Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

So, it's been a while.  I know everyone has been panting with anticipation: "What will Zoelyn watch next?  How can I sleep at night?"  I could give you the excuses I've prepared: "I'm in college.  I'm busy.  I was finishing Season 2 of True Blood.  I have a lot of homework."  However, I know you would rather hear about Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001).

I saw this movie when it came out.  My dad and I were doing our awkward breakfast and a movie date that summarized every other weekend of my middle school years.  One week, it was this movie, and I knew absolutely nothing about it.  However, I will sit perfectly still for however long it takes me to eat any bag of popcorn put in my vicinity, so I watched it any way.

And my little twelve-year-old mind was BLOWN.  Seriously, I couldn't tell for the whole opening credits whether they were real people on the screen.  (In my defense, I have terrible eyesight.)  The story, conceived by by Hironobu Sakaguchi (producer of most of the Final Fantasy series of video games) compelled me, and the graphics knocked my freaking socks off.  (They were rainbow toe socks, probably.  If you were curious.)

With the exception of maybe Avatar (2009) there has been basically no film projects like Final Fantasy.  The story is told in an entirely animated world, but with a level of photorealism that no Pixar project has ever had.

(Seriously.  Check that out.)



The story is pretty typical for a Final Fantasy project.  Collect some things, fight some bad guys, save the world.  However, this story takes place on Earth in 2065, and the planet has been infested by ghostly aliens called Phantoms, that separate people's spirits from their bodies.  The government is building a giant super laser type thing to zap them all, but the main charatcer, a scientist named Aki, believes that the weapon will destroy Earth's own spirit.  Her mentor, Dr. Sid (I told you it was pretty typical) sends her and some soldier friends (a party of six) to collect eight special spirits that he believes, when combined, will cancel out the Phantoms' effect.

Basically, I love everything about this movie, and I definitely think that it influenced the creation of Avatar.  (Also not the best story ever, but definitely a technical marvel.)  Unfortunately, it wasn't very well received, and was a majorly failed investment for Square Enix, but they've recovered, and this movie is still worth checking out.

As always,

Love! -Z.Cop