Post Details

I love Battle Angel Alita. It’s my favorite manga of all time (granted I’m not really a manga afficionado). The story is soulful, the central characters are very interesting and cool, and the setting is just amazing. It has been in the news recently as James Cameron, the man behind some of the great sci-fi films of our generation, has set into motion a film adaptation of the manga series. If you’ve read my review of the Battle Angel OVA, you’d understand why this may be cause for concern. The OVA didn’t give enough context to its story elements, and it replaced the manga’s internalized, contemplative narration with... well, nothing. Now, I’m cautiously optimistic about a live action* adaptation, because come on. This is James Fucking Cameron. This man eats money and shits records and money. He made Aliens and Terminator 2, two of the best sci-fi action movies ever made (and sequels that have been argued to surpass the originals). As far as effects-oriented directors go, you could do worse. It could have been a Paul W.S. Anderson flick.

*I say live action but it will most probably be Avatar-style CGI with digitized versions of real performances.

So with James Cameron’s Alita, you can at the very least expect some awesome visual effects. But here’s my wish list of things I want to see:

The Scrapyard, in detail

The Scrapyard should be a seething city full of corruption, violence, and vice. It should be a character, like the respective cities of Watchmen and Sin City. A theme in the first volume involves Alita’s innocence, and how that can be preserved in a world as ugly as that of the Scrapyard. This is embodied in the battle against Makaku, who represents everything that’s wrong with the Scrapyard. In order for this central battle to have impact, we have to be able to feel the corrupting influence of the city. It needs to be more than just a collection of foreboding buildings; it needs to teem with activity. Each shot of the streets should show a destitute bum in the background, or a robber, or a prostitute, or any number of the tiny details that Kishiro drew into each panel of the manga. The imagery was infused with little bits and pieces of stories that you’re never told. That’s what gives the setting so much character.

Panzer Kunst

This is an obvious one, but I just wanted to say, Alita should not use just any generic martial art in the movie. Panzer Kunst in the first volume was basically an unknown; Kishiro just drew a bunch of stuff that he thought looked cool. Later volumes give Panzer Kunst more definition. It’s an art based around evasion and parrying, where the Kunstler (artist) waits for the correct moment to deliver a large amount of force. It should look a little like Jeet Kune Do, but with some movements taken from Tai Chi Chuan or Baguazhang. A lot of Panzer Kunst’s principles are influenced by Tai Chi, and this should show.

The order of things

The Scrapyard is just a gear in a larger machine. The first volume did an excellent job foreshadowing what that machine was and what it did. It set up just the right amount of intrigue, giving you glimpses at the world but not fully explaining it until later. There are a few key points I’d like to see in the movie. First is the interplanetary war. Only a brief mention of it was given in the manga, where Ido explains how he found Alita’s replacement body. It’s a small thing, but it has deep connections to everything that happens in the series and Last Order. Second, I’d like to see the various ways Tiphares affects the surface. I’d like to see how it rules through Deckmen and Netmen, how it exploits the factory system, and how hunter-warriors act as the city’s de facto police. Finally, I want to see Tiphares itself. It should be more than just something to make the background look interesting. We need to get a sense of what it is, its mysteriousness, and its oppressive effect on the Scrapyard. Ido, being a Tipharean exile, could be our window into that world.

Motorball

Producers have said they are looking to put Motorball into the movie. If so, that’s awesome. If you’ve ever seen either version of Rollerball, imagine that, except mixed with The Running Man. I mean, how could that possibly suck? It can’t. Motorball becomes a dominant story element of the third and fourth volumes, so maybe they should save some of it for future movies. But I would certainly love to see a little bit of Motorball action.

Willem Dafoe as Desty Nova

Desty Nova gets the briefest of cameos in the first volume of the manga, that’s fine. Even a little Willem Dafoe is better than no Willem Dafoe. He was born to play this role.

Tags: Battle Angel Alita, Gunnm