'FINAL FANTASY' dvd, absolutely INCREDIBLE! (1 Viewer)

[Shayne Lebrun]

Jeff, I have no idea what you are talking about. please explain. Drama is drama. Good characters are good characters. Involving story is involving story. There are MANY parallels between Japanese films and American films (and German, English, and French for that matter). A good film will transcend. Good Sci-Fi knows no language barrier nor does it care about what country created it.

Ok, look. Absolutely no offence is intended here, but I can't think of any way to respond to this that probably won't come off looking like a personal attack.
My suggestion to you would be to go find some of the books by a guy named De Mente. "The Japanese Have a Word For It" would be a good start.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The FFX trailer is a few minutes (like 3 or 4). It's located under the Special Features on the first disc (in the trailers menu). It starts off with a voice over talking about the FF games and shows footage from FF7-9 (the only ones with enough CGI to show some of it off) then shows CGI from FFX with a little bit of battle scenes and real-time stuff mixed in. No dialogue from the game is shown, which is disappointing cuz I wanted to hear the American voices. Oh well.
I read somewhere that the little flip thing that holds the first disc was supposed to face to the right, like it does in mine. TPM faces to the left. Even so, to the right is better, IMO.
I can't understand why nobody can understand the movie. I got it and I'm only 16! It wasn't that complex. One thing you need to do is assume stuff, like if a character is at one place and then at another place in the next shot, you must assume that they walked or were transported to the second place. Just use your inference abilities and think about it.
If you want to say that the film was all CGI and no story, then you would be wrong. Why? Because if it was all story, they could have made a book or a radio drama. Its a movie, which means that the visuals play a part in it as well. You can't look at it as a crap story hidden by visuals, you have to look at it as a movie (which has story AND visuals put together).
For people complaining that it has nothing to do with the games, think of how bad it would have been if it was based on FF7 or 8. You can't translate something that takes 30+ hours to tell into a 2 hour or less movie and expect it to appeal to such a broad audience. That is why Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Double Dragon, and Tomb Raider sucked. People also complained that there were no summons or battles. If you put summons or battles into it, then it would be the STUPIDEST movie ever created. It would have ruined the whole thing. I'm happy that they made a new story and everything. All the games are connected by themes, a few names, and the title. Why should this not be any different for the movie?
Actually, Square is making more movies. They are considering several ideas, one of which is another FF movie. They are also doing work for bigger studios in CGI. The report that they had decided to never make another movie was false.
The Thriller video was great, especially Aki's face in the beginning, which looks EXACTLY like Michael Jackson's did. I love the part where they turn their heads towards the screen and their faces are messed up.
Japanese drama is usually more about human emotions. American drama is more about human emotions surrounded by explosions and nudity. Thats the difference.

 

[Iain Lambert]

If you prefer your middle TPM bit facing right, just turn it around like I did. Personally, I think it looks much better if you put the booklet in the right-hand side and the two discs facing each other on the left hand side, like Cast Away is.
As for Final Fantasy, I've not had a chance to watch it yet, but I as far as the packaging goes I'm not keen on the way that the disc in the middle is at a different height to the one in the normal position; it looks wrong somehow. But then I think the cover art is vastly inferior to the UK theatrical poster as well, so what do I know?

 

[Daniel L]

Morgan,
I wouldn't get you're hope to high for another Final Fantasy film due to this months events. (Synopsis from the Hollywood Reporter.)
October 05, 2001 - 'Final Fantasy' CGI studio loses funding from parent
After investing four years and more than $135 million in a state-of-the-art CGI movie studio in Honolulu to create the revolutionary photo-realistic "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within," Square Pictures parent Square Company Ltd. has ceased funding of the studio but will allow it to continue operations. (John Gaudiosi)
October 10, 2001 - Sony circles 19% stake in 'Fantasy' gamer Square
In a vote of confidence for the "Final Fantasy" video game franchise, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. on Tuesday bought a 19% stake in Square Company Ltd., which suffered steep losses after turning the game into a poorly received photorealistic feature film. (Jesse Hiestand)
Without Sony's buy in, it's possible Square would be gone right now...
Daniel L

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Even so, Square is making another movie, they announced that a few weeks ago (or somewhere around there). The Hollywood Reporter made a false statement that they were not making any more movies.
Sony owns Columbia. Sony owns PS2. Sony is in bed with Square and has been for a long time.

 

[Brandon_S]

One thing that I really liked about the DVD is the fact they put the trailers on Disc 1 with the movie. Sure it isn't a huge deal but it is nice to not have to put Disc 2 in to watch the trailer and then Disc 1 in to watch the movie. More studios should consider this. It obviously didn't affect the picture or sound quality of this great DVD .
Brandon Smith
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http://sweb.uky.edu/~btsmit2
[email protected]

 

[Morgan Jolley]

One thing that surprised me was how soon in the movie the layers changed. I would have liked for that to not happen at all in the movie, but it was pretty smooth anyway.

