f13.net

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj8mN_7Apcw

Surprised nobody has started a thread about this yet.

Probably our last chance at ever seeing a decent anime to live action film adaption, and given that it has Cameron attached to it, I have high hopes.

That being said, It should be interesting to see how the drama over the Eyes plays out. Personally, I noticed them, but pretty much tuned it out almost immediately.   Been a long time since I saw the original anime stuff, but my brain is giving me a pretty positive thumbs up over everything in the trailer.   Pretty much the only thing I feel it was missing is glimpse of one of the spinning rings that clean the cables.

Edit by Trippy: fixed title

I have low, if any, because Cameron has been inconsistent at best. His last work as a director and writer was Avatar. While it made boatloads of money and I didn't hate it, I'm not going to say it had depth, consistency, or logical storytelling.

Adapting an anime where subtlety and story always matter? Hmmm. Possibly not.

Am I the only one who saw that picture and thought, 'why are they making a movie about the girl from Bioshock II?'

It's like your dad who only ever watched one anime made a movie and said "Well she's got big eyes in the cartoon, so we go with that"

Robert Rodriguez is directing it, so I'll give it a shot. Cameron is only producing it. The eyes bugged the fuck out of me, though. There was no reason to do that, IMO. It just looks silly and out of place.

I kinda get what they were trying for but given that nothing else appears to have the creepy eyes it is just silly and distracting. I think the biggest issue is they are big enough to actually distort the skull appearance which just hammers my uncanny valley buttons.

Yeah.... I don't mind the eye thing in practice.  I mean, she is some weird robot thing and it helps hammer that home.  But it just uncanny valleys her way to much, though that's honestly a minor quibble overall.

Trailer was ok, and with the names attached I have higher hopes.  But could easily see it being another bland generic anime adaptation (looking at you Ghost in the Shell).

That's the girl from Man Seeking Woman, lol. Looks decent enough apart from the eye thing. None of the other weird robots had weird eyes.

This is going to be Ghost in the Shell - part II.  The weird body horror stuff that made the manga noteworthy might make a decent art-house flick.  But it's never going to be a decent blockbuster.

I think the creepy anime eyes/face was good design wise. For that series its pretty obvious that the "girl" in question isn't human and not just fap material. I'm not particularly attached to this, I didn't see anything to glaring. Does prompt me to rematch the source material.

In the actual source material nothing about her face is supposed to be robotic though. She's not supposed to look like some weird outsider until you see the robot parts.

Yeah I remember that. I mean as a design choice I can forgive that (also removes the whole "scarlet joe playing an asian girl drawn to the specification of a multicultural sex bot" ) maybe I'm too broken to expect them to go 100% source material.

This was going to be released on July 20, 2018 but has now been pushed back to December 21, 2018. (http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/922167-fox-pushes-back-alita-and-the-predator-dates-branaghs-death-on-the-nile)
Can't be good news when it gets pushed back that much at this point but I really hope it's going to be more of a Ghost in a Shell (meh) than Dragonball (total wreck).

So read 9 volumes of this. It'll take a colossal effort to fuck this up. But I wouldn't put it past Hollywood. Also a movie pushed back a few months isn't nearly as bad as a movie pushed back several years.

If I had to take a guess I think it's one of two things:

1) They needed to do more visual effects work and didn't want a "Henry Cavill's face looks distorted" mess on their hands or
2) They got nervous about the big eyes and decided to redo all of the shots with them.

Either way, I think it's to give the special effects guys more time.

On the one hand, I want them to stick to their guns and keep the uncanny eyes.  On the other hand, everyone I know refused to see The Spielberg's BFG because the giant looked creepy weird.

I was interested in the movie until I saw the eyes. They just pull me right out of each scene she is in in the trailer.

^^

The eyes are terrible. A purposeless callback to the anime art style. Maybe if all the robots had massive eyes it wouldn't be so bad. But as it stands it looks bad and pulls me out of the scene.

Can't complain about white washing when your character's don't look human.

Dear sweet fuck, that's awful looking. Why didn't someone in production speak up?

I liked it.  He found her head and torso in a dump.  Where did he find the eyes?  I enjoy that the way she looks prevents you from settling into, "just a bad-ass little girl with mechanical arms".  My take is that the intention was to deposit you firmly in the uncanny valley.

Pretty surprised that f13 has folks that are unsettled by that.   ...  Yes, I just called you pussies.

Not unsettled, just that it looks shit.

Pretty much this. It's SO over the top and out of place in what otherwise looks visually tight.

You know it was a manga and then and anime right? This thing has a pretty big fan base built in and the big eyes are almost universally regarded as shit by them as well.

Nope, never heard of it, didn't research it.  Clicked on the link, thought I understood what they were going for, gave them the benefit of the doubt.

