The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Final Fantasy, I felt, was a bit of a let down. It tried hard to make itself new and innovative but seemed to be lacking something.

Essentially, the movie is set sometime in the future (in 2065 if memory serves) at a time when the planet has been invaded by a race of ambiguous 'phantom' creatures. These creatures are invisible and have the ability to remove ones soul from ones body, thus making them very lethal adverseries. The plot centres around Aki Ross (Ming-na Wen) and Gray Edwards (Alec Baldwin), the obligatory couple who are enemies at the start and lovers at the end. Aki Ross is part of an organisation devoted to trying to banish the creatures from Earth through non-violent means. However their branch is largely frowned upon as a result of their unorthadox methods. They are researching a hyposthesis that there are spirits in everyone and that these spirits stem from the earth mother, Gaia. General Hain (James Woods) is the antagonist who is responsible for the chaos that later grips New York and, in fact,the Earth. The plot is convoluted, and often confused, and I wouldn't want to ruin the secret of what happens. Needless to say however, everything works out in the end as a result of self sacrifice and other such cliche.

The good points, I think, rest soley on the animation and the CGI. Its clear that a great deal of time and money has been put into making the movie look really great. The people look extremely life like, although not perfect (see below), and you can also see an attempt at camera angling to try and make the movie seem more 'real'. Unfortuneatly the plot was something of a disaster area (more on this below), but I think that this is mostly due to poor execution then anything else. The idea was fine, and infact- good, just not well developed. Another (and maybe minor) good point, is that the movie largely stayed true to the Final Fantasy games. They made little allusions to certain characters and scenes from previous games. The character name Sid (played by Donald Sutherland) often makes appearences in various games. Many of the troopers and soldiers share similarities with Mishra functionaries (see Final Fantasy 7). I'd also like to think that the oversized orbital gun near the end was hint at the massive gun from Final Fantasy 7. The whole concept of Gaia is very similar to Materia from FF7 and the fact that the earth is a living breathing organism.

Basically the bad points are as follow: As mentioned the script was diabolical. It read like a computer game- which is fine for a computer game, but not for a full length feature film. I found that the script was contrived and cliched, and there were far too many cringeworthy lines tucked away in there. In fact the only decent lines were uttered by the comic relief (played by Steve Buscemi), and were probably improv anyway. From the begging to end there were scenes that you could see coming a mile away. At the begining the two main characters Aki and Gray established conflict only to later resolve that conflict in a dangerous situation and fall in love (pretty hackneyed). Another one was when the token big burly mutha' got trapped, and in true Aliens style, said something along the lines of "Leave me, i'm finished, save yourselves". Naturally he saved the day at the expense of his life.

The location setting, I thought, somewhat hyjacked what Final Fantasy is really about. It seemed to me that the writers had thought that typical FF settings are too esoteric for the average viewer and decided to have it set on familar territory. A bit of a shame really because the whole concept of FF is largely concerned with creating a whole new world every time, not resorting to tired old models. They could have maybe alluded to it being earth, but never really saying that it was. Another factor was that the movie was, of course, set in what is left of the USA. A typical Hollywood manuever if ever i saw one. Also I couldn't help but feel that the love story was forced and painted on. In fact there was no chemistry happening between ANY of the characters at ANY time. This may have something to do with the fact that the characters were all animated. In regards to the animation: It was advertised that the animation was so real that you could not distingiush an actual human from the 'actors' in the movie- this was certainly an ambitious statement. However I found that, although the characters were very human like, they could not be mistaken for humans. Perhaps if one looked very quickly at a character for only a moment one might think so, but otherwise no. At first the animation blew you away, but as soon as the dialogue started you knew that something was missing. A human element was lacking, one that could not be filled by shadows of real people. As a result the actions of the characters often looked robotic and forced, no matter how 'real' they seemed. Theres just some things that don't match up with real people.

As far as plot goes, it was not bad. It seemed confused at times. Like even the writer wasn't exactly sure what was going on. Like why did only certain creatures hold a 'spirit' and not others? What was the point of collecting the eight spirits? How did they eight spirits counter the invaders? It was these things that were not made clear in the movie, although that probably doesn't matter. In fact I think that the writers didn't particulary care taht it was convoluted, rather this was the effect that was intended- which is fine. The plot was kind of like a cross between Aliens and Titin AE. All up the basic plot idea was good but the dialogue itself let the whole thing down. You'd think that with all the money that went into the CGI they could at least have spend a little money on getting a good script.

In conclusion, this movie was basically a huge chunk of eye-candy and nothing else. It is clear that it was designed that way (since almost no thought went into scripting), but it is a pity that more and more these days movies are relying on effects rather then a good solid script. Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within falls into, basically, the same trap that Pearl Harbour did- effects not script.

[Disclaimer: In no way am i suggesting that Final Fantasy was as bad as the absolute shocking mess that was Pearl Harbour. If you decide to see Pearl Harbour (even after all the warnings that you have doubtlessly been given) then for all thats good and holy: AVERT YOUR EYES!!]

Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy Playtest Review by GabrielKnight on 28/07/01 Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 2 (Sparse) Excellent effects and animation was let down by a terrible script. Plot wasn't half bad either. See it for the effects not the dialogue. Product: Final Fantasy Author: Al Reinert, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and Jeff Vintar Category: Movie Company/Publisher: Square Pictures Line: Final Fantasy Cost: varies Page count: n/a Year published: 2001 ISBN: n/a SKU: n/a Comp copy?: no Playtest Review by GabrielKnight on 28/07/01 Genre tags: Science Fiction Far Future Post-apocalyse	Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Final Fantasy, I felt, was a bit of a let down. It tried hard to make itself new and innovative but seemed to be lacking something. Essentially, the movie is set sometime in the future (in 2065 if memory serves) at a time when the planet has been invaded by a race of ambiguous 'phantom' creatures. These creatures are invisible and have the ability to remove ones soul from ones body, thus making them very lethal adverseries. The plot centres around Aki Ross (Ming-na Wen) and Gray Edwards (Alec Baldwin), the obligatory couple who are enemies at the start and lovers at the end. Aki Ross is part of an organisation devoted to trying to banish the creatures from Earth through non-violent means. However their branch is largely frowned upon as a result of their unorthadox methods. They are researching a hyposthesis that there are spirits in everyone and that these spirits stem from the earth mother, Gaia. General Hain (James Woods) is the antagonist who is responsible for the chaos that later grips New York and, in fact,the Earth. The plot is convoluted, and often confused, and I wouldn't want to ruin the secret of what happens. Needless to say however, everything works out in the end as a result of self sacrifice and other such cliche. The good points, I think, rest soley on the animation and the CGI. Its clear that a great deal of time and money has been put into making the movie look really great. The people look extremely life like, although not perfect (see below), and you can also see an attempt at camera angling to try and make the movie seem more 'real'. Unfortuneatly the plot was something of a disaster area (more on this below), but I think that this is mostly due to poor execution then anything else. The idea was fine, and infact- good, just not well developed. Another (and maybe minor) good point, is that the movie largely stayed true to the Final Fantasy games. They made little allusions to certain characters and scenes from previous games. The character name Sid (played by Donald Sutherland) often makes appearences in various games. Many of the troopers and soldiers share similarities with Mishra functionaries (see Final Fantasy 7). I'd also like to think that the oversized orbital gun near the end was hint at the massive gun from Final Fantasy 7. The whole concept of Gaia is very similar to Materia from FF7 and the fact that the earth is a living breathing organism. Basically the bad points are as follow: As mentioned the script was diabolical. It read like a computer game- which is fine for a computer game, but not for a full length feature film. I found that the script was contrived and cliched, and there were far too many cringeworthy lines tucked away in there. In fact the only decent lines were uttered by the comic relief (played by Steve Buscemi), and were probably improv anyway. From the begging to end there were scenes that you could see coming a mile away. At the begining the two main characters Aki and Gray established conflict only to later resolve that conflict in a dangerous situation and fall in love (pretty hackneyed). Another one was when the token big burly mutha' got trapped, and in true Aliens style, said something along the lines of "Leave me, i'm finished, save yourselves". Naturally he saved the day at the expense of his life. The location setting, I thought, somewhat hyjacked what Final Fantasy is really about. It seemed to me that the writers had thought that typical FF settings are too esoteric for the average viewer and decided to have it set on familar territory. A bit of a shame really because the whole concept of FF is largely concerned with creating a whole new world every time, not resorting to tired old models. They could have maybe alluded to it being earth, but never really saying that it was. Another factor was that the movie was, of course, set in what is left of the USA. A typical Hollywood manuever if ever i saw one. Also I couldn't help but feel that the love story was forced and painted on. In fact there was no chemistry happening between ANY of the characters at ANY time. This may have something to do with the fact that the characters were all animated. In regards to the animation: It was advertised that the animation was so real that you could not distingiush an actual human from the 'actors' in the movie- this was certainly an ambitious statement. However I found that, although the characters were very human like, they could not be mistaken for humans. Perhaps if one looked very quickly at a character for only a moment one might think so, but otherwise no. At first the animation blew you away, but as soon as the dialogue started you knew that something was missing. A human element was lacking, one that could not be filled by shadows of real people. As a result the actions of the characters often looked robotic and forced, no matter how 'real' they seemed. Theres just some things that don't match up with real people. As far as plot goes, it was not bad. It seemed confused at times. Like even the writer wasn't exactly sure what was going on. Like why did only certain creatures hold a 'spirit' and not others? What was the point of collecting the eight spirits? How did they eight spirits counter the invaders? It was these things that were not made clear in the movie, although that probably doesn't matter. In fact I think that the writers didn't particulary care taht it was convoluted, rather this was the effect that was intended- which is fine. The plot was kind of like a cross between Aliens and Titin AE. All up the basic plot idea was good but the dialogue itself let the whole thing down. You'd think that with all the money that went into the CGI they could at least have spend a little money on getting a good script. In conclusion, this movie was basically a huge chunk of eye-candy and nothing else. It is clear that it was designed that way (since almost no thought went into scripting), but it is a pity that more and more these days movies are relying on effects rather then a good solid script. Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within falls into, basically, the same trap that Pearl Harbour did- effects not script. [Disclaimer: In no way am i suggesting that Final Fantasy was as bad as the absolute shocking mess that was Pearl Harbour. If you decide to see Pearl Harbour (even after all the warnings that you have doubtlessly been given) then for all thats good and holy: AVERT YOUR EYES!!]