That’s not the lifeforce of the Earth incarnate … it’s a very naughty boy! (Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (DVD))

Member Name: Brett Bligh

Product:	Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (DVD)
Date:	15/04/02 (96 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Strong central storyline, some interesting characters, successful animation style.

Disadvantages: Inclusion of Gray the strong silent hero, reliance on outmoded spiritualist theories of ‘Gaia’ to conclude the plot, politicians depicted as predictably indecisive and bureaucratic.

Animation as an art form is something viewed under many different lights in different parts of the globe. In the US animation was for a long time almost the sole domain of Disney, leading to the form being viewed as suitable only for children. This mould was broken down somewhat by television animation such as ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘South Park’, which were not primarily children’s productions, but even in these instances animation was not being used for anything serious or ambitious. Even when bigger budget, feature films based upon computer animation, such as ‘Toy Story’ and ‘Shrek’ started to appear, these were primarily comedies aimed at a young audience.

In Japan, on the other hand, animation has long been something taken very seriously even by mainstream critics, and animation has spawned a meta-genre all its own known as anime; ironically, this wave too was born in children’s television, but after seminal works such as the late 1980s feature ‘Akira’, anime began to attract wide adult audiences and produced major features such as ‘Ghost in the Shell’, which featured computer animation as well as traditional cell work.

‘Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within’ sees East meet West, with the budgets of Hollywood and an American cast teaming up with a Japanese director and animators to create a feature film adaptation of the classic computer game ‘Final Fantasy’. Of course, computer game film adaptations are also something of a class of their own, and not an entirely successful class at that, but Final Fantasy has one key advantage: the director, Hironobu Sakaguchi, is also the man behind the original computer game — and if he cannot capture the spirit [weak pun purely unintentional] of the original franchise, then it is difficult to know who could!


PLOT
At some point in the future the Earth was hit by a meteorite which carrie
d upon it a host of invisible life-forms which then started to destroy all life on the planet without delay. With humanity facing the grim possibility of extinction, techno-wizard Dr. Sid devised a way of shielding against the aliens; humanity is now contained within satellites, in orbit above the planet Earth, and shielded cities scattered across the surface of the planet. Here, the few shattered remnants of humanity that survived live huddled against the onslaught of the implacable enemy who run free across the rest of the planet, which has been turned into a desolate wasteland as a result of their actions.

Dr. Aki Ross is a young woman working for the now middle-aged Sid, who has been ‘outed’ as a follower of Gaia theory, which states that the planet Earth itself has a life force. This theory is ridiculed by many, including the fascistic military who have been developing a weapon which they think will destroy the alien invaders once and for all — a huge laser to be fired from an orbital platform into the crater formed by the original meteorite strike. Dr. Sid, however, has deduced from Gaia theory that the attack will not be entirely successful — and, moreover, that such a blast would destroy the Gaia life force of the Earth itself.

After the shielded city of New York is breached by the enemy, the military have all the excuse they need to launch the strike now, whatever Dr. Sid’s objections, and it is left to Aki, carrying an alien spirit within her which wracks her with bizarre dreams of aeons past whilst simultaneously nurturing feelings of her own for the space marine captain Gray Edwards who protects her, to execute Sid’s alternative plan before it is too late — to identify and collect all nine spirits which will strengthen Gaia and remove the alien influence from planet Earth.


VISUALS
There can be little doubt, even from a cursory glance, that Final Fantasy is indeed a very impress
ive film just to *look at*. The style of animation is one that seeks photo-reality as its ideal, and whilst it is obvious that the film is indeed an animation, it is also clear that this is one of the most technically sophisticated animated feature films ever to be created. This film has been criticised by others because the visuals which appeared in the widely-seen trailers are actually only the dream sequences, whilst much of the rest of the film revolves around the much more apparently “mundane” locales of the devastated Earth and more conventional views of space and space stations already seen as CGI sequences within live-action features.

