Fans of James Cameron know the veteran Hollywood genre director has been eyeing Battle Angel (Alita) since the mid-90s.
Of course, Cameron will be exclusively focused on the next three Avatar films, which includes a prequel, for at least the rest of the decade. Nevertheless, the director is already thinking about the day after – even if the next Avatar film doesn’t even have a release date yet (current speculation points to 2015).
As far as Battle Angel is concerned, it’s a manga, or a Japanese graphic novel, created by Yukito Kishiro about a robot found in a junkyard that’s discovered by a scientist. Essentially, Kishiro brings the female android to life, and raises her as a member of the family – until the two ultimately become bounty hunters.
As Collider explains, the android doesn’t have any memory of her past life, but she does remember “the Panzer Kunst,” which the Amazon.com entry for the magna tells us is “the most powerful cyborg fighting technique ever known.” (This could also be a natural for Tarantino if he ever decides to do a sci-fi flick, he could do it as a robotic Kill Bill).
If that sounds cool to you, well, just remember we may not be able to see it until 2017. As reported on Collider and MovieZine, Cameron’s producer Jon Landau assured the fans, “I am sure you will get to see Battle Angel. It is one of my favorite stories, a great story about a young woman’s journey to self-discovery.”
Since that’s the subtext of the story, it absolutely sounds up Cameron’s alley, like his TV show Dark Angel, starring Jessica Alba, and I’m sure every hot actress in Hollywood will probably be clamoring for the role.
Also up Cameron’s alley, as Landau continues, “It is a film that begs the question: ‘What does it mean to be human?’ Are you human if you have a heart, a brain or a soul?”
Just like the end of Terminator 2, where we saw a cyborg could care about human kind, Battle Angel again sounds like the kind of story that could be custom made for Cameron, and it will be really interesting to observe how he adapts an Asian sci-fi story for a western audience.
But again, as Landau points out, first things first. “Now we focus on Avatar for the next four or five years. It will hopefully [be] right after that.”
