Movies - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

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	Movies - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a science fiction movie by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series of RPGs. It was released on July 11, 2001 in the United States and was the first animated feature to seriously attempt photorealistic CGI humans. It is also one of the biggest box office bombs in film history, with losses of over $120 million, effectively bankrupting Square Pictures.

Plot

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is set on an alien-infested Earth in the year 2065. The remaining humans live in "barrier cities" all over the world and attempt to free their planet from the Phantoms, an alien race. The only hope for the planet comes from the scientist Aki Ross and her mentor, Dr. Sid, who have a plan to destroy the Phantoms without damaging the planet, but a general named Hein is determined to use the Zeus space cannon to destroy the Phantoms—even if it means destroying the Earth in the process. While the film does carry the name Final Fantasy, it is only vaguely thematically related to Square Co., Ltd.'s popular Final Fantasy series of games. The plot, characters, and storyline were all created specifically for the movie although the character of Dr. Sid does continue the games' tradition of having a character named Cid appear in most Final Fantasy games, despite the Doctor's named spelled with an untraditional "S"

Reception

The film received mixed reviews but was not a popular success. Its plot is typical of Japanese science-fiction anime in melding science fiction and spirituality, and it seemed to be best received by otaku, or at least regular viewers of anime. In some aspects, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was no more nor less than a big-budget anime movie. Other critics felt that its artistic failings were also those of many anime and Hollywood action films alike -- an over-reliance on special effects, clichéd characters, and the sacrifice of meaningful story for spectacle. The movie didn't please many fans of the Final Fantasy game series either, as the story had little to do with the series.

The use of CGI in the movie was criticized as a gimmick by people like animation historian Jerry Beck and producer Steve Oedekerk, who argued that simulating live actors is too expensive and that CGI should be limited to special effects only. But Chris Lee, the producer of Final Fantasy, countered that live actors often can't physically accomplish what computer characters easily can, citing his experience from making Starship Troopers
and Godzilla
. An early scene in the movie, in which Aki floats weightless in an orbital spacecraft, illustrates his point: such scenes are trivial to shoot when your actress has no weight to begin with. Lee also noted that the difference between the CGI and live action footage can be jarring for viewers when the film requires heavy use of computer effects in almost every scene.

Other critics focused on the failings of the animation itself. While the rendering is intended to be photorealistic, the characters' motions and expressions are actually quite stiff and unexpressive compared to actual human motion. This is most notable in the "doll-eyed stare" of the characters, which many viewers found particularly unnerving, but also in the rigid poses and gaits of the characters, and the lack of deformation in skin and tissue accompanying character motion such as speech and grasping. The modelling of lighting on skin and hair (which in reality are subtly translucent) is also limited, giving the characters a "painted statue" look. As a result, the film is often cited as an example of animation that falls into the uncanny valley.

Poor box office performance ($32 million in North America), combined with the astronomical cost of production ($137 million, plus a further $30 million for marketing), essentially bankrupted Square Pictures, the subsidiary of Square that produced it, although Square Pictures did survive long enough to produce an animated tie-in to The Matrix
, Final Flight of the Osiris
. The film made only $55 million more in overseas box office, meaning total losses were approximately $123 million (the studio typically receives half the box office gross). The domestic box office loss was at the time apparently the largest in film history.

There is speculation that the failure of this film, coupled with other circumstances at the time and following years, proved to be the catalyst that inspired Square Co., Ltd.'s merger with Enix.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within ]

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