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Technical Information
Studio:
Columbia Tristar Home Video
Year of Theatrical Release: 2001
Disc Format:
1 single-sided, Dual Layer; 1 single-sided, single layer
Image Format: Anamorphic
(16x9 enhanced)
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Region Encoding: 1
Sound Format: Dolby
Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0 (Pro Logic)
Running Time: 106
minutes
Director: Hironobu
Sakaguchi and Motonori Sakakibara
Stars (voices): Ming
Na, Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, James Woods.
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Disc Supplements:
- Audio Commentary by co-director Moto Sakakibara,
sequence supervisor Hiroyuki Hayashida, sets and props lead artist
Tatsuro Maruyama, and phantom supervisor Takoo Nogushi.
- Audio Commentary by animation director Andy Jones,
editor Chris S. Capp and staging director Tani Kunitake.
- Isolated music score with commentary by Elliot
Goldenthal.
- Board Blast feature-length storyboard presentation.
- Theatrical trailers.
- The Making of Final Fantasy documentary.
- Spotlight featurettes: Mini-movie Aki's dream,
2 face wraps, character morphs, matte art explorations, composite
builds.
- Workshop featurettes: 7 in-depth character files,
3 vehicle scale comparisons, trailer explorations, sets and props.
- Alternate opening sequence.
- Outtake reel.
- Final Fantasy Shuffler scene editor.
- DVD-ROM screenplay.
- DVD-ROM virtual tour of Square Soft.
- DVD-ROM screensavers.
- Web links.
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I've played one or two versions of the Final
Fantasy game, but I was never really that big of a fan. I was
more excited about the prospect of an ambitious new computer
animated project than in the subject matter. I mean, computer
animation is cool.
I'll admit, I have a thing for computer generated
three dimensional images. Not only do I enjoy look at them,
but I also like playing around with 3D software. So, it stands
to reason that if you put a film in front of me with at least
halfway decent modeling and animation that I'll at least enjoy
looking at it.
For Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, an
attempt was made to achieve a level of realism never before
seen in the world of feature-length computer animation. For
years computers have aided special effects by creating photo-realistic
effects to co-exist with real actors and environments. Final
Fantasy wanted to raise the bar above usual effects work and
animation by creating fully CGI actors.
I have to say that for the most part, the
attempt was successful. The film is absolutely astonishing to
behold. In still photos you'd be hard pressed to distinguish
the characters from real people (as evidenced by a swimsuit
appearance of Dr. Aki Ross in Maxim Magazine). Even the general
movements of the characters are realistic thanks to motion capture
techniques. If anything, it's the subtle things that hurt the
illusion. For instance, the characters' lips don't quite match
the dialogue. Also, notice their hands -- they seem a little
too stiff and often don't quite seem grasp objects correctly.
Finally, you may not specifically notice an overall lack of
translucency to the skin, but you may perceive it as being slightly
wrong. All of these are fairly minor, however, and the film
is a great success in terms of technical achievement.
Where final fantasy falls apart is in the
story. The Earth has been hit by a meteor that has brought with
it a phantom invading army. The only surviving cities are surrounded
by special force fields that keep the phantoms out. The military
has devised a plan to destroy the invaders using an orbiting
weapon. Dr. Aki Ross (voice of Ming Na) and Dr. Sid (voice of
Donald Sutherland) are convinced that this weapon will only
destroy the Earth and that the only way to get rid of the phantoms
is to find eight spirits that, when combined, will create an
energy wave powerful enough to disperse the phantoms.
A lot of people claim the plot is convoluted,
but as you can see, there isn't a whole lot to it -- alien invaders
that need to be stopped. What these people are really complaining
about is that the plot makes no sense, or at least no cinematic
sense. The quest to find eight spirits might be perfectly reasonable
for a video game, but just doesn't cut it in a film. Furthermore,
we're never given any more information than what would be required
to play a game. I've mentioned before that over-explaining technology
is not a good thing in a film. Final Fantasy takes it to the
opposite extreme. No explanation is given about how or why the
spirits will work and the phantoms seem to have no other motivation
other than to serve as pop up targets for the heroes. There
is an attempt made at character development, but it's a token
effort at best, leaving all of the characters existing as little
more than poorly realized stereotypes.
The overall feeling I came away with is that
the filmmakers managed to create a highly complex and detailed
world -- and then forgot to tell the audience anything about
it.
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top |
For Final Fantasy, Columbia Tristar
has seen fit to give us a 2-disc special edition. On the film side
of things it should be noted that this is a digital-to-digital transfer.
