Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a science fiction film by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series of RPGs. It was released on July 13, 2001 in the United States and it was the first animated feature to seriously attempt photorealistic CGI humans.

The story follows scientists Aki Ross and Doctor Sid in their efforts to free Earth from a mysterious but deadly alien race known as the Phantoms, which has driven surviving humanity into "barrier cities." They must compete against General Hein, who wishes to attack the planet with the Zeus space cannon to end the conflict.

Production

Square accumulated four SGI Origin 2000 series servers, four Onyx2 systems, and 167 Octane workstations.^[2] The basic movie was rendered at a home-made render farm which consisted of 960 Pentium III-933MHz workstations. The render farm was made by Square Pictures located in Hawaii. The film had cost overruns during the end of production.^[3]

Prior to the film's release (and subsequent box office failure), Square had indicated plans for the Aki Ross "synthetic actress" to appear in other films, possibly even interacting with live actors. A sample of what this might have looked like can be seen on the introduction to the second DVD in the Special Edition release, which shows Aki "breaking character" after filming a scene and walking through the studio, interacting with both CGI and real people. Chris Lee, the producer of Final Fantasy, defended his use of animation, stating that live actors often cannot physically accomplish what computer characters easily can, citing his experience from making Starship Troopers and Godzilla. 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. Shortly after the release of the film, the character of Aki Ross became the first computer-generated entry in Maxim's Hot 100.

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. However, Dr. Sid's Gaia Theory, relating to a lifeforce within the planet to which spirits belong, is highly reminiscent of the Lifestream/Mako in Final Fantasy VII. 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 name spelled with an untraditional "S".

The story starts with Aki Ross in the Zeus station waking up from dream about the phantoms. After she has recorded her dreams, she proceeds to land in Old New York City, on a mission to find the 6th spirit. She continues looking until she runs into some Phantoms, and it appears that she is about to be killed until a squad team, known as Deep Eyes, appears to save her life. Despite the captain indicating to her that she is under arrest, Aki runs and eventually finds the 6th spirit, which is a plant. At this moment the squad and Aki are then surrounded by Phantoms, and they escape by going to higher grounds and getting on a transport. Afterwards, a violent altercation opposes doctor Ross and the captain of the mission, who blames her for her irresponsibility. Afterwards, he removes his helmet, and reveals to be Capt.Gray, and old acquaintance of doctor Ross. When they land they are all scanned for Phantom contamination (except Aki because of her clearance). The captain is found to be infected with a phantom inside him. Aki then performs bio laser surgery on him herself. She saves his life with 1 second to spare and then proceeds to talk to Doctor Sid. Aki confirms that the plant she found is the 6th spirit. Sid shows Aki a diary he wrote when he was her age and after she has read it, he burns it stating that their ideas were unpopular among men. After waking up from another "Phantom" dream, Aki proceeds to a debate that is deciding the use of the Zeus cannon, a weapon that was designed to destroy the phantoms. Sid argues the use of the cannon by saying that the cannon would destroy "Gaia - The spirit of the planet". The general mocks the theory and asks for proof. Aki then shows him proof by revealing that she is the person that has been infected by the Phantoms however she still remains alive.

After the debate, Aki proceeds to search for the 7th spirit when Captain Gray tags along. They are both stranded when members of Gray's squad short circuits the system saying that they want the captain and Aki to have time to talk to each other, building their relationship. Gray asks Aki about the spirits and Aki proceeds in saying "When I was young, I was infected by a phantom however I didn't die because Doctor Sid placed a membrane around the infection, therefore the first spirit was me, the second was a fish, the third was a deer I found in a wildlife preserve outside Moscow, the fourth was a bird... ever tried tracking a sparrow from space, its not fun, and the latest one was the plant I found" Gray then answers " You missed one, you said that the plant was the 6th one what happened to the 5th?" Aki then hesitates saying "The 5th was a little girl, dying in a hospital, I managed to get the sample however she..., I told her that everything had a spirit, little girls, the earth, plants, trees, she said that i didn't need to lie to her to make everything feel better and she said she was ready to die, only 7 and ready to die" Aki then sobs quietly and proceeds to kissing Gray. However, before Gray gets to kiss Aki, the power is turned back on.

Paranoid that Aki might be a spy for the Phantoms, The General orders Gray and the deep eyes to guard Doctor Ross and report any suspicious behaviors. If she were to react in anyway abnormal way, she was to be arrested.

Dr. Ross, accompanied by the rest of the squad, then leaves the barrier city for the Tucson Wastelands,where she hopes to find the 7th spirit. After dropping energy boeys as a bait for the phantoms, they descend and attempt to locate and retreive it. After a while, they find it - it is located in the ovo-pac of a dead soldier, which contains living tissues containing the spirit. After retreiving it, they discover that they are surrounded by Phantoms, who, apparently, have been attracted to the one located inside Dr.Ross. The squad is picked up, but the General's soldiers try to apprehend Dr. Ross. One is killed by a Phantom, and the team narrowly escapes.