As far as, "looks terrible", I grew up on original Godzilla and King Kong.  Golden Age of Sinbad being the high water mark, which I still love to this day.  I just have a different tolerance for special effects which extends to today.  My daughter bitches (often) about 'horrible CGI! WTF!?', and my response is, "seriously, and you love Evil Dead"?  I try to get what they're going for and mostly just give whoever a pass.

All this revisionist, Hammer is great! but current CGI is horrible, is just bullshit.  Hammer was great for the time, but compared to even bad CGI now, it's awful.

"Visually tight" - arms did not look visually tight to me, especially when she was moving/examining her hand.  So my brain said, "alright, they didn't exactly pull it off, but I get what they are going for.  The movie will have to carry itself with characterization and plot, still could be good".

It seems odd to me to judge special effects only for their verisimilitude.  Rather than compare effects by what looks more "realistic" I think we should judge them by how enjoyable they are or what they add to the movie.  By that measure, I tend to prefer stop motion or old Hammer effects far more than half-assed CGI, even if the CGI looks better.  That's also the difference between Pacific Rim and Transformers for me; in one film, the robots were fun to watch, and the other was Transformers.

I posted a whole thing but hit the back button...I'll just leave this here.

(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/qnYAAOSwjRpZTCVx/s-l300.jpg)

My post - "alright, they didn't exactly pull it off, but I get what they are going for.  The movie will have to carry itself with characterization and plot, still could be good", I take as the same thing as what you said in yellow - "movie is the sum of it's parts, not just the effects". 

Where we differ is what you said in green.  I think that people think that is what they like (older special effects), but it's really nostalgia plus glorifying older movies AND the producer/director/effects person putting their soul into the work.  Golden Age of Sinbad didn't have a good script, or acting, or cinematography (I actually don't know this last part is true for the time, maybe they had good cinematography, and I'm just assuming they didn't because these movies were always made on a budget).  It had good effects for the time and a maniacal passion from the director/special effects man to show something otherworldly.  I think to an extent that shines through.  I think whatever soul Michael Bay had died or left some time ago and that also shines through.

No, I think you are saying the same thing I was implying.  The Golden Voyage of Sinbad will always be remembered for scenes like the Kali sword fight.  The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad is my favorite because all the actors ham it up, so you can enjoy the scenes without special effects almost as much as the effects scenes, but still, the special effects scenes stand out because of the care and craft, the passion.  The Cyclops vs Dragon scene would never fool any audience into believing it was real, but it's damn fun to watch.  Clash of the Titans and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger have some great special effects scenes that elevate otherwise terrible films.  CGI Clash of the Titans is just completely forgettable even though the special effects are technically "better".

For old, low budget horror films, the effects work better if only because the actors can sell them better.  Seeing the actors Interacting with a shitty rubber suit adds a sense of reality/vitality/threat to the effect that no amount of CGI Van Helsing monsters can capture.

Latest trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7pYhpJaJW8

(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jBzHLVlmLwg/hqdefault.jpg)

That is all.

looks like absolute garbage that christoph waltz will regret

I'd probably think about watching it on a plane.

He might not want to put it on a resume, but as long as the check clears, why should he care?

I watched it without sound (at work and too lazy to find the earbuds) but the movement of the MFC was just bad.  I can almost ignore the eyes if I tellm yself she's just an animated doll, but her movements were kind of herky-jerky and it just looked shitty.

Ya I watched it without sound too, and I agree.

Interest peaked before the "full" trailer was released.  Who knew dialogue and shitty YJ emo-pop music will kill any hope this adaption will be good.

Just to shit on the eyes a bit more, nobody else has the anime sex doll eyes in the movie. Would have made slightly more passable sense if there was at least one other damn critter. AI2: Salvage Job

But she’s “special”/“one of a kind”/so on and so forth.

So give her blue skin or something. Anything would have been better than that shit.

I guarantee you that the preview screeners all came out hating on the eyes but someone's ego was involved so they stayed.

I kinda like the eyes; not enough to go see this in theaters (since the wife has zero interest), but I'm excited enough to check it out when it hits Netflix/Hulu/whatever.

I'll watch this. It looks like fun, I know nothing about the source material. The plot summary from the Wikipedia article sounds like a hot mess anyway, so .. whatever  :awesome_for_real:

But yes, some of the CGI could and should be improved.

Guys, its a James Cameron passion project.  His record has been pretty consistent.  At the very least, we should get an entertaining spectacle movie thats fun to watch in theaters even if the plot is silly and easy to make fun of.  At best we get like, T2 I guess (but highly doubting that).

Obviously he could totally fuck it up, but willing to give him the benefit of the doubt he’ll make something watchable (and not just another Ghost in the Shell movie fuck up).

Cameron's passion projects are among the worst shit he does.

Cameron and passion project should be words of warning to wasting your money.

