If it's not a good game or Catholic...Who do you call?...Why Pokematic "hi."
So I saw Alita: Battle Angel this week, and I thought it was pretty good; not "amazing, instant classic that will be remembered for ages," but definitely worth the time. I remember seeing trailers for it and thinking "that looks good," and it was...if you go in with the right expectations, and don't knock it for not being something it isn't even trying to be. I can see this movie easily falling victim to the "Venom wasn't good because it didn't have Spider-Man" style of "criticism" (sarcasm quotes because that's not a legitimate criticism, because Venom isn't supposed to have Spider-Man). This is going to be a spoiler analysis, that is brought to you by my patrons Clara3ME and Astronautsandall, so you have been warned. For this reason, I will be assuming you have already seen Alita, and may bring up details that were not already stated.
So I'll start out with the set-up of Alita. It takes place in a slightly-dystopian future, where there are significant technological advancements (mainly in the realm of cyborgs and weaponry), but a large majority of society has collapsed, with the halves and halve nots living in distinct and separate societies without any crossover (and no, there isn't a major political bent of "the rich oppress the poor" or any of that other nonsense that ruins otherwise good movies). There's also the fact that there aren't any more police, so what little law and order there is is upheld by bounty hunters (called hunter warriors). There's also this blood sport called "motorball," which is very reminiscent of Rollerball (the 80s movie), which is the key to getting to the good city for the grand champion. We also find out Alita, who's brain and core were found in a scrap heap and was brought back by a doctor-mechanic with a robot body, is a master fighter and super skilled warrior and is the last of her kind with a mission to take down the puppet master that rules the world.
As you can hopefully tell, this sounds an awful lot like a "hero's journey" or a "revenge story." Alita is a chosen one of sorts, from very humble beginnings at the start (she was literally "thrown out" and was brought up by a doctor without much given the dystopian world), that learns who she really is and wants to take down this bad guy to bring peace to the world (hero's journey) or to finish the battle he started (revenge story). Along the way she bites off more than she can chew when she becomes a hunter warrior and her body gets destroyed, where after learning some limitations she gets a new body that was kind of destined for her, and continues her quest. She also has to make a difficult moral choice at the end where she can either let her criminal friend/love interest live according to her conscious or kill him as is her duty as a hunter warrior due to the bounty on his head (which, while he did engage in criminal activity, what gave him the bounty was being framed for murder), a rather common dilemma in a hero's journey. There's also the whole "sports underdog" aspect of motorball, considering she doesn't have all the fancy add-ons that the other contestants have, yet she's REALLY good.
Now what if I told you all of that, had next to nothing to do with the actual type of story this movie is trying to tell? Because that's the truth of it, Alita Battle Angel is not a hero's journey, a revenge story, or an underdog's glory; it is a coming of age story that borrows many elements from the previously mentioned story types. You see, we never really get any resolution to the "take down the puppet master" element, or Alita becoming motorball champion after enduring many hardships of the other contestants and fans, or instilling fear in the criminal underbelly of the city with her swift justice as a hunter warrior, or any of that. No, what we see, is a girl go through adolescence and become a woman; only the things that make her grow are common elements of many other story types, that I think might confuse viewers and critics (but I'll get to that later).
So what makes me say Alita is a "coming of age" story? Well I'm going to do my best to explain (because it's not like my K-12 and upper education ever taught me anything about the structure of stories). What makes a coming of age story a coming of age story is you start out with an immature character, usually in adolescence, that rejects the protection of a parental figure for independence only to face the hard reality of the real world through difficult adult situations, and in the end realizes how ignorant they were to rejoin society wiser and more mature, and usually able to take on the difficulties of being an adult. This is the character arc of Alita. She is cared for by a father figure with Dr. Dyson Ido who finds her and gives her new life. He looks after her, and wants to protect her from the dangers of the world (which are quite numerous considering there are gangs that steal cyborg body parts). When Alita sees motorball, he wants to keep her away from it because of the dangers (it's basically a blood sport, with significant risk of death) even though she wants to do it. She also wants to be a hunter warrior (like him), not just for the money, but also to protect him and the rest of the city, and to learn more about her past since the fight she got into while helping Dyson triggered some of her memory, but Dyson won't let her because it's too dangerous. And there's a "don't stay out past sundown" rule, for her safety. All of which is a great foundation for the start of a coming of age story, and something far too many coming of age stories fail to address (Cherry Bomb, The Kings of Summer, and Catcher in the Rye come to mind). You see, with this Alita has a REASON to rebel against the parental figure. She is super powerful with a mysterious background, and she doesn't see a reason for Dyson's strict rules, and she thinks he is holding her back (there might even be a little "you're not my real father" thing going on). She could definitely hold her own in motorball, and she saved Dyson's life during one of his bounty hunts, thus proving she is capable of defending herself, but Dyson continues to treat her like a child. Far to many coming of age stories (like the ones I mentioned), assume you automatically sympathies with the protagonist's desire for rebelling against one's parents, and thus jump right to the "asserting independence" part, which more often than not just makes the protagonist look like a jerk that "needs to get over themselves." Had Alita just gone right to motorball or hunter warrior, without any of the "look, I can do so much more than you think" development, or seeing the care Dyson has for her, it wouldn't have worked. So that's the foundation of it.
