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As some of you may or may not know, critics all over are giving Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, not so great reviews. What I've noticed lots of these reviews have in common, is that they basically denounce the films grandeur because as I quote from the Arizona Republic "The main character, Aki has an seemingly permanent layer of lip balm over her lips." Is this any way to rate a movie, which has the most advanced computer graphics of the day? To analyse it in terms of eye-candy, I'd say it was about as perfect as you can get, short of real actors, granted, no movie is ever going to be perfect when you look at how well their mouth movements match their speech, but this was absolutely dazzling.
Critics are criticizing the movie for having such great special effects, yet being unable to make a character blink properly in one situation...I personally think this is an outrage. The film is hardly getting the credit it deserves for the incredible achievements it has made. Instead, people are rating it for what it still has yet to accomplish.
So my view of the film in terms of visuals is a perfect 10. And quite honestly, I think the fact that there is a hint of animation in it adds to the splendour of knowing how incredibly realistic the animation is. If it were perfect, there would be no point.
Next comes how I thought of it in terms of cinematography and moviemaking. Now, there is a HUGE difference between an 80 hour plus RPG (Role Playing Game) and a 120 minute movie, HUGE! Hironobu Sakaguchi has little experience in movies and did a splendid job in my eyes. RPG's don't involve lots of cinematography (except for the short FMV - full motion video - clips), but they rather concentrate on storyline and characters. For his first attempt at converting this incredible game series to a movie, I think he did a fantastic job, and I applaud him. It's not every day that a beginning filmmaker makes such an incredible movie (although not the best in terms of cinematic quality, it really is great). So I hold no grudge against the fact that some camera angles maybe should have been done differently, or the lighting was wrong or stuff like that (but honestly, I didn't notice many problems in the first place).
A second thing that I really enjoy when playing the FF games was these FMV sequences. They were basically short movies that happened at certain parts in the game where something big took place and I always thought it was just amazing how they made the characters look so lifelike, and always dreamed that they would make a movie entirely like those FMV's and finally, they did!
So in terms of cinematography and how well the actual film was made, I'd do an 8 out of 10, partially because it must have been an incredibly hard task to try to live up to the standards of the games, and partially because I honestly didn't find much wrong with it.
In terms of visuals, we have 10/10.
And next I plan to compare it to the actual video game series, which I've noticed other critics have also done. The New York Times basically said, "The games are better." which may be true. However, they failed to recognize that the games are 80+ hour-long epics and as I said before, it is NO easy task converting an 80-hour epic story into a feature film (look at Star Wars). Of course, there are some basic traits that the games all have in common that I wish the movie could have incorporated. I think this for a few reasons.
I think originally, this movie should have been targeted at the avid players of the game, which basically it was, but overall, you could tell that if they incorporated some of the other aspects of the game series into the movie, anyone in the audience who hadn't played the games would be completely lost (i.e., the concept of Materia from Final Fantasy 7).
The FF games all shared some sort of magic fighting system, characters could attack with Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth (Quake), etc. and in almost every game was some sort of special attack (Summons, Guardian Force, etc), which I thought this movie could have used.
In my opinion (and this is from a game players view), this movie was a bit too sci-fi for an FF movie and should have employed things like magic and summons. Instead, it replaced them with invisible aliens.
The one spot where I applaud them is their concept of a "Life Force" or "Gaiea" (I think that's how it's spelled). That definitely partially lives up to the FF themes (especially of FF 7, for those of you who've played it). And the Spirit Waves also was a great innovation by the writers.
Final Fantasy is a movie that's above dazzling in terms of visuals, very decent in terms of story (I don't say great, because all FF games never had the story set on Earth, and never established a specific setting in time where the game took place. I think they made it on Earth simply so that the non-FF playing audience members could familiarize a little better), and just slightly below average in terms of Final Fantasy standards that I have set for myself.
So, I'd say I'd give it an overall assessment of ìAbove Averageî. It's an incredibly enjoyable movie by my standards with a plot that could have used some work (but as I said before, maybe it's better off that it was simplified, so that the other audience members could understand it a little better).
Critics are criticizing the movie for having such great special effects, yet being unable to make a character blink properly in one situation...I personally think this is an outrage. The film is hardly getting the credit it deserves for the incredible achievements it has made. Instead, people are rating it for what it still has yet to accomplish.
So my view of the film in terms of visuals is a perfect 10. And quite honestly, I think the fact that there is a hint of animation in it adds to the splendour of knowing how incredibly realistic the animation is. If it were perfect, there would be no point.
