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Review: Final Fantasy
Yes, the animation is fine, occasionally terrific. There is no acting to speak of, and how could there be? There are only disembodied (like Godzilla) voices -- Ming-Na (Dr. Aki Ross), Alec Baldwin (Capt. Gray Edwards), Ving Rhames (Ryan), Steve Buscemi (Neil), Donald Sutherland (Doctor Sid) and James Woods (the evil General Hein).
The overall affect is cold and fake. Obviously, animation has warmed up the cartoon genre (Toy Story, Shrek) giving the characters color, depth, expression and dimension. But it has the reverse effect on traditional films, at least if Final Fantasy is any indication.
If software has given added depth to animated films, the characters in Final Fantasy don't quite make it to one-dimensional. They appear slow-moving, a click behind their own emotions, and utterly unbelievable and remote. The real actors doing the voice-overs are dramatic, almost desperate, to give the story some life. They can't. Beyond that, the plot is just stupid, a loopy, quasi-religious narrative that posits that aliens landed on the earth years earlier, and have since ferociously gobbled up most of its people and cities, for reasons that are never explained, and for that matter, are apparently inexplicable. Like seemingly every other sci-fi, game-based or techno-centered movie in the last decade, Final Fantasy takes place largely in a destroyed New York City. (Why is it always in a ruined Manhattan? The tall buildings?)
The ghostly aliens are squiggly, gummy, amoeba-like things (though some look like translucent dragons and serpents) that nobody on the Earth understands but Dr. Ross. They kill by contact rather than weaponry, swirling around their targets like mist. The nasty General Hein doesn't like science or scientists or people who are nice, and wants to blow the aliens all to Hell.
Dr. Ross's allies are her software-lover Capt. Gray Edwards, who makes Buzz Lightyear look like Robert DeNiro, and some heroic, cartoon cut-out soldiers. There's even a software kamikaze scene meant to be touching (nothing can make you care about these creatures.) Dr. Ross is attractive but never makes it to sexy. The coded characters all seem to have mastered the sad expression and the smile, but can't go any deeper. Dr. Ross and Dr. Sid exchange spirit mumbo-jumbo for nearly half of this movie's interminable 105 minutes. There isn't a single decent battle scene, for God's sake, blasphemy in a movie that purports to herald the ascent of the computer game over the traditional film.
Final Fantasy is bad news for moviegoers, but great news for human actors. It turns out there are still some things humans do a lot better than software.
hey um... I've been playing FF games and stuff by Square in general since like 1990, but the "you havn't played the game so you can't understand the movie" excuse is the same lame one D&D fans used when that crap D&D movie came out(and yeah, I used to play D&D etc...). To tell you the truth, I wasn't impressed with the FF movie previews. On top of that, I think I'm outgrowing the typical Square storyline too. And I'm still nostalgic for those classic graphics from the first 6 FF's... Oh yeah, Chrono Cross came off as a bit of a dissapointment to me... oh well. I havn't seen the movie yet. Maybe I'll like it.
what do you expect. Americans created the human characters, of course they're gonna look like that. The creatures and backgrounds were created by japanese animators.
Look,
Before we all pretend like we are experts in digital imagery, I can tell you its a fake. Simply open your eyes and take another look.
Her hair over her left shoulder is leaving a waaaay too dark shadow......not as sever on her right shoulder, but anyway..also look at the chin/neck shadow - this should appear similar as the shadow under her tits. Roughly the same z-axis depth. Hmmm......actually the body seems to be lit completely differently to the head.
Also notice some white antialias fudge smudge on her left shoulder, and please why would that shadow on her skin go to black.....left shoulder
Thats all for now. I could write a book on other impossibilities.
meth
I don't think is was the best film ever written , but it will go into the history books. Look at a film like alien..it had a fantastic director, who put everything ito making it "real". 2001 , star wars, these are remembered as much for breaking new ground as for there development and plot. This movie does the sam. It was a film that used animation instead of cameras, and that is a landmark in it's self. I think the development we will see in the next 30 years will mimic closely the ipresionis movement of the early 20th century. The Scene in particular is where the "camera" looks up from underneath and the water. This is soething that breaths new life to film, but could never be done in traditional cinema. As far as the acting ,I though Alic was about as good as he usualy is . The plastic acctual added a symitry to his ususal preformace.
The Hair is something else. Although the characters do seem a bit slow-moving, the modeling and animation is, Jon Katz read this carefully, beyond anything Pixar made so far. Oh, the plot may be stupid, but who cares!.. I didn't go to the movie because of the plot, I went to see what they did in the animation department. If the worst -- according to Jon Katz -- can look this good, I can't wait to see the best.
Usually I want more meat with my movies, but being in the games biz I am treating this movie like a long Blizzard cut scene.
Because I was treated to something that was an awful lot like an anime. You know, sometimes it's not a bad thing that plot isn't fully discussed. You'll never see an anime where every character's relationship with the world and one another is fully explained.
On top of that, the CG was phenomenal, amazing, stunning and really freaking sweet.
I thought Ben Affleck couldn't act after suffering through Pearl Harbor. I found his role in this movie much more lifelike. It's good to see actors taking on more challenging roles.
Yes, it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief and wierd justifications. So does anime, and no one complains about that (this much).
I can answer that - I'd destroy New York City in a heartbeat, and I'm not even a malevolent alien race :)
I've always said I could solve most of the US's problems with 5 nuclear bombs: LA, San Francisco, New York City, Washington DC, and Mexico City That's not even malevolence - That's disinfecting the human gene pool. The fact that there are aliens kind enough to do it for us isn't something to be complaining about. There's no committees to get it through, no environmental impact surveys, no lawsuits, it's just clean and simple.
Inconceivable!
Well, I'd be fine if you didn't destroy the whole city - a well place small scale bomb would do just fine. Besides - the USA has a heck of a lot more redeeming features than NY and SF. If you consider NY a redeeming feature for it's cultural aspect - Broadway, etc, and it's history, that's fine. Go for a walk around the Bronx or Queens at night. As for other redeeming features in the US, Yosemite remains entirely intact. Zion national park, untouched. Redwood forest, untouched. Philadelphia, Seattle, New Orleans, untouched. If you think NY and SF are the only worthwhile places in the US, someone needs to get out and travel. Oh yeah, and while you're out... check out the Smithsonians. They're awesome.
Inconceivable!
I grew up around Los Angeles, I've been to San Francisco, and New York City, so I think I deserve a LITTLE more credit than "quick dislike". And I think I'm a little less white than you might think.
Inconceivable!
actually, more to the point, the dissenters are those who speak out. if someone disliked the film, they'll probably refrain from posting unless they look at the posts of the people who are irritated and then decide to post a dissenting opinion. if someone liked the film, and liked it enough, they'll immediately post an angry reply.
All that glitters has a high refractive index.
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You see, without that little doohicky, the universe stops.
http://propheteer.org
Well part of the problem is that when you take a comic like X-men or a game like FF or D&D and make it into a movie, if you assume all of the viewers are familiar with your existing product you will fail badly. I liked Tomb Raider, despite having never played the game, I thought X-men was great, even though I never read the comic. On the other hand I get the distinct impression that I would not like this, since I have not played the game I would not get it.
So it is perfectly reasonable for a reviewer to say "Well I haven't played the game but the movie was lousy" as many of the people reading the review haven't played the game eather.
I don't play computer games at all due to a number of reasons.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Like seemingly every other sci-fi, game-based or techno-centered movie in the last decade, Final Fantasy takes place largely in a destroyed New York City. (Why is it always in a ruined Manhattan? The tall buildings?)
From here:
That temptation to destroy the familiar skyline of New York, whether with a bomb-loaded rental truck or a screenplay, proves the enduring legend of the city. Unfortunately, the legend is also why we no longer have a Great-White Way, but a Great White Sneaker Way, in which big-haired loud-mouthed tourists try to out-do what they think is the real New York--That's okay! It's New York--and then, unexpectedly finding kindness, interest and even love on the part of the supposedly hostile natives, send their amusing letters week after week to the Times's Metropolitan Diary. Ha ha! Zabar's! Cab drivers! Bus drivers! The subway! Those gruff but lovable beggars! So foreign! Ha ha!
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
Why should you have to try hard to understand a movie? I like a film where you learn more about it each time you watch it, but films that try to be so clever that you need to watch them three times before you understand it are just bad.
I've not seen the movie, but I can easily imagine that a a contrived story and bad character development would destroy a film. Without a story and believable characters there's nothing of substance left.
I think these animated films would be more of a success of real actor facial and body movements were recorded, and used as the basis for the animation.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
I'd been on the fence about this. But if someone who doesn't understand that amination is a medium and not a genre gives the movie such a negative review, I'm going to see it. I don't care how bad it is; I want this thing to succeed, and perhaps spread the word that animation isn't just kids' stuff.
And frankly, Katz, you disappoint me. It's obvious you don't get a lot of respect here; I was one of the relatively few who seem to be willing to give you a chance. But you lost it on this one. I expected so much better out of you; I actually liked many of your articles. No, I wasn't looking for a positive review. I was looking for a little respect of the technical achievements made in the film, though. And I was certainly expecting at least a little respect for animation, the opposite of which you exude in this article. For the author of the Hellmouth series to be this condescending and ignorant... well, perhaps it's just that I didn't see your true colors until now, or perhaps it's a recent development, but regardless, I very much dislike what I see.
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Thanks for your review. Katz had me scared for a moment. I have never played any of the games and don't know anything about the story, but I do like anime and technology and I've really been looking forward to this movie because of the huge leap forward in animation quality. I feel much better about going to see it now.
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
Hell he should have known that from the damn title.
The movie was awesome and it this review just made me turn on my no Katz articles setting.
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The funny thing is that in Akira, Tokyo is destroyed twice, and in Evangelion the actual Tokyo is flooded in 2000 by the melting of the Antarctic ice pack, and the city the Angels are attacking is a different Tokyo, a new city built up in the mountains. (Tokyo is actually in a plain; Tokyo-2 is the civilian replacement, Tokyo-3 the Nerv replacement)
But yeah, it's just the matchstick city, you know. Maybe 'cos the US more or less leveled it with firebombing in the war?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
LOL - I tend to type a lot like I talk - with a lot of dashes to denote short pauses, and a lot of little smilies to emphasize emotion ;P
Sorry for not doing it in bold/italic, which would have looked nicer -- I revert to old habits when I'm typing a review.
