Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within [Blu-ray]

Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within [Blu-ray]
by Hironobu Sakaguchi, Moto Sakakibara

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DVD details

Actor: Alec Baldwin, Ming-Na, Peri Gilpin, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames
Director: Hironobu Sakaguchi, Moto Sakakibara
Brand: Sony
Writer: Hironobu Sakaguchi
Producer: Akio Sakai
Writer: Al Reinert
Writer: Jack Fletcher
Writer: Jeff Vintar
Writer: Ramin Mebdy
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Chinese (Subtitled); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Korean (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Animated, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 106 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-08-07
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Sony Pictures

DVD Reviews of Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within [Blu-ray]

DVD Review: A Classic!
Summary: 5 Stars

One of the best examples of CGI made movies ever made. And the sound is great. Even has a fairly good plot to it too. Once you start watching, you just have to see it through to the end. Great Movie!

DVD Review: This is a keeper
Summary: 4 Stars

OK so there are some problems with this movie in plot line, story and a disappointing ending, not to mention some bad (voice) acting. However I did enjoy the Gia story, I found it quite interesting as a philosophy. I write this review 8 years after the movie came out and it is still the reigning King of Computer Generated Graphic movies.

DVD Review: Great animation, not a particularly good movie
Summary: 3 Stars

FF: The Spirits Within is an entertaining enough movie. However, it lacks any real thematic depth and comes across as cartoonish, without any of the humor that is part of a normal cartoon. Ming-na's and Baldwin's performances are both pretty flat and without energy. Except for one scene in which the viewer finds out that the villain's family was killed by phantoms, he otherwise seems an uninteresting bloodthirsty caricature. Every invading alien/war movie cliche is eventually displayed in the movie, and by the end of the movie I didn't really care what ended up happening to any of the main characters.

On the other hand, the animation still looks state of the art even in 2009. The Phantoms are exceptionally creepy and well-designed. I'd check this movie out free from a library, but there are much better animated movies to spend one's money on. A better movie using this particular type of animation is "Beowulf."

DVD Review: A Visual Ride
Summary: 5 Stars

This CGI film is a story of Aki Ross, a scientist working with fellow scientist Doctor Sid in year 2065 to free the Earth of an apparently deadly alien race called the Phantoms which has driven humanity to survive in cities under energy domes known as Barrier Cities. Aki and Sid are against General Hein, who wishes to fire the Zeus cannon from space to annihilate the Phantoms, while injuring the Earth's "gaia" or spirit in the process. This was the first film to attempt to create a photorealistic computer generated world with 3D characters and for the most part it succeeds with flying colors. This film is one of the most delicious films to look at for the characters are expressive and realistic and the effects and set pieces are magical and beautiful. The voice acting is great and the script is interesting, thought provoking, and entertaining.
From the fantastical first few minutes of the film, I was immediately pulled into a sci-fi world that held so much eye candy I could barely stand it, seriously. The visuals are absolutely stunning and just looking at the screen, I wanted to see more. The action began at once and I assumed that the whole movie would be intense and action packed. But I didn't expect the movie would take to the typical Asian slow-paced storytelling as the movie progressed because the opening sequences were so incredibly awesome and engaging, though the story never got boring.
The animation is excellent, especially the human movements. The character's faces however--well you know they aren't real humans. They are believable and lifelike, but the facial animations don't recreate those of a real human. It is never distracting though because there is just so much else to look at in the film. The female lead, Aki is beautifully done and her character is likable and watchable. In the story, Aki and Sid team up with the Deep Eyes, a group of military warriors to defend the survivors of this apparent alien invasion. They struggle to learn about these aliens and how they might be able to eliminate them. When General Hein comes into the picture, planning to blast the aliens away with the Zeus cannon, Aki and Doctor Sid warn him that doing so will injure the Earth's own spirit. General Hein does not believe this, and does not care because he is looking to kill these aliens out of revenge. The voices are well done by known American actors such as Alec Baldwin and Donald Sutherland to name a few.
The story sometimes drags along at points, and just when you think the end is near, there's another thirty minutes to wrap things up. But it can be forgiven because it's thirty minutes more of glorious visuals and eye candy. Things never get too weird, either, like in some other Asian films, and it never gets too complicated. If it all seems complicated at first, it really isn't, if you read the main premise beforehand. Any problems with the story I found, the visuals totally made up for that. It was an amazing feat of a film Hironobu Sakaguchi made for its visuals alone. After the movie ended, I wished right away for another movie with similar technology to be made. There have been, but not to the exact degree of this one.
Fans of the "Final Fantasy" video game series will most likely be disappointed by this film. It has nothing to do with the video games, and I am surprised it was titled as a Final Fantasy film. If you go into seeing the movie with no expectations then that is probably the best way to watch the movie. No, scratch that--you can expect an amazing, truly, truly amazing visual roller coaster, and an entertaining story to go with it on top. It is a very good film, and I loved seeing it, twice.
8.9/10 stars

DVD Review: Incredible animation for its time
Summary: 4 Stars

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a science fiction film by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy role-playing games. This film was the first attempt to make a photorealistic rendered 3D feature film, and was released to theaters in the United States on July 11, 2001. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is only vaguely related to the Final Fantasy games. Dr. Sid's Gaia theory (a lifeforce within the planet to which the spirits belong) is reminiscent of the Lifestream/Mako in Final Fantasy VII. Also, Dr. Sid continues the tradition of having a character named "Cid" in the Final Fantasy games (although his name is spelled "Sid" instead of "Cid").

