The Rosa Salazar Cameo You Totally Missed In Alita: Battle Angel
Minor spoilers for Alita: Battle Angel ahead!
Based on both the 1990s manga by Yukito Kishiro and the anime that followed it, Alita: Battle Angel takes place in 2563, a time when cyborg technology and human lives are irreversibly intertwined. After losing his only daughter Alita, Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) repairs a broken-down cyborg and names her ... Alita. Plagued by her patchwork memory, she sets out to find out who she was, who she is, and who she'll become.
Despite the intriguing premise and the already established fanbase from the source material, the film did okay at best — both with critics and at the box office. However, Alita: Battle Angel fans love the movie to pieces and are pushing for a sequel in whatever ways they can. Time will tell whether their multitudinous voices will be heard and heeded.
One thing fans and critics do agree on is that Rosa Salazar's voice and motion-capture performance as the titular cyborg is a highlight — if not the highlight — of the film, earning her several awards and nominations. Both character and actress have the same general build and the same hair color, yet Salazar is all but unrecognizable behind the overlaid special effects: gigantic eyes, cyborg parts, the works. The differences are so great that Salazar was able to appear in the movie outside of her role as Alita — a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo pointed out by YouTuber Doc Ido.
From cyborg to human
Hugo (Keean Johnson), Alita's love interest, has always dreamed of moving to Zalem, a city in the sky where the wealthy live. His life of crime barely earns him enough to stay in his apartment, but Alita might have a solution: entering a Motorball tournament, the prize money for which should be enough to send Hugo on his way. Moved by her actions, Hugo commits to abandoning his criminal ways and heads off to cut ties with the underworld. Unfortunately, Zapan (Ed Skrein) — a cyborg who has it out for Alita — tracks him down, and a chase sequence begins.
At one point in the chase, Hugo and Zapan zoom through an outdoor marketplace bordered by stone pillars. Standing by one of these pillars is none other than Salazar herself, talking to a taller woman as man and cyborg race on by. It's blurry — basically impossible to notice without pausing and really focusing in — but it's definitely her. She's the one with the ponytail between Zapan on the left and the other woman on the right.
Salazar's appearance is one of many Easter eggs in Alita: Battle Angel, and it makes you wonder if any of the other cyborgs' thespian counterparts show up. Let the search begin!