They were both excellent games - but Sephiroth, IMHO, was much more of an *outstanding* villan than Kefka.
Kefka was indeed evil - but he was goofy-evil - the kind of evil where you're not afraid, or angry - you're annoyed. He made a great villan, but Sephiroth was...well...just so much more.
By the end of FF7, it was hard *not* to hate Sephiroth, be angry at him, and want to make him pay. He was always just that one step ahead of you - and he *knew* it. You came so *close* to fighting him throughout the entire game, but you were always denied - until the end. When the pseudo-dream sequence at the end happened, it was hard not to start cheering, yelling, and going nuts, because FINALLY you were giving him what he deserved. He was just an absolutely *perfect* character to have in a FF game - and Square hasn't developed a better villan yet, IMHO.
Wow...that was longer than I thought =)
I've seen Katz off-base before, but it's obvious he didn't understand a thing in the movie - nor, it seems, did he try to.
;P )
;P (I *think* the plot of the movie was conceived around the time FF7 was popular - and the influence shows)
;P ) - but overall, they've pushed the envelope for realism in animation.
Perhaps the audio track was a bit off in the theatre he went to -- I don't know -- but in our theatre, the sound was synced pretty well -- there were a couple of spots where the sync was a *little* off - but not so much as to be the annoyance Katz makes it out to be. Buscemi's character seemed to get the worst of the desyncing, but again, it wasn't the bother Katz made it out to be.
The voice acting was pretty damned good, if you ask me - it may be that I'm an anime fan, and have suffered through hackdubs, and poorly acted voices more than most. I especially liked the fit of Donald Sutherland's voice to Cid - it matched VERY well (other than the "warm" line
Now - about the plot. Sure - it was a bit contrived. Some of the character development seemed a bit rushed - but overall, it wasn't bad. Katz missed the point of the plot - probably because he was so bothered by the sound - I don't know - but his analysis is pretty much totally off-base. I won't give it away - but if you've played FF7, you'll be wondering where Aerith is at the end
The animation was phenomenal. It takes a *lot* to get *so* close to looking real. Some of the movement was a bit off (but very, *very* close - and some of the faces were a bit...strange (James Wood's character, the general, seemed to have been distorted into an evil mask - noone's that angry all the time
Especially the eyes. It's awesome to see animated characters whose eyes have real "depth" to them.
Now - all this being said, I think it didn't *quite* live up to the Final Fantasy name. DOn't get me wrong - it was a great movie - but there are a few Final Fantasy elements that were sorely missing.
First was the lack of medieval flair -- most (FF8 not included) Final Fantasy games all had a mixture of medieval swords & sorcery with high technology - that was part of what gave them their distinctive "flavor". This movie was ALL high-tech, and even a little bit on the military side -- kindof like a deeper Aliens movie.
A side note to this was the lack of Magic in general -- I was really looking forward to seeing Ultima being cast on the big screen - or even a couple Summons (Shiva? Ifrit? Bahamut?). Sadly, none made it into this movie, although one of the alien critters looked a bit like Leviathan...
The lack of Airships was bothersome - yes - they had the various spacecraft - and they were well-designed, but again, were lacking the flair of the grandiose FF airships.
The most glaring error, however, was the lack of a single, solitary Chocobo.
It's for these reasons that I think the movie, although very,. VERY good, didn't quite live up to the Final Fantasy name that was placed on it. Had it been simply called "The Spirits Within", I wouldn't have had a single problem with it.
One of the first things you mention is that you haven't played the games.
You can't make a multi-million dollar movie aimed only at fans of a game. With the sort of costs this movie must have, you must appeal to people who haven't played the game. The movie industry is in it for the money, after all.
--
the telephone rings / problem between screen and chair / thoughts of homocide
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
Offtopic? Uh, okay. Sure, I can see perfectly how a post about the Final Fantasy movie is offtopic in an article about the Final Fantasy movie. Dumbass moderator.
Well, Rachel's hotter than Wilma, but I always thought Betty was pretty cute.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Now when animated characters and their computer generated voices become indistinguishable from reality, *that* will be impressive!
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Try this:
- open up image in editor.
- convert from 24bit to 8bit palated.
- randomize color palate
What this does is exaggerate subtle differences in skin tone. Whoever patched this together this did a pretty good job, but he didn't quite get the colors right. If you take a step back, you'll see that her face has a much redder tint than the rest of the body.
Also, Aki in the movie had MUCH smaller breasts.
(The fingernails are all wrong too, but that could be a difference in the model.)
My conclusion is, it's a fake, but I wouldn't bet my life on it...
--
Your Servant, B. Baggins
Firts, thanks to Katz for having an opinion that is actually his own and not born of the group mentality every now and then.
No kidding. If Katz had come out with a positive review (which I expected, actually) the highest-rated comments would have *still* been along the lines of "that's some good crack you were smoking, Jon; the movie *sucked*". Instead you're all playing down the movie's perceived faults. "Well what do expect from lip-synch tech. The plot is supposed to be indecipherable."
All you're doing is criticizing a *critique* because it's fun to rag on katz. How stupid is that.
On further reflection, I guess I'm criticizing people who criticize critiques.
And now I'm criticizing my own post.
Don't you guys perceive a distinction between Fred and Wilma and Ross and Rachel?
Were not stupid, Ross and Rachel wear shoes. Duh!
Better than Shrek? I don't think so. After having seen them both Shrek has much much better animation. Sure the characters in Shrek aren't real or close copies of humans but they are a million times better animated. Plus the hair on shrek looked better than any hair in the movie. After reading numerous articles about how advanced the hair was in the FF Movie I was sorely dissapointed by the result.
... oh yeah and Shrek is a much better movie. If this movie had been done with real actors it would have been straight to Pay Cable.
--- I do not moderate.
Really? I thought the way they put the actors' names on screen whenever a new character was introduced was naff in the extreme and totally broke the illusion/immersion. As did asking you to "use the other controller" or "look on the back of the CD case".
I found it a real let-down that they tried to create a continuous seamless experience, as you say, and then kept ripping you right out of it by these silly references to the real (physical world).
That doesn't mean it was bad, just not as good as it could have been. But then, it was pretty good anyway.
2p.
Tim
From the review, it seems that all Jon Katz things computer games should be is lots of shooting, explosions, and similar inane garbage.
Personally, I love the games that don't have lots of bangs and mindless stomping around.
Final Fantasy the games were all about looking deeper into things, and not fitting in with the norm.
I've not yet gone to see it, but I wasn't expecting to see a high adventure movie in the same vein as Tomb Raider et. al.
I was expecting something with a little thought, that I'd have to think quite deeply on, and look for the meaning behind.
I'll reserve judgement until I've seen the movie, but I think slating it, just because it's something different, not just the usual guns and regular modus operandi of killing things, is pretty lame.
>I absolutely disagree; Final Fantasy was an
>excellent movie that pushed the boundaries of
>technology and story telling.
Apparently in different directions...
Rob
Seriously, SGI should have provided the plot line as well as the hardware: "See a successful UNIX hardware vendor, driven to irrelevance by demon possesion -- resulting in inexplicable plans to rely on M$! Watch in horror as it is destroyed from within by terrible university relations, the creeping spectre of mismanagement and a bizarre, not-quite-SVR3 operating environment. Will a hero come and save it? No."
~wog
I was totally unimpressed by FF. It felt like I was watching an hour-and-a-half long video game cutscene. Why is it that just because it's computer animated, we expect less from the story and characters? For once I totally agree with Katz.
Its pretty sad that they put 5 years of work into this, and and the best they could come up with story wise, was this. Right right, being in an art school for film, all we ever hear is about how story/plot comes first. Story is the foundation for the entire movies, without even the movie's best aspects start to dim and falter in light of the bleak and boring story. Great animation is good, but a great story is better. Even movies that story wise aren't that revolutionary (Star Wars, Shrek, etc) are good because they story (though they'be been done many a time before) was very well executed, and you don't feel like your watching the same old crap over again. Toy Story (1 & 2) was great, and not just because of the great animation, but because of the life those characters had and the story they all took part in. Most people claim FF3 to be the best FF overall, not FF7, 8, etc. And it wasnt because of the 'astounding' graphics (the original FF games were never that great graphic wise), it was because it had kick ass story line that kept you hooked and playing to the end. You cared bout those characters, and wanted them to live. Too bad, maybe next time they won't write the script as an after thought...
- quantax
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
FWIW, My wife and I went to see this movie yesterday and enjoyed it quite a bit. Neither of us has ever played a FF game. (Though not for lack of trying on my part... damn FF7 on the PC ahem...)
It was quite a beautiful piece of eye candy with with some surprisingly slow moving people in it (grin).
Grrr... Ok... am I the ONLY one who heard that
long speech about the scientist discovering that
the power that animates living things was what they were using to power their shield and guns.
Hmmm... sounds like an explanation for why shooting the ghosts worked just fine... eh?
Not every movie is original in every respect. This movie has no original plot or dialogue (if you're an anime fan, you'll feel right at home). However, it is worth $5 just to see the CGI, which is always good, and sometimes awesome. In fact, there were several 'bonus' moments of true brilliance in this otherwise entertaining flick.
If you judge this movie compared to (better) Hollywood films, it comes up short. If you compare it to other anime films, it's brilliant. Half full or half empty? It's your choice.
Hmmm, perhaps it's time for a retread. Is this better?
