| Tell me one thing.. I've seen many opinions on this movie, and everyone says it sucked, and that it was awful... I don't understand, could you please, tell me WTH is wrong with this movie? I see it as your usual SciFi movie, and I have to say, altough not some 11/10 movie it can easily get my 8... so explain wth do you not like in this movie? |
     -=Real, 100% Lelouch Lamperouge Zealot=- |
| I agree with OP, as a person who has never played a final fantasy game I thought this film was very well made and a great movie. Maybe not a masterpiece but certainly not as bad as everyone says it is. |
     |
| Well I did play 2 of the FF games, 7 and 8. While it's pretty different universe (in 7... i'd say think magic+crude tehnology... dunno.. Verne-kind? 8... magic+ hmm... The technology is like... early XX century? Correct me if you can think of better comparision ^_^' While "Spirits" is pretty much 90% of SF, far into future, and only 10% of magic... But for example I see a connection between 7 and Spirits... Like for example, Gaia=Lifestream/Planet Personally I found it to be quite cold and emotionless Care to elaborate? P.S. Damn that post isn't exactly grammatical... Mah, you know what I am trying to say XD (/me Is too lazy to rewrite it) |
MauroxJan 8, 2008 6:35 AM
-=Real, 100% Lelouch Lamperouge Zealot=- |
One of the major reasons. |
    Sam is my sweet peach |
| People shit bricks because it's nothing like FF. I mean, it's nowhere near the best movie I've ever seen but it's not THAT bad. I think the movie gets more hate than it deserves. |
NeverenderJan 8, 2008 7:33 AM
| Signature removed. Please follow the signature rules, as defined in the Site & Forum Guidelines. |
| When i heard about the movie I thought they'd be basing it on one of the already released game or like a linking story to the next game. Then when i did watch it in cinema, only thing I found amazing was the CG, no doubt around that time that was superb but other than that it wasn't anything special. May be if they didn't give it FF label and just left it as a SquareSoft movie it probably didn't get as much bad comments. I think the bad comments and stuff comes from the fact they called it FF and all fanboys/girls (including myself) got a little too hyped up and imagined how great it will be and expected too much out of SQ. well thats my view anyway... |
     |
| So we come to conclusion they hate it not because movie is bad, but because it has a wrong name... No offence... [sarcasm] But that's very mature, you know? -_- [/sarcasm] |
-=Real, 100% Lelouch Lamperouge Zealot=- |
| Well the movie it self was pretty bad as well not saying that the naming alone killed it. I said what i said because when i was watching it all I can think about was the actual games and kept comparing them to the actual movie. Thats probably where I started to not like it very much because it was very different from usual FF. Also when this was released(thats when i watched it) I wasn't really at a mature age and haven't watched it since so I'm just recalling what I felt at that point. anyway thats just me like I said last time |
|
Maurox said: So we come to conclusion they hate it not because movie is bad, but because it has a wrong name... No offence... [sarcasm] But that's very mature, you know? -_- [/sarcasm] It's not so much about immaturity as making a bad impression. Like the first Star Wars prequel - if it hadn't been so overhyped and it wasn't getting compared to the original trilogy, people wouldn't have been expecting to be utterly amazed and would've come out having enjoyed a fairly good sci-fi film rather than cursing it for not living up to the Star Wars name. Same with Spirits Within - the title and all the hype built it up to be something it's not, and the result was a disappointment for everyone who went in expecting to see a Final Fantasy game as a film. Alternatively, fans are much happier with Advent Children but it doesn't really cut it as a film and makes little sense if you aren't already familiar with FFVII. But that doesn't matter to the fans because they got what they were expecting and loved it. As someone who didn't have any prior expectations (I didn't become a fan of the FF series until later), I greatly enjoyed Spirits Within. |
 |
| Rename it and you'd at least consider it an average film that's still watchable. I didn't like the complete feeling of dread at the end. Humanity was screwed up from the start. But I watched it and considered it an ok watch. Certainly better than alot of crap I've watched. |
 |
