The Final Fantasy Debate

Most of the games are perfectly fine, but they're often a victim of their own hype. They aren't amazingly better than other RPGs, but somehow they've got thousands more obsessives over all them who pick away at every detail. Even if SquarEnix did a bang up job of re-making Final Fantasy VII it would still have people moaning about it.

I say keep the games coming, it's just the fans who need to sort themselves out and realise there are other decent games out there. :p (Grandia ftw)
 
Ushio said:
Most of the games are perfectly fine, but they're often a victim of their own hype. They aren't amazingly better than other RPGs, but somehow they've got thousands more obsessives over all them who pick away at every detail. Even if SquarEnix did a bang up job of re-making Final Fantasy VII it would still have people moaning about it.

I say keep the games coming, it's just the fans who need to sort themselves out and realise there are other decent games out there. :p (Grandia ftw)
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I agree with you, but I don't think shifting the blame on the customers alone is correct. :]
 
Haha, quite amusing how that's basically why they made Advent Children. People thought an FF7 movie would rock, and yes Advent Children was pretty cool in my opinion but the only parts I ever like watching are the fight scenes which I can't get enough of for some reason. Speaking of which, what is everyone's view on Advent Children? Major failure or decent use of the franchise?
 
I wouldn't say it was a major failure, at least not in my opinion. One of the biggest critcisms i know it got from one of my friends was the way that the rest of the FF7 cast got shoehorned into the extras catgerory almost, apart from Vincent, though i sometimes wonder if that had anything to do with his spin-off game that came out afterwards. In some repects i don't think it was quite what everybody was thinking it would be.
 
I'd say its up there with Silent Hill in terms of the success of games > film conversion.

The problem with fame is that the more fame X gains the larger the fanbase. The larger the fanbase the larger the breadth of opinion. And the larger the breadth of opinion the harder it is to please said fanbase. After all everyone's different and the more people watching X the greater the chance for diverse views.
FF7 has such a huge fanbase that i think Advent Children took the most utiltarian approach - kick ass visuals, amazing fight scenes, lots of Cloud + Vincent. Its a winning formula dont you agree? Sure the other characters could have needed fleshing out but if they were to do that Cloud would get less screen time and there'd be less fight scenes, not a good idea dont ya think?

The movie could have been improved innumberable ways but i think in terms of pleasing the greatest amount of fans i thought AC did very very well.
 
I thought it was alright...not as good as I was expecting really, but it could have been worse.

The music was pretty fantastic, and it looked nice and all. I just think I was expecting a story like the game, which was obviously...like...not possible in one movie. =/

I plan on watching it again soon, so maybe I'll be more into it next time around.
 
Nemphtis said:
Haha, quite amusing how that's basically why they made Advent Children. People thought an FF7 movie would rock, and yes Advent Children was pretty cool in my opinion but the only parts I ever like watching are the fight scenes which I can't get enough of for some reason. Speaking of which, what is everyone's view on Advent Children? Major failure or decent use of the franchise?
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Some people are easily pleased, while others want a plot in their films.

That's it in a nutshell.
 
The people that complain about Advent Children apparentely having "no plot" need to understand what AC is! It's not designed for those of you who haven't played FFVII - it's not meant to cater to you! That's not a failing on the movies' part, because it doesn't try to do that because it DOESN'T HAVE TO! The movie is made for people that have played FFVII - as such, there is no need to rehash past character development, there's no need to to explain who Cloud Strife or Aeris is because the people that are meant to be watching the film already know that!

People saying that AC fails because it lacks a character-driven plot or whatever really irk me - why can't you understand that AC isn't for you?
 
CitizenGeek said:
The people that complain about Advent Children apparentely having "no plot" need to understand what AC is! It's not designed for those of you who haven't seen AC - it's not meant to cater to you! That's not a failing on the movies' part, because it doesn't try to do that because it DOESN'T HAVE TO! The movie is made for people that have played FFVII - as such, there is no need to rehash past character development, there's no need to to explain who Cloud Strife or Aeris is because the people that are meant to be watching the film already know that!

