![]() Aki does suffer, but she doesn’t strip to her underwear and go on a killing spree. This kind of female character is still all-too-rare in cinema, with actresses either forced to play the girlfriend or turned into a violent avenging angel that must first endure horrific abuse and punishment (see Katniss Everdeen, Beatrix Kiddo, Bella Swan, Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley for examples). The human characters are insanely detailed, and the aliens are thoughtfully rendered, at first eliciting horror but later garnering sympathy.Īs a heroine, Aki is deep and multifaceted, driven by science rather than romance and allowed to save the day without depending on looks or weapons but rather her brain and her faith. In terms of technology, Aki and the other main characters are photorealistic CGI creations, showing a level of emotion thought impossible in animation. And Aki is ahead of her time, both as a technological achievement and as a heroine. ![]() The story is fascinating, tackling issues like global warming, weapons of mass destruction and the conflict between science and religion. Scientist Aki Ross (voiced by Ming-Na Wen of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”) is on a quest to collect nine spirits that she believes will strengthen the Earth’s spirit enough to kill the aliens, and is in a desperate race to collect all of these spirits before the government unleashes a massive weapon that could kill the Phantoms but would kill the Earth as well. The remnants of humanity live in “barrier cities” protected by electrical shields. The film is set on Earth in the year 2065, where alien beings known as Phantoms have infected most of the Earth. ![]() The result is a story that feels completely told rather than the series of winks and nods that most video game movies consist of.ĭespite failing at the time, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within holds up beautifully today and much of that is due to the smart science fiction tale it tells. Director Hironobu Sakaguchi (creator of the Final Fantasy series) chose to embrace the futuristic side of the Final Fantasy brand, presumably because a two-hour movie allows for far less world building than a forty-hour gaming experience. But non-gamers weren’t aware that many entries of the Final Fantasy game series’ mixed fantasy with cyberpunk style. With a name like Final Fantasy, the fact that the animated film genre was stuffed full of fantasies and a release date just months before the long anticipated The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, moviegoers and critics alike went into Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within hoping for a movie filled with fairies and castles. It is one of the few video game adaptations with a truly original story, includes a revolutionary protagonist and serves as an influence for later, primarily CGI films like Avatar and Alice in Wonderland. Critics and audiences failed to see the visionary elements of The Spirits Within. Critics disliked it also, praising its stunning visuals but panning its story, which had a distinctively sci-fi flavor despite the “Fantasy” in the title. Released in 2001 by Square Pictures, a film studio formed by videogame production titan Squaresoft (now known as Square Enix), Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within performed so badly at the box office that the production company was shuttered shortly after its release. Yet such devices leave The Spirits Within stumbling blindly, reaching for a solid base from which its plot can develop coherently.With the 15th game in the main Final Fantasy series due later this month, now is a good time to look back on Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within a failed cinematic side venture in the enormously popular series’ history. The alien phantoms, luminous and ethereal, are both beautiful and terrifying (if more than a little reminiscent of that other overblown CGI fantasy, The Lawnmower Man).īut based as it is on a videogame - as well as being written and directed by that game's creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi - many of the movie's constituent elements are taken from the gaming rather than the film-making rulebook: think increasingly powerful enemy combatants, the hero's quest, more and more challenging levels. Sci-fi fans and programmers will find it hard to contain their glee as battleships explode in vibrant tongues of orange and red, and ghostly spirits suck dry the army's life force in a glorious swoosh of blue. Almost all life has been destroyed and the land is more like a stark and scarred moonscape than a verdant Earth - grey and barren, it's the perfect canvas on which to paint some alien animé. Of greater interest by far is the much-trumpeted computer animation and the impressive realisation of Final Fantasy's post-apocalyptic planet.
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