Battle Angel Alita movie
polycount lvl 666
Been waiting for this movie for quite a few years now, was starting to think it would never come out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj8mN_7Apcw
Not really a fan of what they've shown so far. The original was very blade-runner'esk, but with the city being more like a junk yard. This really doesn't come across as dilapidated enough. And why are there skyscrappers in the movie when they were expressly forbidden in the original? And what's with the owner of the Grind Cutters redesign (can't even tell if it's Kinuba or Makaku)?
The eyes being huge makes sense given she is supposed to be doll-like, but I think that'll be the first thing to really throw most people off. I definitely thin she still needs some work to look less creepy next to the live action cast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj8mN_7ApcwNot really a fan of what they've shown so far. The original was very blade-runner'esk, but with the city being more like a junk yard. This really doesn't come across as dilapidated enough. And why are there skyscrappers in the movie when they were expressly forbidden in the original? And what's with the owner of the Grind Cutters redesign (can't even tell if it's Kinuba or Makaku)?
The eyes being huge makes sense given she is supposed to be doll-like, but I think that'll be the first thing to really throw most people off. I definitely thin she still needs some work to look less creepy next to the live action cast.
Replies
Much like the choice to have Motoko run around naked everywhere in the Ghost in the Shell movie....
The one thing that really makes my blood boil is the fact that this looks like a sanitized, child friendly Disney-version of Alita which is absolutely disgusting.
The manga is grim dark, rotten, ultra violent, depressing and totally not child friendly. Children are getting slaughtered, people ripped apart, skulls smashed into gory pulp on a regular basis. This world is one of the most depressing dystopias I've ever seen and if the Hollywood movie tries to clean that up, it will fail horribly in my eyes.
Hopefully i am wrong and it gets an hard R-rating, but i don't have any hope left in me in. Not after Ghost in the Shell which was also absolutely disgusting for similar reasons (not sticking with the canon and dumbing it down).
which movie was that? surely not the live action one from earlier this year?
Saying the eyes are fine because she's a robot isn't quite true afaik. Her head and chest are found intact and she's made into a cyborg. However the face might have been reconstructed for some other reason or this movie story might be different.
Why don't the other cyborgs/robots have similar anime features?
I know its difficult to translate the manga style into a full 3d character. I don't think its ever been done convincingly at least in an animated way. Seen plenty of still models that look great but when its animated it never works. A lot of films barely scrape by with CG realistic characters never mind anime style, so it was never going to look good.
Artist Steven Stalhberg did a paintover to correct a few things anyway.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1352682454858706&set=a.102938643166433.2555.100003508925689&type=3&theater
Gif comparrison
https://www.facebook.com/tetsuoo/videos/10212384882231945/
It does look dreadful though and its like its trying to make the uncanny valley even deeper. Its a terrible design choice and I honestly cant understand why they chose that route.
That said... The rest of the stuff looks awesome and I'll try not to let the eyes thing bother me too much....but it will.
He could have done it.
But instead we most probably will get an sanitized PG-13 version of it.
I do have some respect for Rodriguez, but i am not sure if he can pull it off.
On the bright side, recent CGI/Hollywood adaptations don't affect the source material in the slightest - the original still remains good regardless of what happens to the IP later.
But now i doubt they shot with real stereoscopic cameras, the design is off and the whole thing is too clean and nice.
So if they fuck up that adaption there won't be another. Same with Ghost in the Shell, that IP is burned.
Akira will be next or Cowboy Bebop i am pretty sure, and if they fucked that up too, Hollywood is basically done with every one of my favorite anime/manga IP's.
It won't have any effect on my enjoyment of the originals, but these fuck-ups will take the place of a potential good adaption and there will be no second chance.
If that is going to happen i think i have to declare war on Hollywood. Not that i am in friendly terms with it but i guess i have to escalate.
Now that said ... the recent Appleseed CG movies were okay-ish but not great, and a live action version would definitely look awful. But if you squint a bit it's kindof already out there - at least in spirit !
I guess what I am getting at is that I am personally happy to enjoy stuff that is inspired by the classics, rather than hoping for literal adaptations that will most likely not do them justice.
In short ... Chronicle was a great Akira and that's good enough for me
It would be OK if there where NO adaption because something which does not exist cannot be bad. I follow the principle of: if you want to do something, better do it right or don't do it at all. I am a perfectionist and i demand it from others. I know, i know. But i consider all of these originals we where speaking of earlier as perfect.
(No perfection truly exists, there are minor flaws, but IMHO they are as close as possible to perfection)
If these original exists, then a perfect adaption is possible. But Hollywood isn't even trying. What it is trying to do is to make a lot of money and that is exactly the problem. I hate the current studio system because it allows non-artist (producers) to make artistic decisions, which is purely wrong.
They should just give the money, shut the fuck up and let the artist do the work*. All these mega franchises who are popular today are the work of artists who went out and took a risk and it payed off. Success does not come from exploiting an established formula it comes from the risk of trying new things.
