Battle Angel Alita - live action movie / ova anime / manga comparisons

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Gunm was was brought to the western world in the 90's as Battle Angel Alita when the anime OVA got an English dub. (There are actually 2 different English dubs floating around to be precise!) The eventual translation of the manga and now the live action film have kept the name Battle Angel and renamed the main character Gally to Alita.

I think the first question people are going to want answered - is the movie any good?
I was actually pleasantly surprised that the movie was a decent watch as a stand alone piece of cinema. A movie is never going to be a perfectly faithful adaption of the source material because it has to cram enough action/story/characters into 2 hours to keep people entertained. You can't make a movie that tells people nothing then then says "lol read the manga!" in the end credits. When the source material is a slow burn mystery that unfolded through many years of story in a manga, you've gotta pick your battles, quite literally.

Please note: I haven't read much of the manga yet so my info is from wiki's ~ let me know if I got anything wrong! I'm mostly comparing the movie and the OVA anime. I may edit in some manga plot points when I've got up to speed.

WARNING: This post contains spoilers. All the spoilers. 

Characters
Gally / Alita
Daisuke Ido / Ito / Dyson Ido
Bhuvan / Yugo / Hugo

Places
Tiphares / Zalem
Scrapyard / Scrap Iron City

The OVA is an adaption of the first 2 volumes of the manga and was meant to promote latter rather than be a full fledged series on its own. The new live action movie covers the same amount of volumes but with a longer run time, has much more room for story, so it pulls in some later plot lines from the manga to really get the action in motion. While it renames characters/places are re-arranges events, it's still fairly true to the essence of the story. Which I'd like to call a journey of self discovery and growing up.

Ok let's get started on the differences between the versions.

When Gally in the OVA is first saved by Daisuke Ido, she is given the metallic Berserker body.
While Alita of the movie first awakens in a civilian body and later changes to the Berserker body that she finds in a submerged space ship. In the original manga version she starts with the civilian body as well, but the Berserker body was found by Ido.

In the movie version, the civilian body was meant to be for Ido's daughter, who has passed away. This death caused a fallout between himself and his wife, Chiren. The body and even the name of the deceased daughter were given to Alita. I don't believe this plot point was part of the original manga but obviously it has been used to convey how Ido thinks of Alita as a daughter that he needs to protect.

Chiren was a character that was created for the anime version and does not appear in the original manga. Her relationship with Ido in the OVA implies that they were perhaps in a relationship in the past but not actually married. Her role in the movie version is fairly similar, although she seems less desperate to return to Zalem.

Ido isn't given much back story in the OVA other than he originally lived on Zalem and was exiled. As a hunter-warrior, Ido seems far more competent in the manga and anime compared to his movie counterpart. It's this job that makes him enough money to keep his clinic open. His movie version seems very clumsy and unaccustomed to his weapon and you wonder how he has not got himself killed yet, since all the bad guys we see are very powerful. A human man with a rocket powered hammer seems vastly out his league against beefed up cyborgs. He still get's his ass kicked in both versions and is saved by Alita. However in the movie version, he is lured into a trap by the girl he is trying to save. In the anime version, the girl is an innocent that escapes from his intervention.

The OVA version explains that hunter-warriors are used in place of the police. However the movie version seems to have large robots patrolling the streets. So the bounty hunting seems less of a necessity to the movie verse.

Where the movie features rollerball quite a bit, the anime barely mentions it, as this is a plot point that has been brought forward from a later part in the manga. Alita only takes up rollerball after the death of Yugo but in the movie, he is the one who introduces her to the sport.

In the anime version, Yugo seems more like a hard worker that's trying to get money but his movie version felt more like he was goofing off a lot. While he still gets caught up in stealing parts for extra money in both versions, the movie version does not explain why he is so desperate to get to Zalem. The OVA explains that his older brother used to take care of him before he was murdered by a bounty hunter and that it was his brothers dream to go to Zalem. The plot goes a little deeper in the manga version but I can't make a concise comment on that right now.

A few times in the movie, antagonist characters are seen with their eyes changing to blue to signify their sight and consciousness has been hacked into by someone from Zalem / The Factory. This is never shown in the anime. I believe this character is Nova from the manga, who has a few incarnations. With the defeat of Vector, the movie needed to show that there was another villian in the sidelines pulling the strings. Where as the anime is simply an advertisement for the manga.

The movie version tones down the overall violence. Because of a lower age rating than the anime/manga the blood that robots bleed is blue.

Overall the Scrapyard  / Iron City has a much cleaner and brighter appearance in the movie. You don't get the same sense of people living in poverty. Aside from the customers at Ido's not being able to pay for their repairs.

These are all the major differences that stood out to me, I will add more later if I think of anything I missed!

Last but not least, those bug eyes in the movie. I know that they are trying to convey that anime doll eyes look ..and in a way it does easily signify that Alita is not entirely human. BUT! It's still kinda weird. After a while into the movie, I started to be able to ignore it, but then BAM! a flashback with another character featuring huge bug eyes was shown and I was right back in the uncanny valley. Look man, can't you just get some dolly lenses and huge eyelashes like the rest of the cosplay world and be done with it?

Thanks for reading!