Yesterday I was thinking that it’s been awhile since I watched Alita: Battle Angel. I’m pretty sure I wrote a review back when I first watched it in the theater. If not, then what’s seven years late?
If you haven’t watched it yet…what the hell?! Seriously, it’s been like seven years!!! First off, the entire film is extraordinarily beautiful. The design of everything is not just true to the art of Yukito Kishiro’s original art style but manga and anime as a whole. Much of the anime I’ve watched has been late eighties throughout nineties and this whole film looks like the truest love letter to that era of Japanese art. For that alone I love this film. There are so many scenes throughout where you can tell they’re panels straight out of the manga. And then watching the bonus features James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez spoke specifically how they worked to honor the original work and recreating such iconic panels in live action. They even invited Yukito Kishiro to visit the set and preview some of their work. He gave his blessing for the project and even found himself on the verge of tears seeing his work translated into live action and done so by someone whose work he had enjoyed himself, particularly being a fan of Terminator for so many years. It was really nice watching these interviews.
I want to speak a moment on Rosa Salazar in this film. Her performance is astounding! To start, when Yukito Kishiro met her the first thing he said was that she looks exactly like Gally and she started to tear up a bit. She was already a huge fan. Much of this film, in particular Rosa’s work was Performance Capture. For anyone not familiar, that’s the step beyond Motion Capture. With this technology they record facial movement with the body movement. They modeled Anita’s face on Rosa’s and every moment Alita is on screen that is precisely Rosa Salazar’s performance. Yeah, there’s more than a few moments I teared up, shut your face! It’s a compelling story to which I relate. Again, she is an extraordinary performer!
Now, I’ve never watched any of the Avatar movies. Blue people not Last Airbender. I’ve never had any interest but I’ve always appreciated the technological advancements made through the production that first Avatar movie. Watching the bonus features for Alita: Battle Angel I learned just how important that first Avatar movie really is. Turns out that if Avatar didn’t play out well we’d have never gotten Alita. At one point James Cameron had to make a choice, finish writing Alita or move forward with Avatar. He chose to stick with Avatar but then fortunately, he had a conversation with Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez was a fan of Alita and most impatiently waiting for Cameron to make it. Asking him about it Cameron started to think about Rodriguez picking up the baton with Alita. Lucky for us Rodriguez accepted and now we have this great film!
One thing to always keep in mind, things always turn out the best when the people involved truly appreciate and love the work. I can’t think of anything done that was done well when everyone involved hated what they were doing.