General Hein, meanwhile, is desperate to gain clearance to fire the Zeus Cannon. He tells the operators of New York's barrier to lower the shields in a section of the city. Hein's plan is to sacrifice a small part of the population in order to convince the government that the Phantoms can breach the shields, allowing him to take necessary steps. His plan backfires, as the Phantoms are able to use plasma conduits to travel through the rest of the city. Aki and only a handful of her crew survive the resulting attack.

Hein is floating in space, about to commit suicide, when a transmission comes in that following the disaster, he is now authorized to use the Zeus cannon. Dr Ross and Dr Sid devise a plan to destroy the phantoms at their heart, the phantom crater. The plan involves Aki and Gray being lowered into the crater inside a bio-etheric shield vehicle, and finding and removing the 8th spirit, which is a phantom. The pair have just located the phantom when suddenly a laser from the zeus station comes crashing into the crater, killing the phantoms on the surface, including the 8th spirit. The laser incident has left the vehicle rendered shieldless and exposed to the phantoms, which now cover the crater in response to the attack. Gray leaves the confines of the vehicle to protect aki from the phantoms. Meanwhile, Aki has her final vision in which a phantom tells her that the spirit within her is in fact the new 8th spirit. As soon as Aki wakes up she calls Gray in to use his oval pack battery in order to project the completed wave pattern. As soon as the wave begins, another laser penetrates the atmosphere and triggers a mass response from the phantom's world's spirit, which resided in the crater; the bio-etheric shield vehicle is completely obliterated by this new attack. With the vehicle destroyed, Gray sacrifices his own life to distribute Aki's wave, using his body to transmit it directly to the phantom world spirit. The phantoms all turn into bright floating orbs which return to space, and the end scene is of Aki holding Gray's body and looking into the newly liberated world.

Reception

Despite aggressive promotion by Sony, it became the second-biggest box office bomb in film history (behind Disney's 2002 flop Treasure Planet), with losses of over $124 million, effectively bankrupting Square Pictures.

The North American box office results were at $32 million. The shortfall from the high cost of production reached $137 million (including $30 million for marketing). However, Square Pictures did survive long enough to produce an animated tie-in to The Matrix, Final Flight of the Osiris (see also The Animatrix). Final Flight of the Osiris increased the level of realism shown, addressing some of the "painted statue" criticisms.

The film also made $55 million more overseas, 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--the largest in film history. It is commonly agreed that the financial failure of the film coupled with other circumstances at the time proved to be the catalyst that inspired Square Co., Ltd.'s merger with Enix.

The film received mixed reviews but was not a popular success. Because the plot is typical of Japanese science fiction anime in melding science fiction and spirituality, the movie seemed to be best received by otaku, or at least regular viewers of anime. In some aspects, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was more or less a big-budget anime movie. It became more unpopular when fans of the Final Fantasy series watched the movie to discover that it had little connection to the game series.

While many of the critics of the film cited problems with the story or complained of one-dimensional characters, others focused on the failings of the animation itself. While the rendering is intended to be photorealistic, the characters' motions and expressions can be seen as stiff and unexpressive compared to real human motion. This is most notable in the "doll-eyed stare" of the characters, 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 modeling 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, perhaps most famously by critic Roger Ebert.

Roger Ebert was one of the films biggest advocates, giving the film 3 1/2 stars out of 4. He also expressed a desire for the film to succeed in hopes of seeing more films made in its image, though he was skeptical of its ability to be accepted.[1]

Cast

• Aki Ross: Ming-Na
• Dr. Sid: Donald Sutherland
• Gray Edwards: Alec Baldwin
• Ryan Whittaker: Ving Rhames
• Jane Proudfoot: Peri Gilpin
• Neil Fleming: Steve Buscemi
• General Hein: James Woods

Parallels to the video games

Although the film was based on none of the (then) existing nine games plus numerous spinoffs, a number of references and parallels to elements of the games are noticeable:

• The name of Dr. Sid was born from the fact that there has been a character by the name of Cid in almost every Final Fantasy game (the first Final Fantasy being the exception).
• The film introduces the same blend of science fiction technology (the future setting, spaceships) and magic/spirituality (Gaia, spirits) that Final Fantasy VI, VII and VIII were noted for.
• The lair of the film's main antagonists and the location of the film's climax, was located in a crater in some remote mountains. In Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth also resided in a crater in the Northern Crater's mountain range, which is where the game's final battle takes place.
• The concept of Gaia (the "living planet") in the film is almost identical to the concept of the Lifestream and Planet in Final Fantasy VII.
• The film uses abstract naming for military units that give the appearance of a direct translation from Japanese, in this case Deep Eyes (as opposed to SOLDIER in Final Fantasy VII, SeeD in Final Fantasy VIII, etc.)

Novelization

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was novelized by Dean Wesley Smith. The Making of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was also made available, which was edited by Steven L. Kent.

See also

• Uncanny Valley

Reference

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