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Final Fantasy-Special Edition  Hot
Reviews DVD Reviews
Written by Staff Writer   
Saturday, 22 January 2005


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Final Fantasy-Special Edition

Grade

Content Grade: A-
Sound Grade: A
Extras Grade: A
Picture Grade: A

Specs

Columbia-Tristar-MSRP $29.99 Anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen English Dolby Digital 5.1, English Surround 2.0 Subtitles in English, French 107 mins., color, 2000 Rated PG-13

Review

The makers of the computer game Final Fantasy have broken new ground in film with the release of "Final Fantasy-The Spirits Within", an ambitious project using state of the art computer graphics to render the cast. The voice cast includes the talents of Donald Sutherland, Alec Baldwin, Ming-Na, James Olsen and Steve Buscemi. This special edition two disc set comes with a ton of extras, celebrating the release of this milestone film.
The central character is a female scientist, Aki, played by Ming-Na, whose reoccurring dreams are somehow connected to the invasion of Earth by phantom creatures, who suck the life out of all they come in contact with. These phantoms have ravaged the Earth since they landed on a crashed asteroid, forcing the surviving human to live in sealed cities, run by a corporate like government. Aki works closely with Dr. Sid (Sutherland), who has a theory about the invaders and a way to defeat them. He believes the Earth is a living spirit and the phantoms are drawing their power from it. He is opposed by a general, played by Olsen, who has a "go in and smash them" attitude, and wants to use a space based laser cannon on the central location of the invaders. The scientists, accompanied by a squad of special forces, led by Baldwin, must try to collect the correct living "spirits" before the general has a chance to use the weapon. Sound like a computer game? There are lots of other similarities.

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Picture and Sound

Picture-Presented in widescreen, the feature film is gorgeous in its graphics presentation. Some of the renderings show fine detail, down to the hair on the heroine's skin. Skin wrinkles, freckles, whiskers on special squad members and other subtleties are realistically portrayed by the graphic artists at times. While breaking new ground in computer imaging, the artists did use some shortcuts and this is most noticeable around the mouth movement of the characters, and at times, by stiff movement of the characters in walking and arm action. I was never thoroughly convinced I was watching realistic people; it was more like a very long computer game. At times, the characters were very convincing but it still wasn't quite totally human in actions or expressions. Sound-A powerful soundtrack with excellent separation of channel information makes this a superior disc in sound. While there was no DTS soundtrack option, the Dolby digital was clearly used for maximum effect to go along with the complex and exciting action sequences. Dynamic range is outstanding, mixing the talented voice cast in well within the mix. Dialog is prominent in this film, and all characters were heard well through the center and front speakers.

Extras

An entire disc of extras is included, along with quite few on the first disc. Audio commentary from the co-director and another track features commentary from the animation director. Other production members also accompany these commentaries. Disc two starts off with Aki walking through the set of the film, interacting with computer and human film makers, and a very nice introduction. Disc two contains a making of featurette, with an interactive feature that pops up at certain points using the branching features of DVD. If a production artist is describing a certain scene in the film, you have the option to see earlier graphic builds of the scene and are then taken back to the documentary where it left off. A very nice and engaging feature. There are character files of many of the characters from the film, who are treated with rich characterization details and background details not mentioned in the film. There is an alternative opening sequence and also, the opportunity to re-edit one of the film's sequences entitled Final Fantasy Shuffler. This can keep you busy for hours as you re-mix a scene from the film and then play it back. The DVD-ROM features include Interactive Film Exploration, a complete screenplay, a virtual tour of Square One Pictures, a screensaver and weblinks.

Summary

This film is unique and the first of its kind as the film makers were challenged to render characters to carry the entire film. While computer graphics have come a long way and play a pivotal role in modern film making today, I don' think actors need to be concerned over being entirely replaced-yet. While the film is an excellent action film, with a anime plot and Western cultural characters, the art of compute animation is still that; art and not a replacement for reality or real human actors. The technology is truly amazing and I would recommend this film to action film fans, animation fans, science fiction fans and anyone who wants to feast their eyes on the gorgeous worlds and characters created for this feature.

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