Film Discussion of the Week: A.LI.CE

Wow this seems to be very obscure. Letterboxd does have an entry for it though: letterboxd.com/film/alice-1999/. Only 10 people have watched it so far on that site (I'm going to be #11).

I think we could all live through our whole lives without ever watching this, but the question is, will you watch now that you know that it exists and you have the opportunity to watch it in glorious VHS transfer quality (a botched one at that)?

First of all, you'll have to forgive the quality. The analog signal for the channel when I recorded it from wasn't very good. Also, you'll have to forgive me for splitting it up into 10 minute blocks, because it took nearly 2 hours to upload each one! That's either the Aussie broadband or my ineptitude with exporting movies. But it's such a rare movie, I had to upload it before I threw out the tape.



A.LI.CE is brought to you by Gaga Communications, who handle more mainstream movies and anime in Japan. It's the first ever CGI anime, but if the plug for Nokia at 5:56 is any indicator, they really didn't have the budget to stand up to the first Toy Story.
In fact, it all comes off as a bit direct-to-video.


The frame rate isn't smooth, but it does speed up in a few places, which makes it all look inconsistent. The models are quite good for the time, and you'll notice a few steampunk things, like the train or SS10X, which make this movie look even more like a giant game cut scene. (speaking of the train, which happens to be nuclear powered, WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S NOT BULLETPROOF?1).

The music soundtrack isn't bad, but a few sound effects are a bit...wacky.

After winning a place on a space tour, Alice's shuttle crash lands in a snowy place and she finds herself in the year 2030, where a man named Nero has been whittling down the human population with an army of robots. She eventually discovers she's linked to what's happening.

Alice is plain and rather confused, as you would be. Ewan is a bit of a brat, as you would be if your parents were taken away at a young age. SS1X aka "Maria" is an android. A proper, fully sentient fembot from the year 2000. Either the writers were requiring a massive suspension of disbelief or...



...there's something Japan is not telling us.

Anyway, she's the fan service and gets a model change twice. She gets roller blades, explosive energy rifles and a body made of unbreakium. She definitely brings home the anime tropes.


The Liberation Army are idiots. You'd think they'd be everyone's best friends under the robots' rule, but when they first meet Alice, who they were responsible for bringing to the year 2030, they point their guns. There's no "hey, we're your friends", and they should've been there to get Alice when she landed, so she wouldn't have to flee Nero's stealth troops. Even Kasbah the troop commander has to remind her troops NOT TO SHOOT THEM!

This movie played just when my short-lived anime phase was starting, but even then, its flaws were noticeable. Still, I give this 2.5 out of 5.

This is a quite rare find. Thanks, centipede!

There's no other way of watching it, it seems. So it was great that centipede uploaded it.

You can't say they didn't try to wow you. I actually liked the chases. The beginning chase was a good way to start and my favourite scene was when Maria broke them out of the base. Maria is my favourite character, for various reasons.

It's a pity they didn't have a bigger budget. As one of the linked reviews noted, you'll notice there aren't many CGI character models at once. I can imagine, with a bigger budget, the hacking room would've been full of people. Can you imagine this being remade today?