50 Fun Facts About Alita: Battle Angel

In Alita: Battle Angel, Ido names the rebuilt cyborg Alita after which person he has lost?

His late daughter gives the cyborg both her name and the body Ido had built for her. In the original manga, the name comes from Ido's dead cat instead.

In Alita: Battle Angel, winning the title in which brutal sport is the only way into the sky city?

Motorball is a gladiator race played by cyborgs, and Alita enters a tryout hoping to win prize money for Hugo.

Which feature of the cyborg in Alita: Battle Angel was kept manga-sized to honour the original art?

Her eyes were kept large on purpose, and the first trailer drew a mixed response centred on how the heroine looked.

Which Spy Kids director won the Alita: Battle Angel job by condensing James Cameron's script?

Robert Rodriguez cut Cameron's 186-page screenplay and some 600 pages of notes down to a shooting script, and Cameron then offered him the director's chair.

Which actor, chosen over Zendaya and Maika Monroe, plays the title cyborg in Alita: Battle Angel?

Rosa Salazar spent five months in martial arts training for the part, learning Eagle Claw kung fu, Muay Thai and staff work.

Which two-time Oscar winner for Tarantino films plays the scientist Ido in Alita: Battle Angel?

Christoph Waltz won both Oscars as a supporting actor, for Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. His Ido becomes a father figure to Alita.

Which James Cameron film, developed as Project 880, kept delaying his plans for Alita: Battle Angel?

Avatar came first because Cameron believed it could raise public awareness of the need to protect the environment.

Which pop star recorded Swan Song for Alita: Battle Angel and becomes the cyborg in its video?

Dua Lipa was approached after the filmmakers saw her New Rules video and felt she had the strength and attitude of their heroine.

Alita: Battle Angel was the last 20th Century Fox release before which company bought the studio?

Disney completed its takeover of Fox on March 20, 2019, about a month after Alita opened in American cinemas.

Alita: Battle Angel opens 300 years after Earth's war with the United Republic of which world?

Mars holds the key to Alita's forgotten past: she fought in that war as one of the enemy's elite shock troops.

In Alita: Battle Angel, which wealthy sky city above Iron City does Hugo dream of reaching?

Zalem was renamed Tiphares in older English editions of the manga, and newer translations went back to the original name.

In Alita: Battle Angel, where does Ido find the cyborg remains that hold a living human brain?

A scrapyard gives the manga's whole city its name: there, the settlement that grew around the sky city's falling waste is simply called the Scrapyard.

In Alita: Battle Angel, which secret night job is Ido doing when Alita follows him into an ambush?

Bounty hunter is the trade of every Hunter-Warrior hired by the Factory, and Alita soon registers as one herself against Ido's wishes.

Which lost combat art for machine bodies does Alita use by instinct in Alita: Battle Angel?

Panzer Kunst is the one thing the amnesiac Alita remembers, and she first uses it to kill two of the cyborgs who ambush Ido.

In Alita: Battle Angel, the advanced body Alita finds was made for which enemy shock troops?

Berserker technology worries Ido so much that he refuses to install Alita in the body, giving in only after her first one is wrecked in a duel.

In Alita: Battle Angel, which giant cyborg assassin ambushes Ido and later duels Alita?

Grewishka is damaged in that first fight and comes back upgraded, sent by the sky city's overlord to destroy Alita.

In Alita: Battle Angel, which crime does Hugo secretly commit while dreaming of the sky city?

Stealing cyborg parts is what Hugo's gang does best: one victim, the top-league player Kinuba, has his limbs cut off by them.

In Alita: Battle Angel, which Factory boss falsely promises Hugo a passage up to the sky city?

Vector owns the arena tournament and is the de facto ruler of the Factory, until Alita fatally impales him.

Which Oscar winner for A Beautiful Mind plays Chiren, the ex-wife of Ido, in Alita: Battle Angel?

Jennifer Connelly was a late addition: her casting as a villain was reported on February 7, 2017, two days before filming ended.

Which Moonlight and Green Book Oscar winner plays the arena-rigging villain in Alita: Battle Angel?

Mahershala Ali revealed after his first Oscar win that he was really playing two roles, because a second villain speaks through his character.

Which Fight Club star makes a wordless, uncredited cameo as the overlord in Alita: Battle Angel?

Edward Norton took the non-speaking part to set up a far bigger role for the character in a planned follow-up film.

In Alita: Battle Angel, which sky city ruler speaks to Alita through another man's body?

Nova looms larger in the manga, where the mad genius behind many of Alita's enemies does not appear in person until more than two years into the story.

In Alita: Battle Angel, which arrogant sword-wielding cyborg kills Tanji and frames Hugo?

Zapan pays for it when Alita seizes his own sword and cuts off his face with it.

In Alita: Battle Angel, what is the prized sword that Alita seizes from a rival cyborg called?

Damascus Blade is the weapon Alita turns on its owner, taking it from him moments after he mortally wounds Hugo.

Alita's mirror punching practice in Alita: Battle Angel pays homage to which martial arts star?