 

[Blu]

For the life of me I'll never NEVER understand the Japanese Animator's fascination with tentacles.......

 

[Stephen_Coghill]

Whats with the old trailers on the disc? You would think they would put some relavent movie releases to watch, but you get Men in Black and Starship Troopers instead. Men in Black: 2 is due to release soon. I don't understand...
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Stephen C. Coghill
www.mp3.com/VIRTUALOGIC
www.mp3.com/DIGITALDOMAINmusic

 

[Jeremy-P]

Just picked up the DVD today, so far I'm very impressed with the extras and can't wait to listen to the commentaries. As for the movie itself, it's a perfect example of style over substance. I could just stare at every frame for hours on end, but the plot itself bores me to tears. It's almost as if they pooled 100% of their resources in CGI talent and forgot to hire anyone who had actually worked on a hollywood movie before.
The turning point for me was the scene in chapter 6 where aki and dr. cid are having a conversation. For some reason, probably because there aren't really any special effects, just a couple of people talking, parts of this scene look photo-realistic to me. For a few moments I forget that I'm watching CGI and believe these are real actors on film. At this point, CGI is no longer a novelty and instead a real medium that rivals film in realism. If the effects aren't really special anymore, I'm just watching a boring sci-fi movie. This proves that, while square, in their first film effort ever, have visually blown away both pixar and dreamworks, they are sadly still far behind in storytelling. Hopefully, Square can learn from its mistakes and follow up with a film whose emotional and visual impact is equally impressive.

 

[James D S]

quote: American drama is more about human emotions surrounded by explosions and nudity.[/quote]
Good point!

'Cause we all know how the Japanese don't like to show nudity (nor do they use explosions much).

[Edited last by James D S on October 23, 2001 at 09:41 PM]

 

[Blu]

But they LOVE Tentacles!!!!
I wonder what nude exploding tentacles would go over like in Japan......????

 

[Sean Oneil]

I actually noticed a fair amount of ....dare I say, Noise ...and Grit/Grain in this transfer. Not quite up there with Toy Story 2 or Dinosaur.
Must be that dang Goldenthal isolated score eating up bandwidth

Still looks great.
[Edited last by Sean Oneil on October 23, 2001 at 10:31 PM]

 

[Ferdinand T]

Is it me or is the transfer not up to par with Toy Story or A Bug's Life?

 

[mike caronia]

i picked this one up at best buy today because nothing else took my fancy.
i really enjoyed it. i had no expectations, other than to see some serious CGI. i was not disappointed in the least. the only problem i had was the use of famous actors' voices. the lead aki was the only voice i didn't nail. that distracted me from totally immersing myself in the film. i mean c'mon...buschemi must've chuckled when he saw who was playing him. and i agree, baldwin looked like affleck.
overall, this movie was light years more interesting to me than titan a.e. (which took me 3 nights to get through).

 

[Joel C]

Ferdinand--
It's just you. The transfer quality is AT LEAST equal to TS2. DVD File's review is very ositive, and they are very picky.
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Joel
[email protected]
"I've been very lonely in my isolated tower of indecipherable speech."
digitallyOBSESSED

 

[Nelson Au]

On a slightly unrelated subject, I know you guys love to bash the people who work at Best Buy. I picked up Final Fantasy tonight and the teenaged cashier asked me if this movie just came out or something because so many people were buying it today. I leave it up to you to guess how I reacted.
On the subject at hand, I went to see this at the theater with no expectations and I enjoyed it a lot from the CGI and design aspect. The movie wasn't bad either and Aki is kinda nice to look at. But I think the film works well for the genre, loaded with cliches, good animation, fun stuff.
Nelson

 

[teapot2001]

As expected, I bought the DVD today.
I don't really have time to go through the DVD today, so I just took a look at some parts.
The Thriller video was disappointing. It was cool and bizarre, but it didn't have me laughing as I thought it would.
The joke outtakes were very funny though. I just wish they were fully rendered.
I took a quick listen to the Japanese commentary to see if they revealed something about Aki (they did). From what I've heard, I found that commentary to be entertaining and informative. Some people who didn't think much of the story should listen to it.
~T
[Edited last by Thi Them on October 24, 2001 at 12:12 AM]

 

[Dean Cooper]

Got the disc today and watched the movie for the first time. Personally I absolutely loved the film. I think most animated films are an acquired taste Certainly has raised the bar in CGI and should be a must have for any animated film fan. The bass on this disc is outstanding.
Dean

 

[Hubert]

I hate to disagree, but I thought the movie boring, lifeless, emotionless, and just plain below average. It was a beautiful film to look at, but I just hated it. As for the DVD, I haven't seen it, and since I won't be buying it, I probably won't anytime soon.