Review of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Introduction

Final Fantasy fans are the worst. Nary a word can be spoken against their beloved franchise without vitriolic retorts, constant comparisons of the grandiose fantasy stories presented in the games to the great works of Tolkien and Lucas, and to the chagrin of almost everyone, the inability to recognise their faults and conveniently gloss over any gameplay defects as minor trivialities in an, according to them, incomparable game series.

And I should know, because I am one.

It was the release of Final Fantasy VII in the west which introduced a generation of gamers to a new breed of gaming - RPGs, games where the most important elements are story and characterisation and the sense of being involved in an epic quest. Many, myself included, still consider it to be their personal favourite game, not least of which because it - and the PlayStation`s CD format - brought with it sights and sounds previously unimaginable to a collection of gamers who had never before been enthralled with a game in the same way as they had been by movies. When Final Fantasy VII broke the west and started raining money down on its creators, pre-production began on what would become `Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within`, taking the successful FF formula and transplanting it into a movie, to see if the same magic that held its spell over gamers could work for movie-goers too. Released in 2001 and voiced by the likes of Donald Sutherland, Alec Baldwin and James Woods, the fully CGI feature opened to mixed reviews and box-office disaster, but most rightly hailed the film as the first step in creating truly life-like computer-animated humans.

Research scientist Aki Ross is plagued by dreams which compel her to find a way to rid Earth of the Phantoms, an ethereal race of hostile aliens that have taken over the planet and forced human civilisation to barricade itself in shielded, impenetrable cities. She sets out to gather the eight spirits, materialisations of the planet`s lifeforce, which can be used to drive the invaders away. But while she finds support in the form of wise-cracking Marine Corp section The Deep Eyes, she faces resistance from a stubborn military general who plans to use a devastating space weapon, one which could endanger the well-being of the planet, instead.

Video

Presented in anamorphic 1.85:1, the Blu-ray transfer, as compared to that of the DVD, is good - certainly an improvement on the SD footage - but perhaps not the BD showcase disc to convert naysayers. The textures certainly benefit from the high definition transfer, with improved resolution and vividness, and there`s an improved sharpness throughout, but colours aren`t as quite as deep as I`d expected them to be, especially at the darker end of the spectrum, and the grain filter applied to the feature in hi-res proves to be a little irksome against the improvements made elsewhere. As the film is entirely 3D computer rendered footage, it should fare better than live action at a higher resolution, but despite the cleaner, sharper palette and visuals free from the slight digital artefacting noticeable in the region 2 DVD, this doesn`t prove to be the case here.

* Viewed on a 32" 1366 x 768 panel at 720p

* The screenshots featured here are for illustrative purposes only. They were not taken from the Blu-ray source, and as such, the images are not representative of the quality of the disc.

Audio

PCM and Dolby Digital 5.1. No uncompressed PCM-compatibility here, but the Dolby Digital 5.1 is a strong surround track that ticks all the right boxes but knows not to overdo it. Battling Phantoms and the roar of the Black Boa create significant low-end-crunch, and the directional spot effects really put you in the middle of the action. The score, with the exception of the lovely ending theme, is nothing to write home about but dialogue is clear, although I did find myself having to balance the required volume between the action and non-action scenes; listening levels for action scenes seemed a little hushed for dialogue, whereas the booms and blasts had to be turned down a little following the more sedate scenes. Of course, if you have no neighbours or hey, don`t really care, whack it all the way up and you`ll have no problems. Sorted!

Features

The original `Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within` 2-disc DVD was quite a feast when it came to extras, and thankfully, most of these have carried over to the BD version, although it must be said there are a few bits and pieces missing.

Commentaries: Two yak-tracks grace the disc. The first is an English language effort from the animation director, staging director and editor. It`s a fairly dry, technical listen, but is accompanied by optional subtitles, so you can follow it as text-only if you so desire. The second is a Japanese track from the co-director and several members of the crew, which is of course accompanied by subtitles (also available as text-only) for us non-Japanese speakers. This is a more fun, upbeat track, the Japanese having a knack for injecting their commentaries with a bit of humour and a general sense of just getting together and watching a movie they happened to work on.

`Aki`s Dream Reconstructed` takes the dream sequences from the feature and edits them together as a 9-minute feature

`On-set With Aki is a short skit where the digital Aki is `humorously` presented as a real-life actress on set, interacting with the crew and reviewing her scene

`Composition Builds` is a look at the 3D models in various states of construction - different textures, wireframe, early builds etc

`Joke Outtakes` is the team messing about with various early builds of the code to create silly bloopers.

`Matte Art Explorations` takes a look at the process of digitally creating a matte canvas to work from.

`Original Opening` is an alternate opening credits sequence.

`The Gray project` is footage of various animation and anamatic dry runs dating back to early 1998

`The Making of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within` is an interactive documentary which presents the viewer with the option to branch into selected video and audio segments at the flash of an icon. around 30-minutes long, it mostly takes the form of various talking head and vox pop style questioning, but it`s a rewarding watch none-the-less.

`Vehicle Scale Comparisons` launches various short features on the vehicles featured in the film, comparing them to their real-life counterparts used for inspiration and giving you the lowdown on their supposed `vital statistics`.

`Trailer Explorations` is a short piece on the importance of trailers, and is accompanied by both the theatrical and original teaser trailers for the film.

There`s also a Spider-Man 3 trailer presented in HD.

The features menu, along with all other menus, is browsable at any point on the disc.

Conclusion

Although I`m a huge Final Fantasy fan, I`m no more qualified to review its first foray into the world of film than the next, non-familiar, man. I can, however, put forward an opinion based on expectations of `Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within` as not only a flagwaver for the franchise, but as a new instalment in a beloved series. In both regards, the film has to be considered something of a flop. Perhaps seen as a precursor to the game series` move away from high-fantasy themes and into the realm of social, political and religious philosophising, the film lacks the plot, character, heart, and perhaps most importantly, magic of the games. Its story, boiled down into its main components, is verging on the stuff of nonsense, and its real-world sci-fi approach, a first for the series in any form, seems terribly derivative and lacks the polish of its similarly hued peers in the genre. It just doesn`t `feel` like Final Fantasy, and even if most of its audience doesn`t know its Chocobos from its Moogles, there`s still an undeniable aura that transcends medium to a Final Fantasy story that `The Spirits Within` sadly lacks, despite being helmed by the father of Final Fantasy, the series` creator Hironobu Sakaguchi.

But, you can certainly still enjoy it to some extent. While the first half seems awfully slow, once the first of the several big action set-pieces kicks in, the film starts to chug away reasonable well. The voice cast, an all-star Hollywood lineup attracted to the project like flies to s**t, do a fine job of making some of the hokier parts of the plot sound almost believable. And then there`s the animation. Even over 6 years after its release (a relative eternity in the world of computer animation, particularly that of humans) it still holds up pretty darned well. Movement and facial animation are fluid and realistic, although the models are plagued by a slightly waxy appearance. Detail is strong and most of the environments are as impressive as they were back in 2001. In the end, it`s a somewhat misguided sci-fi romp that fails to capture the spark by a long way of what is, essentially, its source material. But if you`ve never fired up a Final Fantasy game in your life and don`t recognise the references to Cid, the dungeon monsters and the like, you should probably knock a point off its score.

It must be said however, the presence of most of the features from the DVD edition makes this Blu-ray version more attractive than many of the discs currently on the market, and serves as a suitable upgrade for fans.