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Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Hironobu Sakaguchi Moto Sakakibara
Produced by	Jun Aida Chris Lee Akio Sakai
Written by	Hironobu Sakaguchi Al Reinert Jeff Vintar
Starring	Ming-Na Alec Baldwin James Woods Donald Sutherland Ving Rhames Steve Buscemi Peri Gilpin
Music by	Elliot Goldenthal
Cinematography	Moto Sakakibara
Editing by	Christopher S. Capp
Studio	Square Pictures Chris Lee Productions
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	July 11, 2001
Running time	106 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$137 million
Gross revenue	$85,131,830

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a 2001 American computer animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series of role-playing games. The film follows scientists Aki Ross and Doctor Sid in their efforts to free a future Earth from a mysterious and deadly alien race known as the Phantoms, which has driven surviving humanity into "barrier cities". They must compete against General Hein, who wishes to use more violent means to end the conflict.

The Spirits Within debuted to mixed critical reception, but received praise for the realism of the computer-animated characters.^[1][2] The film only grossed $85 million on a $137 million budget, and is blamed for the demise of its studio, Square Pictures.^[3] It has been called a box office bomb.^[4]

Plot

The film opens in the year 2065, where a future Earth is infested by Phantoms, alien life forms who upon physical contact with human beings extract, consume and thus seemingly destroy their souls. The remaining humans live in "barrier cities" all over the world and are engaged in an ongoing struggle to free the planet. Two scientists, Aki Ross and her mentor, Dr. Sid, are searching for eight life forms which they believe possess spirits capable, when joined, of defeating the Phantoms. Meanwhile, a general named Hein is determined to use a powerful space cannon to destroy the Phantoms, though Aki and Sid believe the cannon may destroy the Earth.

Aki was infected by a Phantom during one of her experiments, but with the help of the first five spirits, she was able to contain the infection temporarily. Searching for the Sixth Spirit in the ruins of New York City, Aki is cornered by Phantoms, but is rescued by a team led by Gray Edwards who was once romantically involved with Aki.

When they return, Aki and Sid appear before a leadership council along with Gen. Hein where they debate the use of the space cannon. Aki wins more time but only by revealing that she has been infected, convincing Hein that she is being controlled by the Phantoms. He has three men placed with her as she and Gray's squad travel to find the Seventh Spirit. They succeed in finding it, but are attacked by Phantoms in the process and they realize that the Phantoms are attracted to Aki. Hein's men attempt to arrest Aki but in the ensuing struggle and attacks by phantoms, they are killed and their souls are destroyed. Meanwhile Aki's infection worsens and she falls unconscious.

Gray's squad takes Aki to Sid's lab where Sid helps Gray to join Aki's dream. In the dream, they witness a war on an alien planet. The war ends when terrible explosions rip the planet apart and Aki realizes that the Phantoms are the spirits of the dead aliens brought to Earth on a fragment of their planet. They awake as Sid uses the Seventh Spirit to bring the infection back under control.

Meanwhile, Hein uses the incident with the Seventh Spirit to gain access to Sid and Aki's personal possessions and sees the images of the aliens in Aki's dream recorder. With this evidence, he has Sid, Aki and Gray's squad arrested.

In an attempt to ensure that the council will give him clearance to fire the space cannon, Gen. Hein takes control of the barrier shielding the city from the Phantoms and lowers it until they start to enter. Though Hein intended that only a few of the Phantoms enter, his plan backfires, as the Phantoms use plasma conduits to invade the entire city.

With the city under an evacuation order, Sid, Aki and Gray's squad are released from detention. They attempt to flee the city but only Sid, Aki and Gray escape with their lives in Aki's spaceship. Sid scans for the Eighth Spirit and finds it at the crater where the fragment of the alien planet collided with the Earth. Meanwhile, Hein escapes as well and, guilt-ridden and suicidal, boards the space cannon where he finally receives authorization to fire it, lying to the surviving council members as to the reason the Phantoms were able to invade the city.

Sid lowers Aki and Gray into the crater in a shielded vehicle so they can locate the Eighth Spirit and combine it with the others. They are about to succeed when Hein fires the space cannon into the crater, not only causing the Phantoms to mutate and grow larger, but causing the Eighth Spirit to disappear.

Aki has another vision of the Phantom home planet where she receives the Eighth Spirit. When she wakes, she and Gray combine it with the other seven and use the shield on their vehicle as a projector for them. When a Phantom touches the shield, it begins a chain reaction which neutralizes all of the Phantoms.