| Krelian... maybe I'm wrong, but I feel there is difference between SW and this... Simply because SW is basically one long story, happening in single universe, that's changing, but in a way our world changes (new technology, new political issues etc), while in FF every part had a different universe... I feel i still need to play a few games more, but... I haven't felt any special connection between 7 and 8... Lets leave aside fact that it bases on Magic+Technology, but world maps are different, names are different, fighting style is different... Every part goes on as it was the only one, and none other ever happened (altough I heard about some Shin-Ra theories from FFX), so basically I fail to see a problem here... I would rather compare SW OT->NT to FF7 Game->AC, because there is strong connection between those, especially the same universe, the same weapons/technology/vehicles, characters that are tied somehow to old history... Know what I mean? FF is such a generic title, that there aren't any real rules that apply as to what should be in the universe... And I think that even from posters it should be obvious that it isn't adaptation of any of the games... Also, I think some people researched info about the movie, so they should expect what they are going to see... My point is... Is it being cursed simply because there wasn't a game about it? unless i'm still misunderstanding something... |
-=Real, 100% Lelouch Lamperouge Zealot=- |
| It's not about it not being an adaptation of any of the games so much as it being distinctly different from the typical Final Fantasy style. When something comes along with Final Fantasy in its name, people expect certain things. It isn't so clearly defined as with Star Wars where they expect continuity of setting and plot, but Final Fantasy games have a certain style that fans were led to expect when they saw Final Fantasy at the beginning of the Spirits Within's name. The issue really boils down to false advertising of sorts. If you order a pizza, you expect a pizza, and even if you're brought a very tasty burger and fries, you're likely to be disappointed because you were expecting a pizza. Likewise, the movie's name implies that it's Final Fantasy, but it isn't, and that realization caused quite a few people to be disappointed and miss out on the enjoyment in an otherwise quality film. If you aren't familiar with Final Fantasy or you just don't have any preconcieved notions of what the movie should be, it's really pretty good My point is that when you use the name of a popular series of something, people will be unhappy if you aren't true to the style and conventions of that series, even if the product is just as good. They latched onto the widely known Final Fantasy name to generate hype and interest in the movie, and the film's reception suffered for it because people can't get past the fact that it wasn't what they were expecting soon enough to enjoy it. I wholly agree that it's underrated and quite enjoyable - I'm just trying to explain why it ended up as such. |
|
| Ah... I think I get it now XD so basically they saw it's not their usual FF they put a label on it "It sucks" and cared nothing about what was in that movie :P... And if I should be exact, I feel it was about not enough Martial arts fighting/Magic >.> I wholly agree that it's underrated and quite enjoyable - I'm just trying to explain why it ended up as such. That was the point of this topic XD though As I stated before I don't accept the term "over" or "Underrated"... You might say this is not very often situation, cause most of the people haven't looked at the movie itself... Just at the universe, personally i wouldn't even take such rate into account >.> Cause rate should be based on Enjoyment/sound/characters/animation... not on the setting, or - in this example - title. |
-=Real, 100% Lelouch Lamperouge Zealot=- |
| The fact that it has Final Fantasy in its name is just a marketing thing that failed.... From a neutral point of view, this movie is not the best but definitely merits between 7.5 and 8. Just the animation techniques involved MUST MERIT AN AWARD. Remember, it was MADE IN 2001. I still remember the trailer that passed on TV at that time.... Unfortunately, Square Pictures went bankrupt and Square Main Company got a major headache over this project. Sure, the characters lack personality and development. BUT this is an SF story and good SF story rarely concentrate on characters and plot, but more on the SF elements of "what if". This movie present a nice overview of the Gaia hypothesis that our entire planet can be considered as ONE LIVING ORGANISM. It presented some interesting ideas with incredible graphics for that time (and EVEN NOW 7 years LATER it still remains among the top CG films ever made). |
bla bla bla The endless debate between fans and haters. At one point, after spending a lot of time on MAL, you just realize it's totally pointless.Niko-kun said: On MAL, everyone who has used the lame rating system becomes a critic and an intellectual by default, haven't you heard? |
| I didn't mind it. I'd never played any FF games when it came out. I have played FFXI since, but it hardly counts. As a standalone eyecandy SF flick, I think it was fine. |