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Your post has given me a very scary though: a movie of Stranger in a Strange Land. I don't know whether to embrace the idea of such a mind-bending book becoming a movie, or cringe in fear at the travesty that would likely ensue. If Final Fantasy was too mind-bending for most people, Michael Valentine Smith is going to be way over the top :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I didn't think it was flamebait, if anything that comment was ROTFL. Especially the part about how the evil magician usually turns out to be a long-lost relative. I still think it's a fun ride, though.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
OK, maybe "confusing" was the wrong word there. I don't think that familiarity with the series of games is necessarily a requirement (or even that it should be - I agree with your reasoning there), but an appreciation for the same type of storytelling that occurs in the games is. As others have mentioned, it's anime-style in that few things are directly spelled out, the focus is on the people even though at first glance there may appear to be high technology at the forefront (Evas or mechs in other anime), and more attention goes into the atmosphere than into the plot of the piece.
Sure, it's going to be confusing if you were expecting the Starship Troopers or even Alien style of sci-fi. But Katz is pretending to be a real movie reviewer - he should already be familiar with the genres of the visual arts and know what kind of criticism is appropriate for each. I don't think you should sit down and review Final Fantasy on the same terms as the latest action-adventure sci-fi blockbuster, any more than you would complain that E.T. never destroyed Tokyo with his atomic breath, or that Sgt. Ripley never zoomed around those aliens in "bullet time".
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I was imagining it to the tune of the railroad number from The Music Man. Definitely worthy of a musical, IMHO.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Actually, my fantasy world is mostly created in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and Japan :) I just wish every single sitcom on TV wasn't set in LA, NYC, or DC - there are other interesting parts of the country, you know.
I'm not sure how much NYC is really an engine of the economy - the actual things that people buy are mostly made elsewhere. NYC just has all the real leeches - advertising agencies, fashion designers, stock market players, and millionaires. Other than the short-term dislocation caused by not having the stock market to obsess over and the Statue of Liberty to replace, I think the rest of the country would do just fine.
P.S. - I loved you guys in Mad Magazine. You should get your own movie, you know? If those kids from South Park can do it, so can you!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
...and it shows when you say things like:
I have played the game(s), and a lot of the point was deciphering what the "real" plot was. In the beginning it often did seem to be a simple "the mad Queen must be stopped", but always there were multiple layers of truth and reality that had to be peeled away to reveal the true motivation of the game. And there was lots of questing for things along the way too. I think you're reviewing the wrong movie if you didn't expect it to be somewhat confusing to the newbie viewer, full of seemingly contradictory versions of reality, and ultimately solved by heroes that rely more on their innate abilities and their relationships to each other than on any amount of military hardware. Winning a war through pure shoot-em-up style mayhem has never been the plot of a FF game - it's like the difference between a "foreign" (non-US) movie with actual plot, characterization, and open endings, and the usual U.S. fare of "Legally Blonde", "Tomb Raider", and "Pearl Harbor". Maybe you should have just reviewed The Matrix or Tomb Raider again, Jon, and given this one a miss.
I can't comment on your other points, since I haven't seen the movie yet (maybe this weekend?), but it wouldn't surprise me that the voicing and the expressions aren't perfect. After all, this is the first time something like this has been tried. It's still a huge advance over the animation of the humans in Toy Story or even Shrek, though - maybe your negative comments are because the animation was close enough to looking real that the remaining slight failings were especially jarring?
Oh yeah and one more thing:
I can answer that - I'd destroy New York City in a heartbeat, and I'm not even a malevolent alien race :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I have to agree, the Gaia theory and the whole emphasis on "spirits" and "souls" and such really turned me off to it. I personally dislike anime because of the animation style. I just never cared for it and despite strong commitment to story and quality voice-acting that I hear a lot about I can't get past the animation to enjoy it. I was hoping that this wouldn't be the case, but the overly mystical plot really doesn't endear an atheist and materialist to be tolerant of it.
Maybe a more scientific explanation would have been better with concentration on the bioelectrical energy instead of "spirits" and removing the Gaia part. Not the same movie, but it would probably be stronger and accepted by more people.
No, but the REVIEWER was REVIEWING the movie FOR people who HAVE played the game. He seemed to be aiming it towards people who have played it, anyway. Also, a REVIEWER of a movie should have some background knowledge of it...so Katz should have played or at least known about the game a little better, therefore "Why do we have a person reviewing a movie based on a game when that person hasn't ever played the game." still rings true.
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"I'm not gonna say anything inspirational, I'm just gonna fucking swear a lot"
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I still think nothing was as touching as the Locke/Rachael/Phoenix scene, to which I also can remember being brought to tears. Still, one of the contributing factors there was the music. I was so disappointed that Nobuo Uematsu didn't do the FF Movie music, after hearing his work in the games for years, and having the cds from several of them. The music wasn't bad, but it wasn't on par with what he can do, either.
-Tannin Kal
I cant speak to whether its fake or not, but i saw a feature on TV about the making of this (Entertainment Tonight or something of its ilk) and one of the animators was saying that part of the idea behind Aki was that she could be a virtual actrss and not just a character for FF. If this is the case then its perfectly legitimate to include peublic hair on the CG model. Your actress has to be complete if you want to audition her.
...and that's the end of our show. Donk!
They have spent millions on the last couple of games, most notably X. So if one assumes that most people who are fans of the game go to see the movie, then yes, they are justified on makeing a big budget movie just for the fans of the game.
Anyone else notice that Jon Katz is sounding more and more like that entertainment critic from The Onion - Jackie Harvey?
MMDC Mobile Media
-- My Weblog.
But if you don't like anime, nothing will make you like the FF movie. You don't need big eyes and small mouths to have anime!
later,
Shadow Knight
Supreme Lord High Commander of the Interstellar Task Force for the Eradication of Stupidity
Then I gotta go see it... it should be great.
--
You know, you may be right - I don't know much about Shinto.
But when I think about the plot, aside from the visuals, it still wasn't anywhere as bad as Katz makes it out to be. The times when you totally forget that the characters are CG are the times when you are totally engrossed in the story.
And do you really need to have every plot element explained to you in detail? I *like* movies that leave you with questions when you leave the theatre.
I think that Roger Ebert's review hits most of the salient points.
And I stand by my original statements. The visiuals were simply amazing and worth the price of admission to me.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Why did I expect Katz would toe the line with this review?
I thought the CG was simply awe-inspiring. Sure, it isn't perfect, but this was simply the most beautiful piece of work ever shown on the big screen.
The story was not amazing, but it isn't as bad as some people (read: Katz) make it out to be.
I hope we get to see more of this genre. Do yourself a favor, go see the movie and then form your own opinion.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
What does this mean? Does he mean this is the first movie with animation instead of "real" photographs of "real" people? Um, that's pretty obviously false, so he must mean that the people who did the voices (Baldwin, Southerland, Woods, etc) are "non-actors" - either way, it's beyond moronic.
Perfection is unachievable. This was very good.
Statistics: My wife, I, one co-worker and her kid saw it (not together) and all liked it. That's a 4/0 like/dislike ratio in this neck of the woods.
I dunno, all Katz' detractors don't seem to have any problem with it. :-)
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Somehow, after the trailers, I expected the CG to be a bit more advanced/better. Some bits were incredible, but overall, I thought it would be more impressive.
Where it really lacked was in the lip movement. Everyone seemed stiff. I guess it was too hard to CG pursed lips 'cause they don't exist in this movie. I think that's what made everyone's speaking seem unnatural. Probably too much deformation to still look real or something.
I really think I must have seen a different movie than almost everyone else.
First off, I have never even -seen- a FF game. What does that have to do with the plot? I certainly had no problems following it. There were a bunch of strange aliens, and they were killing people for whatever reason. Humans had to hide out in shielded structures and struggle to sruvive. Some scientists figured out a way to neutralize these critters, and it involved finding a bunch of specific things. The main characters fight through monsters and stuff to get them. They get them, and the "good guys" win. Yay us. What was so friggin' hard about that?
And why does everyone keep whining about inconsistencies and confusion with the monster things? It all made sense to me.
Also, so what if they all look a little plastic? Do you complain when cartoon-characters look a little bit like they're drawn or painted? Do you complain that, when you read a book, you have to make up the images entirely in your head? Duuuuh.
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it. -John Archibald Wheeler
Oddly enough, when I went to see it, I didn't enter with the expectation that I was going to see something that's trying it's best to be live-action -- I was expecting realistic animation. That and a good FF-like story (where, per usual, you're punted into the game world and have to figure out what's going on in the background). Kudos to Square for providing both -- even though it did become too FF7ish in the end. =)
- HX!
- HX!
if(!caffiene){sleep(now)};
I assume you think this is a bad thing, considering the rest of the CRAP that you wrote.
What else did she have going for her? How else were we to relate to the main character? Being infested with these creatures is a little weird, but not enough to inspire great sympathy, at least IMO.Explinations (sic) of the attacks are given in Aki's dreams.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only thing the dreams explain is why our spirit pals left their planet, not why they attack humans.Most of the information comes from underlying messages;
What exactly were the underlying messages? I can think of only the following: If somebody does something previously thought impossible (contain Aki's infection) immediately hail them as the second coming of Christ and let them have free rein to pursue any other wild theories (Gaea's existence) at the expense of your people's safety. I actively supported the General for most of the movie. He was by far the best character, again IMO.Sigmentation fault - core dumped
wow, i have to say that katz is way off the mark on this one. the cg was simply amazing. i cant see how things like hair could possibly done better as it just seemed perfect. my one and only complaint was with the animation of the characters talking. their faces are expressionless and their jaws just move up and down with no expression or other facial movement. seemed silly that so much else in the movie would have been done so well and then this would have been so half-assed looking. sure the story wasnt perfect, but i'd go see it again just for the visuals.
grub
What do the good know...except what the bad teach them in their excesses? - Clive Barker
The impression that I got from the film was that a different genre ought have been chosen. If you are going to do Sci-Fi, you've got to at least have a decent plot... If you are going to be light on plot and acting talent, then you had better choose horror...
The characters were the most grotesque anime stereotypes that they could have been... The fragile, empath female, the square-jawed bullshit white male hero, a big, strong, black male expendable character of few words, and a skinny italian to boot... I guess that there are not a lot of hollywood movies that are more challenging than this but the damn hamfistedness of this was really noticeable... Also, they made the bad guy a little too evil...
