means that actor is playing only ONE character. He is not.

[kamugin]

Rodriguez and some other guy talking about the movie at Brazilian comic convention yesterday, most of it is in English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J09I7mpCdE
As I pointed before, Rodriguez is focused only in the eyes as the distinctive mark of anime, he goes back to Astroboy. Yes, they are, and once you get used to them, you find them pretty natural, however, it is plain obvious (at least for me) that what looks good in the pages of a manga or in an anime is freakish in with "real" people. Rodriguez thinks that he is very innovative because it was never done before. As a few others remarked in previous comments, all female characters (the young ones to be true) have those eyes, they are not a privilege of Alita. As I said, Rodriguez touches the surface of the lake but is unable to dip in it. I think he watched the OVAs and, at the best, skiped through the first volumes of the manga. In the interview, it is only the other guy (his assistant?) that mention Kishiro's work, Rodriguez have no familiarity with it.

[Chrome]

- And Vector also being Nova... you gotta be shitting me..

But that is impossible. Vector = Nova means that actor is playing only ONE character. He is not.

Good point. Vector and Nova are never together - Until the later Last Order chapters they're not even together within the same volume (v6 being the one exception).

If this is true i wonder how they managed to prevent the overlap simply because of the way the actor looks. Nova being a black guy would somehow feel wrong too, especially given Tiphares' backstory.

[^Ripper]

also where's ripper and crazyankan where you need them, they haven't comment and their the creators of this obscure, but awesome site

Hah, busy as always, lots of extra work during the weekend :/

Well i viewed the trailer a bit too much.
I think the movie will be leaning to the positive side.
I mean the action i saw looks good to be honest.

There are the akward things already discussed here.
I mean the eyes in my opinion should have been the same size as the rest.
All the cyborgs in the trailer have regular eyes.

The missing mark on Ido's forehead...
Who decided to remove that all important detail?!!
It depicts Tipharians and has a huge backstory...

Did Gonzu (the flat headed vet) have a gender change at the 4 second mark?

I do like the cast at first glance.
Seems like a good match and feel like a good fit.

Anyway i told myself that this is a movie adaptation...
An ADAPTATION, not a 100% 1:1 copy of the manga.

When you grasp that, and make peace that there will be changes, even groundbreaking ones, then the movie will (hopefully) not be as bad.
As a purist, this is hard, but i think its best to just lower your expectations.
It's not going to change...

[jjaquinta]

The missing mark on Ido's forehead...

My guess that was done to they could have a dramatic reveal in the plot. So the audience just thinks he's a normal scrapyard dude, then when confronted by his old colleague we suddenly find out he's not. And she can point out that it is missing, and more information can be revealed by that conversation.

It will be even better if he's actually covering it with makeup. If more than a few people in The Scrapyard know what it means, it would actually make sense for him to disguise that part of his past.

Anyway i told myself that this is a movie adaptation...
An ADAPTATION, not a 100% 1:1 copy of the manga.

Bingo. That's the perfect attitude. Got me through Lord of the Rings...

[HECTOR4]

Anyway i told myself that this is a movie adaptation...
An ADAPTATION, not a 100% 1:1 copy of the manga.

Bingo. That's the perfect attitude. Got me through Lord of the Rings...

The problem is that you can make a 100% faithful adaptation to the original story. Why don't they do it? There is only one answer: because they prefer to change things in favor of the acceptance of the general public. And that, in the dates in which we are, is a BIG mistake.

If you look at a manga to make a story, it's because you're looking for something different, and you find it in his way of narrating, in the treatment of his characters, in the things that really make the manga something special and innovative. If you steal that from the story, you only have one archetypal plot that doesn't tell us anything new, a plot with a cyborg girl who seeks her place in the world, the meaning of good and evil, who seeks the meaning of her own existence, with action and ultraviolence and super special effects. That is, a typical story. To do that, you don't have to look at a manga. There are already millions of stories like that. And Gunnm is not that, it's much more.

Gunnm shows us human characters with nuances, run away from the archetypes, flee from the idea of the fatherly and kind figure that will teach you the way of what is good. Ido is not that. It's a character with several facets and a very dark and selfish background. If you steal those details from the story and modify them with edulcorated plots, you convert a good story into one that you can forget the next day. I don't know why someone would look for the novelty and exoticism of the manga if later you will convert it into an Americanized production and adjusted to the occidental standards.

With this they give us to understand that the manga likes, but they don't understand why, they don't know what product they are playing with or understand what are the reasons why the manga captivates them. They don't understand the product nor do they know how to handle it.

Nor do they understand that the public has changed, that the archetypes no longer work, that the people are looking for new things, different and humans characters, with nuances, that the series that triumph now are things like House, Dexter, Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones, series that show characters in gray tones, and not stereotyped heroes and villains.

