Are your spirits within?

The release of Final Fantasy: The Spirits within was long anticipated in my household. Living with an avid gamer and long time FF fan, I knew we would be there within a day or two of the opening here.

Saturday night, we had the time to go see the movie. We decided that we would go as late as possible to avoid the kiddie rush, which ended up being 12:15 am. When we got there, we were relieved to see that our plan had worked. In the whole theater, there were only about 6 kids there, about 15 people total to see FF: TSW.

After what seemed like endless ads and trailers for new movies, the adventure began. The graphics were absolutely fantastic. I stared in utter amazement for a couple of minutes before turning and asking "Are you sure this is all animation?"

With my "Yes" answer, I began to watch the movie for more!

34 Years ago, the Earth was invaded by phantoms who took the souls of many people, killing most things and causing the survivors to live in barriers and full of fear.

Scientists are working on a way to rid the earth of these phantoms, 2 in particular. Dr. Sid and Dr. Aki Ross (who we find out a little after the movie has started, is infected by the phantom). Dr. Sid believes that the earth is made of Gaia, a kind of lifeforce of the earth. There are 8 spirits that must come together to produce a certain wavelength and save the Earth from the invading creatures.

Aki is the only case where the phantom parasite was sort of haulted in her body. She has a chest plate where the spirits are grafted into that keeps her stable. She goes out on missions to save the spirits and bring them to Dr. Sid.

On one such mission, she is confronted by military who are out looking for the unauthorized person out of the barrier. They save her from a bunch of phantoms attacking her. They come through walls, floors, ect. and are not visible with the human eyes. They steal souls or infect the people. There is some kind of weapon that they use to fight them, I believe it is a bio-weapon (think about the irony..bio-weapon...killing it with life).

Once they save her, Aki finds out that the squad leader is an old love that she took off on. By reuniting, the flame reignites putting a love story in the works.

Back to the dying earth plot...The Council meets with Dr. Sid and others to try and find a solution to this 34 yr old problem. What can they do? General (I can't remember his name) wants to fire the Zeus Cannon, a very powerful weapon that he is sure will defeat the phantoms. Dr. Sid tries to let the people know that this can destroy the earth as well as the Gaia theory comes up. Trying to aid him in proving his point, Aki comes clean about her infestation causing the council to trust Dr. Sid.

There is a little bit that goes on with these two plots, lovers get back together, Aki retrieves all but 1 spirit and the general destroys the barrier city and kills almost all survivors just to launch the Zeus Cannon.

Throughout the movie, Aki is having these dreams, like a novel, but in bits and pieces. This confused me for most of the movie, but helped me understand a little at the end.

I don't want to give away too much, but to make this epinion more meaningful, I have to, so here goes....

The Zeus cannon gets fired into the crater that was made when the phantoms landed...the same place that Aki and Grey are retrieving the last spirit. Aki tries to convince the general to stop firing, that he is only strengthening the phantom. He refuses saying that they have tainted her.

She has by this time had most of her ongoing dream and knows that the phantoms are really ghosts from a dead planet. When the planet was destroyed by fire, a chunk broke off into space and ended up on earth. They are just living the pain that has never ended for them.

During her last dream, she finds the 8th spirit. I seem to get the impression that the last spirit is the spirit within the soul. When she gets all of the spirits together and sends out the wavelength, Gaia begins to return live to earth. This is cut short by the general and his overpowering urge to have vengence on the phantoms who destroyed all of his family. He sends out a ray from the zeus cannon stopping the wave transfer and damaging the ship.

Before it ends, Grey lets the phantom take his soul as Aki is able to use him to transfer the 8 spirits to the "mother" phantom in the crater making a happy ending for all.



My thoughts on the movie:
I thought the movie was very good graphically. I think this amazed most people. If you looked at the eyes, you could actually see the pupils change size. Hair seemed to move by the strand. Most movements were smooth. Overall, the look was realistic. I know that some people wouldd be closed minded and say that it wasn't because of the condition of Earth, but this is my opinions so I will write my beliefs.

The plot...I have read so many things about people not thinking the plot was good enough. I think this is one of the best movies to come from a video game/comic in a long time. The story line, in my opinion, deals with the classic good vs.evil, similar to the game. As the generals hate fueled the Zeus Cannon, the good inside of Aki fuels Gaia. The ideas presented were great to me...to look inside of yourself and have faith in something. As many people discredited the Gaia theory, they believed strongly and let their faith set them free. There is a comparison to Galileo by Dr. Sid in respect to his theory, something I thought was very clever in showing their conviction.

There was not as much action as I had expected. The story was a litte slow in that area, but there was some. I really liked when they got to fight the phantoms. They would have to shoot a flare type thing to make them visible, then kill them.

In comparison to the video games series, I think we own most of them and though I don't play them, I watch all the time. Currently, he is just about to finish FFIX(isn't terta master a pain?) Anyways, it is a little different, but similar in a couple of aspects I have seen and he has told me. There is always a character named Sid, I thought that was a little cool, shows a constant. There is the battle of good vs. evil. It tops most of the others things on the market that are comparable.Though I find SquareSoft has produced the best games, I think FF is one of the best whether it is an 8-bit game or PS game. This movie outdoes any animation to date. Another out-doing.

The actors chosen to voice the parts were great. My favorite of the cast has to be Donald Sutherland. I usually do not like him in movies as himself, but he did a great Dr. Sid. I could not distinguish most others throughout the whole movie (a good thing), so I cannot make many other real judgements. There was one other distinct voice...the guy from Armageddon and other movies where he plays the parts I seem to like most. He is a little funny looking, but always fits his part. I tend to try to relate actors to characters in movies like this and ruin it. Not recognizing more than that, I got to concentrate on other things.

In conclusion, my hat goes off to Square...the writers, the animators, the voices, the idea-makers, ect...

YOU DID GOOD!