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

[Ash Williams]

I just got done watching it and I thought it was a very good presentation. I don't have an ultra high-end video setup so EE doesn't bother me. As for the sound,well I thought it was below expectations(not enough surround activity). The extras are awesome and the DVD-ROM features didn't use Interactual Player,which is a major plus. I saw the movie in a theater when it came out and thought it was OK,the story sucks IMO but it was worth the price of admission to see the groundbreaking CGI.

 

[teapot2001]

Rob, just treat the movie as animation (instead of thinking it's real) and use your mind a bit for the story. Then I think you will be able to enjoy it.
~T

 

[Jeff Kleist]

The captures were done using a direct pass-through, no vidcap compression was involved. I'll send them to you this weekend
Jeff Kleist

 

[nousername]

On my relatively small 36" Sony KV-36XBR450, FF:TSW looks fantastic. I'll concede that it probably has a little EE which is more noticeable on bigger screens, but in any case, it is FAR better than Star Wars 1: The Phanton Menace. That DVD definitely has too much EE, ringing, MPEG compression artifacting, whatever you want to call it.
All I know is this: with FF:TSW, I enjoyed the presentation on my calibrated set as is. With SW:TPM, I had to reach for the remote and turn the sharpness down a lot. The trailers for SW:TPM are far better done, IMO...
[Edited last by Allan Mack on October 27, 2001 at 02:00 AM]

 

[Reginald Trent]

I also enjoyed the movie. Watching this on my 36XBR400 I noticed different textures in the presentation but I accepted them as intentional. Sorta like the green tinge in The Matrix. In any case I found this movie more interesting than a slew of other movies which include AKIRA, Fight Club and The Mummy Returns to name a few. I really don't get the hyper critical comments regarding the lack of facial expressions and lip sync. C'mon does anybody believe the lip sync and facial expressions are perfect in Toy Story 2 or Titan A.E.?
I will be getting rid of AKIRA (Tin Case) and The Mummy Returns before I would Final Fantasy.
BTW watch the Ice Age trailer on the Dr. Doolittle 2 DVD if you want to see something comparable or better than Toy Story 2 in quality.
[Edited last by Reginald Trent on October 27, 2001 at 06:34 AM]

 

[Sean Oneil]

Sure, they may have added 'some' grain to the image ...but not this much.
If you go to Link Removed and search, you can download a screensaver with various still photos from the movie.
Some shots you will recognize from the film -and you can see the difference between the grain that was put in on purpose and the grain and EE that was put in during the DVD authoring process.
Still, it is not a bad transfer -it just should have been so much better, and probably will be if/when Columbia releases the proper 'Superbit' version.
[Edited last by Sean Oneil on October 27, 2001 at 06:31 AM]

 

[ChrisA]

I love science fiction, but I have (so far) not enjoyed any ANIME movies, and this is basically a very expensive ANIME movie. I don't know what it is about ANIME that I don't like since I very much enjoy science fiction. In some sense, it is too much of the same thing. While the technology and rendering is very beautiful, it still doesn't 'move me' much more than a Saturday morning cartoon. And quite frankly, Saturday morning cartoons just don't have the same appeal anymore

I'm glad I bought the disc and watched this movie, but I wasn't moved very much by the plot. I also find Japenese ANIME to be far fetched to the point of being strange. I think the ending and the last 15 minutes in general was rather dissapointing. I enjoyed TITAN A.E. a little more in terms of the actual plot and movie. Again I'm glad I bought the Final Fantasy DVD (I guess), but if it weren't for the fact that the rendering quality was outstanding, I would have been really disappointed in stead of just a little disappointed. I was more moved by the technology involved to produce this movie than the movie itelf. Now that is an EXPENSIVE Cartoon!

------------------
Link Removed

 

[Kami]

Sheesh...in a way I am glad I don't notice such minor flaws in the picture...I'd be too busy looking for flaws rather than enjoying the movie. I think the disc looks great, but then again, what do I know?
TPM also looks good to me...and no I don't need my eyes checked; I have perfect vision.

I guess I'm one of those guys that cares more about sound than picture.

 

[Edwin-S]

---I also find Japenese ANIME to be far fetched to the point of being strange.----
And science fiction isn't?
I find most of their anime to be no more far fetched than most Hollywood sci-fi movies. Look at "Total Recall", how far fetched is it when a guy pulls an object that looks the size of a tennis ball out of his nostril....or how about the end when they look like something out of "Roger Rabbit".
As an example, I have watched a couple of the "Gundam" compilation movies. The animation quality isn't high but I have to admit the idea of de-orbiting massive colony satellites and using them as bombs to destroy cities was a new one to me....and I have read a lot of science fiction. It certainly seems less far fetched than finding an alien "reactor" that will melt the core of Mars, which just happens to be made completely of water. I know, a lot of people hold the opinion that it was all a dream and that Quaid was stuck in a hallucinatory state....I, myself, don't hold with that idea.

