Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

ace52387

ace52387

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Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

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What do you guys think? It's kind of sad that Square lost a lot of money on this movie. Yeah, the supporting cast is basically a hodgepodge of Hollywood action cliche's, and the ending doesn't make perfect sense (kind of shamelessly similar to FF7's), but I think relative to other B movies, and other Sci-fi movies, it's not so bad. Aki and the villain are solid characters, the setting is convincingly grim, and I personally thought that the premise is daringly different from FF games. Like most Final Fantasies though, the movie mixes the supernatural, the spiritual, and science fiction.

Mostly, I like how this movie branches out from Final Fantasy. I don't want to see another "sequel" or "prequel" to the already concluded games. It's just going to be a big piece of pandering fanservice, like Advent Children is.
 
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in spite of the care they took and of the good animation... the story has no energy.

i couldn't care less for any of the charas.

i don't wonder it lost money...

well, what was bad for square was good for us - before the merge/take over, they wouldn't have produced a movie as good as "advent children" :D or so i gather :)


EDIT: oops forgot to mention - i am not a FF addict, actually i never played the game, only saw AC and SW and the other ova-length try, i forget the name - the one with zach in it.
so i am biased that way :D
 
Flashy, but braindead story. The action and CGI were beautiful, but I don't go watching a movie just because it has pretty colours and action. A giant deus ex machina designed to bring Sephiroth or w/e his name is (I'm not a fan of FF) for a last fight doesn't work for me.
 
haha what business does a person who's never played FF7 have watching Advent Children? :P Not that I disagree. I don't think Spirits Within has a fanservie-y, braindead story though. Maybe it's just me but on paper it's pretty cool.
 
xaravir, i think you have the wrong thread - this is for spirits within, not advent children ^_^;
 
there's a quote by tomino that applies to this and advent children

"people today go to movies to watch movement over story, and then you get something like the 3rd episode of the matrix"
 
sothis said:
xaravir, i think you have the wrong thread - this is for spirits within, not advent children ^_^;
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Yeah, I was replying to the post above me. Didn't make that clear.

As for Spirits Within, It was okay, but it was too technical for non-fans (like me). The story seemed to pace itself slowly and the ending didn't make sense.
 
ParaParaJMo said:
there's a quote by tomino that applies to this and advent children

"people today go to movies to watch movement over story, and then you get something like the 3rd episode of the matrix"
Click to expand...


lol - i bought the dvd, but it's pretty much the same thing. the trailer appealed to me :)

matrix 2 & 3 and pirates of the caribbean 2 & 3 were indeed bad :(

but AC is not that - it doesn't intend more than to get people interested in the charas' background story. i am not playing FF - not any PS game as a matter of fact, so i watched these movies (AC, SW and the ova) for the fun of it.

i wasn't expecting any dramatic change in my life. it was pure entertainment, anime-physics related :)

and i was entertained, especially by the soundtrack :)
 
Xaravir said:
As for Spirits Within, It was okay, but it was too technical for non-fans (like me).
Click to expand...

Actually Spirits Within is far more geared towards non-fans as well as fans alike than FF:AC. Spirits Within has no links whatsoever to the games apart from some terminology e.g. Gaia. It had an intriguing premise and spun a coherent story, but just totally lacked any kind of tension. I have a feeling the problem was that it was too rushed and thus too pointless for the massive epic battle it wanted to portray. Advent Children, on the other hand, is not just incoherent as a story, but pretty much makes nothing but shallow attempts to delve into its characters. The reason it had lots of tension though was because the fights were ridiculously delicious (and the movie was about 90% fights anyway), and the soundtrack was a story all of its own. So even non-fans could enjoy it on some level.

I don't think there are even many hardcore FF fans who enjoyed Spirits Within. Strangely, though, I thought it'd be an awful idea to recommend Advent Children to non-fans. Seems I might be wrong...
 
I loved Advent Children. Would I like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within? Are the
graphics as good?
 
