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James Cameron's "Battle Angel" Movie

Noriko Takaya

By Noriko Takaya
in Anime or Science Fiction

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Noriko Takaya Pineapple Eater

Noriko Takaya

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I'm not one to listen to liberal minded radio stations such as NPR, but a friend of mine pointed this out to me from a radio broadcast last Thursday. While talking about his new documentary Aliens of the Deep, Cameron let out this little tidbit about his project of converting an anime and manga series into a live action film.

"Yeah actually, we're in pre-production right now for a project called Battle Angel, which is something I've been working on for several years, and we're just finishing up the shooting draft right now. We've been designing it... it's a big science fiction film and uh, couple of things that'll be interesting about this project... even though it's a live action film the main character will be done with CG animation. And the second thing that's interesting is we're going to be shooting it in 3D using the stereo imaging system that we've been developing for our documentaries."

I copied this down so you would not have to sit through the entire 35 minutes of the interview. But if you would like to hear what Cameron had to say about his other stuff, you can access the interview HERE. It's about 31 minutes into the interview.

eugimon Super Dimension Member

eugimon

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hmm, loved the Battle Angel manga, and cameron can do action... but 3d? even the imax stuff breaks down at the edges and you pretty much need to sit dead center for it to work right...

UN Spacy Super Dimension Member

UN Spacy

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I'm hoping this project will stay far away from Jessica Alba. Who is indeed VERY HOT but not my type of gal to play Gally.

Myriad Global's Pipe Holder

Myriad

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Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No Hollywood movie!

:p

I really enjoyed the manga.

I also liked the anime version too. It was not true to the manga but it left me wanting more.

Maybe Cameron will do the same. Hope for the best expect the worst.

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McKlown

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I'm hoping this project will stay far away from Jessica Alba. Who is indeed VERY HOT but not my type of gal to play Gally.

Sounds like you don't have much to worry about, apperently Gally is going to be 100% CGI.

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Sarensaas

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Yes, normally I would feel for the fans of the manga getting it turned into a movie, but...it's Cameron. The guy who gave us Pulse Rifles. APCs. Queen Aliens. Smart rifles. Drop ships. Guys screaming "GAME OVER, MAN, GAME OVER!". Liquid metal killing assassins from the future. Cyborgs that run for govenor so they can get a head start terminating humans in a future man vs. machine war. Aliens that can form any shape out of pure water. That hot girl that sat on top of that building and was genetically altered to be a super-fighter and be super-hot. And that chick and dude on that boat with the necklace and Celine Dion, who I think is actaully a female terminator.

Cameron back doing sci-fi. I am there.

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Gui

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I'll wait for a trailer before getting an opinion personnally: Sarensaas and polidread both have good points IMO :p

Feyd-Rautha Skull Leader's Lackey

Feyd-Rautha

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Yes, normally I would feel for the fans of the manga getting it turned into a movie, but...it's Cameron. The guy who gave us Pulse Rifles. APCs. Queen Aliens. Smart rifles. Drop ships. Guys screaming "GAME OVER, MAN, GAME OVER!". Liquid metal killing assassins from the future. Cyborgs that run for govenor so they can get a head start terminating humans in a future man vs. machine war. Aliens that can form any shape out of pure water. That hot girl that sat on top of that building and was genetically altered to be a super-fighter and be super-hot. And that chick and dude on that boat with the necklace and Celine Dion, who I think is actaully a female terminator.

Cameron back doing sci-fi. I am there.

i cheerfully agree with your sentiments! :D

bsu legato SMS Squadron Leader

bsu legato

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Yes, normally I would feel for the fans of the manga getting it turned into a movie, but...it's Cameron. The guy who gave us Pulse Rifles. APCs. Queen Aliens. Smart rifles. Drop ships. Guys screaming "GAME OVER, MAN, GAME OVER!". Liquid metal killing assassins from the future. Cyborgs that run for govenor so they can get a head start terminating humans in a future man vs. machine war. Aliens that can form any shape out of pure water. That hot girl that sat on top of that building and was genetically altered to be a super-fighter and be super-hot. And that chick and dude on that boat with the necklace and Celine Dion, who I think is actaully a female terminator.