So overall, expect this movie to tank after the first week. The CGI is pretty amazing, but you'd better have at least an interesting plot if you're going to try scifi.
+++ ATH0 +++
Compared to tomb raider, it had a story (which imho wasn't too bad), it managed to be orriginal as opposed to cliche, and the animation was best in class.
I am sorry that you want to tear it appart on technicallitys because I think it does what a movie should do: It told a story.
Sometimes, a movie is just a movie. Enjoy it for what it is, not what you thought it should be.
More Caffeine. NOW
my two cents. sephiroth always seemed, to me, that he didn't care about doing evil. he was passive. it was like fighting an robot. kefka, on the other hand, ENJOYED what he was doing. he did evil because it made him feel good, not sephiroth's evil just because it's something to do. style over substance. evil, but very very shallow.
Bad things often happen to good people,
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
be friggin' correct!
..."If this is true then we have a log time to wait..." would be grammatically correct.
..."If this is true, then we have a long time..."
really should be along the lines of
One should ALWAYS follow an introductory preposition with a comma. Also, remember what words you're paraphrasing - long, not log.
Sheesh. Now that I think about it, your post makes you out to be more of a grammar half-nazi.
>>big phantom things can go through poisonous pipes that no living thing could survive through, and yet bullets hurt them.>And why the heck are the phantoms eating souls? Is there a reason? >Finally.... what happened to nuclear technology? Why didn't the try that? It is 2056, so I'd assume they've got some pretty sweet fission bombs. Again, that was covered in the movie in the beginning, they tried normal weapons but they failed, again out of the same reason: The wrong kind of energy. Plus: Don't forget, they don't want to kill the planet off they're living on ;)
Michael
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
You can when the game is Final Fantasy. This game has a MASSIVE following in asia, they go nuts over it. I imagine this film could have only been screened in asia and easily turned a profit.
"I'll take the red pill, no, blue. AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH........"
"I'll take the red pill. No! Blue! AAAaaaahhhhhhhhh"
- Monty Python meets the Matrix
I wish the soldiers' Powered Armour had been more complete though. If they can shield a city, couldn't they shield a few super-soldiers?
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"After Careful Consideration, Bush Recommends Oil Drilling" - The Onion
It's not that actors in general have to be worried - its the "Ooh, look at me, I'm pretty/cute/hot/etc" "actors" - soon, actors may not be needed for their looks, but for their, uhm, acting ability.
What a concept!
Tell us how you really feel Jon...
The story was crap, and it had enough holes to drive a fleet of trucks through. The dialog was painfully bad. It required a focus on technique over substance: like watching one of those candy ads at the start of the movie where you try to figure out if they used Phong shading on Mr. SoftDrink's hands. Actually, I think the candy ad had a better plot.
Mainframe make the Transformers look more fluid than these characters.
I disagree. While I loved Beast Wars, the animation really wasn't that fluid. It didn't have to be. They were robots. Who really knows how a giagantic robot (or even a giant talking gorilla) is going to move? Even if you have a rough idea, it's not an innate piece of knowledge, like you know how a human moves.
Though for the time the animation in Beast Wars was phenoemnally good.
There's a pic floating around of the Aki character, butt-nekkid. Anyone know if it's legit? Looks like a real render from Square, but it could just be a Poser/Maya body with her head on it.
I did some searching and found a bigger pic. http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Server/9029 /aki_nude.jpg
Looks real to me.
Sorry, but you're full of shit. If this movie were marketed only to people who have played the games, they'd have to charge about $100 per ticket in order to recoup their costs. This movie is being sold to the general public, in standard movie theaters. The producers have an obligation to make the movie comprehensible in its own right, otherwise they deserve criticism (and probable financial ruin).
What the fuck?
I saw the original Dune movie before I ever read the books. I could follow the movie, I even thought it was good. I still think it is... as far as movies go. However, as far as being an adaptation of the Dune story, it sucked ass.
After reading the book, I was quite unhappy with the major changes made to the story in the movie. The whole throwing away of the kris knives and giving the frememn "voice weapons" wtf was that?
As for FF... ive played the games. I like the games. However, I know the games, so I expect the plot to be thin and corney as all hell. (though I have to hand i tto square, in FF7, the plot wasn't too corney until around the point where you actually meet laguna)
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I think Hollywood is definitely going down that road. Remember Titanic? They had "digital stuntmen" during the final sinking scenes. Remember the famous guy-that-falls-and-whacks-his-head-on-the-way-down when the ship became vertical? When I saw the film, the entire audience groaned. They totally bought it.
As the rendering and animation get better, I think audience empathy will follow automatically.
The crater is in the Caspian Mountains in Russia so that's pretty much as far from NY as you can get.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
"I've never played the game, but it has to be way more fun than this movie."
Which is probably exactly why you hated it. Why do we have a person reviewing a movie based on a game when that person hasn't ever played the game. Wouldn't it follow that the person would not be able to understand the plot. And rather just say that make generalizations in order to try to make people believe they know what they are talking about?
Then of course 90% of Jon's articles are that way :)
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
The Anti-Blog
Snow White (1937) is the first full length studio (Disney) film with human leads played by non-actors.
It's called animation, which Final Fantasy is as well.
You ask any critic out there in Hollywood who has not played any of the latter FF games (FF 7 or 8) about this movie and they will all tell you the same thing: the storyline was too confusing.
It's not Katz's fault that he didn't get the storyline. That's just the way Final Fantasy storylines are. Unless you know what to expect in the first place, you're going to be so lost with the storyline that you won't be able to enjoy any other parts of the movie.
For FF, I thought the storyline was good (not great...it paralleled FF7 too much). I could go on and on about how good/bad/great/awful the CG was (although I will say brownie points to detailing the wallet in the Captain's jeans). What I want to emphasize from Katz's critique is how "emotionally-dubbed" this movie is. The perfect example: Steve Buscemi. I love this guy, and his awesome ability to portray sarcasm with satire so well (like his roles in Con Air and Armegeddon). He had some good lines in FF as well, but your reaction to them was delayed. You didn't see the little quirk he does so well with his eyebrows, or how his face looks so serious while his eyes show that he's joking. You just can't do that with computer animation. His emotions seemed to be "dubbed in" by the animation. He did great like he always does with the lines, but the face of his character just didn't show it. I don't know why, but it makes you feel as if the speech and emotion don't blend.
The same with Aki Ross. You just don't feel the actors emotions. It's not because they're not spoken well...they're spoken very well (although Baldwin doesn't do the greatest with the captain...I think the Baldwin's usually rely on looks rather than speech for acting). But the face only shows a "cookie cutter" emotion. Even if they bend the eyebrows a little bit, or change the tint on the skin just a little, my mind just doesn't feel for what they're supposed to be feeling. That's what made this movie disappointing for me.
The most real character to me was Dr. Cid. And speaking of which, could someone please tell me why there is a Cid IN EVERY SINGLE FF from FF2 on?
In brief: the storyline (for a FF) was good, the CG was great, but the emotion was not there in the graphics, which made it not there in the movie.
Perhaps that is why I liked it. I went into the film with expectations properly primed on the wealth of other high quality movies-from-video-games as a base to judge from. After such gems as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Tombraider, I suppose it might be impossible for the movie to suck so bad that it lived down to my expectations.
As for Katz, I don't hold much stock in using the same judgements for every genre. It's the first of its kind. The acting in the first traditional films sucked too.
So maybe they should have made her look sad like this: :(
It was a great movie, with wonderful CG. The plot was pretty darn good, with some characters having actual background. The general wasn't just an asshole, he actually had a reason why he hated the phantoms. Sure, Aki looked a little plastic, but I found that she was the worst looking one of the bunch. Sid (shoulda been Cid), Ryan, and Grey all looked human. Sid especially.
As far as telling us that Aki didn't quite reach "sexy", why should she? She looked real. Lara Croft isn't sexy, she's disproportionate. Please. This type of movie has never been tried before, and it was beautiful. The lip sync was completely on track, and the movie smacked of Final Fantasy-ness without being a re-hash of any one of the games. My friend may have said it best when he claimed "The only part of Final Fantasy they missed was that the movie wasn't 50 hours long!"
I miss the chocobos and mogs, but it was a great movie.
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Ceci n'est pas une sig.
If you read up on it you'll find that several new animation software plugins were created specifically for this film.
Maybe seeing this movie is too close to what it feels like to watch the FMV scenes while playing the actual game. Often, we want to skip it and start playing again. Only watching it in the theater there's no joystick and it's one long-ass FMV scene.
-jc
I don't see the advertisments and previews with a disclaimer saying "For FF Fans Only"
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Silence is consent.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
I was completely amazed by the first few minutes of FF; the graphics were absolutely stunning - you could barely tell it was fake. The only problem was that the chracters didn't always seem to express the appropriate emotions. There are hundreds of muscles that have to be contorted to capture the essence of a human smile, grin, smirk, snort, etc. They just didn't model enough of them. I didn't personally see the problem between voice and mouth movements; I thought they did that fine. It just didn't look human. But this was SquareSoft's first real big CG movie - I expect they'll get better.
The other thing I didn't like was some parts of the plot. Forgetting the fact that it can be considered sacreligious (although it's a story, so it can get away with it - it's a Fantasy afterall), it didn't always make sense. These big phantom things can go through poisonous pipes that no living thing could survive through, and yet bullets hurt them. And why the heck are the phantoms eating souls? Is there a reason? Finally.... what happened to nuclear technology? Why didn't the try that? It is 2056, so I'd assume they've got some pretty sweet fission bombs.
Oh, and why did most of the characters die? That's so unlike the FF series. Usually the core group of 9-12 characters have a final show down with some big monster and they all live. Sure a couple may die along the way, but most characters live.
Oh well, I thought it was an overall good step in the right direction, and will defintely see the nex Square Picturers movie when it comes out.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
If you like Anime, chances are you'll give FF a passing grade. If you're not a big Anime, I'd expect a so-so reaction. I say screw Katz, I want to know what Taco thinks of it.
Now, I haven't exactly seen the movie yet but from what I've heard about it I think it does have quite a bit in common with trends in the series.
