I heard as much as everyone else about the "ground breaking" use of computer animation, i knew it was a Japanese-American cooperation and that it had nothing to do with the games, and really tried to see it on it's own merits.
I expected at least the typical dumbed down, FX-laden space opera in the sense of the newer "Star Wars", "Stargate" or even "Battlefield Earth". After all, a CG animated space opera just couldn't be THAT bad. Well after i gazed through the first, uninspired 20 minutes of the film and came to the "council scene" revealing more of the plot, i just had to say it really is THAT BAD!!
First off, the animation. No other movies have yet been made with this "super-realistic" 3D animation style, and that's no wonder considering how this one turned out. Not that the animation isn't a great accomplishment, because there are quite a few moments that the animation really shines, although the character designs in general are plain and hackneyed, some of the enviroments and other visual touches are really amazing feats on their own. But the real fault is in how the characters were written-even the world's best live actors couldn't have saved this movie as a whole.
And as amazingly well-done and complex the graphics work is, it's hard not to wonder where the "Fantasy" is? With all the potential that the CG technology had, they put most of the work on recreating what looks exactly like poorly lit spaceship and city ruin sets of low-budget Sci-Fi like the Stargate series. The only really "fantastic" thing in the movie is the "alien" creatures, which are used too much, too repetively and gets plain boring to watch in the end. After the first attack scene, they just appear the same way again and again, morphing and blasting their undefinable flourescent gas.
Second, the plot. The whole movie is basically about a few members of a troop that end up saving the unrecognisable-as-Earth, plus a few faces in the Council, and that's all they have to interact with.
While every SF/space opera, no matter how epic and long-spanning in its dimensions, need a few strong and recurring characters to anchor the story, the lack of a definitive "Alien" or enemy character among the main cast reduces most of the dialogue to plain, casual discussion:
"We have to get rid of these invaders now! / Yes, i know and i think so too."
Add to this that the directors (whoever did the actual job for this movie-it's a wonder they didn't "Smithee" it out) have absolutely ZERO talent for visual narrative, leaving most of the scenes either bombardments of explosions, flourescent CGI beings morphing and being shot, OR the unlively characters glancing at each other and discussing their plans, soap opera style. Several times do we find characters plainly TELLING the reason behind things, aimed at the viewers, that could have been told in many more and better ways, by a more suitable director.
So let aside the computer graphics, let aside that it has nothing to do with Final Fantasy, viewed entirely on it's own merits... it's still a piece of crap.
I expected at least the typical dumbed down, FX-laden space opera in the sense of the newer "Star Wars", "Stargate" or even "Battlefield Earth". After all, a CG animated space opera just couldn't be THAT bad. Well after i gazed through the first, uninspired 20 minutes of the film and came to the "council scene" revealing more of the plot, i just had to say it really is THAT BAD!!
First off, the animation. No other movies have yet been made with this "super-realistic" 3D animation style, and that's no wonder considering how this one turned out. Not that the animation isn't a great accomplishment, because there are quite a few moments that the animation really shines, although the character designs in general are plain and hackneyed, some of the enviroments and other visual touches are really amazing feats on their own. But the real fault is in how the characters were written-even the world's best live actors couldn't have saved this movie as a whole.
And as amazingly well-done and complex the graphics work is, it's hard not to wonder where the "Fantasy" is? With all the potential that the CG technology had, they put most of the work on recreating what looks exactly like poorly lit spaceship and city ruin sets of low-budget Sci-Fi like the Stargate series. The only really "fantastic" thing in the movie is the "alien" creatures, which are used too much, too repetively and gets plain boring to watch in the end. After the first attack scene, they just appear the same way again and again, morphing and blasting their undefinable flourescent gas.
Second, the plot. The whole movie is basically about a few members of a troop that end up saving the unrecognisable-as-Earth, plus a few faces in the Council, and that's all they have to interact with.
While every SF/space opera, no matter how epic and long-spanning in its dimensions, need a few strong and recurring characters to anchor the story, the lack of a definitive "Alien" or enemy character among the main cast reduces most of the dialogue to plain, casual discussion:
"We have to get rid of these invaders now! / Yes, i know and i think so too."
Add to this that the directors (whoever did the actual job for this movie-it's a wonder they didn't "Smithee" it out) have absolutely ZERO talent for visual narrative, leaving most of the scenes either bombardments of explosions, flourescent CGI beings morphing and being shot, OR the unlively characters glancing at each other and discussing their plans, soap opera style. Several times do we find characters plainly TELLING the reason behind things, aimed at the viewers, that could have been told in many more and better ways, by a more suitable director.
So let aside the computer graphics, let aside that it has nothing to do with Final Fantasy, viewed entirely on it's own merits... it's still a piece of crap.