Hello to all of my beautiful nerds and welcome back from traveling the vast universe. I am back and with a movie review.

Alita: Battle Angel

This past weekend Gondras and I caught the new

This movie takes place in the twenty-sixth century where a floating city named Zolem survives something known as the Fall. We are in Iron City where the story is told and we meet Dr. Ida where he finds the torso and the head of a cyborg girl in the trash heaps and finds out her brain is still in tact. After bringing her back to life and naming her Alita, Alita must remember who she was and know what she has to become and able to help her new father and her new love interest, Hugo, in order to survive in Zolem and fight any other cyborg. Aalita movie and it was due to Movie Bob reviewing it. I know Ghost In the Shell was not a success at the box office and some people were skeptical about this one and well I was all in for it because Heroine Worship by. Sarah Kune mentioned this title since the main character, Aveta loved reading this title when she was younger and compared herself to her. When I heard that this was going to be movie I was happy. I am going to do this review a little differently since I am an anime fan and have been one since nine years old, I am doing this from someone who has not seen nor read the riginal source material since I went in with an open mind. First I must do this!

Disclaimer: This review is based on thoughts and observations of the lead writer of this blog. Please respect her thoughts because they aren’t the same as everyone else’s.

This movie is set in the twentieth-sixth century where floating cities exist, well a floating city by the name of Zolem survived an event known as the Fall. People of Iron City dream of living there but the only way of getting there is becoming the True Champion. One thing that falls to Iron City is old trash and one day Dr. Ida stumbles upon a head and a torso of a girl with her brain intact. He takes her back and replaces her cyborg parts to revive her and she has no memory of who she was nor what she was and where she was during the Fall either.

After meeting Hugo, she starts knowing about girls being tragetted and killed on the streets and other many things like a sport that she starts competing in and other cyborgs trying to hurt her and Dr. Ida who has been a Warrior Hunter underneath and as she starts fighting for him and Hugo she starts learning about old memories of who and what she was, a warrior herself.

Thoughts: This movie was very good and despite its issues and somewhat of a mess it was cared for even with the source material. This movie was adapted from the manga and anime along with OVAs on top of it and like most movies being adapted from a cartoon or anime series crunching a lot of episodes into a two hours plus film can be an issue but this was done very well.

We have to thank James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez for doing a great job on this and having excellent teamwork on this. Cameron is known for Aavatar and Titanic while Rodriguez is known for Spy Kids, Machete, and Shark Boy & Lava Girl except this movie is beyond the scope of those movies Rodriguez has done. I have to say it was a great thing that the wait to do this movie was well worth it because if we had gotten it earlier it would have been a complete mess and not do well at the box office and we would not get any sequels. I think Rodriguez coming in was the better choice because he and Cameron did handle this with care and gave us something new and different and gave us something whole rather than a half assed mess. I wish these two would adapt the Evangelion as a movie or even the Rebuild movies into live-action or other anime films and series because they not only shown what happens in a post apocalyptic world to life with beautiful CGI but also characters that you can relate to.

Speaking f characters, the cyborgs were really well designed and loved how Gondras described some of them along with the audio description,, which did work for me this time, even Alita herself was well designed. People cracked on her for the eyes but when you look at a cyborg she is supposed to be a little doll-like and you see it with the other cyborgs taking on doll-like apperaances, even Zzapan wheere he always cared about his face for example. Then of course the weapons they use like the one cyborg who had mantis arms as her weapons. These designs are just amazing. Another bit is the CGI having a real quality to it. I think they had the motion cap actors take on that real look like an actual person walking next to each other. One example is the scene with Hugo and Alita together after her upgrade where he gives her a touch along her arm and she feels it and she feels it. I don’t know what kind of tech they are using but they need to pass it onto other fil studios because CGI in other works need some work. Or at least an overhaul. Not only that with the CGI, the fight chorography that was used in this film was amazing and felt like the audio description couldn’t keep up. You can tell that time was put into this film and was well taken care of over the years because this movie is an action flick so we need great fight scenes. I did say it take on the original material very well.

Cons: I did talk about the pros and now for the cons. We did notice that some people had issues with the ending taking too long than it should be. Yes, there should be some great stopping points but this is a film that brings people into the world and introduces the characters and the villain like most films do. I have a feeling with how it ended that a sequel will be done with how much was put into it and did hear the manga is pretty long but I think they did a good job with what they put into it and did not do what Shamalan did. If you remembered Last Airbender and how bad that was a storytelling mess without personality you can see this movie was far from that.

Some people did have issues with the whole telling the story through action and having exposition being explained. Got to remember that this is being adapted from a manga series and anime and anime does a lot of that. For instance, using one of my favorite titles, Elfen Lied with explaining what Lucy was in the first episode. As in using just using the creepy atmosphere of coming at you and the other characters as she escapes and taking out people to show her power says “Oh crap! She is a threat! Run!” With Alita, in one scene when she remembers her first piece of her past she starts fighting when the situation got rough. This spells out, “Oh crap! She fights too?” I would say if you are not into anime, go into this movie with an open mind and remember that this story is told with action and points explained that are imperative to the sotry.

And now Hugo! People had issues with him as a character because how he shows up out of nowhere as the love interest. Sometimes this does happen in a lot of movies, even anime sometimes shows some random person being the random love interest. Look at Titanic with Jack showing up and that romance between him and Rose starting. I did love it how Hugo introduced Alita to chocolate because she was acting like a girl at that moment and even more around him as the film went on until the climax. This does show how a cyborg can act human besides the robot parts and it gave Alita a nice piece of innocence. I do agree with Bob that this does fit in the idea of being meant for teenage girls being in the audience even if they haven’t gotten into the anime in the first place. Heck, you see that rebellious side to Alita throughout the film even when she wanted to go against Ida in order to protect him. I did love how she acted towards the guys on the Motor Ball court and I do like that nice futuristic spin on basketball.

Rating: 4.5 Star Paw Prints Out of 5! It was hard to see about giving a four or five but I met in between. This was a film to enjoy because of not only its visuals but the storytelling as well. I am glad that Cameron and Rodriguez partenred up for this project and came up with a great finished film. I am hoping this film does well at the box offices because it does a bit of sequel bait to work with and I want to see more of this movie series. If this film does become succssful that would bring more anime films to live-action. I was hoping Voltron being one of them and if that happened I think it would be interesting taking on Legendary Defender. Not only that bring that long-awaited Evangelion film since that was thrown out years ago. I think some of the studios that done the adaptations should take notes because of how well done it was put together despite the ending being clunky but of course how the characters interacted with each other. As in, Alita acting more human and how she interacted with the cyborgs, Ida, and Hugo even her hatred towards Vector. I am also thinking that Cameron and Rodriguez should keep working on more projects due to how well they cared for source material and used a big budget to create something golden. That is why I am giving this movie the Star Paw Print of Approval with how well it was made, how they used their tech to create the CGI, and so much more. Hey, can we get an Alita world next? I am just saying!

Well, that is it for this review! Man, it felt good to get back to writing movie reviews! Next will be my Omni Fandom Expo Spotlight! Stay tuned guys!