Sony circles Square

[Darth23]

From <a href=http://www.videobusiness.com/news/101001_sony_square.asp>VideoBusiness.com</a>:

OCT. 10 | HOLLYWOOD -- Sony said Tuesday that it will inject more than $124 million into Square, the Japanese vidgame publisher behind the popular Final Fantasy franchise, in an effort to guarantee itself a strong lineup of titles for its PlayStation 2 system as the console wars heat up.

I smell a conspiracy. Sony 'distributes' Final Fantasy, doing areally crappy job, causing Square to loose millions of bucks and close down their movie production operations, and then they step in an buy a piece of Square at a discount.

:p

[Figrin D'an]

The Final Fantasy movie did horrible at the box office... I'm not sure increased marketing of better distribution efforts would have helped that much... the public just wasn't that interested in seeing it. Square lost a lot of money... far more that they ever imagined would be possible. Considering that the Final Fantasy game series is one of the most successful in history, Sony would have a lot to lose by Square going under. If Sony didn't put the money into Square, chances are one of the other console companies (Nintendo, Microsoft) would have... the Final Fantasy game series is pretty much coveted by the entire industry... someone would have paid the big money to get the rights to the series.

[JonathanLB]

The game series, that is. I personally thought the movie was totally plotless and inane, but ah well. I was pretty disappointed as I was really looking forward to it. Such great CG, too, basically perfect and photorealistic in many parts, but that cannot save a weak script and a poor plot.

[Darth23]

The story was the best part.

:p

Actually there are a lot of people who thought the Cg was greeat and the story sucked, there were a lot of Game fans who were pissed that the story was something pretty different from the games, and a few who were upset that it was 'sci-fi' not fantasy. Plus there were probably a lot of people who might have liked it (imo) but they don't like video games or video game movies (they think all video games are ultra-violent and that all animated movies are for kids).

I do think, though, that the emphasis on how 'real' looking the movie was was a major distraction in the PR. In many reviews I read, the author spent most of their time denying that they movie was completely realistic.

I think that in the future FF will be seen as a really good movie with a GREAT story. :)

[JonathanLB]

I respect your opinion and I don't mean any offense by my comments, but I personally thought the story ruined the excellent graphics/imagery. I was blown away by the look of the film, but the story was so lame I thought. I mean, I mostly forget it already, haha, but what did you like about the film so much?

I mean, basically the plot was just trying to find a few things that somehow would save the world and real weapons or something couldn't kill the evil because it could only be killed by love or something, haha, wait I dunno, but whatever it was I thought kinda stunk. Plus, the villain was FAR too generic and bent on utter destruction of everything and that, to me, made no sense.

Oh yeah, now I remember some more of the story, the evil villain thingies on the planet were really just looking for a new home, awww, how sad and cute. The humans were so mean to them after they only tried to kill everyone. We should have invited them to break bread with us at a tea party and discussed the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. ;) Whatever!

I didn't think it was a terrible movie, but I couldn't give it more than two stars.

[Darth23]

No no no no no!

They weren't looking for a new home.

The were clueless tortured souls that didn't even realize that they were no longer alive.

They were never 'killed' because they were already dead. They were transformed.

Which is the sad part about James Wood's character trying to 'destroy' them.

[Mortaniuss]

I don't think the story was necessarily "bad", per se. The problem, however, is that it felt like a videogame story. Had they actually made another Final Fantasy game with that exact story, I'd bet money that the people who play those games would have raved about it. It had that "poorly translated far-east" style to it.

Let me put my point in perspective... has anyone here actually played Final Fantasy 7? Could you actually see that being made a movie?

Cloud: "Is it Holy?"

Tifa: "No, it's the Lifestream! Sephiroth is trying to make Meteor hit the planet so it'll try to heal itself. And then he'll absorb the Lifestream and become omnipotent!"

Pardon me if I got some details wrong, but I believe that was the general gist of it (the line "Is it Holy?" was a direct quotation from towards the end). In fact, the storylines seem to be very much in the same vein. This was probably intentional, as the movie did bear the FF moniker, after all. However, I think that the general movie-going populous just doesn't like these types of stories.

Most games tend to drive you forward by either tossing you right in the middle of a foreign situation (and letting you find out the details of the situation around you later on), or by giving you an enigma that you can only figure out by playing more. The Final Fantasy games tend to do both. This is the parrallel structure of the movie: You start watching it and you think "What are these aliens? Why can't they die? How far in the future is this? Are these people even from the Earth we know?" And, like most games, you don't get the answers to most of the questions it poses until nearly the very end. Story-driven games rely on those big revelation moments where you go "Oooooooh, so that's why..." They tried to do the same thing with the movie, and it just didn't quite work out.

Anyway... that's enough of my twisted reasoning for now. :)

[Darth23]

I can't really comment, because I've never played the games. I went to it cause it was a sci fi movie, the same way I went to see Titan AE or some other movie, with the attitude of like "ok, show me something." I knew from the trailer that there were DEFINITELY soem Terminator 2 - Aliens elements to the movie, but I was surprised at how interesting the story was. It's almost like it's a science fiction/mystery/fantasy/supernatural-horror movie all in one. What impressed me the most was that it WASN'T just another Alien shoot 'em-up movie. That the 'hero' and the 'bad guy' didn't go mano-a-mano at the end with the good guy winning like we've seen over and over again. Becuas ethe truth is, using violence to solve a conflict really always is the lazy way out, imo, and it's become such a total cliche to me that most of the time I find that idea pretty boring.

Is some ways, Final Fantasy: the Spirit Within was so far beyond the kinds of movies it was shamelessly borrowing elements from that it amazes me.