What's new

Perfect Scores for Final Fantasy at DVDTown (1 Viewer)

Adam Tyner

Screenwriter
Joined
Sep 29, 2000
Messages
1,410
quote: To anyone who has researched the movie or knows any back story...[/quote]If Square was expecting people to do research before seeing the movie or geared the film so heavily towards its hardcore fanbase that it would be nearly incomprehensible to those new to Final Fantasy, how could they realistically anticipate grossing $80-90 million?
------------------
My DVD list | My personal site
[Edited last by Adam Tyner on October 04, 2001 at 09:21 PM]
 

Adam Barratt

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 16, 1998
Messages
2,345
Real Name
Adam
My bad Shayne. I didn't realise that Gaia was accepted as being glowing blue goo just under the Earth's mantle and that you could kill ghosts with laser cannons in Eastern tradition. :)
Adam
 

Brad_W

Screenwriter
Joined
Sep 18, 2001
Messages
1,358
I still want to know what this movie was about. While visually stunning, the story lacks and then some. The problem? Visuals are to support a story, not tell the story. My opinion. I was lamed out after watching this movie.
------------------
"I was born to murder the world." -Nix (Lord of Illusions)
My Home Page http://www.geocities.com/masternix/DVD.html
 

teapot2001

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 20, 1999
Messages
3,649
Real Name
Thi
Even if viewers don't fully understand a film, the fact that some were literally falling asleep is more an indictment of the film than an indication of any failing on the viewer's part.
Or like I said, the viewer expected an action movie and got something lyrical and slowly paced.
~T
 

teapot2001

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 20, 1999
Messages
3,649
Real Name
Thi
Brad, that was you that I quoted in my last post. Some movies do rely on visuals to tell a story; the most obvious example would be 2001: A Space Odyssey. Final Fantasy is about many things but ultimately about life, death, and love. I think that may be more general that you are expecting, but I'd like to give a guide to the movie instead of trying to explain everything, hence my deletion of previous explanations from the official discussion thread. Here is what the director hoped the viewer would take away from watching it: "Everyone in the audience who sees it will take back various things individually, but what I hope is that people will look at what life is and how to move on after death. I hope they start to think about those things, even just a little bit."
~T
 

DaveF

Moderator
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2001
Messages
28,687
Location
Catfisch Cinema
Real Name
Dave
(I've been up for the past 36 hrs, so I apologize if this isn't wholly coherent.)
Attempting to address various comments and questions:
I've seen FF twice at the theater, and I greatly enjoy watching it. That said, as a movie, it's average.
Compared to other action movies such as "Terminator", "Armageddon", "Aliens", "Con Air" FF is relatively complex and subtle. Compared to better movies, FF is simple.
And while it uses iconic scenes from e.g. Aliens, FF infuses them with its own sensibilities. Consider the hangar scene, when the the Steve Buscemi character is working to release the docking clamps while the female marine is fighting off phantoms. In the equivalent scene from Aliens, the male and female characters are fighting back a tidal wave of aliens, to give the others time. They go out in a blaze of glory. But in FF, the male character is killed unexpectedly; the female runs out of ammo and and waits forlornly, but accepting, of her impending death. For me, this is a small but significant deviation from the action movie norm.
As for the story, it's kept veiled early on, and is enigmatic, if not complex. A repeated viewing shows that the dream sequences reveal details early on, with foreshadowing.
What's it about? Man v. nature, coming from a generally pantheistic viewpoint. Both death and life, earth and alien, are 'healed' by people becoming unified with nature, both physically and spiritually.
The ending is open-ended, but suggesting restoration of life. Definitely of the anime tradition.
Finally, what sets this movie apart from typical American fare is that resolution is gained, not from firepower, machismo, and destruction, but from character change, personal sacrifice, and love. It may sound cornball, but that's not common in movies.
A flawed movie, to be sure. But I find several redeeming qualities that make it worth watching and discussing.
And it's just beautiful to look at! :)
 

