FF Spirits Within: One of the BIGGEST Bombs

[Yliette]

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirits_within), Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within became the second biggest animated box office bomb in film history (behind Treasure Planet by Walt Disney).

Budget for the film's production was $137,000,000. It grossed merely $32,131,830 or 23.3% of the budget hence leading to a financial loss of almost $105,000,000, effectively bankrupting Square Pictures and leading to its dissolvement.

*This news may be a tad too late but just thought I'd share this with those who haven't known this yet.* :)

[Momiji]

Well what do you expect? I couldn't really even sit through the whole thing.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children however.... :D

[Tifa's Real Lover(really]

what the purple dude said :D

[Yliette]

Sad. First time I popped it into the VCD player, I expected it would be one blast of a fil.

Only the first five minutes I was enamored by the graphics, then I turned the plater off and shook my head. :eep:

[Ishin Ookami]

Yes, I understand why FF bombed, it's the same reason why Video Game films will never get any respect at the box office. People wanted to see the video game in cinema format, what they got was a original story that kept with many of the themes of recent FF titles, but none of the trappings.

Also you might want to consider that Advent children did even worse in terms of sales. Less than 3 million sold worldwide last I heard, for a DVD that is flat out embarrassing. And while I find that it's difficult to tell a films quality by it's sales, Advent Children really is a piece of crap. SW I find had more mainstream appeal in the sense it actually had a story worth giving a damn about. Advent Children had fan service, and thats about it.

[LunaNaelyan]

Seriously, I don't really understand why people complain about this film. Not that it's the best animated film ever made, but it was enjoyable overall. About 70% of the haters are probably FF newbs who were expecting to see Cloud. The movie is based on Final Fantasy. If we don't count FFX-2 and the likes, every game has introduced a new world and set of characters, why should the movie be any different? Then again, most of those newbs expect to see Cloud in every FF. Sorry for the little rant, I just hate it when people don't check their facts. Anyway, I liked the movie a lot. The graphics were spectacular (although nowadays outdated by the likes of AC), the story and characters better than average. It definitely didn't deserve to bomb the way it did. But that's just my humble opinion.

[Rostum]

Yes, we understand, there's been thousands of posts over the years expressing this. So what do you plan to accomplish with this thread?

My final opinion: It wasn't so bad.

[Sorceress_Louella]

when i first watched through FF: SW, I was disappointed that there wasn't any magic or stuff like that in it. but then i watched it again and enjoyed it more simply because the storyline was really good. it was even set in our own world hehe! now that was something i didn't expect. i figured they'd have their own world and everything, like the games. i'm really glad i own this movie. the credits songs were awesome! especially 'the dream within'.

[Raebus]

When I get to choose between watching a film with a better than average storyline and a film that consists of over rushed action scenes and a bit of story, Its an easy choice. So, it isnt that bad.

[Markus. D]

Its still awesome regardless <3

[Ishin Ookami]

Seriously, I don't really understand why people complain about this film. Not that it's the best animated film ever made, but it was enjoyable overall. About 70% of the haters are probably FF newbs who were expecting to see Cloud. The movie is based on Final Fantasy. If we don't count FFX-2 and the likes, every game has introduced a new world and set of characters, why should the movie be any different? Then again, most of those newbs expect to see Cloud in every FF. Sorry for the little rant, I just hate it when people don't check their facts. Anyway, I liked the movie a lot. The graphics were spectacular (although nowadays outdated by the likes of AC), the story and characters better than average. It definitely didn't deserve to bomb the way it did. But that's just my humble opinion.

I agree with almost everything that you said, save for the animation values. SW had far superior animation when compared with AC. Part of this is due to the fact that Nomura just doesn't know how to direct, and the choreography for every action scene was whack, even by fantasy standards. The second thing is that as wooden (in terms of animation) as some of the lesser scenes in SW were, AC is even worse most of the time with most scenes animating like the characters are marionettes, the animation was far more stiff and jerky in AC.

Also what the final fantasy VII fanboys don't get is that converting everything in the game into a movie would come off as stupid, as Advent Children proves. Games and novels can get away with more wacky fantasy stuff due to the fact it's easier to suspend disbelief, even though the story still must play a prevalent role. The way to pull off a good fantasy movie is to make the focus more about character (which SW did) than fantasy. Lord of the Rings and the better star wars films are good examples of this as the fantasy elements play secondary to character development and storytelling in these films. In advent, well we got bahamut, materia, airships, and limit breaks and Aerieth coming back from the dead about five or six times for no other reason save for the sake of Deus Ex Machina, and fight scenes desperately trying to be Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and well... those things sunk the story (what little there was) of advent quicker than an army of ice bergs converging on an unsinkable luxury liner.