Final Fantasy Flop

[Peter Larson]

Here in the states FF was barely wedged between a string of heavy hitters,
Lara Croft and Planet of the Apes being two of them. With all the hype
surrounding those films (either as good or as bad as FF), FF was simply a
lone voice crying softly in the din. Add to that a lack of celebrity status
(something deperately needed to sell a film here) and you have a low ticket
count. They probably could have made the film a little cheaper and cut some
of the loss, really I think it's a lack of projection more than anything
else.

Pete

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jasper Sharp" <jasper_sharp at hotmail.com>
To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 6:37 AM
Subject: Re: Final Fantasy Flop


>
> 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 clich?'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
> >
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