Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Written by:

Al Reinert, Jeff Vintar

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Directed by:

Hironobu Sakaguchi

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Release Date:

2001

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Welcome to Ray Hardgrit's Sci-Fi Adventures, review #001: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

My past self thought it'd be a great idea to start a new website about science fiction movies and TV shows in addition to the Super Adventures site I already have going, but now it's me, my present day self, that's stuck writing content for it! Still, there's nothing more sci-fi than starting a spin-off.

Speaking of beginnings, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was the debut movie from Square Pictures, the video game company's new computer animated film division. And it was also the last, because it bombed so hard. They'd would only work on one more project, the Final Flight of the Osiris short for the Animatrix, before being shut down. I guess if you keep using 'Final' in your titles it will eventually come true.

I'm not sure the movie failed because it was based on a video game though, because I've seen this before and I know full well that it ain't based on any 'Final Fantasy' games I've played. But this isn't a case of a movie studio taking a brand name and doing their own thing with it, as it was conceived and directed by 'Final Fantasy' creator Hironobu Sakaguchi himself! His very first film in fact, and also his last.

Despite its utter failure, Spirits Within was a pretty important milestone in cinema, as it's the first full-length 'photorealistic' motion captured animated movie. A proper big-budget serious cartoon aimed at adults starring humans, four years in the making! To give it a bit of context, it came out 6 years after Toy Story (the first full length CG movie) and around the same time that 'Final Fantasy X' hit the PlayStation 2. So yes, it really is 15 years old at the time I'm writing this.

(I'm basically going to go ahead and spoil this entire movie one scene at a time now, so please stop right here unless you're okay with that).