Alita: Battle Angel (new Cameron/Rodriguez SF epic)

this film is so out of touch with the majority of under-40 women today , you are lucky they made the 1st one

 

Can you elaborate?

 

My thoughts...

 

The robot girl warrior taps into several problematic tropes regarding “strong female leads,” including the “born sexy yesterday” cliche, which gives us innocent childlike women who also possess massive power but can’t find their way without a man.

But Alita also taps into the male fantasy of a submissive girl robot devoted to her man. From the moment Alita meets street hustler Hugo (Keean Johnson), she becomes immediately enamored of him. He also happens to be the first male character she meets outside of her adopted father figure, Dr. Ido (Christoph Waltz). Alita’s slavish devotion to Hugo reminded me of one of Futurama’s best episodes: season 3, episode 15, “I Dated a Robot.”

In the episode, Fry falls madly in love with a robot programmed to look like Lucy Liu, much to the horror of the Planet Express crew. Much of the Liu-bot’s appeal comes from her pre-programmed subservience to Fry. She embodies the sci-fi ideal of the female sex robot, designed only to service her master.

We’ve seen this sexbot character many times in sci-fi: from the busty fembots of Austin Powers, to the hosts of Westworld, to the pleasure model replicants of Blade Runner, to the docile Stepford wives. Occasionally, we’ll get a male version, like Jude Law’s Gigolo Joe in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, but these bots are almost always women.

Alita is not a sexbot, but perhaps something even worse. She is a lovebot, a cyborg that is powered by an unshakable and unearned devotion to the first boy she meets. Early on in the film, she opens her chest cavity and literally offers her mechanical heart to Hugo, saying, “I’d do whatever I had to for you. I’d give you whatever I have. I’d give you my heart.”

What Alita offers isn’t sex. In fact, despite her shapely figure she remains innocent and childlike—that is, until she starts going into warrior mode and kicking ass. This tamped down sexuality combined with her fighting skills makes Alita a chaste version of the classic “girls with guns” trope, a superficial read on feminism that equates violence with agency.

And it’s exactly this kind of “female empowerment” that entitled fanboys crave: a hot woman warrior who fights not for herself, but for her man, while remaining utterly devoted to him. No wonder she appeals to internet trolls. For them, she’s a female fantasy come to life.

 

that was from this link How Alita: Battle Angel Found an Unlikely Fanbase in MRA Trolls

 

Thanks for the response, I understand the points being made however I'm not really on board with most of this analysis. From the moment Alita is awakened with no memory of her past her main goal is to discover who she was and what she is, it's understandable that she would latch on to anyone who can help her in this journey whether it's Ido, his assistant Nurse Gerhad or Hugo. Her devotion to them is earned by their actions she doesn't blindly follow. As she starts to quickly learn about Iron City and the world around her it becomes apparent that she's not some "innocent little girl", she has a backbone, and won't stand by "in the presence of evil". From my perspective she's fiercely independent and leads her life the way she sees fit, she fights not only to save those she cares about Ido, Hugo, the dog (symbol of innocence) but also for the greater good of Iron City against Nova/Zalem. One description of her that I read is that she's the Angel of life and the Angel of death.

This might shed a little more light on the origins of Alita (from the Blu-Ray).

 

I see that the studio is scheduled to rerelease Alita: Battle Angle at the end of the month on October 30th.

This gives me an indication that the studio may be considering a sequel if it can bring in a few more dollars?

This movie was really on the fence with its initial release. I think it would have been successful financially, if the production costs were not so high.

I think that they could possibly bring in a sequel for 1/3 less than the original, due to their having perfected the 3D visuals and other performance capture effects.

I would welcome a sequel...

 

Alita has been available on streaming services for several months now, I don't really see the point of a theatrical re-release in the middle of a pandemic. I guess it might generate a few extra $$ but certainly not enough to convince the heads at Disney/20th Century that a sequel is a lock for success. Of course Cameron could shop the property to another studio although unlikely given his relationship(s) with 20th C assuming they haven't been fractured by the Disney acquisition.

New Action figures are being made available indicating continued interest, here's the latest from Prime 1 Studio.

 

Isn't it more likely that the pandemic has meant they can't maximize profit from anything they release, so they're holding off on putting out new things right now?

 

There are all sorts of old movies back in theaters right now, as AMC and the others are desperate for content to fill screens.

I'll be surprised if this "Alita" re-release breaks $1 million, and even that seems high.

It's just out there to get something "new" in multiplexes, IMO, not as a test for a potential sequel...

 

That's exactly what's happened. "Tenet" was the canary in that coalmine, and since it keeled over, studios are being very cautious about what new content they release.

After "Tenet" underperformed, that scared off other expensive releases.

We're still getting new movies, but they're "C-list" titles, many of which just would've gone straight to video without the pandemic...

 

That's all we're seeing in terms of new releases, throwaway junk for the most part with a few exceptions.