This criticism, in my opinion, does not carry much weight because those visuals, which form the core part of the film, are themselves very well executed AND actually rather impressive. In fact, the film’s animators were tackling a rather more difficult task in terms of the public perception when animating the Earth-based scenes for two reasons: firstly, they were dealing with things which were still difficult to create within the virtual world but which would, almost inevitably, be taken for granted by the average viewer and, secondly, the standard which the average viewer would expect from a more normal scene is actually HIGHER because of familiarity with those surroundings. In simple terms, the average viewer is likely to be impressed with an alien ghost spirit because they have only seen one within the context of the film itself and hence are simply dazzled by the bright, swirling colours. A mountain, waterfall or set of clouds, on the others hand, has to be much *more* realistic, since the average viewer already knows what those items are supposed to look like, what textures they have and how they move, and hence judges them more harshly in accordance with this.

In this respect, therefore, I found this film visually impressive, not only in terms of the more obviously flashy pyrotechnics a
nd aliens, but also in terms of the convincing way in which hair is portrayed (especially Aki’s, which moves with considerable grace throughout).

Of course, a film is so much more than the sum of its visuals, but thankfully I thought the story rather strong for what is, after all, an animation aimed primarily at the American market.


STORY
It is a fact that all (or nearly all) films are identifiably a product of their time, and that unfortunately times of war produce particularly jingoistic films. Final Fantasy was, therefore, a refreshing change from the fare gracing the multiplexes at the moment because it shows that the actions of an unrestrained military can indeed be wrong, and that the military is basically led by people interested in achieving superiority in conflict (obviously), which they tend to wish to do through the use of superior firepower and very little thought about the consequences of their actions.

The fact that the military is, in this case, led by the openly (to the audience) duplicitous General Hein, whose German-sounding name and dark leather clothing are an almost embarrassingly obvious reference to traditional fascist depiction, no doubt weakens the stance of this film somewhat, but it is still, in my view, a positive development to see the military portrayed as incorrect within a feature film, whilst the scientific approach — and this is something I will return to later — prevails. Frankly, those films in which square-jawed, ideologically simplistic numbskulls are invariably proved right, whilst scientists are either enemy agent, cowards, weak-minded idealists or hesitant and indecisive, really get my goat, and so the portrayal of Dr. Sid here, and Aki who is also a scientist as well as a latter-day Lara Croft, was a major point in this film’s favour.

Of course, the approach taken by the heroic scientists in Final Fantasy is anything but scientific! Gaia theory is almost a
throwback to the 1960s and the ideas of a nature in ‘harmony’ with itself which have little to do with the reality of a world developing according to the principles of evolution. The eventual classification of the aliens (when Aki realises “what they are” as a result of her dreams, which I will not give away now since it might be considered a spoiler) also harkens to similar metaphysical and spiritual ideas which are popular in certain circles at the moment, especially in the US. Of course, with much of the US currently in the throes of a bout of Christian fundamentalism we should be glad that no evangelists seem to have survived the alien invasion and no one religious orthodoxy seems to be behind the messages contained herein.

It has to be said, however, that such trappings do allow an internally credible story to be executed; too many films in the past have revolved around a majority of characters not believing what is so obviously true, and what someone (usually a child) is telling them is happening in order to keep the plot rolling. Here, we have a group, composed of the disparate military and governing council, who do not believe something because it is genuinely unbelievable, but who have nonetheless constructed a credible offensive alternative of their own. The plot also proceeds at a brisk pace and along lines which allow the viewer to keep their disbelief suspended due to the actions of a surprisingly well-drawn cast of central characters who all seem to be pulling in opposing directions.


