A new Alita: Battle Angel featurette was released by 20th Century Fox that showcases the original concept art used for the film and highlights how faithful the film was to the original [easyazon_link identifier=”B071DZZWKG” locale=”US” tag=”boundingintocomics-20″]Gunm manga[/easyazon_link] by Yukito Kishiro.
In the featurette, not only do we get a look at some of the absolutely stunning concept art for the film, but director Robert Rodriguez also discussed his approach to the film.
“I wanted to make something that resembled something more of a Jim Cameron movie by grounding it more in reality the way he does. By really honoring his style because that is what I would have wanted to see. I wanted to see Jim Cameron’s Alita, not the Robert Rodriguez Alita movie. I wanted to see Jim Cameron’s version.”
Rodriguez adds, “Spent a lot of time early on figuring out exactly the world, the look, the feel. And [James Cameron] was going to be busy with the Avatars, but he hadn’t started shooting yet, so it was perfect. He was kind of playing hooky from that by coming over and seeing what we were doing on Alita.”
He then discusses just how much inspiration he drew from the original Gunm manga.
“Fans of the manga will be really excited about how many details are in there. Someone at Comic Con asked, ‘Is there a Deckman in there?’ Yea the Deckman’s in there. There’s all kinds of things. We take a lot of the design straight from the book. And the look of Alita straight from the book that was Jim’s vision since he was going to make the movie.”
The featurette goes on to show some absolutely stunning concept art from a 2005 art reel for the film. Concept Design Supervisor Dylan Cole described it as “legendary in the concept art field.” He notes that “a lot of the DNA of that design we tried to keep.”
Co-Production Designer Caylah Eddlebrute added that James Cameron had actually highlighted specific frames from the manga “that were particularly significant as far as making sure that we got those shots.” Production Designer Steve Joyner adds, “In the first three books there are probably 900 frames that Kishiro drew and they are all amazingly beautiful.”
[easyazon_link identifier=”B07MS5B7NS” locale=”US” tag=”boundingintocomics-20″]Alita: Battle Angel[/easyazon_link] will be available on Digital HD on July 9th. It will be available for 4k Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on July 23rd.