People saying that AC fails because it lacks a character-driven plot or whatever really irk me - why can't you understand that AC isn't for you?
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Why do you always have the "it's not for you" arguement? I loved FFVII, especially the plot, since I was eleven. It opened my eyes to a new videogame experience, and I would give anything to play it for the first time again. What I expected from the sequel was a decent continuation, I'll admit my hopes weren't high, but I did give it a chance.
I liked FFVII for what it was, I was an FFVII fan. Do you not think the film might have been made for the fans? It was for me, and I didn't like it. Just because someone claims it isn't for me (which is untrue) doesn't take away my right to criticise it. If someone doesn't like a film, especially if they're well accustomed with the source material, it generally doesn't mean it isn't for them, it means it's a bad film (or at least not to their liking). Anyway, I would say that the film was so devoid of plot that it could have easily been watched by someone who's never heard of FFVII.
AC was an entertaining action film, but a poor sequel to FFVII. I agree they didn't need to explain the events of the previous game, but when FFVII had such a gripping plot, I was extremely disappointed to find that the movie's plot was an excuse for action scenes. Is it unfair to want a good plot in a sequel to a game with a good plot? I don't think so. The character arguement is valid - each character in the original game had a backstory - Barret's being one of my favourite - which drew you into the game. Their appearance in the film was merely to help in the fights, as if the creators were ticking the "include main characters" box. They were so unused, they almost seemed like different characters completely. Another thing I hated about the film was the reluctance to include the FFVII world properly. The world in FFVII was huge, varied, and great fun to explore. In the film we got desert wasteland, dreary city, ambigous forest - perhaps a film was not the best way to fully represent the FFVII world, but regardless, it disappointed me.
That's why I didn't like AC, in a nutshell.

Also, the start of your arguement doesn't make sense. AC isn't designed to cater to those who haven't seen AC?
 
I'll tell you what. It's not a good idea to watch AC with someone who hasn't even HEARD of FF let alone play any of the games. It's a recipie for disaster as well as bucketload of during-movie questions. The kind I particularly hate.
 
I have to agree with Espy's statement about the simple truth that the plot in Advent Children didn't really grab me at all and it felt as if the only purpose of there even being a plot was so that the viewer wouldn't wonder why Cloud was being gang-raped by three men in leather clothes wielding Materia and swords.

As I stated, I can't get enough of Advent Children's great action scenes, but I would have been even more pleased if the story was on par with the action to deliver a much more complete experience. Also I was pretty annoyed that the rest of the main party barely played a role in the movie.

You can give me any kind of excuse, but it's not going to avoid the fact that as a movie aimed at the Final Fantasy fans the only things the fans really got was Cloud and Tifa, where's my large dose of Yuffie? Why couldn't I see Barret dissing Cloud to the ground? Why couldn't I see Cid being all grumpy or Cait Sith prancing around in his remote controlled sex toy? The action scenes were above average for my standards but everything else kind of disappointed me.
 
I still say they did the best with what they got, after all this is an RPG they're trying to convert to film - not exactly the best thing. You're trying to translate something which had 20+ hours of gameplay with a novel's amount of dialogue.

As a general rule (there are of course exceptions) you have to sacrifice action for story and vice versa. I view AC as an action film waaaaaaay more than a plot-based film and so i am no disappointed with the results. Truly following the storyline of FF7 would just bog it down in a film and ultimately it would be compared to the original's plot - not a good idea. Unless it was released as a trilogy and even then i have my doubts. There's just too much to cram into a 1 and a half + hour film.

If you think about it logically CGI is to blame - CGI doesnt exactly lend itself to plot based films, its all about the action - the medium itself demands action. Therefore if it wasnt going to be CGI it was going to be anime or live action. Anime is still pretty much considered a niche market by the majority and do you really want a live action FF7 film? The idea makes me feel ill just thinking about it.

Oh and (good) CGI costs a hellofalot more to produce than its contemporaries, Lord of the Rings can get away with 3+ hours but CGI? Even microsoft would feel the economic strain i would have thought!
 
I actually think a live-action FFVII trilogy, or maybe four films would really work. It could be the next epic hit. The epic plot of FFVII with loads of bullet-time fights! It would fit right in with Hollywood's current obsession with Japanese source material, though if I was in charge of it, I would make sure a good amount of the original staff work on it.
 
Personally my only criticisms of AC was the lack of blood (not like i was expecting excessive but make it slightly realistic) Apart from Cloud and Tifa the rest of the characters were reduced to cameos, and the fact the end really didn't last that long :(
But it wasn't a bad job.
Live action would be pretty cool but personally i think it's about time they left FFVII alone
 
Well in that case let them start to work on FF8 :p

[quote = "LukasROAR"]How awesome would an FF8 anime be.[/quote]

Very awesome 8) They could do a lot with that, aside from re-telling the events of the game, like a OVA prequel, or more obviously a sequel.
 
Espy said:
I actually think a live-action FFVII trilogy, or maybe four films would really work. It could be the next epic hit. The epic plot of FFVII with loads of bullet-time fights! It would fit right in with Hollywood's current obsession with Japanese source material, though if I was in charge of it, I would make sure a good amount of the original staff work on it.
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With Brad Pitt as Cloud and Angelina Jolie as Tifa i takes it? *vomits*

No-one can take the place of Cloud,The japanese voice acting was alright but the english was nasty imo, its very dangerous giving voice to those who previously had none, especially popular symbols like Cloud.
 
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