Next comes how I thought of it in terms of cinematography and moviemaking. Now, there is a HUGE difference between an 80 hour plus RPG (Role Playing Game) and a 120 minute movie, HUGE! Hironobu Sakaguchi has little experience in movies and did a splendid job in my eyes. RPG's don't involve lots of cinematography (except for the short FMV - full motion video - clips), but they rather concentrate on storyline and characters. For his first attempt at converting this incredible game series to a movie, I think he did a fantastic job, and I applaud him. It's not every day that a beginning filmmaker makes such an incredible movie (although not the best in terms of cinematic quality, it really is great). So I hold no grudge against the fact that some camera angles maybe should have been done differently, or the lighting was wrong or stuff like that (but honestly, I didn't notice many problems in the first place).
A second thing that I really enjoy when playing the FF games was these FMV sequences. They were basically short movies that happened at certain parts in the game where something big took place and I always thought it was just amazing how they made the characters look so lifelike, and always dreamed that they would make a movie entirely like those FMV's and finally, they did!
So in terms of cinematography and how well the actual film was made, I'd do an 8 out of 10, partially because it must have been an incredibly hard task to try to live up to the standards of the games, and partially because I honestly didn't find much wrong with it.
In terms of visuals, we have 10/10.
And next I plan to compare it to the actual video game series, which I've noticed other critics have also done. The New York Times basically said, "The games are better." which may be true. However, they failed to recognize that the games are 80+ hour-long epics and as I said before, it is NO easy task converting an 80-hour epic story into a feature film (look at Star Wars). Of course, there are some basic traits that the games all have in common that I wish the movie could have incorporated. I think this for a few reasons.
I think originally, this movie should have been targeted at the avid players of the game, which basically it was, but overall, you could tell that if they incorporated some of the other aspects of the game series into the movie, anyone in the audience who hadn't played the games would be completely lost (i.e., the concept of Materia from Final Fantasy 7).
The FF games all shared some sort of magic fighting system, characters could attack with Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth (Quake), etc. and in almost every game was some sort of special attack (Summons, Guardian Force, etc), which I thought this movie could have used.
In my opinion (and this is from a game players view), this movie was a bit too sci-fi for an FF movie and should have employed things like magic and summons. Instead, it replaced them with invisible aliens.
The one spot where I applaud them is their concept of a "Life Force" or "Gaiea" (I think that's how it's spelled). That definitely partially lives up to the FF themes (especially of FF 7, for those of you who've played it). And the Spirit Waves also was a great innovation by the writers.
Final Fantasy is a movie that's above dazzling in terms of visuals, very decent in terms of story (I don't say great, because all FF games never had the story set on Earth, and never established a specific setting in time where the game took place. I think they made it on Earth simply so that the non-FF playing audience members could familiarize a little better), and just slightly below average in terms of Final Fantasy standards that I have set for myself.
So, I'd say I'd give it an overall assessment of ìAbove Averageî. It's an incredibly enjoyable movie by my standards with a plot that could have used some work (but as I said before, maybe it's better off that it was simplified, so that the other audience members could understand it a little better).
Yeah....
shaneo wrote:
> It's YOUR opinion that it's a load of cack. The next person who posts in this
> topic could say it's the best film they've ever seen it - it it unlikely, but
> it's possible.
Ermmm... yeah. And your post was your opinion... what exactly was the point of saying that? Keyboard need an excercise?
> It's YOUR opinion that it's a load of cack. The next person who posts in this
> topic could say it's the best film they've ever seen it - it it unlikely, but
> it's possible.
Ermmm... yeah. And your post was your opinion... what exactly was the point of saying that? Keyboard need an excercise?
It was good(ish). The graphics and action scenes were the best but the script was cheesy, and the whole movie was a bit complicated. I'd give it 6/10......
It's YOUR opinion that it's a load of cack. The next person who posts in this topic could say it's the best film they've ever seen it - it it unlikely, but it's possible.
The film is total rubbish - the critics panned it because it has an abysmal plot and came from a pretty pointless premise. Why waste millions recreating a pile of rocks? Use real rock for goodness sake. Animation is wasted if it trys to recreate real life - that's not it's point. Go watch either of the Toy Story films, or the Simpsons, or Snow-bleedin-White. That's why animation exists, to distort and exagurate reality.
I am the Tarrant wrote:
> I agree, most films that have stupid amounts of money spent on them, sack off
> any plot and concentrate purely on effects! (Godzilla anyone?)