;-)
The quasispiritual undertones are a strong thread tying the series together. Whether it be the crystals (ff4&5), magicite (ff6), materia/lifestream (ff7) or guardians (ff8), there is some spiritual force that bonds the characters to the planet and gives them the power to fight evil. Are we expected to believe any of this? No, of course not. The point of this whole spiritual undercurrent is to establish a sense of balance in the world. Ever hear the phrase, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"? So something has to be wrong, and this is the common excuse that FF characters use to kick some ass. After all, the success of a video game is directly proportional to the amount of violence it can involve.
As for the plot, I'll assume it follows this sort of skeleton. Some unbalance created by technology leads the the planet being overrun by monsters (i.e. using the crystals as a source of energy leads to monsters attacking towns a la FF5). One character, who (initially through self-interest) begins a quest to save the world but only accepts this fate after an internal struggle (i.e. Cloud is trying to figure out his past in FF7). In addition to the monsters, there is a (usually militant) evil character who is trying to take advantage of the planet's weakened state (Kefka, ff6). There's also the main chacter's love interest, sometimes a love triangle. Cid (some sort of engineer) makes frequent appearances. Usually, one of the characters team members sacrifices his/her life for the interest of the group's greater cause. With the assistance of the spiritual force (described above) and many sleepless nights of the player, good triumphs over evil and balance is restored.
What I expect to be missing from the movie, are the sub plots, the little quests your characters go on to gain experience and items while learning more about one of them. I just hope that they substite more character development to account for this.
Chocobos (which you call the biggest omission) and moogles (which are cooler), didn't appear until FF4 & 5 respectively. I wouldn't have even expected them to appear in the movie. They wanted this to be a life-like movie. If you noticed, they set the movie on EARTH. Which doesn't quite fit the FF trend, but lends towards its realism. What I do expect to see is a "wise-ass" for comic relief, someone like Barrett in FF7 who lightens up the tension through sarcasm. If you go all the way back to FF1e, the summons disappear so it isn't that much of a trend breaker. Again, I would contribute this to the realism they wanted. People aren't going to understand how Bahamut appearing out of the middle of no where ties in to the whole mess.
In addition to the realism they wanted, I think the failure of D&D hinted at a more futuristic setting, which still isn't that far from the game (Look at ff6,7,8).
Furthermore, I think that the Squaresoft name will lead to more people seeing the movie than otherwise. Thus, naming it a Final Fantasy will draw out all the hidden FF addicts like myself into seeing it, and possibly dragging a friend or 2 along.
For more information on the Final Fantasy series, try http://www.ffshrine.com
--Ryan
"And if I could change the future,
Fight or flight its all the same
Live to die another day
--Ryan
Square has promised the shareholders that they will never FINANCE a movie again. They'll gladly make them if somebody else is signing the cheques. :-)
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
why is it impossible for SuiteSisterMary to post without being modded up???
here we go.
If the (wo)man is on the bounce 24/7, what are we supposed to do?
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
[o]_O
They call me "Master Cat Herder" cause I managed to get myself and 15 friends to see the movie opening night. Suffice to say that almost everyone hated it. I don't know why, but I was completely floored.
The movie reminded me alot of Heinlein novels... You either love them or hate them, but either way they're an incredible read. And I've yet to find anyone with a middle view... People either said, "AWESOME!" or "WTF is this crap?". No one said, "eh".
People are getting mixed signals though: the GIA is reporting that Square has more films in the works, while at Square's shareholder meeting, the brass apologized profusely by the losses incurred primarily as a result of making the film. IF this was indeed only a test run THEN holy shit we ain't seen nothing yet.
Bottom line: just go see the movie.
Peace,
Amit
ICQ 77863057
[o]_O
While the plot is quite generic, the way it successfully references so many other movies amazed me. Hints of BladeRunner, a dash of Dune, and a helping of Aliens and Akira.
If you're going just for the CG then enjoy the artistry (not reality, artistry - when you go to see an anime flick, are you expecting reality? no - you're wanting artistry. expect the same here). But go for the homage to the Past a well. This screenwriter and Director spent his time noting scenes/character types that worked in other movies and blended them quite well into FF.
and keep in mind the genre of the movie you're watching. It's like with Crouching Tiger - the plot is predictable, the lines are melodramatic, but for the genre, CTHD works perfectly. FF is a Sci-Fi/Anime and it fits that genre perfectly - from the fasst paced, at times confusing action, to the pointless and countless little noises whats-her-name makes, down to the cheesy song at the end.
-f
-f
www.blackant.net
I went with a bunch of members of our Linux Users Group, and the general concensus was, the movie was good. It is a HUGE step in CGI as there are scenes (quite a few at that) when the characters LOOK real! It's totally amazing. They still have work to do like getting fingers to relax in a normal position, but for the most part the animation was EXCELLENT! The plot was pretty weak, but being people who have seen movies like this, we didn't expect one at all. Instead it gave a decent plot that you could actually follow. Much of the story was ripped from various books, anime, etc. but was put together pretty well. There were times when the voices were out of sync (not the WHOLE movie), and natural mouth movement is something that needs improvement.
Overall we were all pleased and weren't sorry we saw it. Many times I'll agree with JonKatz, but today I think he's way off base. Sorry man, but geeks say "Good movie".
-What have you contributed lately?
For years I've read comments to Jon Katz stories pointing out what a moron he is...now I understand why.
Just because one person doesn't 'get' the most original storyline I've ever seen, doesn't mean it's not good. It simply means the movie wasn't intended for simple minds that think Tomb Raider was a good movie.
That would be plagarism, which is a crime, not to mention immoral.
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=AEnema
You have no chance to make up your own mind
Ha Ha Ha Ha
Annoyed note: Since when was shouting illegal? I tried to post a legitimate all-caps CATS imitation and the thing screams at me about yelling. I know yelling, it's just not a good parody without all caps. CENSORSHIP! YOU HAVE INFRINGED ON MY RIGHTS, TACO.
I want my Cowboyneal
If you consider how many copies of FF games have been sold (6+ million just FF7) and that each copy is played by more than just the buyer then: many millions have played the FF games.
Only a complete moron makes a blockbuster movie for .0001% of the population
That's about 600000 people worldwide. Id guess like .01% and that's ok. Considering a large part of the people in the world don't have the money to go to movies... And I still think it is largely aimed at the FF players who hopefully will drag their friends to the thetre too. That should make a lot of viewers.
What I do find interesting is that you imply that Jon (or anyone else) has no right to review the movie because they didn't play the game? That's crazy.
Well, I was a bit pissed.. :) .. He has the right to review but he should try to view it from several angles but his own. He is reviewing for the community of which I think many have played FF7 or are interesten in CG. What I'm trying to say is he should be a bit more openminded.
If any slasdot readers can be passionate about something and unbiased at the same time
*lol* .. :) .. I don't think it's a /. thing. How many passionate/unbiased people do you know.. ;) .*shrc is
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$HOME is where the
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
Katz, Im not usualy a JonKatz basher but at times like this I really understand them.
One of the first things you mention is that you haven't played the games. If you had you'd have had something to relate to. In the last games (since Vii) they have had lots of _nice_ pre-rendered CG wich has gotten better for each game. Every FF player has probably played with the thought of how this could be made into a movie. And now it is. Most of us compare to the game and the games pre-rendered sequences. And most of us love it. At least what we've seen on the www and on trailers. Many of us will go just for the eye candy. If I wanted real actors, I'd demand real actors. I want to see how much we can do without real actors... And I can't help you with the lipsync. I betcha there will be better syncs on other languages. Or just wait and buy the DVD with english subtitles. Let the fans deside if it's bad - the film is made for them.
You are behaving like a /. reader who hasn't read the article but still has a lot to say about it. Those dudes are irritating...
Cheers...
.*shrc is
--
$HOME is where the
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
...that the only way for the upcoming LOTR movie to get a good response from ./ posters is if Katz doesn't like it. Seriously, I have never before seen a scifi/fantasy movie reviewed here that people claimed to like, but as soon as Katz says its crap, everyone and his brother is singing the praises of the movie in a unified voice.
When I got back from seeing the pre-screening
of this movie, I sumbitted a full (but fair) review; knowing that it would get rejected in favor of a perspective by Hemos or Taco - who
would talk not only about the movie, but try to
evaluate some of the hype that has surrounded it
over the past few months.
Instead I got a jealous Katzbot.
All I can say is for me, the movie lived up to
its potential far better than I understand
Tomb Raider and Pearl Harbor did.
for those who played the games a lot, it was superb
I'm not sure what playing the games has to do with the movie. One of the hallmarks of the FF games' plots was that they had nothing, absolutely no connection with eachother, except for a couple of things...
- There's always a character named Cid. He's always a completely different character, but he's always named Cid.
- There are Chocobos
And the movie was an even bigger departure from the games than each installment in the series usually is. Both thematically, and because of the notable omission of chocobos. There were a few similarities here and there... the earth-spirits sort of reminded me of the end of FFVII, but I think that kind of thing is pretty generic, I don't even know if I'd call it a similarity. Also, I've never played FFVIII or FFIX so maybe I've missed something.Anyway, I'll I'm saying is that it bears no resemblance to the games...
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Not all geeks liked it. My group was more than annoyed with the ending, or the fade, or the big snooze, or whatever it was. We went to the theater to see a movie, presumably one with a plot. Sure, the beginning was super, and the artistic effects were well done. The animation was adequate, notwithstanding the waxen complexions, the stiff lips, and the suspect syncroniztion. But the screen writing, the editing, the pathetic pseudotheology, the plot holes that you could drive trains through, all were miserably inadequate. Okay, a question -- what was the ending? The thing simply stopped. There _was_ no ending, There were no resolutions, few lessons, no answers, no life, no death, no nuthin' ... One could convincingly argue that they all died and Aki (Dr. Aki? Puhhllease... she looked 15 years old!) could've been dreaming again. Gack.
Bottom line: as a movie and as a story, this thing sucked. The theater-going equivalent of 'Hello World'...