Cameron back doing sci-fi. I am there.

Quoted for truth.

zeus the zentran Destroid Armour Waxer

zeus the zentran

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He better not fart this up.Dark angel was a souless piece of crap.I would've liked somone like Ridley Scott or Jean Jenet to do it.Or even Sophia Coppola I think she capture the asian feel of it at least.Why weren't there any more animes of Battle Angel?And why go totally on cgi for the main character?I think Toby Mcguire would be a good Hugo.

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Majestic

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I love Cameron's films, but I'm worried about the main character being CG and the movie being in 3D as well.

Maybe 3D is the wave of the future, but right now it doesn't seem to work all that convincingly. Maybe he'll fix that. Will audiences be ready to make the leap?

Myriad Global's Pipe Holder

Myriad

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There is a CGI motorball movie out there. It is like 3 minutes 31 seconds. It shows up on Kazaalite occasionally.

The translated Last Order #4 came out at the end of October.

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The_Major

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well for what its worth, on the "i dunno about it being CGI" granted most of the full CGI movies todate have been quite cartoonish in nature, but i quite liked the Final Fantasy spirits within film's animation :ph34r: . and if the movie was made with that quality now that would be something.

eugimon Super Dimension Member

eugimon

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well for what its worth, on the "i dunno about it being CGI" granted most of the full CGI movies todate have been quite cartoonish in nature, but i quite liked the Final Fantasy spirits within film's animation :ph34r: . and if the movie was made with that quality now that would be something.

Noooo! not FF: spirits within... the animation on that movie was horrible

heh

I have no problem with gally being CGI... gollum and the robot from AI were pretty convincing and considering how ground breaking cameron has been in the past with CGI... you know, like Abyss, T2... I have faith that he will do right. besides, no way any human could pull off the moves that gally can do.

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polidread

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if the entire movie were in cg, i hope they do not redesign the characters. Yukito Kishiro did make most of the other characters appear like carricatures , so they might look like a mix of the characters in Toy Story and Invincibles, which werent bad CG movies at all.

I just hope the movie doesnt disappoint at all!

post-26-1101408281_thumb.jpg

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JELEINEN

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Yes, normally I would feel for the fans of the manga getting it turned into a movie, but...it's Cameron. The guy who gave us Pulse Rifles. APCs. Queen Aliens. Smart rifles. Drop ships. Guys screaming "GAME OVER, MAN, GAME OVER!". Liquid metal killing assassins from the future. Cyborgs that run for govenor so they can get a head start terminating humans in a future man vs. machine war. Aliens that can form any shape out of pure water. That hot girl that sat on top of that building and was genetically altered to be a super-fighter and be super-hot. And that chick and dude on that boat with the necklace and Celine Dion, who I think is actaully a female terminator.

Cameron back doing sci-fi. I am there.

Bah. Cameron didn't give me any of that (well, except the "game over man" thing which got really old really fast). It was in books long, long before Cameron ever got behind a camera.

Noriko Takaya Pineapple Eater

Noriko Takaya

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Noooo! not FF: spirits within... the animation on that movie was horrible

heh

You know, while Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within did have some rather obvious flaws, like the lack of a decent script, I felt the CG animation was quite good. I even liked the movie.

I for one, think Cameron will do a knock-out job on this movie. If there is one director out there who has the ability to make a decent movie based from an anime, it would be him. He is just quirky enough to pull it off.

eugimon Super Dimension Member

eugimon

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Noooo! not FF: spirits within... the animation on that movie was horrible

heh

You know, while Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within did have some rather obvious flaws, like the lack of a decent script, I felt the CG animation was quite good. I even liked the movie.

I for one, think Cameron will do a knock-out job on this movie. If there is one director out there who has the ability to make a decent movie based from an anime, it would be him. He is just quirky enough to pull it off.

yeah, I really like cameron, even if his last few stuff hasn't been to my liking... people don't realize that he's the guy who pioneered photorealistic CGI in movies with abyss and then with T2... without those movies proving it was possible, who knows where CG would be today?

