Surprisingly -- and as it turns out, correctly -- undermarketed,
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is the first
completely CGI photorealistic feature. Based on the wildly popular
videogame, and financed by sales of it (profits from the film were to be
channeled back into the game series), the film has visuals that are good
throughout and occasionally stunning; but the pieces never seem to come together
into a whole, and after a short time the experience becomes as exciting as
watching somebody else play the game.
The title was colon-ized in the misplaced
belief that it would be the first in a long, successful franchise; though it
does have its good points, the film -- financed by sales of the game -- turned
out to be as exciting as watching somebody else play a videogame, and the box
office sunk badly by the second week. Final
Fantasy works best in scenes that would be difficult or impossibly expensive to
film in the conventional manner.
Film Synopsis: The year is 2065. A meteor has crashed onto Earth unleashing millions of alien
creatures who roam the earth, decimating field and city alike, threatening to extinguish
life itself…
Technical
| Video: |
Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Audio: |
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 [CC]
ENGLISH: Stereo 2.0
FRENCH: Dolby Digital 5.1 |
| Subtitles: |
English, French, Closed Captions |
| Chapters: |
28 |
Final Fantasy is
presented in a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer, with the video taken directly from
the original digital files rather than suffer video degradation through standard
transfers (in the same manner as Disney's A Bug's Life). The result is a
demo-quality picture, with solid colors and excellent detail from edge to edge.
The picture exhibits very little of the typical aggressive Columbia
edge-enhancement; with the great amount of detail and texture that the
filmmakers relied upon to help "sell" the photorealism, edge enhancement would
have been nearly unnoticeable in any case. Even when displayed on a 65"
widescreen set, the picture has a near-HDTV filmlike
quality.
Sound: Final Fantasy has a typical action-movie
soundscape, with wide dynamic range and an aggressive use of surround and
subwoofer channels; the disc's Dolby Digital 5.1 track handles it superbly, with
wonderful imaging and a sense of air. There is strong use of moving sound
sources, and the audio is actually fun to listen to during these
grandstanding audio plays.
Other sound options are English 2.0 stereo, and French 5.1 surround.
Easter Eggs: Not surprising from a film based on a game,
the DVD has several Easter eggs hidden throughout the two discs.
Disc 1:
- Main Menu / Special Features / DVD-ROM Content. Press "Up" until
Japanese characters appear, then click on them for some of the pin-up poses
of Aki that swept some movie-based fan sites before the film's premiere,
featuring the "star" posing in a bikini and in a leather/vinyl-appearing
outfit. For those who have spent months searching for the Lara Croft
"nude code," there is also shot of Aki sans couture, but be warned:
she is as anatomically correct as a Barbie doll.
Disc 2:
- Main Menu / Play Documentary. Press Left, then Up until Japanese
characters appear, then click on them for a 3D rendering of Aki with some
lighting effects.
- Main Menu / Highlights Menu. Press Right, then Down, then click on the
icon for an additional Aki / Gray storyboard.
- Main Menu / Highlights Menu / Character Files. With Aki highlighted,
press Down to go to the "Back" icon; then press Right and Left, and click on
the round icon for another storyboard.
- Main Menu / Highlights Menu / Character Files / Vehicle Scale
Comparisons. Go to the "Back" option, then press Right / Right; click on the
star-shaped icon for some additional sketches of film vehicles.
- Main Menu / Highlights Menu / Next Page / DVD-ROM Content. Press "Up,"
then "Right" and click on the icon for another storyboard.
- Main Menu / Highlights Menu / Next Page. Click Up and then Right, and
click on the box for a Final Fantasy video based on Michael
Jackson's Thriller. People will be talking about this one.
