By JASON GUYER
iRATE
One of the biggest and most likely one of the hardest feats in writing and filmmaking is world building, creating an entirely new world for characters can be a long and exhaustive process. J.R.R Tolkien created one. George Lucas also created one. One of the writers of “Alita: Battle Angel,” James Cameron, created one in one his greatest accomplishments with “Avatar.”
Directed by Robert Rodriguez, in “Alita: Battle Angel” Cameron and Rodriguez shoot for the same accomplishments as “Avatar.”
“Alita: Battle Angel” is set several centuries in the future. Ido (Christoph Waltz), a cybernetic doctor, finds the abandoned Alita (Rosa Salazar) in the scrapyard of Iron City. Alita is a deactivated female cyborg.
When Ido fixes Alita and she awakens, she has no memory of who she is and has no recognition of the world around her. Alita, with Ido’s tutelage, learns to navigate her new life and the world around her.
Iron City, a city quite literally meant to keep people down has many dangers especially for Alita. As Ido tries to shield her from her mysterious past but as her battle skills come to light from the dangers of the city and her love of the sport Motorball.
Alita’s world, the world Cameron and Rodriguez have built in “Alita: Battle Angel” is a grand one. The world the story is set in is one of the best parts of the film. However, the world has a cold, fake, and emotionless feel to it but not quite as fake as the ripoff of the sport of Motorball in the film.
Motorball feels like an up-the-ante version of Rollerball from the film “Rollerball.” The more violent version played by cyborgs and robots. The world created in “Alita: Battle Angel” feels like a digitized “Elysium” with a better female lead.
Every idea or created part of the world built in “Alita: Battle Angel” feels like it is some spin on another film or idea. This is not always a terrible thing in films as sometimes ideas can be made better by better creators. Even in “Alita: Battle Angel” it is not a terrible thing and maybe the ripping off happened the other way around as the film itself is based on the 1990’s manga series “Gunnm.”
The world created by Cameron and Rodriguez is one of the best parts of the film and one that gives the film a grand scale and grand feel to it. The worst part of “Alita: Battle Angel” is that Cameron and Rodriguez should have spent as much time writing a better story as they did building a better world. The weakness of “Alita: Battle Angel” is the film’s story.
It is said the film took 20 years to make. Well, more should have been spent writing. The story of “Alita: Battle Angel” is overly simplistic, full of terrible dialogue, and often emotionless for all the characters except Alita. Bad dialogue is hands down one of the worst filmmaking mistakes and one I can never look past. If dialogue doesn’t flow evenly and have a smooth feel to it the film is always bad, especially in a film like “Alita: Battle Angel,” where your trying to humanize cyborg or cybernetic characters. The only way to do that is through dialogue.
The one character where you can fall short sometimes in that is the main character. The main character has so much screen time that you can get away with it sometimes. Every other character though, how you get them to be likeable or unlikable, how you show intent, or the characters place in the created world is through dialogue.
The only character who shows emotion and feels even slightly humanized is Alita. I am certain it is because of the large eyes her CGI character has. The large eyes have been a controversy for “Alita: Battle Angel.” Some like them and some find them off putting. I started as the latter but by the end of the film I became former.
The little emotion the film has comes from Alita. The majority of which can be seen in the eyes and it is a good thing it is. The bad writing hindered the character but the CGI made up for it. The single greatest accomplishment of “Alita: Battle Angel” is that humanized glint of the eye. The wonder and life that often can be seen only through the human eye, the thing some would even call the soul is in the eyes. Alita, a CGI character, is brought to life by her eyes. There is humanity in them. For me, that is an amazing accomplishment in film. It should open so many doors for the future of filmmaking. We can see life in humans eyes. “Alita: Battle Angel” digitized that glint of life in the human eyes, humanizing a CGI cyborg character, yet couldn’t in dialogue humanize the actual humans of the film.
The one hope I have is that “Alita: Battle Angel” is going to be the first of probably many “Alita: Battle Angel” films and hopefully the rest can be rectified. Sometimes stories are hindered because we can’t or haven’t seen the whole of it. Although it may seem as though we would need Alita’s large eyes to be able to see it from this or any future films, maybe, just maybe “Alita: Battle Angel” can see itself and adjust to get better. Now that would truly humanize the film, as there is nothing more human than fighting over or past our faults to become better.
Alita can fight through that, but can the writer and director?
IRATE SCORE: 2.5/5
Jason Guyer is an avid moviegoer and works in the graphics department at the Eagle Times. For questions or comments he can be emailed at [email protected]
As your daily newspaper, we are committed to providing you with important local news coverage for Sullivan County and the surrounding areas.