Alita is so feminist that she is primarily defined and motivated by the men in her life, her quasi-father figure and her lover. Color me oh so impressed.
Also the idea that Alita is a better structured character is completely laughable. Her rediscovery if self is incredibly poorly paced and anemic, and she has little agency in it. Carol decides to investigate her flashbacks. It's Hugo's ripper crew that brings her to the URM wreck.
You might be asking a lot from the source at this point. It's an old comic from the 90s written by a Japanese dude; and while I find the manga is still pretty "clean", it's still gonna have a perspective...
The URM thing is reading into it a lot (and in the manga it was Ido who found the wreckage even before he found Alita and spared her from even having to travel down there ... sooo...? take that feminists? ------ I don't think that's big a plot point).
I get what you're saying, but as a high-powered feminist myself I found Alita endearing and bright (which is nice since a lot of the times being a female lead in an action movie means having an icy personality). I think she's a great representation of female fighters (admittedly, we don't have a deep bench).
Alita, at first and more than anything, is about her innocence and need to do the right thing as she quickly gets steeped into the harsh realities of the world. Yes this is a trope that is typically played out with doe-eyed women (part of that "born sexy yesterday" idea), but at least Alita has the fight to back up most of her actions and come on top (she isn't really sexualized [in the movie] either). The "
Supreme Being" in the Fifth Element still needed undershirt-wearing-man-hero Bruce Willis to get her out of trouble a bunch of times.
But anyways. Alita gets a father she seems to really like and treats her lovingly; she fell in love because these sorts of feelings are wonderful; and she helps people out because she's strong enough to act on doing the right thing. But her father can't protect her from everything (because she's driven to explore things that might be dangerous), her first love was willing to betray her, and all her strength still doesn't immediately get her to the literal and metaphoric top (Zalom).
I actually love the Hugo plot in that it's a nice twist to falling for the first idiot who treats you nicely. I'm sure a lot of young and naive girls have had issues in this vein to some extent.
You're fine to say it's poorly plotted and paced (most graphic/novel adaptations are), but I didn't read the story as overtly and constantly problematic than incidental of the story they're telling.