Maurox said: I wholly agree that it's underrated and quite enjoyable - I'm just trying to explain why it ended up as such. That was the point of this topic XD though As I stated before I don't accept the term "over" or "Underrated"... You might say this is not very often situation, cause most of the people haven't looked at the movie itself... Just at the universe, personally i wouldn't even take such rate into account >.> Cause rate should be based on Enjoyment/sound/characters/animation... not on the setting, or - in this example - title. And for whatever reason, a lot of people didn't enjoy it. If their reasons aren't good enough for you, then that's your problem. I think they have every right to be pissed off that we were all pretty much lied to. I just wanted to comment on that. My own, personal feelings on the movie are irrelevant, because I just don't like sci-fi. |
| D&D Club Because my sig making skills are non-existant. |
| No, My only point is that lots of people never really gave the movie a chance, and the moment they noticed it's not FF universe, they branded it as "bad". |
-=Real, 100% Lelouch Lamperouge Zealot=- |
| Maurox, this is by far one of my favourite movies of all times and I also wonder why people rate this one so poorly. Im a rather big FF fan and I felt as if they stuck to the general theme of FF, I was actually a bit more disappointed in FFAC then this one since FFAC was just a MASSIVE amount of fanservice. However, Even though I have this movie in HD and Ive tried watching it several times. I have never been able to fully watch this film without falling asleep, I dont know why... Ive watch SE:Lain complete in one sitting without falling asleep. They story is good, the graphics are better then some graphics you see in even the newest movies and games, the characters are decent, the plot is interesting. This movie in no way deserves such a low rating. Also because Square pictures went broke after making this movie, Square Soft itself went into financial problems and was forced to merge with Enix or they would have gone completly bankrupt. Just a little Trivia. |
 |
| Putting aside the fact that the film does not fit in with the brand of Final Fantasy, as a standalone piece of entertainment it fails completely at being...you know...entertaining. Its po-faced boring and generic narrative plods along from one cliched scene to another, with only two things keeping the viewer from walking away: Nice CGI and the sliver of an interesting idea here and there. The producers, like with most CGI films these days that arent from Pixar, played it safe with a very conventional and uninspired script. Its why Akira for example will always be remembered for the rest of time, and why this movie wont. Because Akira blows your freakin' mind and Final Fantasy: Spirits Within made you (you: anyone past puberty and with a shred of cinematic taste) want to fall asleep. |
"I'm starting to think mal is run by Xinil generating electricity on a bicycle." - idklol |
| I definitely liked it as a standalone movie. didn't have very much to do with FF imo though. |
Cihan said: Its po-faced boring and generic narrative plods along from one cliched scene to another, with only two things keeping the viewer from walking away: Nice CGI and the sliver of an interesting idea here and there. Exactly my option. Besides, I didn't really manage to grow on the characters, because one after another just... died oO |
  |
Krelian said: Alternatively, fans are much happier with Advent Children but it doesn't really cut it as a film and makes little sense if you aren't already familiar with FFVII. But that doesn't matter to the fans because they got what they were expecting and loved it. This is the umpeenth I've read this. The fans must have had some very low expectations. Coming from someone who greatly enjoyed FFVII, Advent Children was a bad movie, style completely devoid of substance, an incoherent mess of a plot, wooden caricatures with no personality and even less screen time. I don't care that Spirits Within had little connection to Final Fantasy, at least it had all of these things AC lacked. I thought it was a decent movie. |
 |
| I dont know anything about FF so i didnt expect anything from this movie. and in the end I gave it a 6, which stands for fine, because it wasn't bad, but it also didnt excite me in any way. |
  |
| I watched this when I was pretty young and I still found the storyline easy to understand - too easy, and predictable. The storyline was very simple, all the events were just 'playing out'. I though the 'CG characters' looked like they were acting out roles - and they're not even real people and they 'act' so poorly. Must be the lack of emotion in thier voices. The fact that the setting was non-FF didn't bother me (they probably just gave it the FF name to attract unwary viewers). But it's just the sheer simplicity - basing an entire movie off such a simple storyline - was its main downfall. Could have been more enjoyable if shorter, but still not the worst around. |
 |