Bruce Lee was James Cameron's idea: he decided the film should salute the star through the way Alita throws her punches.

Which technique turned the lead performance in Alita: Battle Angel into a CGI heroine?

Motion capture methods had to be redesigned by the effects team to record every subtlety of the lead actor's performance.

Which effects house founded by Peter Jackson animated the heroine of Alita: Battle Angel?

Weta Digital, the New Zealand company behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy, led the work, with DNEG and Framestore also supplying effects.

Alita: Battle Angel was shot at Troublemaker Studios, on an old airport site in which Texas city?

Austin even supplied the crowds: a casting call sought rocker, punk and emo extras for night shoots there in February 2017.

James Cameron set the sky city of Alita: Battle Angel above which country near the equator?

Panama gave Iron City its look: the streets were designed with Latin American architecture to match the new location.

James Cameron says the sky city in Alita: Battle Angel does not float but hangs from what?

A space elevator would only work physically near the equator, a detail that decided where on Earth Cameron placed the story.

After two delays, Alita: Battle Angel finally opened in American cinemas on which holiday?

Valentine's Day became the date after the film slipped from July to December 2018 and then moved again, its December slot going to a PG-13 cut of Deadpool 2.

Which city hosted the Alita: Battle Angel world premiere, where a teenage amputee wore bionic arms?

London saw 13-year-old Tilly Lockey arrive with a pair of Alita-inspired Hero Arms, made for her by Open Bionics with the studio's help.

Alita: Battle Angel gave 20th Century Fox its biggest opening weekend ever in which country?

China delivered a $65 million opening weekend, more than double the film's $28.5 million debut in the United States and Canada.

The bar where Alita starts a mass brawl in Alita: Battle Angel is named after which US state?

Kansas fits the manga's geography: a map in its eighth volume places the story's city near Kansas City, Missouri.

In Alita: Battle Angel, Jeff Fahey's McTeague leads which cyborg animals into a fight?

Dogs make McTeague a useful ally: the film's dogmaster is one of the few who help drive off the giant cyborg that wrecks Alita's first body.

Near the end of Alita: Battle Angel, how does a desperate Hugo try to reach the sky city?

Climbing a cargo tube almost works, until a serrated defence ring is dropped down it, shredding his body and throwing him off.

Which actor beat Avan Jogia and Douglas Booth to the role of Hugo in Alita: Battle Angel?

Keean Johnson won out because the studio said it was looking for someone more ethnically ambiguous for the part.

Which To All the Boys star plays Koyomi, a friend of Hugo, in Alita: Battle Angel?

Lana Condor had made her screen debut only three years earlier, as the mutant Jubilee in X-Men: Apocalypse.

Which actor, the villain Ajax in Deadpool, plays the cyborg who frames Hugo in Alita: Battle Angel?

Ed Skrein is also a rapper and filmmaker, and he was reported to be in talks for the part less than a month before shooting began.

Jackie Earle Haley, the giant villain of Alita: Battle Angel, played which Watchmen antihero?

Rorschach followed Haley's return to acting after many years spent producing and directing television commercials.

Which manga artist first drew Alita as a cyborg police officer in an unpublished comic, Rainmaker?

Yukito Kishiro was asked by publishers at Shueisha, who liked the character, to build a new story around her.

The manga adapted as Alita: Battle Angel is known in Japan by which title?

Gunnm, written with the characters for gun and dream, ran in Shueisha's Business Jump from 1990 to 1995, and the film draws on its first four volumes.

By which name is the heroine of Alita: Battle Angel known in the original Japanese manga?

Gally was first the name of Ido's dead cat, a male, and a friend of his remarks that it is an odd name to give a female cyborg.

Which Pan's Labyrinth director first showed James Cameron the manga behind Alita: Battle Angel?

Guillermo del Toro's tip landed at once: Cameron became enamored with the concept, and a web domain for the film was registered to him around June 2000.

Which Mad Max: Fury Road composer, also known as Junkie XL, wrote the score for Alita: Battle Angel?

Tom Holkenborg also co-wrote the soundtrack's lead single, which reuses orchestrations he created for the score.

Which Suicide Squad actor has an uncredited cameo as the champion Jashugan in Alita: Battle Angel?

Jai Courtney, who played Captain Boomerang, appears only briefly because the part was meant to grow into a larger role in a later film.

Which cinematographer of The Matrix trilogy was director of photography on Alita: Battle Angel?

Bill Pope is best known for his collaborations with Sam Raimi, the Wachowskis and Edgar Wright.

Which Altered Carbon creator co-wrote the Alita: Battle Angel screenplay with James Cameron?

Laeta Kalogridis began writing the script in January 2007, a full twelve years before the film reached cinemas.

Why did James Cameron flip the manga's name so that Alita comes before Battle Angel?

To set up future titles, Cameron wanted every later film to keep the name Alita and swap the rest, starting with Fallen Angel.

Long before Alita: Battle Angel reached cinemas, the manga behind it was adapted in 1993 in which form?

A two-part anime was all that was ever planned: the manga's creator said he was too busy with the comic to weigh up anything longer.