The first disc in this set contains the film, theatrical trailers, and production notes. The second disc includes two Easter eggs: one is for a storyboard of a scene that's not in the film, while the other shows what appears to be a physical bust of Aki that is digitized. The documentary on the DVD runs for about half an hour, and it talks about the animation, an explanation of the Gaia theory, the process for the 3D animation, the audio, and the music.

There are "character files" for Aki, Gray, Dr. Sid, Hein, Ryan, Jane, and Neil. For each one, there is footage of the character with a robotic-sounding female voice-over who provides information on the character, as well as the lead animator and voice actor for that character. The "vehicle scale comparisons" is in the same style as the "character files," but instead covers the following vehicles: Bandit, Black Boa, and Quatro. The "Final Fantasy Shuffle" allows you to re-edit the conference scene and to learn background information from the animators. However, I couldn't quite figure out the point of this feature. It appears you can only re-organize the footage from the film; there are no alternate angles to choose from.

"Trailer Explorations" talks about putting together the teaser and the trailer for the film. "The Gray Project" is a five-and-a-half minute piece which shows some footage that was put together as they were figuring out the designs for the characters. "More Boards/Blasts" has storyboards, footage from the film, and animatics mixed together. "Matte Art Explorations" shows the various mattes the animators used. "Joke Outtakes" are a series of "bloopers" that runs for almost two minutes. "Compositing Builds" shows the details of all the animation elements for one scene in the film.

The original opening that is included is very different from the scene that opened the film. Aki's dream is different, Aki's design is different, and she also already knows what her reason for the dreams are. Personally, I think the opening scene in the actual film is much better than this. "Aki's Dream" takes all the footage of Aki's dreams and puts them together into one continuous piece. "DVD-ROM Content" explains the DVD-ROM content on the DVD. Also, there's a hidden video of the characters from the film dancing to an instrumental of Michael Jackson's "Thriller."

The 3D animation in this film is very well done; there were times I had to remind myself the characters on the screen were animated, not real people. The film has pacifist themes, and military solutions tend to be either futile or are only temporarily effective. The film is also very pro-environment. The film tells a decent story, and is worth adding to your DVD collection if you enjoy this kind of a science fiction story.

Description of Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within [Blu-ray]

The year is 2065 AD. The Earth is infested with alien spirits, and mankind faces total extinction. Led by a strange dream and guided by her mentor, Dr. Sid, scientist Aki Ross struggles to collect eight spirits in the hope of creating a force powerful enough to destroy the alien presence and pure enough to protect the planet. With the aid of the Deep Eyes Squadron, Aki must save the Earth from its darkest hate and unleash the final spirit. Final Fantasy is the groundbreaking new CGI film from the creators of the Final Fantasy Video Game Franchise.

Earth is a desolate wasteland in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Humanity has been decimated by an invasion of Phantoms, insubstantial aliens that extract and devour the spirits of living things. The few remaining humans have retreated to a handful of cities that are protected by massive bio-energy shields. The beautiful Dr. Aki Ross (voiced by Ming-Na) and her mentor Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland) have discovered that the energy signatures of eight key Earth spirits can cancel out and destroy the Phantoms. With the help of Captain Edwards (Alec Baldwin) and his band of marines, they must scour the globe for the last two remaining spirits before General Hein (James Woods) manipulates the refugee government into attacking the aliens with an orbital laser that may also destroy the Earth.

Hironobu Sakaguchi's film is taken from the popular Final Fantasy video game franchise, which is particularly well suited to film adaptation with its series of original stories, but the movie features entirely new characters and settings. And like Toy Story and Shrek, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is completely computer generated. Unlike those cartoon comedies, though, The Spirits Within is a serious science fiction drama with astonishingly human digital actors. Aki, the female lead, appeared in a full-page spread in Maxim magazine's Hot 100 list--and was indistinguishable from the real-life models. The setting and conflict make for incredible action, but it's the larger issues, character interaction, and human elements that really make the movie shine. The Spirits Within is not simply a science fiction movie, in the same way that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is not simply a kung fu flick. The result is a fantastic summer movie with better action and more emotion than Pearl Harbor, and actors more lifelike than those in that other video game movie, Tomb Raider. --Mike Fehlauer

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