Alita: Battle Angel

Hello and welcome to my first ever blog post …

Image courtesy of Google Images.

So, last week I was lucky enough to go and watch Alita: Battle Angel with one of my good friends and my fiancé. For anyone that has not yet watched this movie, please go and watch it: like, now!

*Please note, this review does include spoilers*

Now, I am a keen movie-goer and whilst I ALWAYS have an opinion of the films that I watch, I walked out of the cinema craving to see more. This must have a sequel, right? I just need to see how it ends! Does Alita make it to Zalem? Does she defeat Nova? Will she get all her memories back? How did she end up in the Scrapyard in the first place?

I know, I know, I could just read the manga series, but with the cinematic techniques, great use of special effects, and well-choreographed fight scenes I would love to see a sequel. The dialogue, on the other hand, was a bit cringe-worthy at times but I am willing to overlook this considering the movie was visually flawless.

Image courtesy of Google Images

Intro and Synopsis

Alita: Battle Angel is the post-apocalyptic story about a cyborg who was left dismantled and abandoned in the Scrapyard: it shows her journey through the Iron City to self-discovery and to love. An atypical bildungsroman, Alita learns that she is over 300 years old, and through snippets of memories she learns that her purpose is to defeat Nova and the last remaining city, Zalem.

Through her journey to self-discovery, Alita gets to experience a moment, however fleeting, of youth and love. She plays Motorball with Hugo and his friends and gets to experience what it would be like to be a “normal” teenager. In this whirlwind moment, Alita experieneces friendship, love, betrayal and earth-shattering heartbreak. All of this leads her back to her original purpose – to defeat Nova – but now, it seems, she is determined to defeat him for Hugo: for love. This leads me to question, will this deeper purpose lead her to eventual success after 300 years of trying?

Alita: Battle Angel is a very literal movie. There were no subtle hints or subliminal messages; anything that the writer wanted to portray was in-your-face obvious. For instance, the representation of social hierarchy and the class system. In this movie, not only do the elite class operate on the higher echelons of society, they live in a city above the Scrapyard. The hierarchy, in this instance, is imagined literally through different class levels. This serves to depict the class system as inflexible and movement between classes almost impossible. I say almost, as we are told that the winner of Motorball gets to go up to Zalem.

After watching this movie there were a couple of things that I just couldn’t stop thinking about: the relationship between Hugo and Alita and the representation of the female body.

Each of these things resonated with me in different ways and I’ll explain how below.

The Relationship Between Hugo and Alita

This is one thing in the movie that I found really frustrating: I mean, I like the idea of a romantic sub-plot and I liked how Hugo’s death reignited Alita’s purpose to defeat Nova, but the representation of their relationship was just a bit too much. Alita could have given her heart to Hugo in a metaphorical sense, rather than literally opening up her chest and removing her heart in Hugo’s bedroom. This was a little gag-worthy and I don’t believe that this particular scene added anything to the narrative in itself. And, actually, I thought that the scene of Alita crying over Hugo’s body would have been enough to show us viewers that she loved him.

Also, I get that the writers were just trying to show us that Alita and Hugo’s love was destined to end but did they have to try to kill him off twice? First, Hugo was set up as a traitor and murderer; he is dealt a deathly blow, but then Hugo is saved from the brink of death by Alita and the morally transformed Chiren only to fall from a deadly height the next day. This, I suppose, was the not-so-subtle attempt to answer Alita’s question to Dr. Ido earlier in the movie: can cyborgs and humans live together and love each other? Even though Hugo is transformed into a cyborg himself, the answer is a resounding no.

In his defense, Hugo got one step further than the original Alita (Dr. Ido and Chiren’s deceased daughter) who was violently killed by a cyborg before she could inhabit her own cyborg body. So, was it that Alita and Hugo were incompatible, or was it that humans and cyborgs are?

Image courtesy of Google Images

The Representation of the Female Body Through Alita

At the beginning of the movie, Alita is introduced to us as a head and torso – she is presented as a deconstruction of the female body, literally – she is then given a body by Dr. Ido and, eventually, she is reintroduced to her warrior body. Through the destruction of her former selves, Alita is repeatedly forced to change her body in order to survive. This serves to show us that, yes, Alita is powerful, but she is not indestructible. And even when she wears the warrior body made by her people, I could not help but realise that this story could come full circle: at the beginning of the movie, Alita had clearly been defeated even while inhabiting her warrior body, so what’s to say that this won’t happen again?

In comparison to some other cyborgs in this movie, Alita’s body is distinctly petite, making her look like a fragile opponent in any fight. Thus, Alita’s ability is constantly underestimated, be that when playing Motorball or when surrounded by other Hunter Warriors. We are later told that it is not her body necessarily, but her fighting technique of Panzer Kunst that gives her strength. I thought that this was interesting, showing us viewers that true strength comes from within.

Sadly, though, this movie also perpetuates patriarchal ideas regarding the female body and the way in which the female body should look. When Alita’s body is destroyed we finally see her connect with her true form. Yes, this body is stronger and more agile but it is also more feminine. Her legs become longer, her waist thinner, her breasts larger: her more heightened, womanly body is in contrast to the almost child-like form that Dr. Ido created. Does this much more womanly body juxtapose the strength that she gains from it? Does it undermine her resonance as a heroine? In my opinion, at least, this body does not create a powerful female icon for us women to hail; it limits Alita to a mere male fantasy.

Conclusion

Having said that, however, I really did enjoy the movie and I thought that the ending was great! We know that Alita has joined the Motorball competition in the hopes of securing her way to Zalem, and we know that she is very good. It is implied that she will win, of course. But even if she does win, will she be promoted to the city of the elite or is this promise just a lie? It would not be the first time - or the second time - that we are led to believe there is a way up. In fact, this seems to be a false promise made just to manipulate those with the desire to ascend within this rigid social hierarchy.

*All images are courtesy of Google Images*