OSDG / Louisville
Actually, the preying mantis talked like Dr. Smith from Lost in Space. It was the stick bug (or walking stick or whatever you want to call it) that talked like Frasier's brother.
-- nolesrule
but great news for human actors
Well, at least they tried. What should they do according to you? Keep trying until it's really perfect? In that case you would have to wait quite a few years. But I really think that in a few years time actors *will* have a difficult time, because animation will be a lot better then. Maybe the lead roles will not be played by animated actors, but smaller roles will (especially roles that are too dangerous to play, I think an animated actor/stuntman is a lot cheaper than a real actor).Watching this movie kept reminding me of the origonal season of Star Trek. The cheesy lines, slightly 'off' reality in filming. Esp when they were standing on the hill in the desert looking down. Though the fact that an animated movie can come close to what we were filming in the seventies is amazing in my book.
The movie had a GREAT plot and astonishing animation.
The animation was pretty good (except the facial expressions)... But, sorry. The plot was terrible. It was boring. There was very little action. There were very few cool scenes and the characters weren't especially cool or interesting. The single best part of the movie was at the beginning, before we even know the story (when the Deepeyes come to take Dr. Aki out of the wastes).
They spent too much of the movie trying to show off the acting chops of their digital people... The problem was, their acting sucked. They should have gone for more action, more eye candy because everytime they went for a close up of Aki being "sad", they really lost it for me.
Josh Sisk
Yeah, but the plot of the movie is shallow compared to even other summer movies. Even Shrek's plot was better. It was a better movie, too. Though I think FF's animation on a whole was better... Shrek's character's weren't really supposed to look real, so it's hard to judge, but FF had some cool-looking stuff.
So maybe they should have made her look sad like this: :(
My problem with the film was that the digital actors could carry the emotion parts, yet they chose to try and emphasis them... For example, many shots of Aki trying to look sad, etc. If you are weak in an area, you should try to de-emphasis that area, not point it out to everyone and linger on it.
The general wasn't just an asshole, he actually had a reason why he hated the phantoms.
I didn't buy his actions. Halfway through the movie he suddenly becomes a bad guy. The first 2 or 3 scenes with him, I agreed with him, not Dr. Sid... But he was wearing all black, so he has to be a bad guy, I guess.
Josh Sisk
Much in the way the various Final Fantasy games all take place in different worlds with completely different characters, the movie in fact is not in any way based off of any of the games. The only thing they have in common is the name Final Fantasy, and the fact that the movie looks a lot like one of the FMVs for the more recent games. So it's nothing at all like Tomb Raider, which is actually based on the plot of a video game. It can't really have "fun with itself", because it's not just some cheesy video game plot brought to life. It's an original, standalone feature film. If you don't like it, that's fine, but don't try to compare it with a movie like Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat, or Street Fighter, all of which actually are based off of video game, because this one is not.
...your entire way of life would be over. That is, since you benefit indirectly from the hard work of the engine of this planet's economy, you would be fucked if that engine were suddenly gone. You're just a dirty, shoeless leech living in a fantasy world created by New Yorkers.
don't forget that, in the original (full) version of the game, the meteor actually hits, releasing a huge buttload of evil spirits or what-not (I don't recall exactly; I don't speak Japanese).
In case the previous US-centric polls, etc., failed to inform you, this is the USA. As such, her name should be "Aeris." "Aerith" doesn't even mean anything, unlike "Aeris" (heiress).
Godzilla, Ultraman, Mothra, Akira, the Angels in Evangelion... just to name some of them...
My interpretation is that people living in Tokyo have a love-hate relationship with their city just as New Yorkers do... Or like we do here in Mexico City.
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C'mon, flame me!
No sig for the moment.
True, but the humans in Shrek were still fairly cartoony acting. They did all sorts of wacky stunts and shit. Final Fantasy makes their actors adhere to normal human actions, aside from all the new-age sci-fi futuristic stuff, but that's included in live-action sci-fi too.
Isn't 39 of that 40 hours spent fighting the same monsters over and over again in repetitive battles to level up? Or in the case of the newer FF games for PlayStation, spending those 39 hours watching the same 2-minute long junction attack animation over and over again?
It really doesn't make any sense. Has Katz ever seen a cartoon? Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't cartoons usually use non-actors to represent human leads? Like, drawings and shit?
J
The review, not the movie.
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Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
A movie that Jon Katz totally panned! I think that's a first for /. =)
I'm looking forward to seeing Final Fantasy, partly because of the excellent animation techniques (for anyone who's familiar with the difficulties of character modeling and animation: OMG! THE HAIR!) and partly because I rather like a side of mysticism with my order of sci-fi and Biggie hard-SF shake.
Of course, after reading Jon's review, I'll probably slate seeing Final Fantasy for a matinee than an evening showing.
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Chief Technician, Helpdesk at the End of the World
"I am an Adept of Tantric VAX."
I saw the movie the other night with my son. I've never played the game, in fact I don't normally play video games. Anyway, I thought the movie was very good. It's a great improvement over what I grew up with, "Heavy Metal". I think the sync problems were with your theater as I didn't notice any problems with the voices. Of course, I didn't go to the movie to critique it. I went to get some enertertainment. That's what this movie is, entertaining.
Steve
The story was so-so, but the eye candy was fabulous.
You do, since you flamed him.
sulli
RTFJ.
You just can't do that with computer animation
.. and my "cool attention to detail".. you could see the veins on the back of Aki's hands in at least one scene (forget which one.. was one of the lovey-dovey scenes with grey though)..
:)
Sure you can.. just takes time & effort.. likely more than was available with the technology and budget they were running. Hey, its a first shot attempt at making a realistic-looking CG movie..
why there is a Cid IN EVERY SINGLE FF from FF2 on?
character recognition, continuity.. and the ability to make you go "smirk" the first time you see it.. I've heard that Cid even had a small role in the original (NES) FF (from a comment on a previous article).. I havent played it in many years so I can't confirm that..
Also, don't forget Cid's "it's warm" at the end.. completely out of place for the movie, but almost every ff (perhaps even all of them) had a warm light at one point or another.. people who've played the games a lot would know this.. anyone else would think "that was a stupid thing to say.. totally out of place".. I think squaresoft did a much better takeoff of the games than people realize.. mainly because of these somewhat "hidden" elements that make it into pretty much every game in the series, even though the storylines are completely different..
now there were a few quirks in the movie that made it less than perfect (although it still blows away a lot of other crap out there.. although this summer has been relatively good for movies for a change).. things like.. why the aliens were attacking.. they explained why the aliens were there, but didnt make much reference to why they were malicious.. (in fact, there were a few places where it seemed like they were almost purposely dodging that issue)..
and of course the worst part of the movie.. no one cast a 'fire3' spell dammit!
Something that I don't think most people realize is that when you spell out too much via details -- particularly in movies like this -- then you create more problems. Either your explanation isn't believeable, isn't sufficient, or becomes outdated. If Lucas had gone to great detail as to how lightsabers work, and how the force works, and all of that crap then Star Wars would really be a hokey piece of crap movie. Instead, things in that universe work the way the do and characters accept it . . . If too many details had been filled in for FF, I'm sure it would have suffered.
This has been a common response to the Final Fantasy movie - that the games' plots are deeper. Guess what, give Square 70 hours of gameplay to develop characters & storyline and they're going to create something spectacular, as they have in the past. The movie is around 1:45. You really can't compare the two.
I alternate between posting +5 and -1 Comments. Karma: +53 -47 = 6
Give Katz a break. Critique is not an easy job in the best of circumstances, let alone on Slashdot :-)
"A few atoms won't even light a match" - Dr Jones, 1933
I have to agree. I can think of quite a few video games with deeper plots than this movie (Final Fantasy 7 comes to mind). The only thing interesting about this movie is the animation.
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As I saw this movie, I can't believe Katz trashed it so much! It wasn't a 5 star movie, but geez, give it some slack. Granted, it didn't have too much of a plot, but I think the CGI was quite incredible, and that in itself entertained me for 1hrs 42mins. I didn't expect it to be perfect.. I mean geez.. just because their voices weren't perfectly matched sometimes is no cause to trash the hell out of it. The is the first time this has been done with simulated people. With Toy Story, there was plenty of "off voices", but that was "forgiven" cause it was cartoony. Try to stop looking at the bad and look at the good. This was a great effort to create a pseudo-real movie with some incredible animation. Definitely a turning point for the movie industry. Totally worth going to see.. Don't expect walking out of there going "Oh my god, that was the best movie I've ever seen".. but expect to go "Wow.. that was entertaining, and the animation was great.. did you see the hair and pores on the peoples faces? Very cool!" I know people who code or are graphic designers will definitely be in awe of this movie, and appreciate it for what it is, a work of art, not necessarily a plot-driven movie. Ignore the plot, go see it for the visuals.. (Matinee if you are really cheap.. did you do that Katz?)
I thought the cgi was pretty damn good! The plot was enjoyable. You have to let yourself enjoy movies Katz... if you walk in knowing you want to find something to be critical of, you'll never enjoy anything. The only exception was the scene where Aki is crying/pouting? in the Captains arms. They animators did a very poor job of relaying that she was crying. In fact, she showed no emotion and if it weren't for the whiney sobby noises I would have thought she was apathetic. I really enjoyed everything else though.
Errr, no. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to accept sentient Mr. Potato Heads and talking, singing ants as the real thing. (Don't they seem very different from the toys and insects where you live? The praying mantises here don't talk like Frazier's younger brother.)
Geez, I'm amazed this is such a controversial point. Don't you guys perceive a distinction between Fred and Wilma and Ross and Rachel? If you don't, I strongly urge you to turn off the PlayStation or the anime and go outside for a few hours!
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Yeah, Betty was quite the, well, betty. At least when not being played by Rosie O'Donnell *gag*. My ranking would be:
1st season Rachel with the "Rachel" hairdo > Betty > anorexic Rachel with the forgettable hair and the...
Oh, man -- now I'm the one confusing cartoon characters with reality! ;-)
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
No, he's making a distinction between traditional animation, where you're expected to think of the characters as creations, not as actors, and FF which you're expected to experience as a live-action film although the actors are generated.