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Gui

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I agree with eugimon: maybe Cameron's films weren't the deepest in terms of scenario and characters or even simple gadget innovation, at least he greatly helped modern CG to come into movies, first in 3D with the above-mentioned movies, then in 2D with Titanic which extensively used compositing techniques, these ones which are very widely used now :)

  • 1 month later...
Noriko Takaya Pineapple Eater

Noriko Takaya

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More news today on the Sci-Fi Wire website concerning James Cameron's film Battle Angel.

Director James Cameron told SCI FI Wire that his next fictional film will be a live-action/computer-animated SF movie based on the Japanese manga Battle Angel Alita. "We're in preproduction now on a movie called Battle Angel, which is based on a Japanese manga series of graphic novels by an artist named Yukito Kishiro," Cameron said in an interview. "It's not in the sort of top 10 of graphic novels in Japan; it's a lesser-known one. And we're going to make Battle Angel over the next couple of years and release it in '07."

Cameron said that the futuristic story focuses on both drama and action. "It's a father-daughter relationship story that just has the most insane action that you can imagine," Cameron said. "The story takes place 300 years after a societal collapse caused by a major war, but in that society it's a technological dark age following a pinnacle of achievement far, far beyond where we are right now. In a sense it's post-apocalyptic, but it's post-apocalyptic from a very high level. Cyborg technology is just a way of life. [Alita,] the main character, is a cyborg. She has an organic human brain, and she looks like she's about 14 years old. She has a completely artificial body, and she's lost her memory. She's found in this wreckage , and she's reconstituted by this guy who is a cyber-surgeon, who becomes her kind of surrogate father. It will be PG-13: lots of blood, but it's all blue."

Cameron added that the film will combine several stories from the original comic-book series into one. "It's a bit of a melange of the first three books," Cameron said. "It pulls forward the 'motorball' story into the 'Ido, Alita, Hugo' story, if you will." Cameron said that the film will use both live-action and computer-generated characters. "Live action and CG mixed, meaning we will build sets, we'll shoot with actors, and we'll have CG characters. Alita will be CG. She'll be performed by an actress, but what you see in the film will be CG."

Radd SMS Squadron Leader

Radd

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Noooo! not FF: spirits within... the animation on that movie was horrible

heh

You know, while Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within did have some rather obvious flaws, like the lack of a decent script, I felt the CG animation was quite good. I even liked the movie.

I for one, think Cameron will do a knock-out job on this movie. If there is one director out there who has the ability to make a decent movie based from an anime, it would be him. He is just quirky enough to pull it off.

You have to understand there is a difference between CG models, texturing, and the action motion, the animation itself that is. The CG models in FF:TSW were, for the most part, incredibly well done. Well textured, too. Very realistic, wich is what they were going for. Boring, but well done. What hampered the models were some of the most uncreative character designs to be featured in a big screen production in quite a while.

Now the animation, on the other hand, while there were a couple moments of incredibly fluid and lifelike motion, the majority looked little better animation than the old Thunderbirds puppet show. Painfully awkward and wooden looking motion. The same problem the more recent 'Polar Express' movie suffered from.

Well done CG takes every bit of effort as well done 2D animation, but many people don't realize this, and so shoddy, poorly done CG is the norm.

Also, though I know I am repeating myself I say it again, 3D animation cannot replace 2D animation. They are two seperate and distinct media with their own strengths and weaknesses. 2D translates to CG perhaps only slightly better than 2D translates to live action. This is due to the very nature of the different media available to movie makers. In this sense, even if a well done live action or CG movie is made based on a 2D property, it will not hold the same appeal as the 2D work. It might be a decent movie on it's own, but it will, by its very nature, have to be for different reasons, and those reasons will not neccessarily appeal to fans of the original work.

  • 2 years later...
Duke Togo BOMBA!

Duke Togo

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I thought Battle Angel was scheduled for 2009, yet this trailer says October 2008. That's about a year too early. Something's a bit off.

Its fan made, its not a real teaser for the film.

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