Welcome to Movie Week on Another Castle. Of course, since this is a gaming blog, I’ll be talking about my favorite game-inspired movies… most of which are absolutely horrible, horrible movies, but for some unfathomable reason, they’re still a guilty pleasure. To start things off, let’s look at two movies inspired by my favorite series.
Movie 1: Advent Children: Final Fantasy VII
Advent Children is the continuation of the story of Final Fantasy VII. It takes place two years after the game and is also a lead-in to Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, Square-Enix’s somewhat pathetic attempt at a shooter. The plot (what there is of it) is almost as convoluted as FFVII itself, dealing with three men who look strikingly similar to game’s villain, Sephiroth, and their quest to reunite Jenova’s cells and pick up where Sephiroth left off before his untimely demise. Throw in a cameo from just about every major character in the game (and some not-so-major ones, who are none the less well-loved… including my personal favorite, Reno), and you have a giant heap of fan-service.
There really isn’t much depth to the movie, and though it does serve to tie up some loose ends, it leaves more for fans to ponder on (like how in the hell did Kadaj, Yazoo, and Loz even come into being in the first place?). In short, it’s a very pretty movie. A very pretty movie… but it doesn’t have much to offer beyond eye-candy and some kick-ass battle sequences.
That said, I own three copies of this movie.
The first, I imported from Japan months before it was released in the U.S. (mostly because the quality on the pirated copies really sucked). Consequently, it has neither subtitles nor an English language audio track. The second is the standard 2-disc U.S. release, purchased immediately upon its release. The third is the Limited Edition Collector’s Set, U.S. release, that came out several months later. And if I’d had the money at the time, I’d have picked up the Japanese Collector’s Edition that came with the Cloud/Fenrir action figure, too. Note that I will also be buying Advent Children Complete on Blu-Ray if they ever get around to releasing it, and I’ll probably pick up the UMD release at some point now that I have a PSP (I might as well get some use out of the thing).
Now, my apparent obsession with buying multiple copies of Advent Children has absolutely nothing at all to do with it being a spectacular movie (which it’s not, even though it does have some damn impressive CGI). It has everything to do with my borderline-unhealthy obsession with all things Final Fantasy VII, which throughly qualifies it as a guilty pleasure.
Movie 2: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
The Spirits Within chronicles Dr. Aki Ross’ attempts to cure a fatal disease that began to spread after a meteor crashed to earth, spread by contact with the invading alien lifeforms the meteor brought with it. In order to do so, she and her mentor, Dr. Cid, search the planet for the eight “spirits”, eight lifeforms who’s energy signatures exactly counter those of the aliens.
Now before you purists start in on how awful this movie is, let me explain this one. As a “Final Fantasy”, I will put forth no argument against the fact that this movie is terrible. It feels nothing like a Final Fantasy, even though they tried to incorporate elements of the series.
However, as a movie in it’s own right, I think Spirits Within is actually pretty decent. If Square had left Final Fantasy off the title, I firmly believe it would have done better in theatres. Unfortunately what happened was that the fan went to it expecting a Final Fantasy movie… and it just wasn’t a Final Fantasy movie. And they told everyone so. Mainstream moviegoers avoided it because it was just another one of those awful movies based on a game. In the end, it flopped, big time.
In truth, though, the movie was beautifully rendered, fully CG, and from a technical standpoint, simply amazing. It also featured Steve Buscemi, which is always a bonus. The action scenes were intense, the more poignant scenes were well-done, and in the end, you couldn’t help but sympathize with the story’s villain because he was only trying to save others from the pain he experiences… even though he went about it all wrong.
The Spirits Within, in that respect, is not so much a guilty pleasure as it is a quality film that got a bad rap (due to piss-poor marketing) that it never managed to shake off.
Tomorrow: Super Mario Brothers and Mortal Kombat
Nikki Blight: is still trying to find that damn princess... when she's not writing fresh code for the217.com.
Comments
Nikki (Nikki) says:
(Posted April 14th, 2008 at 10:27 pm)
I could… but then I’d have to think about those movies. I’ve been trying to suppress the memories.
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Nikki Blight
is still trying to find that damn princess... when she's not writing fresh code for the217.com.
Chris Fairfield (Chris Fairfield) says:
(Posted April 14th, 2008 at 7:35 pm)
You could do a whole week on Uwe Boll films alone(!)