Next I will go into the love story. In this movie, there is a romantic sub-plot between Alita and a teen boy named Hugo, and their relationship is a very complex one. You see, I would age Hugo somewhere between 16 and 22; he is both young in his angsty and rebellious nature, but also old in he has a job and is very knowledgeable in the world they live. While not completely out of adolescence, he has carved a place out for himself in this crazy world. Now how does Alita factor into this? Initially, when Hugo and Alita first meet, Hugo is impressed with her robot body on a technical level, but doesn't see her as anything more than a sort of child or "little sister." When they first meet, Alita doesn't know anything about who she is or about this world; she is naïve, like a young child. It also doesn't help that her robot body is kind of that of a 13 year old (her body was originally built for Dyson's daughter, but I'll get to that later). As the movie progresses though, and Alita learns more about her past and who she is, Hugo begins to no longer see her as a child and begins to see her as an equal (her body also changes, but again, I'll get to that later). Hugo begins to develop romantic feelings for Alita. Now all this time, Alita had a crush on Hugo, from the day they met until their first kiss. Now it's not Alita's feelings that indicate that this is a coming of age story, but rather Hugo's. Sure, Hugo doesn't "come of age" along with Alita, but his feelings reflect Alita's coming of age. See, when Alita is "a child," Hugo see's her as just that, childish and treats her like a teen would treat a younger sibling. He looks after her well being, wanting to protect her from the dangers of the world, while kind of "looking down on her" for her immaturity and lack of experience. She is not an equal to his "late adolescence/early adulthood" person, because they are at different stages in life. However, after some major life events, he begins to see Alita as more of an equal. Alita partially "comes of age" halfway through the story when she now has the maturity and life experiences of a late adolescent/early adult, as demonstrated by Hugo no longer seeing Alita as a "little sister" and now as a "romantic interest" (oh, and Alita is over 300 years old, and her body is closer to that of a woman at this point, so it's not creepy; just thought I'd throw that in).
I've reference Alita's body a number of times already, so I should probably get to that. Alita is a "total replacement" cyborg, meaning she still has a human brain but everything else is cybernetic/robotic. This appears to be not uncommon in this world, considering most of the antagonists in this movie are total replacement cyborgs, and pretty much everyone has at least 1 robotic limb such as an arm or leg. I also think this because Dr. Dyson has a robot body for Alita when he finds her, and while I recognize it was originally going to be his daughter's and he kept it for sentimental reasons, it is established that money is a little tight and if it was so rare and valuable he would have been forced to part ways with it a while ago. So Alita is given Dyson's daughter's body, who was never able to use it because she was killed before he was able to transfer her to it, and through the flashback I would put at maybe 11-14 years old. When Alita is brought back, she has the body of a child, which is consistent with where she is during this part of the story. When she's in the Dyson body, she is as I stated earlier naïve and learning the world and people. She meets dogs, tries chocolate for the first time, learns about the society, learns about herself, has a school girls crush, makes friends by playing games, and gets into some trouble with the hunter worriers (a bar fight) because of her naïve idealistic worldview and overconfidence (of which, Dyson comes and breaks it up like a parental authority figure and the tone of the scene is that of a child disappointing their parent); and everyone still treats her like a child. That's her first body, her second body is found when exploring with Hugo and his friends. They go to an URM ship and Alita finds a robot body that matches her core technology (because she's URM). Dyson originally doesn't want to transfer her because it's a weapon of war, but literarily speaking, it's because Alita hasn't grown as a character for that body (which is significantly more mature, as we will discover).
