Finale for Final Fantasy Studio

polar_bear` writes: "Looks like the folks who animated 'Final Fantasy' are on their way out of business. Salon has the scoop. Despite being visually stunning and fairly entertaining, it didn't manage to bring in enough bucks to cover production -- even though Aki Ross was hot enough to make Maxim's 'Hot 100' for 2001. Square Co. is looking for a buyer for the Honolulu-based movie production unit. Anybody have several hundred million dollars I could borrow?"

Comments

Call it capitalism...

[mcarbone]

Really, Square Studios made a terrible movie. A terrible, terrible movie. Sure, it had some neat animation, but FX and looks can't carry an entire movie (e.g. Tarsem's The Cell). While audiences are often wowed by tricks and effects, they are truly looking for a good story and interesting characters (even if sometimes it seems like they are not, e.g. The Mummy).

I think it is important, when making a breakthrough film in FX, to couple the oohs and aahs with a damn good story (see Terminator 2, Toy Story, Star Wars, Titanic, etc.). For some reason Square Studios thought they could throw together a script with a boring, nonsensical plot, flat characters, and mediocre dialogue but that it wouldn't matter because the movie looked like one long cut scene from a Final Fantasy game. Well, I think we all knew even before we saw this movie and when we saw the trailer that it would fail in the end. Who would go see it except a few fanboys (and they spent soooo much money on it)?

I think it relates to the game industry as well. There are games out there that have revolutionary graphics, sound, and control but unless they are overall good games with a good story, no one will care in the end. Black and White had revolutionary AI, but I got bored playing fairly quickly. FF8 had revolutionary everything but was just plain not fun to play.

So my whole point is: I'm really glad that Square Studios is no more -- they don't deserve another chance at making a film, as their first indicates a lack of ability. And so they don't make the evolutionary cut and hopefully some new studio (maybe even influenced by Square's awesome animation) will pick up the ball and actually make a good animated movie with human leads. Here's to that.