Her trailer is indeed wonderful, even today, it is still a nearly perfect three-dimensional image.
The beautiful girl on the wasteland, facing the bright light rising from the distant horizon, she raised her hand to cover her eyes. The most impressive thing is her hair wafting in the wind. It is soft and elegant, and it can be used as an advertisement for shampoo.
Before this, there has never been such a light hair on the screen, I mean animation.
The best 3D animation of that year was Shrek. But in terms of three-dimensional images alone, Shrek compared to Final Fantasy is like my graffiti compared to Mona Lisa.
So you can imagine how many salivary glands this trailer stimulated.
But in the end the movie failed miserably. With an investment of US$137 million in the film, the final box office was only US$32 million.
What is even more impressive is that, with the "Final Fantasy" series of games as the backbone and the king of RPG games, Square lost most of its life and had to merge with Enix to become Square Enix.
The reason why the movie version of "Final Fantasy" failed is generally believed to be related to her plot setting. She said that her plot was too complicated for Americans to understand, so the box office failed.
I don't think this statement is justified. The most important concept in the movie version of Final Fantasy is nothing more than Gaia, the soul of the planet. The concept of Gaia appears in almost every "Final Fantasy" game, and these games are also very popular in the West.
And as early as 1999, there was "The Matrix" in science fiction movies. The concept is complicated, and it is not as big a hit.
I think the failure of the movie version of "Final Fantasy" is indeed related to her plot. The core of the plot is Gaia, and most of the plot is fighting alien ghosts. These plots are no problem in the game of "Final Fantasy", there are still a lot of magic and summoned beasts in the game.
But "Final Fantasy" games are all set in an overhead world, often in the style of Steam Punk, even if the airship and magic appear at the same time, no one will be surprised.
But the story of the movie version of "Final Fantasy" is clearly set on the 21st century earth, near New York. Being so close to the real world, it is ghosts that have to be dealt with, and the solution is the soul of the earth. It feels too alienated and it is difficult to get involved in the plot.
As for the movie scenes, although the image of the heroine Aki is almost perfect, at the time, it can also be seen that the film production is stretched. Only Aki has long flowing hair. Everyone else has short hair, a bald head, or a hat. And everyone's clothes have some tight-fitting directions. It can be seen that, even though Square had smashed all the old books that had been an RPG for many years, it was still unable to make a second long hair.
Moreover, from my perspective today, although most of the pictures are very beautifully made, there are still some scenes rendered, which are somewhat sloppy. The movements of individual characters, even a few small movements of Aki, are still unnatural.
In any case, Aki is still a very important image in the history of 3D animation.
A few days ago, I also watched "Final Fantasy: Advent Children" and I was shocked.
"Advent Children" is a three-dimensional animation launched by Square Enix (Yes, Enix must be added later) in 2005. The storyline continues the plot of the most successful Final Fantasy game "Final Fantasy VII", which can be regarded as the postscript of "Final Fantasy VII".
And the images of this cartoon undoubtedly set a new benchmark. I won’t say much about how beautiful the heroine Tifa is. What impressed me most was that after I watched it for more than 10 minutes, Tifa appeared on the stage. I still doubt whether this is a full three-dimensional animation film or a combination of live-action animation.
This is where "Advent Children" wins "Inner Spirit". Although the inner spirit figures are exquisite, they still have a strong digital flavor. But "Advent Children" made me unable to determine at once whether it was an animation or a real person. It is really a difference in realm.
"Final Fantasy: Inner Spirit" in 01 cost 130 million US dollars, so how much did "Final Fantasy: Advent Children" in 2005 cost? I checked it and didn't find out.
But looking at the plot of "Advent Children", it is very simple and stingy, not to mention that compared with the magnificent "Final Fantasy VII" game version, it is far inferior to the widely criticized "Inner Spirit". At most, it is an OVA level. It doesn't look like a big investment.
In addition, only Japan, South Korea, and Italy have been released for "Advent Children". In other countries, only DVD and VHS have been released. So the circulation of this movie is also very small. However, there was no news of loss. It can be estimated that the investment in this movie is not large.
This is very embarrassing. The movie that ruined Square's bankruptcy in those years, now it seems that the effect is not as good as an OVA-level small production. It can only be said that technology has advanced too fast.
View more about Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within reviews