puedjies said: Could have been more enjoyable if shorter, but still not the worst around. I think being boring is worse than being bad. FF: Advent Children is bad, but its entertaining as hell with its cool action. FF: Spirits Within is so.damn.boring. Do not want. |
"I'm starting to think mal is run by Xinil generating electricity on a bicycle." - idklol |
Cihan said: Putting aside the fact that the film does not fit in with the brand of Final Fantasy, as a standalone piece of entertainment it fails completely at being...you know...entertaining. Its po-faced boring and generic narrative plods along from one cliched scene to another, with only two things keeping the viewer from walking away: Nice CGI and the sliver of an interesting idea here and there. The producers, like with most CGI films these days that arent from Pixar, played it safe with a very conventional and uninspired script. Its why Akira for example will always be remembered for the rest of time, and why this movie wont. Because Akira blows your freakin' mind and Final Fantasy: Spirits Within made you (you: anyone past puberty and with a shred of cinematic taste) want to fall asleep. Completely agree with this. "Final Fantasy: Spirits Within" wasn't anything especially bad, it was just a cliche-ridden, unimaginative, extremely naive and stupid, but worst of all, deathly boring Hollywood movie. Ooooh, soldiers bad (note the evil music whenever we see the general). Ooooh, scientists who believe in completely unscientific neo-spiritualist bullshit are good. Ooooh, Gaia and alien/Earth spirits misunderstood. As if that weren't bad enough, for the soldiers, we have the skinny joker, the big, tough black guy, the hardass chick, and the battle-hardened but still empathetic male leader. I might have been able to stand this if there was some humor, or the action was any good. Instead, we got to see a bunch of soldiers ineffectually shooting guns at an indistinct orange blob. Yawn. It was like Matrix: Revolutions several years before the latter, except even more boring, and with even more plot holes the size of shotgun blasts. |
| Well, I liked it. Gave it a 7. Although I saw it about a year ago, it was just now that I found it in the database and set it as completed. I sometimes find myself searching for this movie only to listen to the ending music. |
| Hah! I had no idea this was on MAL, nice find. |
| I thought it was a pretty alright movie. I read the book first though, and adored it. So when I was sitting in the theaters I was just bouncing in my seat full of already-love. Especially when things went according to how I had read it~ haha The movie was so realistic looking for the time, I could just get lost in the story completely~ |
| I just watched it...If it didn't have the Final Fantasy in front of the movie name, I would not have guessed it had any affiliation with the series...hell, even with the name I doubt it does >.< The animation is damned impressive, especially for 2001, and while the voice acting (I watched the english version) wasn't astounding, it's better than most dubs I come across these days. I don't really see why it gets so much hate...It's probably better than the large majority of SciFi movies I've seen... |
 |
Arisa-san said: Cihan said: Its po-faced boring and generic narrative plods along from one cliched scene to another, with only two things keeping the viewer from walking away: Nice CGI and the sliver of an interesting idea here and there. Exactly my option. Besides, I didn't really manage to grow on the characters, because one after another just... died oO Both of these opinions were also my lingering impression of the movie. As someone who generally rates films on plot and character development, I found this film horribly lacking. |
 |
Arisa-san said: Exactly my option. Besides, I didn't really manage to grow on the characters, because one after another just... died oO QFT the CGI was astounding for the time but where was the decent plot? where was the "magic" element? It just ends up being generic sci-fi with wooden characters who just die very quickly and even the main protagnist, heroine you sort of don't care about because he's dead and the bad guy only got stopped cos the space station cannon blew up. That about sums up the movie to be honest. |
| People should realise that not all of the Final Fantasy stories are related, when I think of it, are they at all? Sure you see some of the same things, but not the same people. The Spirits Within was like really far into the future.. meh, I don't know.. but I still enjoyed the movie. It's under-rated if you ask me. |
| most CG movies aren't great for some reason. probably waste all the money making it look good |
| I'm not so anime addicted to blame this movie. TSW is not something extraordinary, but I enjoyed it and it's qualitative, so 7.5~8/10. |
