As a "pseudo- manga fan " who bought the "Gun Dream" manga many years ago but couldn't read it, now there is not much mental "burden" when watching the movie "Alita: Battle Angel "; in comparison , I have the impression that James Cameron's thoughts on adapting "Gun Dream" are almost as long as his memory of comics. He has been thinking about it for nearly 20 years, starting from 200 × until its release in 2019.
Superb original cyberpunk + fairy-level movie technology giant, we have no reason not to look forward to such a movie.
After watching the film, I feel as much excitement and regret in my heart: the exciting point is that while the special effects technology of the film represents the highest level in the world, it is still exploring a higher, stronger and more realistic realm. In terms of shaping the worldview, everything has been done with great detail and perfection; the regret is that in the face of the huge and complicated adaptation of the original work, the plot of the film is barely self-explanatory, but it cannot be "universal" enough.
Alita: Battle Angel isn't bad, but it could have been better.
[Friendly reminder: There will be spoilers below. 】
Regardless of whether the audience understands the content of the original comics (I believe that more than 90% of people who go to the movies will not have the original complex) , the story of "Alita" is not pleasing to the eye.
For die-hard fans who like "Gun Dream", the film does not have that darker texture. For ordinary audiences who are not familiar with anime, the whole film lacks "reasonable" internal motivation and persuasion, and the clues are complicated. But after tasting it, it looks very "unexpensive".
"Alita" tells the story of a girl growing up, and it can happen to everyone.
In the limited time of the film, the two lines of "father-daughter love" between Alita and Dr. Ide, and Alita's own "awakening" are quite heavy: The "Fire Alliance" soldier, a soldier with stunts but a blank mind, secondly, Alita is a child recreated and raised by the lost daughter's father. The interaction of these two identities is destined for her to form another. personality, become a new self.
It should be said that there is no problem with the story logic of "Alita" . From Alita's suspicion of Ide's "identity in the dark night", he draws out his own neural memory, and then conflicts with Ide in pursuit of memory fragments, and then opens the "reward" The Golden Hunter chapter...
The problem is that this kind of advancement is too fast, too casual, and lacks solid emotional or setting support, which can easily lead to a top-heavy "vagueness".
For example, after Alita registered as a bounty hunter, the first thing she did was go to the bar to find other peers to fight - anyone with a discerning eye could see that Alita just wanted to find fault, although she "desired to recall her memory through battle" ” and “simple character” are completely tenable, but this kind of thinking is one thing, and the plot that Gruishka really appears after will make audiences who are accustomed to traditional narratives feel very weird. .
And the emotional line between Alita and Hugo is even more confusing ... In terms of length and results, the importance of this main line is no less than the previous two, but the characters' positions, motivations and contradictions are all It's not clear enough, it's hard to get into the play...
At the same time, the "golden supporting roles" of "Alita" did not play their due role . Christopher Waltz (Ed), Mahershala Ali (Victor), Jennifer Connelly (Eileen), and, finally, Edward Norton (Nova), the lineup looks luxurious , but in addition to serving the plot, there is not much room for showing acting skills.
The only thing that left a deep impression on him was Victor, who seduced and hung countless greedy or simple people for his own use with the ethereal hope of "I can send you to Salem". The constant switching between the identities of the characters is considered a more "three-dimensional" existence in the movies where the characters are generally flat (PS: The third season of "True Detective" is coming to an end, and Ali's acting skills are really "rich").
The director of "Alita" is Robert Rodriguez , who took over Cameron's nearly 200-page script and 600-page notes, and directed the film with the full involvement of Cameron's studio. Mellon is the writer and producer. Personally, I think that the film is technically Cameron's, but Rodriguez's style is more of a style. Both of them are actually great, but this production model of "two directors" blurs the formation of the film. Maybe it would be better for Kashen to direct himself ...
Having said that, "Alita" still retains its due style in the core part.
For me, the most romantic part of the whole film is that Alita directly took out her heart and gave it to Hugo to let him fulfill his dream - this kind of devotion that is so pure and unvarnished, at first glance. It looks silly and naive, but doesn't this fit Alita's character of "a little red on a white piece of paper"?
Compared with the unsatisfactory plot performance, the pictures, special effects and action scenes of "Alita" can be completely described as "amazing".
Before watching the film, I was, like many, worried that Alita's non-humanoid "big eyes" would look out of place and weird...and that worry proved unnecessary. The crew did not preset the image of Alita in advance, but waited until it was determined that Rosa Salazar would play Alita before starting the character design, making full use of Rosa's appearance to give this character the appearance characteristics, and practically. Effectively avoids the "uncanny valley theory".
From Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings" series, to Netini in "Avatar", to Caesar in the "Rise of the Planets" series, the direction of motion performance capture technology has always been on the anthropomorphism of "non-human" characters—— For the first time, "Alita" aimed the motion capture technology object at "human- like " characters , which seemed to be just fine-tuning, but the technical workload and difficulty were more than three times that of the past.
In this case, why not use a real person to star in, or use pure CG to make Alita? Why does it have to be so laborious? To paraphrase a line in the spirit of The Big Bang Theory, it's "because we can."
Live-action performance, dynamic point capture, 3D model, texture rendering... In order to create a world where real people and cyborg prosthetics coexist, the crew chose the most difficult and best way to deal with it: Alita's realistic existence is no different from real people. The most perfect proof that this visual effect revolution can be called "amazing".
The visual achievements of "Alita" are not only difficult in the image of the characters , but also in the details of the characters . The muscle folds and expression changes of Alita's first time eating an orange and kissing for the first time made me scolded secretly " abnormal".
Compared with the macro scenes , the micro details are the difficulty to truly test the level of technical ability . "Alita" takes the trouble to show the top level of the current Hollywood film industry with almost "dazzling" scenes.
What is even more surprising is the action scenes of the film - in all fairness, after "Avatar" started the "new 3D" trend, how many 3D movies can completely outperform the 2D version of the same source? After watching the online promotional video, I think "Alita" not only achieved 3D victory over 2D, but also crushed , especially the two action scenes of "Pub & Basement Fight" and "Motorball Contest", moving at high speed , The stability and fidelity shown in the conversion state, the more expensive and better the big screen, the more worthwhile the price is (recently, there have been a lot of similar advertisements, it seems that it is not nonsense).
In terms of action scenes , the advantages of the cooperation between Cameron and Rodriguez are revealed: the sci-fi and mechanical sense of hardware, the control of Cameron, the impossibility of falling off the chain, the smoothness of action and the blow It is full of Rodriguez's "cult" style of fun.
This is evident in all of Alita's fight scenes.
A Lita by Boyd during her daughter's doctors prosthetic activities, limited by the lack of "body unworthy heart", Ali Ta fighting skills like a traditional oriental martial arts , one by one and fill the gap, and have great respect for the female body language and The characteristic of "only fast is not broken" ; after changing into the matching "Berser Armor", Alita quickly broke through the physical limit of strength and opening and closing, with the "softness" of a streamlined body and the "rigidity" of precision metal For this reason, he used the mecha technique limited by the imagination of the human body , which infinitely enhanced the power and charm of "Martial Arts ".
Such a cyberpunk -style violent aesthetic of "learning from the east and using the west" can be said to be the only copy of "Alita" at present.
Of course, this does not mean that "Alita", which reflects micro details everywhere, has abandoned the macro depiction - in fact, the special effects on the background and large scenes of the film have always followed Cameron's "principle of using special effects": convergence , internalized, completely serving the story, so that the audience does not feel that this is a special effect at all.
"Sky City" Salem and Steel City, two completely different styles of apocalyptic architectural complexes, the film never bothers to introduce and show their details, but gradually restore the future of the 26th century through the advancement of the plot and sidelines style...
Thinking about it carefully, the status of "Kashen " is so high, in addition to his excellent box office appeal, but also because he is always exploring the limits of film industry technology , "Terminator" series, "Abyss", "Titanic" Ni, "Deep Sea Alien", "Avatar", and now "Alita: Battle Angel", whether it is a science fiction film or a documentary, he is always standing on the cusp of the wave.
Let’s make an inappropriate analogy: the best special effects in the world are currently 100 points, then “The Wandering Earth” barely breaks through 60 points from 30 to 40 points, and the industrial base is still only less than 50 points (that’s why it is said that " "Small Breaking Ball" is of great significance, because no one in the world is qualified except Hollywood), most Hollywood A-level commercial films are hovering between 80 and 100 points, while "Alita" is 99 points or 100 points. Under the premise of sprinting and exploring to the upper limit of 101, 102 or even 105 points.
Technological progress cannot be underestimated just because the plot is not ideal. At the beginning of its birth, the film was just a diorama for people to explore. It became the "seventh art" after decades of use. For all to see - who can say when the next "technological revolution" will appear? Any "try" deserves inspiration and praise.
At this time, my mind was no longer on the success or failure of the movie "Alita"... I couldn't help but think of the anecdote about Cameron's century-old meeting with Da Liu when he came to China to promote the film not long ago.
Cameron loves "The Three-Body Problem", and Guo Fan just watched "Terminator 2" that year before he planted the seeds of making sci-fi movies... In the world called "Sci-Fi", there are no enemies, only Like-minded filmmakers, they are writing their own science fiction stories in their own way.
There are ancients before, and there are newcomers after. Cameron, the iconic "ancient man", used "Alita" to prove that he is still the most cutting-edge master ... This era is so good.
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