Final Fantasy Flop

[Jasper Sharp]

I’ll stick my neck out. It is doing abysmally because the film actually is 
pretty abysmal.
Well, that’s perhaps a little harsh, but you’d think that with all the man 
hours that went into rendering every single strand of hair on the 
characters’ heads, someone might have take at least 5 minutes to go over the 
script. There’s some good ideas in it, for sure, but dramatically its rather 
leaden, with the dialogue consisting of a string of sci-fi cliché’s that 
would have most savvy pre-pubescents cringing with embarrassment.
Yes, these are all fairly obvious critical points which were all unanimously 
made by the press upon its UK release, and no doubt elsewhere. I’ll admit it 
- I actually quite enjoyed the film. I can only guess that its financial 
failure is due to the precedents set by previous attempts at video game 
adaptations. As Mark mentioned, Super Mario Brothers, Mortal Kombat are but 
two of these, but who could forget Jean-Claude van Damme and Kylie Minogue 
in the 1994 release of Streetfighter? Well, not many, because no one went to 
see it in the first place. Tomb Raider’s uncharacteristic success can fairly 
obviously be attributed to the two main assets of the Lara Croft character 
that made the game such a prominent title in the first place.
Ultimately computer games and films are two different things, and computer 
gaming, despite plenty of predictions a couple of years ago to the contrary, 
still remains a niche market populated predominantly by young males, 
impenetrable to most outsiders.
I guess that as Final Fantasy was unable to pick up much momentum with 
serious sci-fiers due to negative criticism about its script, was ignored by 
the fans of the original game who would rather be sat in their living room 
playing on their Nintendos, poo-pooed by adult film fans for its 
childishness and regarded far too adult in both theme and execution for 
children, that didn’t leave many people left to see it.
Technology may have brought an increase in realism to animation, but the 
most successful CGI films so far have been the two Toy Stories and Shrek. 
Final Fantasy reminded me of those still-life paintings of oranges and 
lobsters by the old Dutch Masters – all very impressive and quite stunning, 
but ultimately I’d rather have something a bit messier like a Van Gogh on my 
wall. It all looked too real to be realistic, too perfect, too sterile. CGI 
actors will never replace human actors, no matter how similar they look. 
Imagine Hugh Grant without his weird mouth twitches, the way Meg Ryan chews 
her bottom lip: Love them or hate them, it is these little human details 
that make films so enjoyable and resonant with their audiences. Until 
animation reaches a stage where it can be used to model such things, perhaps 
its better off with talking insects and trolls. But ultimately, what’s the 
point in trying to do things that real life actors  can do better. Wouldn’t 
it be more interesting if someone could use the medium a little more 
inventively?
This is a slightly negative view perhaps. I’m very excited about the future 
of CGI, and technologically Final Fantasy is certainly a groundbreaking 
film. It also looked bloody impressive on a big screen, though my suspicion 
is that it will probably make a lot more money on DVD.


Midnight Eye
www.midnighteye.com



>From: "Don Brown" <the8thsamurai at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>Subject: Re: Final Fantasy Flop
>Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2001 09:46:21 +0000
>
>OK, so does anyone have any ideas as to why the movie did (is doing) so
>abysmally?  Having not seen it yet myself I can't speak with too much
>authority about it, but all the reviews I've read pointed out the poor
>screenplay, characterisation etc.  But what's that got to do with making a
>hit movie?  Didn't seem to be too much wrong with the marketing campaign
>either.
>Anybody willing to stick their neck out on this one?
>Don Brown
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>–³—¿ƒ[ƒ‹‚́A¢ŠE No.1 ‚Ì MSN Hotmail ‚ŁIhttp://www.hotmail.com/JA/
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