 

[Guy Kuo]

It's been a while since I saw the FF on film, but I don't remember the artificial film grain being as obtrusive as it is on the DVD. While I obtained the disc for its CGI accomplishment, I don't find the DVD visual presentation anywhere near as compelling as its film presentation. I'm glad I saw it on film as one always expects that animations will change in visual character when they undergo the resolution drop to DVD. For some reason that drop doesn't jump out to me as much with live action material, but with CGI something else seems to happen and I can't quite put my finger on it.
The low bass content is plentiful in FF. It's not as powerful as Titan AE but is a good demo of how an SVS sub can sound extremely powerful without being loud. That's a nice thing to be able to demonstrate and chapter 1 in FF does so nicely.
------------------
Guy Kuo
Link Removed
Ovation Software, the Home of AVIA DVD

 

[Edwin-S]

Reading this thread just reminds me how out of date my TV is. I watched this disc and didn't notice anything particularly poor about the image. Are the complaints about image quality mostly coming from guys with front projection sets, or are a lot of the issues discussed showing up on RPTVs and direct views as well? If it is cropping up on direct view sets, does tube size have something to do with it? Like I said my 27" boob tube doesn't seem to show up any of these issues.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

First of all, I can't believe this thread hit 6 pages.
Second, anime TV shows have nowhere near the production values of anime films (or OVAs). Neon Genesis Evangelion is the one exception, seeing as how it had a pretty big budget for a TV show.
Third, Final Fantasy is not anime, its not sci-fi, its a genre of its own. Each FF game would fit into this genre because its not the content, its the overall product. Sci-fi films have a special type of story and content, anime films are anime (animation style) and usually have anime-ish stories. FF (games or movie) have atmosphere, characters, story, plot, and themes that make them the final product they are. What's my point? Its not fair to hate this film because its too much like anime or too much like sci-fi (or vice versa for both). If you watch it for what it is and don't take into account anything else you have seen or try to compare it to anything else, you will enjoy it a lot more.
Fourth, a lot of grain was intentionally put on the film. Some may have been added on the DVD, but its not like the whole film has grain all over it, so lighten up. Its also Square's first movie/DVD, so I think its damn impressive for what it is, visually, audially (is that a word?), and even for its extras. If they release a SuperBit with more extras, it will be the definitive DVD.

 

[Edwin-S]

---If you watch it for what it is and don't take into account anything else you have seen or try to compare it to anything else, you will enjoy it a lot more.---
Well, you can forget this ever happening. People naturally compare movies they see to movies they've seen. It provides them with a gauge as to how original or unique the newer experience is. That is why many people who have watched the film think it is ho-hum because they have seen many of the elements before.
As to your declaration that FF is not anime or sci-fi but a whole different genre, could you please elaborate. I thought the film was better than some people are giving it credit for but I did not see anything in the film that indicates it is a new genre. It is sci-fi and has its roots in anime....at least in my opinion. The climactic scene at the end of this film is plenty "anime-ish" to me.
I still think this film bombed in Japan partly because the characters are too "American". It is true that the Japanese make their animated charcaters look "caucasian" but there are still plenty of indicators that tell them that the characters are really Japanese. The FF characters did not have enough identifying characteristics to appeal to Japanese anime fans, so to them it was just another American film.

 

[Luis Gabriel Gerena]

I just did a small test regarding artifacts using a 27" tv and StarWarsTPM. I used one scene where a big spaceship is landing on a forest cause I remember that the EE is very visible all around the ship...well guess what, I couldn't see it! Then I tried Final Fantasy and the image looked much cleaner too. Based on this simple test I will say that you need a display of about 36" and up to see this artifacts easily.
BTW, I just can't believe Widescreen Review gave FF a perfect 5 in PQ...what are they thinking?! The Digital Bits also raved about the visuals...go figure.

 

[Sean Oneil]

I can understand why some sites may give out perfect ratings. A lot of this noise depends upon the kind of player you have, and how much high frequency information is being rolled off by the player.
I am sure it is far more noticeable on some players then on others. It does not mean that you need an expensive player to be able to spot the flaws. I have a cheap little $300 JVC progressive, but it does not roll off the high frequency video information as much as many more expensive players do. It is just a design choice by manufacturers as to how much high frequency roll off they implement into their players.
Certainly, the grain becomes hidden if I turn the sharpness all the way down, but at the expense of fine detail.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

I watched this last night.
Thank God, I rented it from Netflix.
This movie really sucked. Sorry, there is no way to get around it. Did anybody really give a rats ass when about half the team was killed off by the phantoms? I sure didn't! I did not feel any connection with any of the characters at all. Bad writing.
Titan A.E. isn't a very good movie either, but it was at least a full notch better than this.
I did enjoy the sound quality. The transfer was also very good, although I wouldn't necessarily call it "reference" material. None of this was good enough to make this worth owning....by a long shot!

 

[Ted Lee]

i haven't really read the previous six pages

of posts, but my .02 says this was a great dvd.
i'm not so much about the story...it wasn't terribly complicated to follow or anything, but it did keep my interest.
the characters were all fine. i think they would have been better off using "un-famous" people. i also had a tendency to think about the actor's faces when hearing the voices, but it didn't take me out of the story much.
but i absolutely loved the look of the movie. this is really a ground-breaking movie and it's a bummer it didn't do so well in the theaters. i think that really put a damper in future endeavors of this sort of movie. perhaps a movie a little less on the "intellectual" side and more kick-ass or something would have helped.
i didn't notice any flaws in the film that weren't supposed to be there. after all, this is a completely digital film isn't it? how can there be any grain that wasn't artifically put in there? (sorry if that's already been discussed.)
in any case, i definitely feel this is a great film and i'm glad to have it in my collection. at 20 bucks it was a steal!
------------------
"The ship of death has a new captain." - nosferatu (1922)

 

[Todd_Peter]

The following link IMO, shows a good example of the grain present in FF:TSW. I guess it was added digitally but I think it is compounded by the low bitrate and compression artifacting... Leeding to some nice mosquito noise.
Link Removed
BTW, This is the official Final Fantasy website promoting the movie.
[Edited last by Todd_Peter on October 27, 2001 at 10:18 PM]

 

[Morgan Jolley]

There was grain intentionally put in the film. Maybe on certain HT setups it looks worse, but it is intentional.
The film is a genre of its own because it has different focuses than a lot of other things. The FF games all tell different stories with different plots and different characters in different settings, but you still get the same basic themes out of each and every one (even the film). Sci-fi films, like Star Wars, concentrate more on neat looking things in far off worlds. Anime films, like Akira, focus on artistic imagery and storylines that go from being realistic to weird (or at least very creative). I'm not saying sci-fi and anime films suck, its just that they are usually more stereotyped amongst themselves. FF removes stereotypes and cliches and creates a new world and story for each one. Yes, the movie had some cliches, but that was pretty much to make it appeal to American audiences. If anything, don't blame the writers, blame J6P (or at least the way that many people think J6P is).
I can't see how anyone can say the story sucked. The idea of Gaia, the connections to the characters, the back story, even the ending, are 100% original when compared to pretty much every film in American culture (maybe there are some exceptions, but I can't think of any). Plus the depth of the film and the great atmosphere.
As for people not liking the characters, you aren't supposed to. Its good if you do, but its not bad if you don't. When something happens, you are supposed to see the characters as humans or at least accept them as such. Its called a convention, an idea that something in a film is accepted as a truth by the audience. When a character dies, you think "wow, a person just died" not "so what?" Also, when Aki cries, this is a big event because not once in the film do the characters show emotions. Thi said it before about how its not bad writing or bad animation, its suppressed emotions. Under the same circumstances, I could see a lot of people in our world acting the same way.

 

[teapot2001]

Morgan, I don't know if Final Fantasy exists in a genre of its own, it's just a mixture of genres. However, for now it certainly exists in its own category for its hyperreal characters.
The Gaia theory, which is what the whole story is based on, is pretty much original in movies from what I've seen. The only other movie I can think of that uses something similar to it is Solaris.
I think the viewer is supposed to care about the characters to some degree, but it's more like the characters in something like The Thin Red Line than in something like The Godfather (I can't think of any great comparisons right now). Lots of people die in this movie because death is one of the main themes of the story; death isn't just used for dramatic effect.
Aki's crying in the Black Boa isn't really the first instance of emotion, she also shows emotion when she talks about the girl. Other characters had shown emotion such as when Ryan talks about his father, but I think these emotions are a lot less subdued than what many may be used to from Hollywood movies and especially animation.
It's great to see so many posts about this movie, even if half of them are negative.
~T