 

It's "C-list" stuff from name actors - De Niro, Neeson - or it's indie stuff that wouldn't have made any money even without COVID.

Actually not the worst scenario for both, as they get more attention than they would've under normal times. I'm sure they're still making less money than they would've, but they get noticed more, which is probably good down the line.

There's nothing on the docket with any actual box office potential until the "Croods" sequel around Thanksgiving, and that's not exactly mega-blockbuster material...

 

Reminds me of Ex Machina, without the hero leading lady.

 

Ex Machina was excellent, big fan of that one. Not much similarity between the two movies though, they explore different themes.

 

That is exactly the point with Alita. A new non established franchise movie that is based on a Japanese manga comic book character and makes over 400M in domestic gross, is far from being a failure. This shows that it does have franchise potential.

Think this is the exact reason that they are throwing it out there again. I believe that Alita fans who are hoping for a sequel recognize this also. We will see if it attracts the fans back into the theaters in hope of resurrection of a sequel.

Remember that the original Star Trek TV series was never a success and only managed to hang in there for three seasons.

But those three seasons were enough to assure a successful syndication for the series.

This let to conventions led by the fans and a Major motion picture followed by new TV series and more motion pictures.

Science fiction has always been the dark horse of the movie industry. After the 50's it became greatly depreciated in the movie business.

Even Gene Roddenberry had to pitch his TV series to the networks as a "Wagon Train to the stars".

Science fiction is fan base driven. Their fan power is never to be underestimated.

Yes they are, but...

While it did, I don't think that the majority opinion is with it being a really outstanding movie in the first place. It is more expensive to make than outstanding in content.

I do believe that it had enough hype and a a successful director to have made 600M in different times.

But so have the last two Fantastic Beasts movies in the HP franchise. While I liked and enjoyed them. They failed to come close to the original HP franchise in content quality.

Without a doubt.

Unfortunately, that is also true.

But in 2018 and 2019 there were many excellent, better smaller movies in the theater, than these disposable ones that we are seeing now.

As to the old movies that are being recycled. Look at which ones they have been showing.

They have been all much older movies and all of them had been big hit movies when they were first run, like Jaws and Jurassic Park.

None of them have been recent almost successful movies from a couple of years ago.

They are not trying to bring back The Nutcracker or Mary Poppins returns.

With this in mind, they are bringing back Alita in the middle of a pandemic for a specific reason.

Of course Alita and every other movie that has been out six months or more has been released to video.

The studios are well aware of this and they are not releasing Alita in the hopes of it making a lot more money during the pandemic.

This is basically a risk free experiment. The studios would not be doing this in normal times where screen time is at a premium and they have a lot of first run movies to release.

It is my opinion that they are rereleasing Alita because the possibility of a sequel and subsequent franchise development is on the fence.

Alita was already a developed character in a successful manga series. There were three reasons that it got greenlighted. Cameron owned the rights and has a lot of pull. It was intended to become a franchise. If it wasn't for its franchise potential and Cameron's wanting to develop the performance capture technology further for use in the Avatar sequels, Alita would have never bwen made in the first place.

In the 60's before Planet of the Apes came along, the only successful franchise was James Bond.

Now, as you have commented, Hollywood could not survive without them.

Most of the big Hollywood franchises are over, at least for now. Only Bond, Marvel and Disney are the strong horses in this race. Though there are several action movies that continue to be successful franchises (not that I can fathom why?).

Hollywood has to develop new fresh franchises, there is a limit on how much they can continue with the old stable of franchises before they are milked to death. Though many are continuing to survive...

 

86 million was the gross in the US , so please stop

In the era of "Me Too" , there is no way , one of the Female higher ups at the studio...shoots down any plans for sequel , in a minute

 

My bad. Correction... The worldwide gross is over 400M.

Only time will tell if there us going to be a sequel...

What does the "Me Too" movement have to do with shooting down a sequel to a movie that features a female superhero type character???

 

Read the NY Times review, the backlash started there....every women that works at Disney (in the division that decides what films get produced) hates it (actually so do most of the men) ...a very "woke" group of people , over there

 

Guess I’m old .. Metoo, woke ... whatever.

 

Nonsense, if the movie grossed $2 billion at the box office a sequel would've been green lit after the first weekend. Disney is about making $$$$ if a few "woke" individuals working there lack the intellectual capacity to even attempt to understand the character and back story, then whatever I guess they're against female empowerment.

Rotten Tomatoes fan rating: 92%
IMDB: 7.3/10

 

Technically speaking true about ST but it would have been renewed if they measured the treasured demographic that This film is aimed at. Which they now realize the value of.

 

But it didn't , we are talking about a movie, that at best broke even. The movie's small fanbase , has a horrbile , horrible reputation within the industry. No major film company will get near this.

 

Any evidence to support your claim or is this just wishful thinking on your part since you hate the movie so much?

 

The alt-right ethos souring the cult of Alita: Battle Angel