Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Thanks to the wonders of BitTorrent, and the annoyance of too few seeders, I finally finished my download of Advent Children. It only took me 9 days. Let me make myself clear, it was totally worth it. Final Fantasy: Advent Children is a cinematic sequel to the blockbuster killer app Final Fantasy VII, what some people refer to as the best Final Fantasy or even RPG ever made. Personally, I never played through it, and prefer FFVI, but I intend to own FFVII someday. in July of 2001, a sub company of Squaresoft, called Square Pictures, released Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. This was a science fiction movie penned by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy. The entire movie was CGI, since awesome CGI cutscenes were becoming something Square was famous for. Personally, I liked it. However, my opinion was not shared by the public, as the movie bombed in the box offices, and lost over $120 million. Needless to say, Square Pictures folded, after they made the animated short Final Flight of the Osiris, which took place immediatly before Matrix: Reloaded, and is part of The Animatrix. I believe that Spirits Within bombed because it was not enough mainstream SF for the general audience, and not enough mainstream Final Fantasy for the video game fans. In the end, everyone felt let down.

Back to my subject: If Square Pictures had released Advent Children instead of Spirits Within, I don't think they would have flopped, especially if they took the 1:41 movie and expanded it to a more standard 2:00 by adding in backstory for the uninitiated such as myself. The graphics were stunning, at times it really looked photorealistic, the story was great, and made sense in the world the game created. However, where this movie really shines is the fight scenes. From the first battle between Tifa and some Sephiroth wannabe, (ps, Tifa is hot, and she kicks butt. I want to marry her!) to the final battle between Cloud and the REAL Sephiroth, it was one fast paced high action severe butt-kickin' action after another. My personal favorite scene was when Sephiroth pushed a building onto Cloud, and he's jumping through the flying rubble, hacking stuff in half, until he comes to Sephiroth. Also, the only thing in that movie I was really covetous of was Cloud's sword. It's cool. He starts out with this cool looking sword, then over the course of the film, he takes his second sword he has in his hand and fits it onto the first. He does this several times, though it isn't until the end of the movie that I realize that the swords stay together until all his swords are one sword. It was cool, I wanted one. Anyhow, this movie is coming out on DVD and UMD on March 28. I reccomend it for anyone who likes Final Fantasy, RPGs, or people flying around with swords.