Supplements
Movie disc:
- Moto Sakakibara (Co-Director), Hiroyuki Hayashida
(Sequence Supervisor), Tatsuro Maruyama (Sets & Props Lead Artist), and
Takoo Noguchi (Phantom Supervisor)
- Andy Jones (Animation Director), Tani Kunitake (Staging Director), and Chris S. Capp (Editor)
- Isolated Score with commentary by composer Elliot Goldenthal
- Boards/Blasts
- Theatrical Trailers
Supplementary disc:
- Documentary: The Making Of Final Fantasy (30:40)
- Optional Filmmaker Commentary
- Character Files:
- Aki (2:17)
- Gray (2:54)
- Dr. Sid (2:29)
- Hein (2:47)
- Ryan (1:42)
- Jane (1:18)
- Neil (1:35)
- Vehicle Scale Comparisons:
- Final Fantasy Shuffler (editing workshop)
- Trailer Explorations (4:42)
- The Gray Project (5:28)
- More Boards/Blasts (2:00)
- Matte Art Explorations (6:05)
- Joke Outtakes (1:41)
- Compositing Builds (7:37)
- Original Opening (4:44)
- Aki's Dream (9:30 mini-movie)
- DVD-ROM Content:
- Interactive Film Exploration (includes complete screenplay)
- Tour of Square Pictures
- Final Fantasy Web Gallery
- Aki Screen Saver
Disk 1 contains three commentary
tracks. The first is by sequence supervisor Hiroyuki Hayashida,
co-director Motonori Sakakibara, sets & props lead artist Tatsuro Maruyama,
and "Phantom" supervisor Takoo Noguchi. The commentary is necessarily in
Japanese, but English subtitles are provided. While subtitled commentaries
are necessarily difficult to watch, since you miss much of the action being
discussed in the process of reading, the wealth of knowledge of the four
participants is worth the effort. They are not only informative, but their
ability to not take the film too seriously is refreshing. The second
commentary, by editor Chris Capp, animation director Andy Jones and staging
director Tani Kunitake, pales in comparison; while it adds a greater
understanding of the creative process and decisions behind the film, we found
that we missed the participants' ability to "take a step back" from their
creation that was heard on the first commentary. The third audio track
contains the isolated musical score from the film; between the music, during
dialog scenes, composer Elliot Goldenthal discusses his score and the stories
behind it.
Disk 1 also contains trailers for Final Fantasy,
Starship Troopers, Men In Black, and Metropolis, as well as a
promotional clip flogging Final Fantasy X.
A fourth commentary is
available via the "Boards/Blasts" supplementary feature. Selecting this
option plays the entire film in the style of the old "Disney's Beauty and The
Beast: A Work In Progress" laserdisc, the final CGI animation replaced instead
with storyboards, sketches, wireframe and rough computer animation. On the
soundtrack is a commentary on the production, supplemented by a fifth
commentary in the form of occasion
subtitles.
Disk 2 starts off with an animated intro that's a modified
version of the opening post-cartoon scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit,
with the "actress" playing Aki finishing up
a scene, then stepping off of the set into a live scene, walking past the studio
personnel and prop guys towards a monitor to watch the playback. It's an
amusing, unexpected piece that serves to blur the line between the film and
reality.
The first supplement on the disc is an interesting "Making
of" documentary, referred to as interactive in the DVD insert because it
features what can be best called "hyperlinks." Occasionally during the
discussions of the creative and technical process that laid the basis for the
film, small clickable links appear in the corner of the screen that lead the
viewer to some supplementary bit of video, image, interview or descriptive
text. The viewer may then return to continue the
documentary.
"Character bios" and "Vehicle scale comparisons" are small
(1-2 minute) pieces on each of the seven major characters and three of the
vehicles in the film. As all eight of these do not physically exist and
are no more than computer creations, it's interesting to note the similarity in
discussions - whether the subject is "human" or "car." "Final Fantasy
Shuffler" is a rudimentary editing workshop, allowing the viewer to choose the
order of twelve shots in the film's conference room scene. We have found
that DVD editing workshops usually come off better in theory than in actuality,
and this one is no exception.
"Joke outtakes" is a made-for-DVD Bug's Life-style gag reel,
with the "actors"
falling, missing their lines, experiencing problems with computer rendering,
etc. Humorous, once.
"Matte Art Exploration" and "Compositing
Builds" are short featurettes that explain and demonstrate the process of
creating scenes and backgrounds by building them one layer / element at a
time. Many of these "making of" supplements are, in the long view,
indistinguishable from each other; we found that when we wanted to replay a
particular segment, we had trouble remembering which documentary or supplement
we had seen it in.
The supplementary disc also contains a small video on
the promotional trailers, starting from the earliest "teaser" trailers to the
longer forms as the film's release date loomed, "The Gray Project" (an
ominously-titled piece that presents some of the original animation tests), the
original opening of the film created before cooler heads prevailed, a
longer-version of "Aki's Dream," production notes, and additional storyboards
and rough cuts not found in disk 1.
