The New Alita: Battle Angel Trailer Is Slightly Less Disturbing

It was impossible to focus on anything other than those uncanny valley eyes in the first and second trailers for director Robert Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel, but thankfully, our latest look is something of an improvement on those.

The mega-budgeted, long-in-the-works project was originally set to be directed by James Cameron, who ended up co-writing and producing, and has now been pushed back twice by 20th Century Fox. Most recently, Fox moved the long-in-the-works project from a competitive December slot to Feb. 14, 2019, and accordingly, the new trailer brings the film’s love story into the foreground.

Based on Yukito Kishiro’s manga Battle Angel Alita, Alita: Battle Angel follows the titular Alita (Rosa Salazar) as she is is taken in by Ido (Christoph Waltz), who sees the young girl hiding behind the shell of an abandoned cyborg with quite distressingly large eyes. Hugo (Keean Johnson) is Alita’s love interest, trying to bring back her old memories, and in the new trailer, we see some of their flirtation. Alita: Battle Angel also stars Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein and Jackie Earle Haley.

It’s still unclear what appeal Alita: Battle Angel will manage outside of its core fanbase, and there’s still too many plot threads going on, not many of which seem particularly compelling. Still, at least the latest trailer teases some promising footage of Motorball, something like a cyborg gladiator sport from the original manga. Alita’s eyes are also less distracting here in the context of the Motorball arena, a more CGI-forward environment than we’ve seen in the last two trailers.

Alita: Battle Angel opens in theaters Feb. 14, 2019, including 3D and IMAX.

Watch the trailer below, and check out a new poster and still further down.