Anthony Thorne

Supporting Actor
Joined
Oct 10, 2000
Messages
529
I agree with the positive assessments of FF: TSW in this thread. I loved the movie and have found it becomes even more affecting with each viewing.
I tie various scenes in FF into the whole Japanese interest in giant-monsters-that-represent-atomic-apocalypse (i.e GOJIRA), along with certain conservation-of-life-and-ecology themes that seem particular to their country. Aki's dreams play on the fear of nuclear holocaust, and the scene where the alien planet is annihilated becomes terribly moving when you view it in the context of these ideas. Whatever else you might have to say about them, photorealistic shots of giant mushroom clouds decimating the entire world probably carry a special resonance for a country which lost two of its cities to nuclear blasts.
It's an interesting film. The action scenes are done perfectly well, but there's enough subtextual content and philosophy to make me enjoy pondering the movie afterwards. The sporadic thuds in the dialogue don't bother me at all, and I currently prefer them to some of the anvil-heavy clunkers I've heard in certain James Cameron movies or any of the STAR WARS series. Speaking of the latter, a planet gets blown up in the first of those, as well, but only FINAL FANTASY seems concerned or aware of just what that actually means.
 

teapot2001

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 20, 1999
Messages
3,649
Real Name
Thi
Compared to other action movies such as "Terminator", "Armageddon", "Aliens", "Con Air" FF is relatively complex and subtle. Compared to better movies, FF is simple.
Dave, that's one point I wanted to make that I forgot to. Compared to most summer movies, Final Fantasy is complex. However, when compared to something like The Mirror, Final Fantasy is quite simple to understand. :)
~T
 

DaveF

Moderator
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2001
Messages
28,687
Location
Catfisch Cinema
Real Name
Dave
photorealistic shots of giant mushroom clouds decimating the entire world probably carry a special resonance for a country which lost two of its cities to nuclear blasts.
That seems painfully obvious, but it never occurred to me. I'll have to remember that next time I watch Japanese movies.
 

Morgan Jolley

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2000
Messages
9,712
The thing that surprised me about this movie is how many people actually went to it and expected to see magic and summons and battles instead of a sci-fi futuristic story.
This point just shows how many fans were disappointed by it not being like Lord of the Rings with the whole medieval/magic themes and going with a much more realistic idea and story. Why make this point? To further show how little backround (if any) you need going into this movie.
I read up on the movie and it was better because of this. I understood the characters, the events, the enemies, and the environment. I mentioned before that some people didn't like the characters because they felt too fake (which they are) and then responded by saying that the world they live on has been destroyed and most of its population has been wiped out. If most of the world had been demolished, I don't know many people that would act realistically.
I loved the movie and the story. It had enough action and visual flare to satisfy people who want eye candy and still had the storyline to satisfy everyone else. The people who didn't like it (as Thi and others have said) didn't understand it.
 

Morgan Jolley

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2000
Messages
9,712
Dave-
I know, but some fans of the games went to the movie and were expecting things that were more in the medieval type style of the games blended with sci-fi (kinda like FF7 and 8). To tell the truth, many gamers are quite ignorant and demand only certain things. Not getting summons and magic in TSW made many fans angry because of how stubborn they are.
 

Gary King

Second Unit
Joined
Apr 13, 1999
Messages
479
From what I have seen from all of the reviews and user comments on the movie that I have read (I've tried to read every one I can find), most people seem to feel that the story was not good because they did not fully understand it and/or they did not care for the foreign spiritual aspects.
I don't believe that to be the case at all. I fully understood what FF was suggesting, and I'm fairly well versed in Japanese mythos (so the spirtuality was hardly a foreign concept to me); however, I would still describe the movie as grossly convoluted, confused, and misguided.
If you want a movie that gets you thinking about the nature of the self, watch Ghost in the Shell, or Blade Runner.
If you want a movie that gets you thinking about environmental issues, and the effects of civilization on the world, watch Princess Mononoke.
If you want to think about the motivations for an individual's actions, Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight does a much better job of presenting a tragic villain.
Even when compared to Square's other products, The Spirits Within falls flat (and then gets stampeded): Final Fantasy X, Xenogears, and Final Fantasy VIII all do vastly superior jobs of telling nuanced stories with thick thematic elements.
It's not really a bad movie, but it fails to be a good movie pretty much every way it tried, wallowing in mediocrity.
 

Morgan Jolley

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2000
Messages
9,712
Dave-
If you want to know what the games are like, watch the FFX trailer on the TSW DVD. To tell the truth, the games are actually better than 90% of the good movies, of course, they are nearly up to 15 times as long (if not longer) and have more artistic freeedom.
Gary-
Could you please put what you think or know happened in the FF movie, or in other words, tell me the story. If you really know the story, then it shouldn't be that convoluted or confusing.
Yes, the games are way better than the movie, but the movie was aimed at an international audience and was supposed to appeal to everyone instead of just the gamers. Had it been made to just be the very best it could be, it would have been a lot better and made even less.
As for all those animes you listed, just watch the entire series of Evangelion and they are all covered. Seriously, its great.
Square didn't actually make Xenogears, they published it.
The movie set out to tell a story while combining themes of life, death, love, and spirituality. It didn't set out to develop the characters, it didn't set out to be the best movie ever, and it didn't set out to be better than a product from the same company in a different media. Anime is popular in Japan, and not in America. The movie was not made to have characters with the same depth as anime characters, so comparing it to anime is really unfair. If you compare this movie to American movies, it is deeper, more complex, and overall better. Also, the themes were well told. Some movies have a line at the end that clearly states the theme or have some song (like althroughout Tarzan, the Disney one) but this film let you see it for yourself. Everyone walked away from the film different and didn't necessarily see the same themes. I know someone who thought the film was crap solely because he didn't get it. He didn't understand any of themes, letalone their representations in the film. Had he understood them, he probably would have liked it more.
 

DaveF

Moderator
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2001
Messages
28,687
Location
Catfisch Cinema
Real Name
Dave
If you want to know what the games are like, watch the FFX trailer on the TSW DVD
I'll do that. I don't care for the FF gametype, but I'd enjoy watching all the cutscenes -- the TV ads for FFIX looked awesome.
I recently got the Starcraft DVD, with the Starcraft and Broodwar cinematics, but with far better video quality, and a DD5.1 sound mix. They were good on the computer; even better via HT :)
And that's a video game franchise I'd like to see go to the movies...
 

Gary King

Second Unit
Joined
Apr 13, 1999
Messages
479
Also, the themes were well told.
To each their own. I'll get Final Fantasy for the action scenes and images... if I want to think, I'll put on any of the movies I listed above (well, that's not the whole list, but it covers the bases pretty well).
 

Morgan Jolley

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2000
Messages
9,712
Dave-
It would be hard to understand the games and their depths with just some cinematics and commercials, so I suggest downloading a program that lets you watch the cinemas and then just borrowing or renting the games so you can see them all. Final Fantasy 8 had a GREAT ending, but you might not understand it if you don't play the game. Still well done. Final Fantasy 9 had this excellent commercial that played the Final Fantasy theme in the background while it showed clips of the 8 preceding games and then showed some stuff from FF9.
Gary-
Square was involved with Xenogears, but they didn't develop it. They might have used some of their staff for it and helped produce it, but the conceiving and majority of the development was not through them.
Final Fantasy could have used better writing and voice acting, but its a movie that was made to appeal to everyone and not just people who understand big words. Had they gone for the complexity of the videogames, it would have bombed even worse and probably cost a little more.
The characters in TSW were developed to a degree. The only ones that were important enough to need development were Aki and Gray, and maybe Dr. Sid. The rest of the characters were developed a little bit or didn't need developing because they had shallow personalities. The theme of love was well told through Aki and Gray and was pretty straightforward to the end. The theme of death was dealt with all over the film and was also quite evident. The theme of life was a little more difficult to pick up on and was told through Aki and the phantoms.
The Mummy Returns just plain sucked. I can't find any emotional impact in a film that sucks that much.
Gary, I want to know if you truly understand the story of TSW. If you get what happened, then you will see how much there really is in the film. If you didn't get it, then you are just making excuses about why it sucked when you don't really know why it sucked.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top