What adds to the differences in the bodies is how Alita interacts with them. Alita is an URM warrior that is programmed with a special fighting technique specifically designed for robotic bodies, and while she is fairly competent in her Dyson body, she is not at her full potential. I would liken this kind of to puberty, where one's body is not able to keep up with one's mind. This is made most apparent with when Alita is fighting one of the enemy total replacements and her Dyson body gets destroyed. With this Dyson reluctantly transfers her to her new URM body, a not so subtle transition from childhood to adulthood (literally same person, but different bodies, and the URM body is significantly "more developed" further accentuating that point).
So with the new "adult body," do things change for Alita? Yes. When Alita was "a child," she wasn't allowed to play roller ball, and Hugo saw her as more of a "little sister," and Alita was for the most part still learning about this fresh new world. Now as "an adult," everyone around her sees her more in that way; Dyson lets her play roller ball and even builds her parts for it, Hugo sees her as a peer and potential love interest, and now all the self discovery and external discovery happens in a more "adult" way. When she learns Hugo is a scrapper (someone who steals robot parts of cyborgs for the black market), the discovery isn't "you mean there are bad people in the world," rather it's "even those you think you know so well can still have dark secrets." When the main rival hunter worrier frames Hugo for murder, "child Alita" would have been all "how could that be, you're a good guy who goes after bad guys" like she originally thought upon finding out Dyson was a hunter warrior and going down to the bar to recruit fellow hunter worriers. However, "adult Alita" no longer sees the world as black and white, and understands that while Hugo is a bad person she still sees the good in him, and her fellow hunter worrier "good guy" is only looking out for himself (also, she see's there isn't much honor to the hunter worriers; they stop bad people, but they're in it for money and not justice). There's also the fact that URM body is more capable than Dyson body, so Alita is no longer "pubescent."
I'd say those are the primary "strait coming of age" things in this movie. Now I'm going to talk about how this movie utilizes other genre elements to tell the coming of age story, and confuse the unassuming viewer/critic. First I'll start out with the introduction of Dr. Dyson's 2nd job. Early on it is strongly hinted that Dyson is leading a double life and has some sort of troubled past/present. We're told that the Dyson body was originally for his daughter, by a woman who doesn't fit in this world (she is well dressed and has some sort of jewel thing in her forehead, whereas everyone else is in somewhat tattered clothes and doesn't have the jewel thing). Then there's Dyson directing Alita away from motorball. He isn't "oh that's dangerous, look away deer," he's "ominous underscore, that's motorball [dramatic pause] don't concern yourself at all with that." Both of these things suggest something is amiss with Dyson. The woman is Dyson's ex-wife, and by the way she's presented we can tell "she's a bad guy." I also believe it's established she has motorball connections at this point, which could mean something is bad with motorball (criminal gambling/black market perhaps), and maybe Dyson still has some dirty connections to motorball. We also see Dyson sneaking out at night in a very mysterious manner (black wide brim hat, trench coat, and large case on rollers), with a stream in the night with a silhouette matching his figure causing destruction, and him sneaking back with a bloody arm and bandage the next day. Additionally the atmosphere of all this is meant to make it look like Dyson is a criminal murderer, hence why he was so adamant about Alita making it home before dark ("there are bad people out there, I should know, I'm one of them, but I'd never hurt you because I love you" sort of deal). Now all of this would make for a great "reality steals naïve innocence" conflict in a coming of age arc. This is a driving conflict of 2003's Dare Devil, where a young Matt Murdock see's his dad working as a mob enforcer which causes the accident, and subsequent "rapid maturity through stolen innocence." I know I've seen this kind of conflict in other stories, but Dare Devil is the main one that comes to mind. Now I see this is where a lot of people could get "confused," because this trauma can be associated with "super hero origin." We later find out Dyson is a hunter worrier ("good guy") and his qualms with motorball come from a roided out client killing his daughter, but this still has that deceptive set-up. One might think "oh man, they set it up for Dyson to be an evil person and Alita being conflicted over morality vs family, and they never explore that because they make him a good guy," and while I agree that would be an interesting story, it isn't the story the movie wants to tell. This is all to work with the coming of age, not a "super hero origin." When Alita see's Dyson in the alley and she fights along side him, she triggers her training and "grows." Before this encounter, she was a complete child, but this fight brings her into a somewhat adolescent state (no longer "I know nothing of the world," instead "I think I know everything (but in reality I don't)"). While I admit the whole "raised good by an evil man" thing would be an interesting thing to explore, that's not what the story set-out to tell.