Bixie said:
I loved Advent Children. Would I like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within? Are the
graphics as good?
Click to expand...

the graphics are good but not as good as in advent children.

would you like it?

no, especially if you really liked advent children. there's not much of this movie.
 
noone said:
the graphics are good but not as good as in advent children.

would you like it?

no, especially if you really liked advent children. there's not much of this movie.
Click to expand...

Well that is sad to hear. But I will probably still watch it. I did like Advent Children though.
 
I thought spirits within was 100x better than advent children. To get a few things straight, yes i've beaten FFVII and FFVII: CC.... I follow the lore and found advent children all to short with tacked on fight seens just to show off cgi. Eyecandy is always good but it felt like I've seen too many CGs. I had hopes the story department is where FFVII:AC would shine but it fails miserably.

With FF: Spirits Within you get a fresh story. Beautifuly CG at the time of its release I could barely believe what I was watching was animated. You also get characters that fit a plot that doesn't suck (as bad) and the entire thing plays out as a story should. Nothing is added on for the sake of fan service and it feels in tune with the deep story telling that Square offers.

In short I found FF: SW to be better than FFVII:AC
 
llsektorll said:
I thought spirits within was 100x better than advent children. To get a few things straight, yes i've beaten FFVII and FFVII: CC.... I follow the lore and found advent children all to short with tacked on fight seens just to show off cgi. Eyecandy is always good but it felt like I've seen too many CGs. I had hopes the story department is where FFVII:AC would shine but it fails miserably.

With FF: Spirits Within you get a fresh story. Beautifuly CG at the time of its release I could barely believe what I was watching was animated. You also get characters that fit a plot that doesn't suck (as bad) and the entire thing plays out as a story should. Nothing is added on for the sake of fan service and it feels in tune with the deep story telling that Square offers.

In short I found FF: SW to be better than FFVII:AC
Click to expand...

I love everything Square Enix. So I hope I liked SW, still have to watch it.
As for the games I'm still playing Crisis Core and FFVIII. I know, I'm way behind. But I did play FFVII.
 
I think on part of the lot of criticism it has had, probably could have been avoided with a nice little title change. People expected so much just because of the title. Final Fantasy carries a lot of weight, and that's what they wanted, just to see something like the game in a movie. Now if they just took Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, to just The Spirits Within (The is optional), it probably would have gotten a little better reviews as it wouldn't have had to live up to such hype of a Final Fantasy title.

I found myself when I first watched it, enjoyable. For it's time, the graphics are superb, script could have went for a revision, but it was still workable. For me, it was easy to decide whether to watch it or not, on the first day I heard about it, I decided that I'll watch it. That's how I usually handle things, make the decision and follow through, pursue that goal until it's completed, then work on the next goal.
 
I agree with fictions_mosaic. I am a FF fan to the core. Even if it had nothing to do with FFVII it wouldn't matter. Even the games do not spin off of one another (except for Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core. And X-2 if you want to count that piece of crap) So, I don't think I was surprised that there weren't any recognizable characters. From the trailer I sort of figured there wouldn't be any "red mages" or "materia". I just thought the story was shit even though it looked pretty.

As for AC: well, of course it was geared towards FF fans. Even if you watch the whole game recap it wouldn't matter. If you don't know FF, then it isn't going to be as enjoyable. To you, Tifa pulling her gloves on is no big deal. Every FF fan, however was leaning forward in their seats awaiting the impending ass-kickery that was about to ensue. And I'm totally fine with that. Fans just don't care sometimes if the story sucks. I personally enjoyed the story, however I think those not familiar with the game would be sort of lost. (Who is this chick that keeps talking to him? Who the hell is Sephiroth? Is this a boy or a girl? I don't know. Screw this. This movie sucks)
 
I think that you are talking about Advent Children instaid of Spirits Within. I liked both though. :) And I don't play the FF games. :)
 
I am a bigger fan of spirts than advent, I beat ff7 and advent while good, just seems like a long prologue, spirts I was really impressed with the story and the artwork involved.
 
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