"Alita: Battle Angel" Cyberpunk, fighting heroine. Born from Cameron's affinity with "Gunm" *Note! Contains spoilers.

Respect for the original and Cameron's stamp

After `` Avatar '' became the highest-grossing movie of all time, Robert Rodriguez had the opportunity to speak with Cameron. Although the two had not previously collaborated directly, Rodriguez directed `` Spy Kids 3-D: The Game Over '' (2003) and `` Shark Boy & Magma Girl 3-D '' (2005), while Cameron worked on development. There was a connection that they used the 3D photography system that they were involved with.

After hearing from Cameron that he would spend the rest of his career making sequels to Avatar, Rodriguez asked, ``What's going to happen with Battle Angel?'' Rodriguez was also a fan of `` Gunm '' and was interested in making it into a movie. Cameron had already written the first draft of the script, but it was too long to fit into one movie. Rodriguez, who was entrusted with the script, succeeded in streamlining the film by skillfully organizing the components while respecting and retaining the essence that Cameron had captured from the original work. Fortunately, I was entrusted with the role of director. (*From an interview article in “Empire”)

Although Cameron was involved in producing and co-writing the screenplay, Alita: Battle Angel is a film that pays homage to the original work in terms of story and visuals, while still bearing the Cameron stamp.

“Alita: Battle Angel” trailer

At the beginning, the floating city of Zalem, where the ruling class lives, is shown on an overwhelming scale with meticulously drawn details. Alita (Rosa Salazar) is discovered by cyber doctor Ido (Christoph Waltz) from a pile of scraps in Iron City, a scrap metal town that spreads out below, with only her head and part of her torso remaining. Only his brain was miraculously alive. Alita, who was given a mechanical body by Ido, has lost her memories, but she eventually turns out to be the most powerful cyborg weapon, able to use the 300-year-old martial art known as "Kakujutsu." Targeted by the forces that control the town, Alita is forced to fight against powerful enemies released one after another.

The basic plot of the movie is a reconstruction of most of the elements from the first half of the manga, with some chronological changes. The settings for each character also largely follow the original, but the three characters, Alita, Ido, and Hugo (Keian Johnson), who has a crush on Alita, have been changed to be older than in the original. By doing so, it became possible to depict the love affair between Alita and Hugo in a more concrete manner, which remained a pale emotion in the original work.

Even in action movies where fight scenes are the highlight, the scriptwriting technique that increases the audience's sympathy by depicting romantic elements between the main characters has been practiced in `` The Terminator '', ` `True Lies '', and `` Avatar '', and can be said to be Cameron's best. good. Also, the reason why Ido was made older was to make it seem like he had lost his daughter before, and to emphasize Ido's fatherhood and his quasi-parent-child relationship with Alita. This is said to be influenced by the fact that Cameron had a 13-year-old daughter at the time of writing.

“Alita: Battle Angel” (C) 2018 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

The object of respect is not limited to manga. Chiren, an original OVA character who is a female doctor who has feelings for Ido, was incorporated into the story as Ido's ex-wife (Jennifer Connelly) in the movie. Furthermore, in the 3DCG movie created for the supplementary DVD of the complete volume 6 of the comic, there is a shot of Gally cutting a falling water drop in two with a Damascus blade, but this is also almost faithful to the movie. It is being reproduced.

On the other hand, there are some arrangements that are reminiscent of Cameron's past works. The robot ``Deckman'' who responds to the factory, which serves as a production facility and a security agency, has a comical face in the style of a gag manga in the original work, but the Deckman in the movie is reminiscent of the skeleton face of the T-800 in ``The Terminator'' whose biological tissue has been lost. let Also, in the scene where the humanoid weapon "Berserker Body" is found from a crashed spaceship (in the original story, it is recalled that Ido discovered it), a shot of Alita walking on the bottom of the water and heading towards the spaceship is added. , this is probably a reflection of Cameron's taste in underwater photography for `` The Abyss '' and the documentary ` `James Cameron's Titanic Secrets '' (2003). Furthermore, there is an emotional scene near the end that will probably remind everyone of the tear-jerking scene from Titanic .

Three cameo actors are key to sequel idea