Childish Banality

I'm not directly familiar with manga, comics, or young adult fiction, but there's obviously a trend from these pulpy sources for teenage sci-fi dystopian franchises that has made its way into movies over the past several years now. There's the four "Hunger Games" movies (2012-2015), "Ender's Game" (2013) and its rumored sequel, the "Divergent" series (2014-2016), "The Maze Runner" trilogy (2014-2018) and, now, this, "Alita: Battle Angel," among others, I'm sure. Despite featuring stars in supporting, if not leading, roles (this one wastes the talents of Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Michelle Rodriguez and Edward Norton), loads of CGI action, sci-fi and apparent political and religious commentary, it's depressing how alike these pictures are in their blandness.

I understand that children tend to lack for life experiences, and I'm taken aback by how much full-grown adults read this fluff, but still, is there nothing more than puppy love, sports and exams? Essentially, all of these movies are school nightmares. The dystopia part seems to merely represent the childish confusion with the adult world, for which all that training in games and tests are supposed to prepare them. The sci-fi, wars and class conflict of these worlds tends to be too simplistic to be of much interest, as they're generally reduced to the saccharine teen romance anyways. I mean, c'mon, the upper class literally living in a city above that of the lower class. The religious symmetry is the same, too, and as blatant. There's even cyborgs, or robots, or AI, here, but regardless of her 300-years-old-heart, presumable inability to procreate and indiscernible sex organs, she nevertheless has the hots for a meatbag who rides a futuristic motorcycle--and vise versa. Meanwhile, we spectators are supposed to be awed by the picture's spectacle, while, as in "The Hunger Games" series as well, the televised spectacle within the narrative is employed by the oppressive regime to mollify the poors. Is that supposed to be ironic or just insulting?

I probably watched this at the wrong time. I recently read Lewis Carroll's Alice books, which may well surpass all children's literature. Carroll didn't pander to the familiar, the banal, of childish lives as do these school nightmares, even though his books, too, can be read as a child's nightmare encounter with the adult world. And the books remain clever and complicated enough to also satisfy mature minds. "Alita" does do one curious thing, though--curiouser certainly than its excessive CGI and motion-capture obsession, twirling fight moves and absurd hero poses. In one scene, the titular Alita enters a bar named "Kansas," where she's followed by a little dog and, eventually, three men who aid her. Clearly, the reference here is to "The Wizard of Oz." Interestingly, L. Frank Baum's book was something of an Americanized (and dumbed-down) imitation or variation on the Alice books. In the franchise age of movies, there seems to be no end to such inanity of repetitious imitation. More variation would be appreciated, though. I hope the Wizard of Oz, James Cameron's other upcoming franchise additions, for "Avatar" and "The Terminator," turn out better, but I have doubts.