Meanwhile, Hein disables the cannon's safety mechanism and fires it again, destroying the cannon and everyone aboard it. The beam hits the Earth's spirit, or Gaia, the existence of which was long a pet theory of Dr. Sid. Gaia is damaged and angered, just as the spirit of the alien planet was damaged and angered when that planet was destroyed.

Aki still has the eight spirits though and, with the vehicle destroyed, Gray sacrifices his own life and soul to transmit them directly to Gaia. Gaia is returned to normal as the destructive energy is beamed back into space. The movie ends with Aki being pulled from the crater holding Gray's body and looking into the newly liberated world.

Cast

Production

The film had a budget of US$137 million.^[5] Aki Ross's voice actor, actress Ming-Na, says she feels like she "has given birth with [her] voice to a character" and that it was a little "eerie".^[6] She added that it was difficult to work without the presence and spontaneity of real actors; however, she gradually accustomed herself to this feeling, and noted that the voice-acting work did not take much time, as she would just go into the studio "once or twice a month for about four months" with no need for make-up and costuming sessions. She continued to play in the television series ER during the works on Final Fantasy.^[7]

Square accumulated four SGI Origin 2000 series servers, four Onyx2 systems, and 167 Octane workstations.^[8] 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.^[9]

Character design

The model used for the characters were of high detail: each of 60,000 hairs was separately and fully animated and rendered,^[6] at a render farm consisting of 960 Pentium III-933MHz workstations that took 1.5 hours to render each frame.

Aki Ross's character was designed to be as realistic as possible, and intended for the CGI character to be the first artificial actress

The model designed for Aki was designed to be as realistically human as possible, with Sakaguchi commenting in an interview "I think it's OK to look at Aki and be convinced that she's a human."^[10] Each of her 60,000 hairs was separately and fully animated and rendered,^[6] at a render farm consisting of 960 Pentium III-933 MHz workstations that took 1.5 hours to render each frame, with the model estimated to be made up of around 400,000 polygons.^[11] Sakaguchi intended to have Aki be Square Picture's "main star", noting intentions to use her in later games and films by Square and the flexibility of being able to modify aspects of her such as her age for said appearances.^[10]

Aki's appearance was conceived by lead animator of the project, Roy Sato, who created several conceptual designs for Sakaguchi to consider and then used the selected design as a guide for her character model.^[12] During her development, he altered the model to appear more intelligent looking, shortening the hair and removing makeup from what he perceived as a "supermodel" looking character in favor of an appearance that would "convince people that she's a scientist."^[13] In an interview, Sato described actively trying to make her appear as realistic as possible, making her similar to himself in many ways that he could in terms of animation including elements of his personality through facial expressions,^[14] though noted "she's a lot cuter than me".^[12]

Actress Ming-Na Wen was selected by Sakaguchi based on his decision that she fit Aki's personality.^[10] Ming-Na, who found the role via her publicist,^[15] says she feels like she "has given birth with [her] voice to a character" and that it was a little "eerie".^[6] She added that it was difficult to work without the presence and spontaneity of real actors; however, she gradually accustomed herself to this feeling, and noted that the voice-acting work did not take much time, as she would just go into the studio "once or twice a month for about four months" with no need for make-up and costuming sessions, continuing to play in the television series ER during the works on the film. After completion of the film, Ming-Na noted that she would be willing to continue voicing if she were asked to.^[7]

Release

The film was released in the United States on July 11, 2001. In its first four weeks, the film made only $32 million domestically,^[16] going on to gross $85 million in worldwide box office receipts.^[5]

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews.^[17] Roger Ebert was a strong advocate of the film; he gave the film 3 1/2 stars out of 4, praising it as a "technical milestone" while conceding that its "nuts and bolts" story lacked "the intelligence and daring of, say, Steven Spielberg's A.I.". 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.^[18]