However, this
> film A) had the best effects i've ever seen (in that the whole film was CG and
> that) and B) had a plot, whilst not amazing, superior to a lot of hollywood
> blockbusters!
Damn straight man!
> I agree, most films that have stupid amounts of money spent on them, sack off
> any plot and concentrate purely on effects! (Godzilla anyone?)
However, this
> film A) had the best effects i've ever seen (in that the whole film was CG and
> that) and B) had a plot, whilst not amazing, superior to a lot of hollywood
> blockbusters!
Damn straight man!
I agree, most films that have stupid amounts of money spent on them, sack off any plot and concentrate purely on effects! (Godzilla anyone?)
However, this film A) had the best effects i've ever seen (in that the whole film was CG and that) and B) had a plot, whilst not amazing, superior to a lot of hollywood blockbusters!
However, this film A) had the best effects i've ever seen (in that the whole film was CG and that) and B) had a plot, whilst not amazing, superior to a lot of hollywood blockbusters!
Too rite mate, nice to see you're a Reg now.
That film, sorry to say it, was utter class. The storyline? Who really cares, you don't go to watch a film that cost £1,000,000 to put all the hairs on the main characters head for a complex storyline, you go to watch it for the experience of something new that could just be the beginning of future films.
As some of you may or may not know, critics all over are giving Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, not so great reviews. What I've noticed lots of these reviews have in common, is that they basically denounce the films grandeur because as I quote from the Arizona Republic "The main character, Aki has an seemingly permanent layer of lip balm over her lips." Is this any way to rate a movie, which has the most advanced computer graphics of the day? To analyse it in terms of eye-candy, I'd say it was about as perfect as you can get, short of real actors, granted, no movie is ever going to be perfect when you look at how well their mouth movements match their speech, but this was absolutely dazzling.
Critics are criticizing the movie for having such great special effects, yet being unable to make a character blink properly in one situation...I personally think this is an outrage. The film is hardly getting the credit it deserves for the incredible achievements it has made. Instead, people are rating it for what it still has yet to accomplish.
So my view of the film in terms of visuals is a perfect 10. And quite honestly, I think the fact that there is a hint of animation in it adds to the splendour of knowing how incredibly realistic the animation is. If it were perfect, there would be no point.
Next comes how I thought of it in terms of cinematography and moviemaking. Now, there is a HUGE difference between an 80 hour plus RPG (Role Playing Game) and a 120 minute movie, HUGE! Hironobu Sakaguchi has little experience in movies and did a splendid job in my eyes. RPG's don't involve lots of cinematography (except for the short FMV - full motion video - clips), but they rather concentrate on storyline and characters. For his first attempt at converting this incredible game series to a movie, I think he did a fantastic job, and I applaud him. It's not every day that a beginning filmmaker makes such an incredible movie (although not the best in terms of cinematic quality, it really is great). So I hold no grudge against the fact that some camera angles maybe should have been done differently, or the lighting was wrong or stuff like that (but honestly, I didn't notice many problems in the first place).
A second thing that I really enjoy when playing the FF games was these FMV sequences. They were basically short movies that happened at certain parts in the game where something big took place and I always thought it was just amazing how they made the characters look so lifelike, and always dreamed that they would make a movie entirely like those FMV's and finally, they did!
So in terms of cinematography and how well the actual film was made, I'd do an 8 out of 10, partially because it must have been an incredibly hard task to try to live up to the standards of the games, and partially because I honestly didn't find much wrong with it.
In terms of visuals, we have 10/10.
And next I plan to compare it to the actual video game series, which I've noticed other critics have also done. The New York Times basically said, "The games are better." which may be true. However, they failed to recognize that the games are 80+ hour-long epics and as I said before, it is NO easy task converting an 80-hour epic story into a feature film (look at Star Wars). Of course, there are some basic traits that the games all have in common that I wish the movie could have incorporated. I think this for a few reasons.
I think originally, this movie should have been targeted at the avid players of the game, which basically it was, but overall, you could tell that if they incorporated some of the other aspects of the game series into the movie, anyone in the audience who hadn't played the games would be completely lost (i.e., the concept of Materia from Final Fantasy 7).
The FF games all shared some sort of magic fighting system, characters could attack with Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth (Quake), etc. and in almost every game was some sort of special attack (Summons, Guardian Force, etc), which I thought this movie could have used.