| I think is because it was soon after FF VII. Everyone wanted to see a sequel. Ew, thats why I hate it. Because of FF VII was the first RPG of FF to be noticed, now they thought all would be about Cloud and Tifa and all those charas. So they hated the movie, and hated FF VIII too, then, when FF IX came out, well, they were like "oh, so this is FF franchise, not bad". But really, just because FF VII everyone ended hating FFVIII and the movie. Just those 2. And even so, people didnt liked that much FF IX, Until! FF X people were like, ok this one seems ok. But jeez, all are just FF VII fanboys. |
SlykainNov 3, 2009 7:37 AM
 |
| I think people got annoyed with the movie because after seeing it, they realized calling it "Final Fantasy" was nothing but a marketing "Bait and Switch" to trick people into seeing an otherwise average movie. |
| I didn't really like it for two reasons, one is the characters are really cold, everything is just so cool and collected, even when they are telling jokes.. I don't know, not varied enough I guess. Another is that, a lot of things in this movie I find confusing, like for example, Aki "dreams" about some meteor killing everything, but they never explain what that is or if it happened (I'm inclined to believe that's the cannon at the end, but I don't know), also, why is it necessary to find all those spirits? Wouldn't a phantom spirit kill you rather than save you? I mean, Aki saved Gray by zapping the phantoms in him once, couldn't they do the same to her? |
[ |
Gioeva said: Aki’s dreams are about the alien planet being destroyed and how they arrived here on Earth (via meteor). It’s necessary to find the spirits in order to save Earth, of course –– the only other option was to destroy the phantoms with the Zeus Cannon, which would risk "killing" the Earth. Aki was infected during an experiment (prior to the movie) and Dr. Sid used his wave-theory to temporarily isolate the phantom. My theory is that Aki didn’t want to destroy the phantom within her because it gave her dreams that lead to more insight into their species. The phantom didn’t save Aki (directly), Gaia transformed her phantom into the 8th spirit.Another is that, a lot of things in this movie I find confusing, like for example, Aki "dreams" about some meteor killing everything, but they never explain what that is or if it happened (I'm inclined to believe that's the cannon at the end, but I don't know), also, why is it necessary to find all those spirits? Wouldn't a phantom spirit kill you rather than save you? I mean, Aki saved Gray by zapping the phantoms in him once, couldn't they do the same to her? When I first saw this movie in theaters I thought it was boring, but if you view it just as a CG movie, and not a FF movie, it's actually quite great. It's spiritual (no pun intended) and has a perfect blend of action, humor, and philosophy. Neil Fleming was quite funny, even if his jokes were a bit over the top. I almost cried when Aki talked about the little girl. I've decided to bump my score up to an 8. |
 |
| I agree with MkMiku the first time I saw this in theaters I was bored and a little confused, but after watching it again several times it's actually pretty good. During my first time watching it though my uncle tagged along and started making fun of the movie as it was playing so I guess that didn't help my opinion at first either lol. |
 |
| Old post I know, but I agree that this movie was underrated. It's not the best, but it ain't bad at all. If I did have a complaint, it was how General Hein was written, but other than that the cast and dialogue was fine. Anyhow, I am not surprised butthurt fanbois are spreading the hate since they didn't see their usual assortment of oversexualized waifus, their hero-icon bishounen stereotypes or get a healthy overdose of Michael Bay-esque action. Admittedly the movie does not directly take place in the immediate storyline/setting of the games, but if you pay attention, the worldbuilding/lore is definitely Final Fantasy. |
DeicideVDec 30, 2016 3:47 PM
| Typing on an ipad is like driving carpentry nails with a sledgehammer. |
| I haven't played much Final Fantasy but the ones I played I loved,and each FF game focuses on a different setting (some in a more medieval past, others in a more fantastic world, etc). The problem is not that he carries FF in his name, the problem is his slow pace, his characters without charisma and Although I liked his animation,the lifeless expressions of the characters I hated them, in fact I fell asleep watching it |
 a wise user of MAL said: Just to clarify, adaptations should absolutely stand on their own |
More topics from this board
» Should I watch it? I have no prior knowledge of the franchise.Barry_Allen_14 - May 10, 2022 |
4 |
by Kunasenpai
»»
May 20, 2022 7:06 PM |
|
Poll: » Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Episode 1 DiscussionRetro8bit - Mar 26, 2010 |
16 |
by Disapeared_Ghost
»»
Jun 30, 2021 12:41 PM |
|
» Originally in Japanese or English?Kuandohan - Sep 13, 2013 |
1 |
by RX-782
»»
Sep 23, 2013 6:05 PM |