The next element of "misleading direction for coming of age" is the hunter worrier thing. In this world, the bounty hunters are the law enforcers, and Alita wants to be one. Once again, this has the look of a different genre that's borrowed for the coming of age story. Alita is an "ordinary girl" that turns out to be gifted worrier with super abilities she doesn't know how to use, and she wants to do good, and there's a mysterious puppet master bad guy at the top that she is obviously going to try to take down in the climax. This is the foundation for a hero's journey and super hero story. The movie also has all the other tropes and steps of super hero journey stories; make friends who end up being bad guys that "betray" her, over protective parental figure who doesn't want to see her hurt even though she can take care of it (but maybe can't), returning underlings that stand in her way and defeat her in the middle only for her to defeat them in the end, descended from a super species that is brought up like a normal human, a morally dark world she can and wants to make clean, the top brass bad guy manipulating the system to make her an enemy of the state, etc. Here's the thing though, while all of this is a set-up for a super hero's journey and origin story, this can also be used to show a character growing up and coming of age. All of the things that mold a super hero into who they are, also can be used as a metaphor for growing up. Alita doesn't learn about her past to "reach her potential as the saving hero," she does it to grow into the person she is to be. Alita doesn't want to be a hunter worrier to "bring justice to this God forsaken city" (though that is a benefit and why Dyson is in it), she does it because it triggered a memory and she wants to use it to grow. Learning about the super abilities isn't "mastering her powers," she's already done that and it's just becoming who she is; much like how a coming of age isn't necessarily "mastering adult skills" but rather "learning what it means to be who you are." Initially losing to an underling and then winning in the end is meant to show Alita's growth and how she has become stronger as a character, not "I wasn't a hero before, but I am now." All of this is meant to be the "rights of passage" for Alita, not the "shaping of the hero."
This is a good time to bring up the set-up for a "revenge story." Throughout the movie we learn that Alita is part of a worrier race called the URM that lead an attack on earth which at least contributed to the great fall, and she presumably "died" in a battle. This attack was to take down Vector, the top bad guy puppet master who rules the world. Through flashbacks, we pick-up that Vector wronged Alita and the URM in some way, though what exactly is not explained. As Alita learns more about her past and present, she is determined to take down Vector, for maybe not the most noble of reasons. While not directly stated, there is some implication that Vector may not be a truly "evil man," just a charismatic leader that wants to keep his idea of order, and the URM may not be very "good people." This is a classic revenge set-up. Lets look at Kill Bill. While Bill definitely isn't a good person, neither is Uma Thurman. Uma Thurman was wronged by Bill and his cohorts, and the only thing that drives her is a desire for revenge. She doesn't really care that the people she's fighting maybe did some illegal things (because she was one of them), what really matters to her is what Bill had done to her when she stepped out of line. We can tell Alita has similar feelings towards Vector, even though not explicitly stated. So how does this factor into "growing/coming of age" considering "revenge" is generally classified as a "regressive/primitive" character trait? It's mainly with HOW the revenge is realized. Going back to Kill Bill, Uma Thurman is always driven by the desire for revenge. As the movie plays out we learn WHY she wants revenge through flashbacks, but it's never in question that her character is seeking revenge. In Alita though, the desire for revenge is slowly realized as she remembers what her past is and is wronged by Vector in the present. Throughout the movie, Alita seeking revenge and getting reasons for revenge go hand in hand with her growth and aging throughout the movie. The seeking revenge is just another "right of passage" in her "coming of age."
The last "misleading direction for coming of age" is motorball. Motorball is set-up as "the sport," and has the makings of a "sports movie." We have Alita who is fascinated by the sport as a child, plays a pick-up game with neighborhood kids (which helps influence her love of the sport), an overbearing parent that initially won't let her play but then realizing her talent becomes her coach when she's an adult, and the stakes of "winning the championship accomplishes your dream." Once again, all the makings of a sports movie, that in reality are meant to be part of the coming of age story. I won't cover the "unapproving parent" thing again, but in short that's "coming of age" with "asserting maturity and reluctance to accept it," with some Dyson backstory about why he is protective of Alita. The pick-up game is a very interesting scene in the fine details that are revealed here. In most sports movies, this is the "little kid plays with the big kids, gets the lesson on how to be a loser, with inspiration to become better, and transition to present day where the kid is an adult and trying out for the big time, with maybe the parent pulling them home after being upset that they played." This is not what happens here. Instead, this is Alita learning about the world, and getting her first taste of opponents and combat. Motorball is a full contact sport, and while the kids aren't as rough as in the big leagues (no weapons), they still play rough. While having fun and being happy go lucky, Alita gets checked and knocked over by one of her opponents. This causes her to have a slight trigger of "I'm going to get even" and using some simple combat (nothing skilled like later that destroys her opponents, but a "knock him off balance causing him to take you seriously" kid fighting). This is her first experience with combat, and she realizes she's kind of good at it, which for a warrior like Alita is "coming of age." I would put it in the same camp as the "kids play fighting" that is commonly seen in movies about worrier race characters. Additionally, the other time Alita plays motorball is when Vector sets-up a hit on Alita and it's really a fight scene that takes place on a sports field. Motorball is also the ticket to the upper society (grand champion is sent to the city in the sky, the elites with Vector). The love of the game ultimately is not what drives Alita to become motorball champion, rather it's the revenge. All in all, motorball is just a tool used to grow Alita into the person she is to be.