Like the New York Times review said, Pearl Harbor probably also fit the bill as "human leads played by non-actors ."
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
The plot was captivating, even to someone who only has the faintest recollection of the video games: for those who played the games a lot, it was superb. Much like the original production of Dune: if you knew the books, it was one of the best movies made. If you didn't, you were lost. Though in the case of FF, being lost wasn't anywheres as bad as with Dune.
But something that came to my mind while watching it was the format: full CG. It allowed the movie to have special effects that didn't break the mold of the movie. Let me try to explain myself here.
It's like the video game, Metal Gear Solid. MGS never breaks from the format that you play it in: it's a continuous flow of action and graphics that is extremely smooth. The makers didn't break the format to go into "Cinemagraphic Sequences". Everything was in the same mode as game play. This created a suspension of disbelief that never needed to be broken.
It's the same thing with Final Fantasy. Most movies, when special effects are added, LOOK like the effects are, well, ADDED. They are a second layer that is obviously ON TOP of the live action. Not so with FF! Because the ENTIRE movie is animated, the special effects don't have to break with the flow. The result is a movie where neat effects and the actors are lumped together into one unbreakable chain. The movie has a flow to it that you simply CANNOT imitate with live action.
The actors(:) were amazingly smooth (though the opening sequence wasn't as good as I had expected it to be), the effects non-intrusive, the voice-overs excellently done.
It of course does not rival live action (did you expect it to?), but in fifty years, when animation DOES 100% imitate life, people will look back at FF and say that THIS was the true beginning.
It might be interesting to try and pay attention to what you DON'T see. This may sound nonsensical, but bear with me. I have not yet seen FF, so I can't say much about it, but here's another example:
On of my favorite fairly recent movies is Chicken Run. (pause as people laugh at me) I'm a Wallace and Gromit fan, and also a claymation fan. I've watched the movie several times, and began to realize just how much detail was put into such an endeavor. Think for a moment about just how much is going on that you pay no attention. How do the characters interact with the environment? Lights, objects, and gravity are not offen done well is such situations. What about "Camera Work?" How were the scenes laid out? These are the types of things that, if done well, draw no attention whatsoever.
As I said, I haven't seen FF yet, and probably won't for a while, so maybe someone who HAS seen the movie could let us know how well this movie did in this regard.
Zeus_tfc
"...At the end of the day"..."when everyone goes home, you're stuck with yourself." RIP Layne Staley
And I'm still nostalgic for those classic graphics from the first 6 FF's.
Lets hope that next FF movie will use the 8bit Nintendo characters!
I don't understand what all the hype is about. Final Fantasy the Movie was out years ago. It was called Final Fantasy 7.
Firts, thanks to Katz for having an opinion that is actually his own and not born of the group mentality every now and then.
I liked the movie myself. Generally disliked the character animations. They reminded me of Blizzard's. Dummies that got a breath of light but didn't oil their joints. The characters were not fluid at all, Mainframe make the Transformers look more fluid than these characters.
But this movie would not have worked at all if it was doen with real actors. The visual effects would have make the real actors seem completely out of place. So even though the characters looked great but moved like the Tin Man, they fit in with the world they inhabited.
The story was so-so. Mad general with loyal following who wants nothing more than to blow stuff up out of revenge, scientests who just know that blowing stuff up will destroy the world.
The main flaw with the story is that they had potential for a deep story, but they took a shallow sweep of a deep lake and only got the very top, freshest, smelliest stuff.
What exactly are the spirits? Life energies? Souls? Some sort of collective? A gift from Gia? Why are there only eight of them? What could you have done with your almost romantic sub plot/comic relief characters if you didn't kill them? Just how mad is this general and why didn't you animate some of his backstory to give him more depth?
Overall, this movie would have been better as say, a one season mini-series. The animation was great, and was the correct choice for the story. I'd give it an average over all. It didn't totally suck, but it didn't live up to what it could have been.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
I am hearing from alot of people that they couldn't understand the plot. Any two year old who has played any Final Fantasy game could grasp the plot without breaking a sweat. It followed the traditional game plot: "bad guy wants to blow up things and rule the world, good guys want to save the Earth for a dark force that no one can see".
What are you, clinically thick?
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that those two images are NOT the same. Let's begin, shall we?
* - Facial expression different
* - Skin tones different
* - Pictures are cropped differently
* - Shadows, anyone?
I'll admit, both images are pretty spanktastic for CGI's, but I'll take Maxim's *REAL* Dr. Ross, thank you.
GTRacer
- GT3 - I won mine!
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
The story is confusing for most people, for an avid Final Fantasy gamers, it makes sense lot better. The visuals are GREAT!
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
now why would they go and model, and places hairs for her pubic area if it was never going to be seen in the movie?
Simple enough.. animators are people too, and CG artists tend to have at least a little geek in their blood. They get bored sometime around the last week of the render, when everything's in the hands of the renderfarm and some post guys doing touchups in photoshop (or whatever proprietary program they used), so a couple of the character design guys get together and do an anatomically correct body texture, slap it on the aki model, and the next day the office gets a few laughs out of some fake pr0n printouts floating around. If it happens to look like a shot done for Maxim, it's probably because it was the same file (or a backup version someone had sitting on their HD). And random little nitpicks like incorrect lighting or bad skin tone can be chalked up to the fact that they weren't pushing the whole power of the renderfarm toward this shot and it was probably a couple hours work by one or three guys.. not the whole dev team.
I was watching a thing on TechTV the other day about the making of Shrek.. some neophyte animator tweaked the donkey's hair wrong and made him look like a big chia pet.. they rendered a whole scene with it just because they thought it looked funny as hell. Yes, animated movies are big budget, but people still screw around on the set.
See Sig append. Append Sig, append. Good Sig.
1. How did collecting to spirits allow them to generate 'the wave'?
The basic premise of the movie is that every living thing has an "energy wave" or spirit (or soul or chi) which forms their life essence. Basic wave theory states that an inverse wave form can cancel out an existing energy wave. The plan is to find a combination of life energy which together form 'the wave'.
2. How would the Zeus cannon damage Gaia?
The Zeus cannon is a huge bioetheric (sp?) laser, the same technology which powers their weapons and keeps the barrier shields in place. Since these lasers can damage and 'kill' the Phantoms (which are merely spirits) a large cannon would be able to damage and 'kill' the spirit of the earth itself.
3. Why was the general such an ass?
His wife and daughter were killed by the Phantoms. Their loss has pushed him 'over the edge' and left him with only one driving goal: Kill the Phantoms at any cost.
4. How did the humans manage to build the barrier cities when the aliens were so very effective at killing them?
Although the aliens were effective at killing humans that is not their goal. The meteor which crashed into Earth is a piece of an alien world which was destroyed. It carried some spirits (ghosts) of the aliens as well as a piece of the alien homeworld spirit. They are not invading the earth, they are merely lost spirits looking for their final resting place. As such they're not making a military effort to wipe out humanity, but they are drawn to the life energy of those they come into contact with. As such their progess in spreading across the planet was likely rather slow, giving humanity time to invent the tools needed to defend themselves.
Frankly, I think the plot could have been brilliant...had the put the same amount of detail into it as they invested in to the computer generated actors...
I thought the plot was almost brilliant and, at the very least, consistant. I'm hoping that just as with the Final Fantasy games I will uncovered additional bits of plot I missed the first or second time through. I still question why they used the Final Fantasy name without using the usual elements. The classic battle music, Biggs and Wedge, and the ever popular chocobo are conspicually absent. I was also hoping that the familiar "Start/Continue" prompt would fade in under the game... I mean movie logo.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
First off I'd like to pointlessly quibble about some semantics. The voices and motion capture I would consider acting, all else animating. That said, if you or anyone else told me that I would see a picture this summer that was 100% computer animated and would make me do a double take in any scene, I would have told you, "Cut back on the crack, it's affecting your judgement." Even then, there is expectation. Personally, if I lived in an appocolyptic future where invisible things could kill anything with only a touch, I can imagine I might be a little bit jadded. Perhaps after seeing this on a scale large enough to wipeout what would seem to be many billions of people, including most peoples families, I would think fear would be a rather indistinct emotion you feel, and acknowledge, before moving on. But its all about expectation. That can pretty dramatically change the movie going experience. I like stories I'm not familiar with. I watch a lot of them. (A mix of hong kong action, indepedent efforts, small studio efforts with a dash of different imports and probably most major studio releases) That and the fact I'm something of a sinophile certainly provides a different context for me, so my milage varies. One of the things I like about Sony's efforts at cultural assimilation is they don't pander to the American audiance. In a fair amount of Asian cinema, as in life, the best ending of all that might be possible is rare. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and even dramatic action movies like Bullet in the Head tell somewhat cautionary tales. The sun doesn't always have to come out tomorrow, nor should it, and it takes some guts to ignore the conventional wisdom, perhaps at the expense of the bottom line.
I guess I can see why people pay to see the same movies over an over, they might not average a movie a week, so that new car smell may linger. Who knows. But to me, an experience taken from another culture but packaged just for me? And it's only $8.75, or $5.25 before 6? That's an offer I find hard to pass up.
Even with all of this. Ignore the fact that this was essentially the first nearly photoreal cartoon. I challenge those who had problems with the acting, story and dialogue to put it up against the rest of the scifi genre. Quite frankly, the acting didn't have to be good to be better than its competition.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Seriously, maybe I took your comment as wrong as I could, but this reminds me of the time I went to see Mulan. During the avalanche scene a teenage girl behind me said, in disgust, "That's so fake." I'm sorry. Was she your sister? If I can find her, should I hook you two up? Maybe you were both lost. Cause in both cases you were in a movie theater, not a documentary theater.
Do you really object to all films that have any kind of an afterlife ingrained in their stories? The list is literally huge, and some are even good. That said, since you're such a staunch proponant of micotargeted entertainment, did it perhaps occur to you that atheists are in the extream minority.
Again I've got no problem with people who object to how a premise of a movie is carried out (as long as they agree with me). By and large I'm all about different strokes for different folks. But you're objecting to the premise of the movie period. Don't go see that movie. What's the point of subjecting yourself to something you know *before hand* you can't enjoy?