In my opinion (and this is from a game players view), this movie was a bit too sci-fi for an FF movie and should have employed things like magic and summons. Instead, it replaced them with invisible aliens.
The one spot where I applaud them is their concept of a "Life Force" or "Gaiea" (I think that's how it's spelled). That definitely partially lives up to the FF themes (especially of FF 7, for those of you who've played it). And the Spirit Waves also was a great innovation by the writers.
Final Fantasy is a movie that's above dazzling in terms of visuals, very decent in terms of story (I don't say great, because all FF games never had the story set on Earth, and never established a specific setting in time where the game took place. I think they made it on Earth simply so that the non-FF playing audience members could familiarize a little better), and just slightly below average in terms of Final Fantasy standards that I have set for myself.
So, I'd say I'd give it an overall assessment of ìAbove Averageî. It's an incredibly enjoyable movie by my standards with a plot that could have used some work (but as I said before, maybe it's better off that it was simplified, so that the other audience members could understand it a little better).
Critics are criticizing the movie for having such great special effects, yet being unable to make a character blink properly in one situation...I personally think this is an outrage. The film is hardly getting the credit it deserves for the incredible achievements it has made. Instead, people are rating it for what it still has yet to accomplish.
So my view of the film in terms of visuals is a perfect 10. And quite honestly, I think the fact that there is a hint of animation in it adds to the splendour of knowing how incredibly realistic the animation is. If it were perfect, there would be no point.
Next comes how I thought of it in terms of cinematography and moviemaking. Now, there is a HUGE difference between an 80 hour plus RPG (Role Playing Game) and a 120 minute movie, HUGE! Hironobu Sakaguchi has little experience in movies and did a splendid job in my eyes. RPG's don't involve lots of cinematography (except for the short FMV - full motion video - clips), but they rather concentrate on storyline and characters. For his first attempt at converting this incredible game series to a movie, I think he did a fantastic job, and I applaud him. It's not every day that a beginning filmmaker makes such an incredible movie (although not the best in terms of cinematic quality, it really is great). So I hold no grudge against the fact that some camera angles maybe should have been done differently, or the lighting was wrong or stuff like that (but honestly, I didn't notice many problems in the first place).
A second thing that I really enjoy when playing the FF games was these FMV sequences. They were basically short movies that happened at certain parts in the game where something big took place and I always thought it was just amazing how they made the characters look so lifelike, and always dreamed that they would make a movie entirely like those FMV's and finally, they did!
So in terms of cinematography and how well the actual film was made, I'd do an 8 out of 10, partially because it must have been an incredibly hard task to try to live up to the standards of the games, and partially because I honestly didn't find much wrong with it.
In terms of visuals, we have 10/10.
And next I plan to compare it to the actual video game series, which I've noticed other critics have also done. The New York Times basically said, "The games are better." which may be true. However, they failed to recognize that the games are 80+ hour-long epics and as I said before, it is NO easy task converting an 80-hour epic story into a feature film (look at Star Wars). Of course, there are some basic traits that the games all have in common that I wish the movie could have incorporated. I think this for a few reasons.
I think originally, this movie should have been targeted at the avid players of the game, which basically it was, but overall, you could tell that if they incorporated some of the other aspects of the game series into the movie, anyone in the audience who hadn't played the games would be completely lost (i.e., the concept of Materia from Final Fantasy 7).
The FF games all shared some sort of magic fighting system, characters could attack with Fire, Ice, Wind, Earth (Quake), etc. and in almost every game was some sort of special attack (Summons, Guardian Force, etc), which I thought this movie could have used.
In my opinion (and this is from a game players view), this movie was a bit too sci-fi for an FF movie and should have employed things like magic and summons. Instead, it replaced them with invisible aliens.
The one spot where I applaud them is their concept of a "Life Force" or "Gaiea" (I think that's how it's spelled). That definitely partially lives up to the FF themes (especially of FF 7, for those of you who've played it). And the Spirit Waves also was a great innovation by the writers.
Final Fantasy is a movie that's above dazzling in terms of visuals, very decent in terms of story (I don't say great, because all FF games never had the story set on Earth, and never established a specific setting in time where the game took place. I think they made it on Earth simply so that the non-FF playing audience members could familiarize a little better), and just slightly below average in terms of Final Fantasy standards that I have set for myself.
So, I'd say I'd give it an overall assessment of ìAbove Averageî. It's an incredibly enjoyable movie by my standards with a plot that could have used some work (but as I said before, maybe it's better off that it was simplified, so that the other audience members could understand it a little better).