CHARACTERS
Aki is an intriguing central character; the traditional duality associated with modern female leads — in which the desire to be a strong person and a totally ‘liberated’ new Woman seems to contrast slightly with the instinctive desire to be protected and to be attracted to string male personality types who invariably try to put women in their place — is certainly present, and indeed rele
vant here due to the fact that Aki needs someone to watch her back while she carries out her scientific duties. But furthermore, Aki is a person made secretive out of necessity, due to the spirit which has invaded her system and which is barely being kept at bay by the technology she possesses thus far, and haunted as a person by the visions that visit her each night in her dreams, created by that very entity.

Dr. Sid is also interestingly shown: that he manages to project a scientific demeanour whilst spouting neo-spiritual mumbo jumbo is impressive enough on its own, but Sid is also a convincing man-of-action in a *realistic* way, rather than the bumbling fool he would no doubt have been in other films, or the rather less convincing (and endearing) Arnie type here represented by Gray Edwards. The advice Sid gives to Aki is also sage and wise on more than matters scientific and Gaia-related, although unfortunately Aki has a tendency not to listen, or at least not to hear, his words on many of those occasions.

Possibly the single most interesting character, however, is General Hein, the villain. This may, at first, seem a slightly surprising choice: as I pointed out earlier, Hein’s outward demeanour, clothing and even name are none-too-subtle echoes of historic militaristic fascism. What made this character interesting for me, however, was the fact that Hein seems to have genuine motivation for his actions: at a couple of moments in the movie, Hein uses emotive statements involving the loss of family — something which nearly every survivor will have in common — to justify his lack of tolerance and his determination to have the aliens exterminated immediately and at any price, and it seems rather obvious that the General’s loss of family is the motivation behind his rage and his moral blindness. Hein also seems to have genuine feelings at several moments during the film, especially when he places a pistol to his temple and cl
oses his eyes — hardly a case of acting, since there were no witnesses present. On the other hand, his character earns the audience’s hatred through his direct responsibility for the fall of New York, with realpolitik allowed to reign free, but of course he would not be the VILLAIN otherwise!

Predictably, the least interesting and most irritating character in the piece is the oh-so-heroic Captain Gray Edwards, a square-jawed all-American action hero of broody demeanour whose main role in the film is to be flawless. Frankly, I have always found this type of character to be very boring and obnoxious. I recently compiled a list of my top ten favourite films, which at the time I thought had nothing really in common with each other; now, I see that they all share one thing — none of them have a character of this type within them, and if they did, it would ruin the effect that film had on me.

Gray Edwards does, however, have one redeeming feature which is linked intrinsically to the effectiveness of the film’s ending. Not only does Edwards face the inevitability of what is to happen at the film’s conclusion, but his decision’s ramifications are allowed to stand without any of the cod last-minute reappearance which would have absolutely ruined the film and halved its stature in my estimation in one fell swoop (I cannot be more simple or specific, once again because I do not want to give away spoilers).


CONCLUSIONS
Final Fantasy, therefore, is a film of spectacularly successful visuals, a storyline which is compelling (although not scientifically very convincing), some interesting characters and an ending which does not become predictable until the closing moments and does not allow the desire for a happy-ever-after fairytale conclusion to override the demands of the plot.

Much of this success can probably be put down to the fact that Hironobu Sakaguchi was allowed to exert control over this pr
oject, and to hence keep those factors that made the computer game series such a success. The plot, however, is a strong cinematic one which does not fall into the trap of many game adaptations and simply become a mindless action flick or formulaic adaptation.

Of course, some of the credit must go to the music, a quiet, soulful contribution from Eliot Goldenthal, and to the voice contributions from Ming-Na as Aki and Donald Sutherland as Sid, as well as Alec Baldwin as Gray.

In general, however, this film’s success can be attributed to the combination of the budgets and filmic expertise of Hollywood with the refined outlook, intellectual capacity and ability for innovation provided by the largely Japanese crew. This film does take many of its motifs, both visual and in terms of plot elements, from Japanese anime, and to me that is no bad thing at all.

Now, hands up those who think I’m being pretentious this time.

Summary: