Final Fantasy : The Spirits Within

[Priss Princess Peckerpunch]

Okay, I'm going to stir up a storm here, but uh...

Spirits Within > Advent Children.

Now, how could this be? How could a movie with pretty boy Cloud and gang not be better than an original piece that had no direct connection to any Final Fantasy game? I'm not trying to just blatantly troll here. There's an honestly very good reason as to why this is. And I'll list them off.

• But The Spirits Within didn't connect at all with any Final Fantasy game!
  Untrue. The Spirits Within was an attempt by Square-Enix to create a movie that would be enjoyed by not just fans, but your general movie going public. The majority of the movie going crowd are not gamers. So, this means that creating a movie based on one of the games would mean completely alienating a huge chunk of their demographic. At the same time however, they still wanted to create a movie that their fans would enjoy. Amazingly enough, The Spirits Within has more connections to any FF game, ( especially FFVII, ironically, ) than Advent Children did.
  
  The Asteroid of the destroyed Alien planet.

  This could be likened to Jenova from VII. Jenova was also carried on a asteroid, much like how the Alien Spirits were carried aboard their Asteroid.

  
  Gaia, Spirit Energy.

  Can anybody say the Life Stream? Gaia is pretty much the lifeblood of the planet, also damn similiar to FFVII. At the same time, the Military in Spirits Within could be likened to Shinra. They use Spirit Energy as a source of energy and power. Much like how Shinra used the Life Stream to produce Mako.

  
  Zeus Cannon

  Sister Ray of FFVII fame. 'nuff said.

  
  Where the shit is Cid?

  Doctor Sid. Unconvential spelling of the name, but it's exactly the same.
• Dude, you lie! Aye Cee was teh bestest ting eva
  This is also untrue. Advent Children is a medicore film. The only people who say otherwise are Final Fantasy fanboys. Esspecially the rather annoying hardcore FFVII fans. They enjoyed it because they finallly got to see fan favorite Cloud and gang move around and speak for the first time ever.
  
  Now, don't get me wrong. I did enjoy Advent Children. But that was because it was fanservice. It was made to pander to the fans. On all other fronts, Advent Children was bad to mediocre. You had lackluster voice acting, horrendesly overcomplicated and confusing plot and not to mention obvious money greedy attempts of fanservice.
  
  The Spirits Within however, was new and original. It was still fanservice on some level, but not on the same level as Advent Children was. It featured new characters in a new, more sci-fi enviroment, with an entirely new, but still connected plot.
  
  Now, The Spirits Within was not a great movie, but it's also not a bad film in it's own right. I'd place it in the decent section. But this alone is why Advent Children is an inferior film.

[HadesDragon]

lol I never saw that film. After reading this, I think I'll make some time to watch it.

But uh yeah AC and FF7 are way overrated.

[SuperEclipse]

I 100% agree with you..

I loved the Spirits Within the movie was decent. It's too bad fanboys was bias with it. It's also too bad we won't see another like it, I thought it was well done and it had better story((IMO))

and those are some good ass points.

[pikalover77]

*Stamps seal of approval on topic*

I need to see Spirits WIthin again...

[Shamdeo]

Again, everyone has their preferences when it comes to the multi-faceted series; let's try to be respectful to others when we have discussions like this.

I enjoyed the movie; it definetly wasn't what I expected, but ultimately ( while pointing out to our beloved D Athier some of connections to the series ) became a faithful retelling of some of the games' main themes despite it's unorthodox setting.

[*~NeoAdamus~*]

it was actually a good movie, and the only reason ppl were biased against it (as already stated) was for the fact that it wasn't anything like the FF series. Now as for the comparisons yes FFSW was better than the AC movie, but as far as AC they could've made it allot more in depht. Their just two different stories, If the FF7 had its story and titles redone in one whole movie then i might say something more in depht on the comparisons. As of now, all we can say is that Spirits within was one with its own storyline, and AC was just a small story bit to a more vast series.

[Zephyr]

lol I never saw that film. After reading this, I think I'll make some time to watch it.

But uh yeah AC and FF7 are way overrated.

i really agree with you on that.

[Informal Gluttony]

lol I never saw that film. After reading this, I think I'll make some time to watch it.

But uh yeah AC and FF7 are way overrated.

I agree, as I too have not seen The Spirits Within. But, FF7 IS overrated.

Has been for a long, long time.

[Xidon]

F**k I just lost a long post thanks to Firefox.
*sigh* well most people would just go tl;dr anyway...

To put it shortly:
Spirits Within > AC
Spirits Within had an actual story and felt like a FF and RE crossover to me because of the protagonist and antagonist relationship ( cat & mouse), while AC was about Cloud thinking and regretting what he had done in the past, thinking of Aerith/Aeris etc.
AC had great fighting scenes though, but they couldn't compensate the lack of a story...