The Force. WTF is that crap. Its so unrealistic, they've got pan-galactic travel, you'd think they could come up with a realistic explanation for the Force too. Duh.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
I am sure that I will love this movie, and that 99% of the other people on Slashdot will also. Jon Katz just doesn't understand us.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
If you were looking for an action movie, you went to the wrong theather, you might want to try Kiss of the Dragon.
It's fairly obvious Katz has never played Final Fantasy, otherwise he'd know that almost all of the Final Fantasy games (most of Square's RPGs in general) are a bunch of spirit mumbo-jumbo.
And don't be too quick to judge the future of this type of movie Katz, this was mearly an experimental first step, there are bound to be slip ups along the way. My suggestion: go see the movie for yourself.
While I do think Katz's review was a little bit harsh, you need to keep one thing in mind - this movie should be reviewed as a Movie, and not a video game brought to the big screen. It needs to be judged just like any other movie would be judged, except that it should be noted that it's basis comes from a video game series.
The creator himself has commented in interviews that it isn't neccesarry that you have played the games to enjoy the film; if it did its job as a film, you wouldn't have had to play the game to understand it, as long as you pay attention and think about the plot a little bit. I'm not saying that Katz is right, but I am saying that we have to look at this as a movie, because that's what it really is. That's it for my little rant on the subject...
If it's supposed to move and doesn't, use WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use duct tape.
This is the first feature-length movie from people who are more used to producing interactive rather than non-interactive entertainment. So it's not going to be up for Best Motion Picture at the Oscars. So what? What were you expecting?
Very few artists who jump over to a media unfamiliar to them hit a home run first time round. There's this thing called learning the ropes. Final Fantasy the movie always was going to be about eye candy first and storyline second, so it's not surprising that it looks good but isn't necessary engaging. I wonder if Katz is an anime/manga fan, because I bet that, as well as FF gamers, they were their (cinema-going) target audience.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single video/PC game-to-movie crossover that wasn't panned by the critics. Super Mario Bros, Double Dragon, Wing Commander, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider aren't exactly amongst the most critically acclaimed movies ever made, so why expect any more from FF?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
hmm, well, come to think of it, that's about right.
What annoyed me at the beginning was what a typical antagonist Sephroth was, unexplainably motivated by evil. Thankfully, there was explanation for his motives (his family being killed by phantoms). This, along with other lines / scenes show that he isn't just a villian, but is also trying to solve the same problem that Aki is. Remember when he exclaims, "What have I done?". He is almost driven to suicide, but returns for one last effort against the phantoms. The only difference is that Sephiroth is wrong in his solution & favors a 'practical' solution over a 'natural' one. He is only evil if you consider the phantoms to be evil as well.
On the other hand, Kefka is one of my favorite (or least favorite) villians. I acually did hate Kefka, but that might be because I blame him for corrupting my zsnes FF6 save game along with the rest of the data on my hard drive when it crashed.
I have been in love with the Final Fantasy series for nearly the entire second half of my life. These games all follow a very traditional, "hero, evil villain, save the world," type format, and I would EXPECT the movie to follow the same general theme as the video games. To have done anything otherwise would have been betraying and insulting the fans.
To even suggest this movie could have been done with anything other than CGI is insulting in itself. No live actor could ever accurately portray the darkness or surreality of some of the characters in these games. The name of the movie/game is Final Fantasy because it is precisely that -- a fantasy. The apocalyptic worlds and circumstances these characters exist in could just never be done justice any other way than completely out of the artist's imagination -- either with traditional artwork (the Amano FF illustrations), or CG. (I still remember crying when Celes threw herself off the cliff in FF3/6, while the opera house theme played...)
That being said, I think they did the best they could with the time and technology available. I am personally a bit disappointed they went more for photo-realistic, and didn't give the characters more of an anime-look, as in FF7. If you can't appreciate this movie for what it is -- a tribute to a long line of video games and a more in-depth rendering of the kind of "action sequences" its fans have been imagining for years, and watch it with that in mind, then I think you have no business reviewing it. I usually read your reviews and I often wonder just what criteria makes a movie good to you, since you seem to have some critical problem with everything.
Even Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars, you big grumpus.
My Webcomic: Asylum on 5th Street
Maybe they'll actually go out and make a FF7 movie if they ever do a FF movie again. I mean, hell, they got complaints about not going with any of the FF storylines. But, why not go with ff7, which was one of the best plot lines in the series. You might even be able to derive from the plot line and have Aerith come back after Sephorith kill her. That would be a golden egg for Squaresoft, considering that they did mean to res her but never got to the actual deadline with the sl. Or they can release a director's cut of ff7 and make less money.
Slashblots are only intended for entertainment purposes only! They can be seen about three times a day!
Well, I've come to the conclusion that I really prefer Dr Katz from the cartoon. What a pud wacker. He should've known that if he'd posted this negative review it would be nothing but flamebait. WTF was he thinking? The movie fuckin ' rocks and he can bugger the fuck off! Jag-off.
I can answer that - I'd destroy New York City in a heartbeat, and I'm not even a malevolent alien race :) I hate New York. Millions of assholes who only care about theirselves and don't know how to live a real life, walking their unmeaningful lives and only complaining how much a taxi cost or why gum prices are too high or "did you hear Suzy got raped last night" complaints about crime or who the next asshole to become mayor is. They've never experienced life in places where crime is so low, people don't lock their houses or cars(and many leave their keys in the ignition(I do)) at night. Where people can shoot a bird or pee off their backporch and no one thinks a thing about it. Where you can do practically anything, anytime and not worry about crime or how much a taxi costs or worry about the cop or the thief around the corner. Where you can walk at night and the only thing you have to worry about are misguided bats that don't see you and accidentally run into you. You'll never see me go back their.
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Just because a bunch of people believe or do something stupid, doesn't make it any less stupid.
I'm not talking about the backwoods, I'm talking about the outskirts. if you live anywhere within 50 minutes of a city of atleast 20,000 residents, you are going to live a good life. Cities suck because they limit freedom. Backwoods suck because then you don't have the opportunities of the cities but have the freedom. The outskirts have the best of both worlds(and I'm not talking about Suburbs, they suck too.) If you really want the setting you described, look up Boone County, West Virginia where the hills are high and the population density is low. Big difference you uneducated dumbass hick bastard.
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Just because a bunch of people believe or do something stupid, doesn't make it any less stupid.
"the first studio film"
The first major studio...
"ever with human leads"
"played by non-actors"
I know Katz gets a lot of flak, but come on. If you don't like his stories and only want to poke holes, turn off his articles in the settings.
Firstly, the story wasn't quasi-religious. It was very religious, but not Western religious. I was pleasantly amused to hear the audience shudder and groan when they said "Gaia", because here that implies treehugging la-la googly eyed environmentalists. Really, it was an attempt to Americanize Shinto, and it suffered from bad translation.
Another thing that bugged me was that she was called "Aw-kee", when really the name is meant to be pronounced "Ah-kee". This movie will do bad things to my daughter's future school life in North America (same name). Oh well.
The world's only surviving livewriter.
Hey, I don't know if the Aki pictures are legitimate or not. I do recall when the pictures of the Macintosh G4 Cube were leaked several days prior to their introduction and this 2D graphics expert itemized something like 5-6 things wrong with the photos. They sounded very reasonable but the truth is the photographs were legitimate despite the well reasoned speculations. Unless someone on the inside is actually posting, we'll probably never know.
Not knowing anything about the film's purpose or direction, Katz has got everything mixed up. First of all, the movie was never intended to be Real. The filmmakers have stated all along that they were aiming for something on the border between realism, and fantasy. There is a constructive purpose to not using live actors in a film, but using animation instead. He complains about CG characters looking too "plastic" but have you looked at angelina jolie's rack? Final Fantasy is meant to be more like an anime film than western action'ers. I can see why Katz is confused, being the retard that he is. What's this about code? CG is not code. It's nature described using math. There are no for loops or if statements in defining that virtual booty. I could probably rant some more, but nobody is going to read this since most of us have already opted to not be subjected to Katz's BS. Gil.
It's also very revealing to look at it in a skewed aspect ratio (my monitor is 2:1 in high-res, not 4:3), at which point hilighting like in regular CG starts showing up. These don't show up in normal images. The skintone is VERY different, showing much more natural tone with blemishes in the "harsh-lit" version, which are lost in the "fuzzy" lighting. I doubt those could be reconstructed.
I'm having quite a job believing that this is anything other than CG straight out of the machines that did the movie.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
Does anybody EVER care what Jon Katz has to say?
You don't remember any real scifi movies before Dune? Dune set "new ground" in science fiction movies? How old are you? Seriously? You want ground breaking science fiction movies... how about The Day The Earth Stood Still? How about Fantastic Voyage? How about 2001? Blade Runner? Blade Runner was also an adaptation of a book (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) and a much more successfully done one than Dune. Dune didn't pioneer any new realm in the movie industry. Special effects? Grand sets? A well respected science fiction novel brought to the big screen? Sorry, all been done before. Saying that the movie was ruined in editing is a lame excuse. Editing is a very vital part of the movie making process. If the final movie that you have after the editing is done is horrible, then you have made a horrible movie, and it doesn't matter what you have left on the cutting room floor.
*nude aki remarks below, some ranting starting now* This whole post by Slashdot is totally lame. Final Fantasy is a work of art, it took a team of almost 200 artist and 30 programmers to create this beutiful movie, sure the emmotions from the Characters werent really "felt" but they didnt really need to be. I loved this movie, it represents the future of gamming, movies, and realtime simulations. I just wish the movie was re-rendered for Imax theaters using the 3d IMax goggles, that would be really impressive. Now about this nude aki picture - its a fake, why? because Square spent 20% of the entire making of this Movie on Aki's hair alone, over 60,000 hairs are on her head, each of which was individually animated for the movie.. now why would they go and model, and places hairs for her pubic area if it was never going to be seen in the movie? Unless they make a Porn or something, its not like they have to pay Aki or anything :)