The risk of anime/manga adaptions would be to stick to their spirit and don't press them into a formula, because from an western perspective these are from a different mentality and it is that mentality which is attractive to a lot of westerners. By streamlining them into a western mentality they loose exactly what makes them attractive in the first place.
I have no idea how much of this applies to Alita and Robert Rodriguez, i do have the opinion that he and Cameron are actual fans but we will see.
I just realized that i am still not over my hatred for the Ghost in the Shell adaption so i guess most of what i wrote was addressed at this movie and Rupert Sanders and whoever produced that POS.
*applies to the gaming industry as well. EA and Activision and Ubisoft should just give the money an shut up already about micro-transactions an lootboxes and other mechanisms of greed. Let the artist do their thing and the end result will be good and the customers will come.
I'm really on the fence with the design choice for Alita. To me, it comes off as too creepy, but I don't know how I'd change it personally, not that it's my place to. The action looks dope though. I've seen lots of other comments around the net about the bright environment and I really don't get it. I love the dark, gritty, neon encrusted dark of a typical cyberpunk as much as anyone else, but why can't it be bright and sunny, or at least some of the time? I rewatched Tank Girl a while back, that's a good example of a bright setting that uses lots of darks, and stays gritty the whole time.
@pior is that appleseed pic a photobash or from a photoshoot?
gotta toss this in now that you got me thinking about tetsuo.
And I agree that it's not our place to "backseat art direct" the bright future/big eyes thing especially considering how easy it is to do as a quick photoshop paintover. I am actually a bit disappointed that Sahlberg did that honestly, it's a bit cheap imho.
(Now of course I am a bit hypocritical to say that since I did something similar myself with a SFV mod/remodel because I didn't like the way Ken's face looked. But at least remodelling the thing from scratch and putting it in game takes more effort than a mere 5 mins paintover posted on FB. That said, I am still really torn as to whether or not I should have done it in the first place, because it is obvious that the guy who modelled the original is an excellent artist who probably received self-contradicting/nonsensical art direction. It's already an annoying position to be in, so having people from the outside redo it isn't the best feeling. But I guess this comes with the territory of being a commercial artist, and that probably applies to whoever worked on Alita here too.)
About that Appleseed mockup : Yeah, it's a screenshot of Dredd with Brie's head slapped onto it, and a visual treatment to make it look like something Niel Blomkamp/Chris Cunningham would do
Chronicle is fantastic, I hope you'll like it !
Oh and, totally agreed about gritty cyberpunk being compatible with bright scenery - The Aria (aka Zeiram) movies did that well. The Hakaider movie is pretty cool too, and shares a few themes with Gunm (The "bad guy(s)" living in a white and pristine place, and so on).
From watching the trailers I thought the size of the eyes would bother me but 10 min in you are so connected to Alita that you are just along for the ride.
Also great pacing on the action sequences. I'm not quite sure how to put the differences in editing or what compared to Marvel movies for example, but the action sequences in Alita were outstanding and memorable.
https://www.artofvfx.com/alita-battle-angel-eric-saindon-vfx-supervisor-mike-cozens-animation-supervisor-weta-digital/
Maybe one day Alita will get a new film done by someone that actually respects the source.
"The end result was 8.5 million polygons per eye compared to Gollum who had 50,000 polygons total for his entire character."
Seriously, the stuff looks impressive, though I have no clue what they are using that huge amount of polygons for, but fortunately they know.
Wouldn't have expected Gollum to be so low-poly, is that before subdivision or just one of many models?!
Its the mesh thats get send to the renderer + displacement on top.
im sure we get a breakdown video like this one.
Back to the tech side, is this previs for Alita running on Unreal?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQnrHwmpJ04
Cameron basically says they didn't want to do a coming of age film with R-rated levels of violence. The problem is that level of violence was a large part of what made Alita/Gallys 'coming of age' story so incredible. The world she was a part of was so twisted and insane that the fact she was able to persevere and stay sane despite it all showed her strength and will. Toning down the world she lives in also directly weakens her as a character as a result.
My thoughts, such a waste of good content, writing was terrible, and they just rushed the story to get the milestones in. The Asian style of story telling in Manga/dramas whatever builds on big reveals, and Gunm did that as well, what keeps you in the story is that you are waiting for other people in the story to react to big secrets and reveals, in this movie all of a sudden they just start having casual conversations about the most important reveals in the series making the world and Alita feel small and unimportant.
The actual graphical content had potential, but they went the safe way with pg-13, missing the whole theme of the manga, the darkness and gory side of gunm is what made it gunm, and forcing a weird love story into it just made it worse, if you had time for that shit you could have tried pacing the main story better.
Overall a good movie to see in the cinema, maybe a 5/10, nothing like the manga, if they had stayed on course it could have been a 10/10, such a waste, I think they had no idea what they were creating, and had Cameron ever read the manga or understood what made the original story great he would never have let this one be sent for release but I guess they were pressured as well.