‘Alita Battle Angel’ on HBO: Why Do Cyborgs Have Breasts? An Investigation

At a critical moment in Alita: Battle Angel—which airs on HBO tonight at 8 p.m. ET—Alita, the cyborg battle angel herself, imagines herself a new body. And how does a super-advanced cyborg with no memory of her past imagine her body? With bigger breasts and slimmer hips, of course!

Now, director Robert Rodriguez and producer/co-writer James Cameron—who adapted the film from Yukito Kishiro’s Japanese manga with writer Laeta Kalogridis—are hardly the first offenders in the “robots have big boobies” phenomenon. It is, however, more notable in Alita: Battle Angel because there is a scene in which Alita, played by actor Rosa Salazar, literally grows larger breasts right before our eyes.

A quick primer for the uninitiated: We’re on Earth in the year 2563 and a scientist named Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) discovers a cyborg with a broken body but a working human brain. He puts her in a new body, names her after his dead daughter, and essentially adopts her. Alita, who has no memories of her past life, soon realizes she’s not just any cyborg—she’s a cool cyborg with super fighting abilities.

Eventually, her new-found love of fighting gets her new body damaged, and so Waltz puts her in a new-new body. This new-new body transfigures itself based on how the person inside it sees themselves, which is how we get Alita, looking pretty much like she did before, but sexier.

“It’s the adaptive technology of the Berseker body. The shell is re-configuring to her subconscious image of herself!” Waltz exclaims, watching her bra cup size expand. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“Looks like she’s a little older than you thought,” comments Waltz’s assistant, played by Idara Victor.

Listen, I’m not saying the entire movie is garbage, but this moment is, objectively, ridiculous. As New York Times reviewer Manohla Dargis wrote: “Why does Alita (Rosa Salazar), who has a human brain, even have breasts? Why does any cyborg that isn’t a sex bot or a wet nurse?” It’s a great question. I tried to think of a few reasons.

Alita still has the mind of a human woman, and probably wants to look like one.

I have to admit, that’s a good and logical reason… but it fails to explain why she decided to hang onto her giant, alarming bug eyes. Perhaps she also sees herself as a giant bug? Also, hate to break to you, girl, but most human women don’t look like Barbie dolls.

Alita plans to hide a secret weapon in her cleavage, and best her enemy using the element of surprise.

I mean, it didn’t happen in this movie, but I’m pretty sure this is meant to be a trilogy, right? Stay tuned!

Alita plans to distract her enemies by flashing them like Phoebe did in that one episode of Friends.

Sure, it seems less complicated to just use her super fighting skills or whatever, but if it works for Lisa Kudrow, why fault it?

Alita is a nap fiend, and she didn’t want to pass up the chance for portable, squishy pillows.

They’d likely be hard for her to use herself, but it’s very generous of her to consider the needs of her sleepy colleagues.

That’s all I got, folks!

Breasts on cyborgs, androids, and robots have long been a convention of the sci-fi genre, and the real reason for this, of course, is because nine times out of ten it’s straight men designing the robots. Straight men love to see mechanical boobies! Some movies, like 2015’s Ex Machina, are upfront about that fact: Alicia Vikander’s character was canonically designed by a hot-blooded male programmer (Oscar Isaac), and therefore she has a sexy body. Other films have mocked this baffling trend, like the outrageously over-sexed fembots in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

And then you have movies like Alita. Shout out to Christoph Waltz for delivering that line with a straight face.

Where to watch Alita: Battle Angel