OK so there are all these story elements that are really "coming of age in disguise," why does it matter and why would it confuse viewers/critics? The main reason is because these elements are not resolved in the traditional fashion, and appear to be "unrealized story elements." While we get that Dr. Dyson is a bounty hunter and not a murderer (he kills, but it's legal and for the grater good), that just sets-up a "super hero's journey." When one looks at the set-up for the super hero's journey, we never get the build-up of Alita witnessing atrocities and vowing to protect the city with the payoff of Alita becoming the super hero keeping watchful eye on the criminal underbelly after taking down the main bad guy. When looking at the revenge story, we get some hints at what the revenge is, but she never actually reaches Vector and defeats him allowing her to walk off into the sunset satisfied (and maybe becoming a serious anti-hero hunter worrier). With motorball, we never actually see her play the game for real and becoming the grand champion, even though it's strongly implied that she does. If one goes into this movie expecting any of this to playout as a super hero's journey, revenge story, or sports movie, they are going to be very disappointed, because while it has the set-up and foundation for all of that, those elements are never fully realized and are kind of "dead ends." However, if one looks at these as elements of a greater coming of age picture, one can see that there is the satisfaction of seeing Alita grow from a naïve child to a woman. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
So normally when I make one of these text blogs I end it when I sign off, but since I sat on this blog for so long I want to talk about some things I said in the opening and what has happened externally since opening, so "welcome to the end card." First off, I'm going to talk about how I opened this. I said "it was alright, not amazing and instant classic that will be remembered for the ages," and now after watching it for a second time I can say I was off in that statement. So going in knowing the genre twists, I was able to appreciate what this movie actually did, and how it used a lot of framing devices for coming of age and other genres to it's advantage. I didn't fully pick-up on how when Dyson broke up the bar fight it was in the same way that a parent would break-up a bad situation and rescue the child from said situation through the acting, pacing, shot composition, and audio mixing. I didn't pick-up on how Alita carried herself differently based on which body she was in (Dyson body had far more childish mannerisms whereas URM body had more adult mannerisms). I wouldn't have been able to pick-up on how all the other story elements actually fit into the coming of age story. It's actually pretty well made in that regard. I also see this movie gaining at least a cult following in the future. While I had my suspicions, I later found out that yes, this is based on a manga. Now if you aren't aware, western adaptations of manga/anime are notorious for being sub-par if not completely bad (Scar-Jo Ghost in the Shell and Live Action Deathnote come to mind). Alita on the other hand has received pretty high praise from the anime community from what I can tell. I'm sure there are people out there that don't like it for reasons, but from what I've seen a lot of people are saying "this is the best wester adaptation of a anime/manga," so that's definitely promising. There was also the timing of when this was released relative to another action movie with a female lead, Captain Marvel. Now I won't go into all the details (because I don't want the controversy), but Captain Marvel stirred up quite a lot of trouble primarily due to leading actress Brie Larson saying inflammatory things against white males and comic book nerds (at least that's the perception) with a heavy leftist social justice bend, that I'm told spills over into Captain Marvel being a Mary Sue. I don't want to get into the controversy surrounding Captain Marvel, but one of the outcomes of it was a boycott of Captain Marvel and a buycott of Alita Battle Angel. People didn't want to support Captain Marvel due to the politics of the star and movie, but wanted to prove it wasn't "just because she's a woman" so they instead went to see an action movie with a female lead that WASN'T "feminist propaganda." This got quite a lot of people talking about Alita and maybe opened it up to an audience that wouldn't have otherwise seen it, which is good. And as I mentioned earlier, there isn't really a political message with Vector and the privileged society, it's just "the end goal that drives the main character." This movie is pretty a-political and so was all the official talk surrounding it, which is really refreshing considering it could have easily gone that way. So yeah, that was my "end card" for this. I will catch you guys later, bye.
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