Since the film is entirely computer generated, there is no need
to make a transfer from film. Instead, the digital source is output
directly to disc. The result is that the image, colors and contrasts
will appear exactly as the filmmakers intended. In short, this technique
offers up the best possible transfer for DVD. The only potential
problem area is in the compression on the disc, and to that end,
I did notice a couple of problems. There are a couple of scenes
that contain subtle, but clear, digital artifacts. These are the
only elements that prevent this from being a perfect picture.
:::back to top |
Just as the picture is nearly perfect,
so is the sound mix. The sound in animated features tends to always
have an unrealistic quality. Perhaps the best way to describe it
is a lack of ambient sound elements. Final Fantasy does a good job
of tackling this problem by filling the sound stage. All of your
speakers will be given a pretty good workout here, including the
subwoofer. Dialogue is crisp and clear and despite subtle animation
problems with the lip synch, a good job is done of locking the lines
to each character.
:::back to top |
Disc one includes two full length commentary
tracks. The first features co-director Moto Sakakibara, sequence
supervisor Hiroyuki Hayashida, sets and props lead artist Tatsuro
Maruyama, and phantom supervisor Takoo Nogushi. As with any commentary
featuring more than a couple of people, this is something of a mixed
bag. On the one hand, with so many participants, there are few gaps
and a lot of information is given. On the other hand, most comments
are pretty brief, not allowing for anything really in-depth. This
track is somewhat unique in that it is presented in Japanese with
English subtitles. This works out better than it sounds, especially
because the subtitles aren't specifically linked with the commentary
-- in other words, it's possible to watch the subtitles, but not
listen to the commentary track.
The second track features animation director Andy
Jones, editor Chris S. Capp and staging director Tani Kunitake.
While the first track is all over the board in terms of information
presented, this one remains a little more focused. The guys do a
decent job is describing the processes of making this movie and
from a personal standpoint (as a CGI hobbyist and professional),
I learned some useful things.
The film's musical score is featured on another
track. Composer Elliot Goldenthal offers up commentary between musical
selections (which doesn't give him much time to talk), which is
a nice touch.
Also up is a feature called Boards Blast. Essentiall,
the entire film is presented as story boards and animatics blended
in with final shots of the film. Essentially, this is the storyboard
comparison feature on other discs extended to fill the full running
time of the film. This feature has its own commentary and a pop-up
facts feature. Hardcore film fans will likely enjoy this feature,
but casual watchers will likely find themselves board after a little
while.
Theatrical trailers finish up the special features
for disc one.
Disc two picks up with an amusing intro featuring
Aki Ross "on the set" of the film. Following that, you'll
be able to access the remaining features. First up is a 30-minute
documentary entitled "The Making of Final Fantasy." This
documentary is presented inside a menu screen. Periodically, options
will appear for you to click and access more material. Nearly everything
that you can access from within the documentary can also be accessed
elsewhere on the disc.
In what the disc calls "workshops" are
4 small featurettes. Most of this is the stuff from the documentary.
There are character files for 7 main characters, a vehicle scale
comparison, various trailer options and a look at sets and props.
An additional opening sequence is included. Despite
offering up a little more information than the film's opening, this
alternate seemed a little weaker.
The Final Fantasy Shuffler is an editor that allows
you to assemble various elements of a scene. I played around with
this for a little bit and, frankly, wasn't impressed, but there
are some out there who may find this amusing.
Continuing a trend set by Pixar, there is an outtake
sequence included. Unfortunately, these outtakes are not finished
renderings and that takes a considerable amount of steam out of
them. The whole point of computer generated outtakes is the play
on realism -- it just doesn't work as animatics.
Rounding things out are a few other featurettes
that, again, are also accessable from the documentary and Aki Ross's
full dream sequence edited into one long segment. The DVD-ROM side
contains the full screenplay, a virtual tour of square soft and
some screensavers and weblinks.
One last thing: "hidden" (I put that
in quotes because it isn't too hard to find) is a parody of Michael
Jackson's Thriller video. While most of the supplements on disc
2 really didn't excite me, this one was truly funny and worthwhile.
:::back to top |
Overall, I'd have to say that I have rather
mixed feelings about this movie. I wanted to like it simply because
the computer animation is truly spectacular. The problem, however,
is that the story just fails to grab and I didn't really care about
the characters or what happens to them, and those are fatal flaws
in any film. If the filmmakers had put even a fraction of effort
in to the story that they put into the animation, then this could
have been a really good film. Instead, Final Fantasy straddles a
solid line of mediocrity.
:::back to top |
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| Other
than language and some minor bits of violence, there isn't a whole
lot that is offensive here. The younger kids may be scared by it,
so supervision is a good idea. |
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| -- By Robert Wurth. Copyright
© 2003. |
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