For a long time fans have been dreading, now it finally seems certain: James Cameron’s sci-fi action is getting (at least) a sequel. Alita 2 probably won’t be for the faint-hearted, and we’ll tell you why.
In an aside, Avatar mastermind James Cameron confirmed what has long been unclear after disappointing box office results for 2019’s Alita: Battle Angel: the dystopian story about a cyborg girl with memory lapses is getting sequels. Yes, several of them, as Cameron revealed in an interview with Forbes. He did not share concrete details about the content yet. But he doesn’t have to, after all, we know the template.
The sci-fi series is based on the Japanese manga series Gunnm, which appeared in German-speaking countries in the early 2000s as Battle Angel Alita. The 2019 film adapts the first four volumes and features Alita’s origin story (played by Rosa Salazar) and her growing rage against the powerful in the sky city of Zalem.
The sequel, should it stay close to the original, should show us more of Zalem for the first time. And it could also deal with two aspects from the manga that still give me the creeps to this day.
Alita: Battle Angel 2 could reveal the true monster of the sci-fi series
In the first installment of the series, Alita primarily fights bounty hunters:inside that have been modified beyond recognition and look more like monsters than humans. The end of Alita: Battle Angel, however, shows who the real villain is: the genius scientist Desty Nova (Edward Norton), who conducts experiments on humans and has made himself virtually immortal through nanotechnology.
A scene from volume 8 of the manga has remained in my memory here for over 20 years: when Nova’s son Kaos visits his father’s lair, he discovers a horse-drawn carousel – but with live animals. Inside their bodies, like wooden carousel horses, are thick rods that hold them in place. One of the panicked animals finally breaks free in pain, but collapses after a few steps and bleeds to death from its immense wounds.
While Kaos is shocked, Nova is amused by the “stupidity” of the animal, which should have just kept running in circles. A scene like something out of a nightmare, which could also impressively prove in the film adaptation how insane and sadistic Nova really is.