What are these bad movies you guys speak of?  I'm having a hard time coming up with anything truly terrible he's done (honest question, I'm sure I'm missing something).

His last two passion projects were Avatar and Titanic.

And both of those are examples of what I was just saying.  Both where great flashy visual movies that were fun to watch in theaters, had a basic but mostly inoffensive plot, and are not worth rewatching ever again.  This movie turning out as good as Titanic or Avatar is one of the best case scenarios, and it would money well spent at the theater if so.

Cameron is just producing it. He's too busy making 3-4 more Avatar movies to direct this himself. Robert Rodriguez is directing which is the bigger warning sign since the quality of his movies is very inconsistent.

Well, he also wrote the script (along with Laeta Kalogridis), so his involvement is a bit deeper than that.

Which given the assloads of money both brought in seemed to have found a viable market with people who did enjoy them.

how many times do we have to go over this

being popular and making a shitload of money doesn't actually make something good

it just makes something popular and profitable

Well if it's unprofitable and you don't ever want to hear about it again until the hoi polloi at Cannes give it some prizes, then you really should be here for the Toronto Film Festival. Every year you have to chance to sit through dozens of government subsidized films out of Quebec. They're said to be good but believe me you'll never want to hear about a mopey, angsty teenager for the rest of your life.

The latest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3D2vmWD88w

 :heart: Opening Valentine's Day '19  :heart:

So Netflix summer of 2019?

Unlikely given that it's soon to be a Disney-owned film.

Too bad... I would have liked to watch this at some point.

I thought they improved the eyes somehow, but actually I think they just made the rest of the girl more anime/CGI which actually makes it look way less creepy than before.

So earlier this month the husband and I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody finally and saw this trailer.  Husband asked me about it because he thought it looked interesting and I'm still not sure how to feel about that.

Saw the new trailer with bumblebee and it looks like a live action movie starring a pixar character, it's weird.

This was a really fucking good movie.  You don't notice her eyes anymore within minutes of her character being fully introduced and you'll quickly fall in love with her.  It's not perfect by any means and won't be winning any Oscars outside of technical categories, but it stays quite true to the source material, the motorball and fight scenes are absolutely amazing, plot and pacing are well done, and it's just overall a very fun/entertaining movie.  It's a must see in the theater in my opinion.  I saw it in regular 2D, but really want to go see it again in 3D.

I saw this last night and enjoyed it.  Visually imaginative, lots of worldbuilding without heavy exposition.  Main complaint is that the ending is clearly trying to set up a sequel that may not happen.

Yeah, there is a fucking huge 'To Be Continued...' at the end.
I never read the source material because I hate anime. I enjoyed the movie though even though I rolled my eyes a few times at the anime tropes. Christoph Waltz is amazing as usual, the visual effects are really well done, and the pacing is tight. It's the movie that Mortal Engines should have been.

I’m a bit ambivalent about it.

The visuals are stunning, the effects are great, the character design is top notch and the fight scenes are well choreographed. The actors are on the whole pretty great as well and the visual design and performance capture for Alita work exceptionally well.

The movie also has major pacing problems and the script makes lots of mistakes that I wouldn’t have expected from a veteran team like Rodriguez and Cameron. Also Jennifer Connelly is criminally underused as is another well known actor I won’t spoil here. I probably would be less critical if this was a first time project or a movie by a less experienced team.

I also don’t know the source material and I’m therefore not sure how much of it is the fault of Rodriguez or Cameron and how much of it is because of the Manga.

The movie takes much too long to get going which leaves not enough time to tell the actual story. By the time all of the characters and their backstories have been introduced and you get to the actual conflict of the movie more than an hour has passed. Which makes the second half of the movie feel very rushed. So much so that they do an actual “several months later” time skip to wrap things up while skipping over what could have been a pretty interesting bit of character arc for a part two for example.

It’s enjoyable but I am also little bit disappointed because I had wished it to be a tighter story that’s getting to the point quicker. Something both Rodriguez and Cameron were quite good at at some point during their career.

This came out on digital and Blu Ray. I rented it and actually ended up quite enjoying it. Like someone up above said, I didn't notice her eyes after the first few minutes and was pleasantly surprised. I've never read the Manga so have no idea how true to the source it is but if they make a sequel I'm definitely interested in seeing her further adventures.

Finally sat down and watched this also, and it's the exact same situation as Speed Racer.  It's too close to it's source material, if anything, and I'll be surprised if they make another.   The irony is that the changes they did make to the story are with perspective of how the rest of the series plays out, and were ironically for the better.

I saw this movie on a plane, and I think I would have enjoyed listening to the crying baby more. Holy shit, this was terrible. Bad acting, bad casting, bad dialogue, a lot of the fight choreography looked dumb, and the while the eyes weren't creepy, the blank gelfling face sure was.  Jennifer Connely is still hot, however. So, there's that.