July 23rd was US release day for Alita Battle Angel home media. For the first time ever I went out and bought a Blu-ray copy. In the past I just bought the occasional DVD but this movies CGI is fantastic. This live action movie based on Yukito Kishiro’s epic manga Gunnm (Battle Angel Alita in english translation) took James Cameron twenty plus years to bring to the screen.
The source manga Battle Angel Alita is one of my all time favorite tales. Its fantastic how the movie featured so many pieces from it. While the movies story line deviates considerably from the manga its to be expect given the manga’s violent and outlandish future world.
I won’t go into any in depth comparison here as I’d rather write a longer article for that. But the essence of Alita’s story in the manga’s first three or so volumes is in the movie. Her origin story and first heartbreaking loss. James Cameron’s original plan was to make three movies so it remains to be seen if that will happen, let alone where his version of the timeline goes.
But if I could see a sequel I’d hope for Alita’s battles with motorball champion Jashugan. And I’d be overjoyed to see anything from the ‘TUNED” arc, especially her interaction with Figure Four.