[New2Ya]

What Spirits Within lacked was Final Fantasy elements. That's what made it so bad.

Alien meteors and life force, that's not Final Fantasy. Only people that regard that AS Final Fantasy are FF7 zombies.

What makes Final Fantasy is Moogles/Moombas, Chocobo's, Magic (Fire/Fira/Firaga, etc), Biggs and Wedge, Nobuo Uematsu music (at the time, that is), Amano-logo (or at least A logo), Summons (Ifrit, Odin, Bahamut and Shiva being THE CORE summons), Cactuar/Tonberry (CLASSICS!!), certain jobs (Black mages in particular)and of course an airship (Ragnarok, Highwind).

Spirits Within had none of that.

One thing I didnt add was Cid, because SW did have that, however even with that, it failed miserably.

WHO THE HELL SPELLS CID WITH AN S!!!!

Sorry, as a FF title, it failed. As a movie? Mediocre at best... No worries, I didnt like AC either.

[Masamune]

agree with new2ya...

Spirits within was indeed better than ac... but not suitable to carry 'Final Fantasy' in it's title.

[*~NeoAdamus~*]

What Spirits Within lacked was Final Fantasy elements. That's what made it so bad.

Alien meteors and life force, that's not Final Fantasy. Only people that regard that AS Final Fantasy are FF7 zombies.

What makes Final Fantasy is Moogles/Moombas, Chocobo's, Magic (Fire/Fira/Firaga, etc), Biggs and Wedge, Nobuo Uematsu music (at the time, that is), Amano-logo (or at least A logo), Summons (Ifrit, Odin, Bahamut and Shiva being THE CORE summons), Cactuar/Tonberry (CLASSICS!!), certain jobs (Black mages in particular)and of course an airship (Ragnarok, Highwind).

Spirits Within had none of that.

One thing I didnt add was Cid, because SW did have that, however even with that, it failed miserably.

WHO THE HELL SPELLS CID WITH AN S!!!!

Sorry, as a FF title, it failed. As a movie? Mediocre at best... No worries, I didnt like AC either.

I think more than one FF game have pronounced Cid with an S

no nevermind, but there were strange ones like Mogcid and so forth

[Raeneth]

Spirits Within was a terrible movie in every way shape and form. I understand the story, and it's just done too quickly and too.......... well.... it requires the viewer to make a lot of assumptions and doesn't connect things together very well.

It's like a short story, not a movie.

Advent Children never really had to be made. However it was. It wasn't made to be compared with the Spirits Within.

I'm absolutely sick and tired of the Final Fantasy VII hate from everyone who plays Final Fantasy games. Don't like the game? Get the hell over it. Seriously. This isn't about flaming a successful game because you're butthurt to hell that FF4,5,6,8 and 9 don't get all the special treatment 7 does. Yeah, it's not God's gift to gaming or storytelling, but it's a damned solid game in its own right.

Advent Children does connect to Final Fantasy VII, and therefore is not entirely just fanservice. Unlike Spirits Within, it was not made for the general public, but it was made for people who enjoyed Final Fantasy VII and wanted to see the characters again and get a bit of a conclusion about the story. It was honestly the only FF I can think of that had an open ending that didn't really conclude. Now it's wrapped up in a neat little package with the end of Advent Children.

Also, I have to disagree with the idea that the voice acting was bad, since I felt the English voice acting was actually rather good in the movie. I was pleasantly surprised when I watched it in English after seeing it in Japanese. It was nowhere near as poor as FFX's voice acting was, and it was a feature length film. They did it well, but people love to find anything and everything they can to absolutely tear apart something they dislike on principle.

I don't understand how anyone could feel SW is better than AC .-. I really don't. I'm not saying either are good films, because they're not. Neither are. However AC didn't try to market itself as a film, where Spirits Within did. That makes SW a bigger failure in my opinion.

Seriously, people think FF7 fanboys are bad, but the FF7 blind haters are ten thousand times worse, and they outnumber the fanboys these days.

[Tobuoi]

Well, for starters, Lea Stro...lan..gea...whatever-her-name is, was in Spirits Within (Aki). Along with Mulan (and thus KHII), Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, etc. Her voice, ALONE, made the movie.

All in all, I don't think that AC took itself so seriously as a movie, whereas Spirits Within did. AC was trying to go for the whole arcade/hack-n-slash thing with really nice graphics. *shrug* And wasn't it barely over an hour long?

[TheMuffinMan]

I liked this movie.

A lot.

Fags don't like it because it wasn't specifically themed after any FF in particular, but they fail to realize that the movie was treated just as any new entry in the series is: it's a completely new universe with new characters.