[^Ripper]

True.
Its a shame there are so few good movies that follow the source book/anime as it is intended.
Thats why i'm going in with the state of mind: Its gunnm, but they are surely messing up the plot one way or another.

The little change i can live with, but some movies just take the characters and redo the plot entirely.
Ghost in the shell live action i could not watch all the way.
And i'm a huge fan of the series.

[00_unit]

Anyway i told myself that this is a movie adaptation...
An ADAPTATION, not a 100% 1:1 copy of the manga.

Bingo. That's the perfect attitude. Got me through Lord of the Rings...

The problem is that you can make a 100% faithful adaptation to the original story. Why don't they do it? There is only one answer: because they prefer to change things in favor of the acceptance of the general public. And that, in the dates in which we are, is a BIG mistake.

If you look at a manga to make a story, it's because you're looking for something different, and you find it in his way of narrating, in the treatment of his characters, in the things that really make the manga something special and innovative. If you steal that from the story, you only have one archetypal plot that doesn't tell us anything new, a plot with a cyborg girl who seeks her place in the world, the meaning of good and evil, who seeks the meaning of her own existence, with action and ultraviolence and super special effects. That is, a typical story. To do that, you don't have to look at a manga. There are already millions of stories like that. And Gunnm is not that, it's much more.

Gunnm shows us human characters with nuances, run away from the archetypes, flee from the idea of the fatherly and kind figure that will teach you the way of what is good. Ido is not that. It's a character with several facets and a very dark and selfish background. If you steal those details from the story and modify them with edulcorated plots, you convert a good story into one that you can forget the next day. I don't know why someone would look for the novelty and exoticism of the manga if later you will convert it into an Americanized production and adjusted to the occidental standards.

With this they give us to understand that the manga likes, but they don't understand why, they don't know what product they are playing with or understand what are the reasons why the manga captivates them. They don't understand the product nor do they know how to handle it.

Nor do they understand that the public has changed, that the archetypes no longer work, that the people are looking for new things, different and humans characters, with nuances, that the series that triumph now are things like House, Dexter, Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones, series that show characters in gray tones, and not stereotyped heroes and villains.

Disney does it commonly actually, they take famous stories from different countries and than adapts to a more family friendly film, and they receive huge popularity and high praises as well.

[Chrome]

True.
Its a shame there are so few good movies that follow the source book/anime as it is intended.
Thats why i'm going in with the state of mind: Its gunnm, but they are surely messing up the plot one way or another.

The little change i can live with, but some movies just take the characters and redo the plot entirely.
Ghost in the shell live action i could not watch all the way.
And i'm a huge fan of the series.

At least they got some of the basics right: Ido seems to still be a hunter-warrior during the night, and so has a dark side. His overbearing attachment to Alita as shown in the first 2 volumes still seems to be there as well.

He still finds her in the garbage heap underneath Tiphares. Ajax Francis Zapan actually looks like a credible threat, so does Makaku. Vector looks absolutely spot on.

What should also be considered is that the movie is not yet rated, but Cameron was stated (along with Rodriguez iirc) to not care about PG13 for this one. With the massive success of Deadpool, movie companies may not be so hesitant to release R rated movies anymore.

I can't help but feel that those arms are shown the way they are exactly to juxtapose them against the situation in which they were retrieved, with Makaku murdering the woman like in the OVA (the nameless banshee in the manga really doesn't need to be in the movie for this). Maybe it's a nod to the fans who know about those arms?

I don't know. I just hope it's good. Ghost in the Shell has shown that deviating too much from the source material just means that your movie is going to bomb, and given that Cameron has enough clout to overrule studio commandments nowadays (i think) i hope he knows this too, to not make this into a stereotype retread of what GitS did.

[HECTOR4]

Disney does it commonly actually, they take famous stories from different countries and than adapts to a more family friendly film, and they receive huge popularity and high praises as well.

They take rather popular children's fairy tales. And lately his films are not so successful. They come without making a classic that can truly be considered a success since Tarzan. Except Frozen. That is, in 19 years, just a classic that has truly been an overwhelming success. Disney has survived mostly thanks to Pixar, who is more assiduous to create original stories. And now based on buying famous franchises XD

But I was referring more to films and stories aimed at the young-adult audience.

[kamugin]

Anyway i told myself that this is a movie adaptation...
An ADAPTATION, not a 100% 1:1 copy of the manga.

Sorry, ^Ripper, but all the time moviemakers put their dirty hands on any manga we love, someone puts out that kind of remark trying to easy our despair. We know very well that Hollywood always screw up. I can number a few good comics adaptations to the big screen, however for manga there are zero, simply because they just don't understand how manga or anime works. It is plain in the face that this movie will be a disaster. You may call me radical, extremely purist, hypercritic and such, I am used to it. Here are my words of confort after the movie release: "Let's try to forget this was ever made."