Entertainment Weekly named Aki an "It Girl", stating that "Calling this action heroine a cartoon would be like calling a Rembrandt a doodle."^[19] She was voted to be one of the sexiest women ever by Maxim and its readers, ranking 87th out of 100 and became the first fictional woman to ever make the list, additionally appearing on the issue's cover.^[1] Her appearance has been received positively by critics,^[20] with praise for the finer details of the character model such as the rendering of her hair.^[21] The New York Times described her as having the "sinewy efficiency" of Aliens franchise character Ellen Ripley and visual appeal of Julia Roberts' portrayal of Erin Brockovich.^[1] Film critic Roger Ebert noted that while he didn't once feel convinced Aki Ross was an actual human being, he conceded she was "lifelike", stating her creators "dare us to admire their craft. If Aki is not as real as a human actress, she's about as a Playmate who has been retouched to glossy perfection."^[2] The book Digital Shock: Confronting the New Reality described her as a virtual actress having a "beauty that is 'really' impressive", comparing her to video game character Lara Croft.^[22] In contrast, Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams criticized her character as an example of the constantly kidnapped female in Japanese cinema, further "diluted" by her existence solely as a computer-generated character representing "an ideal, cinematic female character that has no real referent".^[23] Action and Adventure Cinema described her as the "least overtly eroticised" female characters in science fiction, though noted her as an example of the treatment of such characters as pin-up girls and "transformed [...] into an erotic fantasy machine".^[24] Media Matrix: Sexing the New Reality noted the emphasis by her creators on making her appear real, though questioned the portrayal of her character, questioning if the presence of her unconsciousness in the film was intended as a means to have the character appear more human to viewers.^[25]

Related media

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

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was composed by Elliot Goldenthal, and the orchestra which performed for the movie was conducted by Belgian composer Dirk Brossé. The film's director Hironobu Sakaguchi opted for the acclaimed film composer instead of Nobuo Uematsu, the composer of the games' soundtracks, a decision met with mixed opinion as many of the game's fans were completely unaware of who Goldenthal was.^[26][27][28]

References

External links

• Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within at the Internet Movie Database
• Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within at Allmovie
• Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within at Rotten Tomatoes
• Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within at Box Office Mojo
• Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within at Metacritic
• Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (film) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia

From Wikia Gaming, your source for walkthroughs, games, guides, and more!

Portal: RPGs		Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within at Final Fantasy Wiki

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
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Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a science fiction movie by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series of RPGs. Also known as "The Final Fantasy Movie." Square's first foray into cinema (the second would be the Animatrix short "Final Flight of the Osiris" and the third is the pending Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. It was released on July 11, 2001 in the United States and was the first movie to feature realistic CGI humans.

It was regarded for its visual quality, being in the first generation of fully computer-animated films. Moviegoers were very impressed by the detail apparent in the doctor's scruffy five-o-clock shadow, and the heroine's skintight bodysuit.

However, they were less than impressed with the content of the movie, which was pretty much a Final Fantasy game without character statistics, random battles, or even a clear villain. In other words, it didn't really make sense (most of the plot seemed to be gleaned from Final Fantasy VII, with sentiments equating to a lifestream made up of dead people's spirits). This was reflected in its box-office and DVD sales.

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 thematically related to any of Squaresoft's popular Final Fantasy series of games. The plot, characters, and storyline were all created specifically for the film, although the character of Dr. Sid does continue the games' tradition of having a character of that name appear in most "Final Fantasy" games.

The film was neither a critical nor a popular success in the West. Its plot is typically Japanese in the way it melds science and spirituality, and it seemed to be best received by regular viewers of anime, who had more affinity for Asian conventions of storytelling. In some aspects, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was no more nor less than a big-budget anime movie.

The use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in the film was criticised as a gimmick by people like animation historian Jerry Beck and producer Steve Oedekerk, who argued that simulating live actors is too expensive and that CGI should be limited to special effects only. But Chris Lee, the producer of Final Fantasy, countered that live actors often can't physically accomplish what computer characters easily can, citing his experience from making Starship Troopers and Godzilla. (An early scene in the film, in which Aki floats weightless in an orbital spacecraft, illustrates his point. Such scenes are trivial to shoot when your actress has no weight to begin with.) 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.

Aki in the movie and nVidia tech demo.

Final Fantasy quickly became a benchmark of CGI graphics realism to which performance of computer graphics hardware and quality of images in computer games is compared. Later in 2001 nVidia released a technology demo for GeForce 3, rendering several scenes from the movie in real-time (compared with 1.5 hours per frame for the movie), albeit at only 10 fps and with lower quality (simpler model with noticeable polygons, clipping problems, less realistic skin and textile with no/poor shaders - "plastic" look, unrealistic lighting, poor specular highlighting and very limited self-shadowing).

Poor box office performance (USD$32 million in the US), combined with the astronomical cost of production (USD$137 million), essentially bankrupted Square Pictures, the Square Co., Ltd. spin-off that produced it, although Square Pictures did survive long enough to produce an animated tie-in to The Matrix, Final Flight of the Osiris. This short film ably demonstrated additional refinements to Square's virtual actors.

Cast (voice actors)

• 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

External link

• Wikipedia entry on Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
• IMDb entry on Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
• Screenshots from nVidia demo

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