Why did it fail?

[Vision in Verse]

I remember when I saw FF:TSW. I thought it was the greatest movie I'd ever seen. I loved the action, characters, fantasy, but most of all the art and pure stylistic representation of that world. I look back. That movie Lost way too much money for what it was. It's sad to think that something so amazing caused Square Pictures to go bankrupt. Personally, I think the world would be a place if Square released a movie every couple years. They did that Matrix short too, The Final Flight of the Osiris, which was also amazing. It gets me frustrated when I hear people say "the movie had nothing to do with final fantasy," as if that was a reason to justify the stifling of great art.

[Odaisé Gaelach]

It happens. Some films just don't make it big, no matter how good they are. They might not have received bad reviews, but instead of making an impact they just fade off into the sunset...


It gets me frustrated when I hear people say "the movie had nothing to do with final fantasy," as if that was a reason to justify the stifling of great art.

In all fairness, it wasn't really a "Final Fantasy". That's probably what irked most fans; they came to see a Final Fantasy movie, and got nothing except a Sid and a chocobo on a briefcase.

[Yuriev's ghost]

1. It cost a fortune to make (somewhere around $200 million). It was going to have to work hard to break even to begin with.

2. It was animated, thus turning away the adult market who had come to associate CGI movies with "Toy Story" etc.

3. It departed from the usual Final Fantasy formula, which kept many fans of the series away.

It was pretty much doomed to fail really.

[Necronopticous]

Because it didn't have Cloud or Chocobos.

[FF_Chick]

Don't forget Sephiroth and Moogles.

[Elly]

it failed at the time because all the hype (purely by fan specualtion) before much detail was leaked was that it was gonna be a sequal to FF VII or FF VIII, but because it wasn't the sequal to FF VII, upon release it got bad reviews and wasn't given a fair chance... in my opinion it was great Sci-Fi and they did a great job of it, unfortunatealy the FF VII Fanboys/girls and the jaded old school purists that were upset that it wasn't magic and swords were let down, and therefore blinded to a briliant peice of Science-Fiction...

[starseeker]

I think it failed because the plot was just so incomprehensible. I got very lost about what was going on with the seven spirits, and the science in general.

[Roto13]

Probably because it was incredibly dull.

[Lynx]

it was rather boreing i remember my friend saying hwo great it was then i watched and was like "wait was it called final fantasy by coincidence?" I didnt want to belive that square had created something so boreing that i couldnt even pay attention. especially considering after playing FFVI and FFIV i was hooked for life as a kid.

[Germ Hamee]

They put way too much money into a movie that really isn't going to appeal to American movie-goers. While I enjoyed the story's depth, it was incredibly foreign, so I can understand why a lot of people hated it.

Not to mention the marketing. Their first mistake was calling it Final Fantasy. Sure, it attracted fans -- then it pissed them off for not being at all Final Fantasy. Then the trailers made it out to be a bad ass action movie. Which it wasn't. They targeted all the wrong people, and paid for it severely.

[No.78]

Imo, they used final fantasy to draw in an audience. Which, probably worked in the opposite way. I think if they just made a standalone movie that was exactly the same, it would have been even less succesful, or maybe we'd never even heard of it...
I dunno, I guess they never really thought it would do so badly.

[Dragon Mage]

Well, the movie was incredibly cheesy. But it was the VERY FIRST movie in complete CG that attempted at making realistic-looking humans. That was a huge thing, which drew in the audience and enthralled them throughout the movie. That was it. I saw it so long ago, I can't remember most of it. except that it was cheesy, and rather cliche. But I also vaguely remember liking the black guy, as he was the only cool/funny char. But I may be mistaken.

[Alsray]

It happens. Some films just don't make it big, no matter how good they are. They might not have received bad reviews, but instead of making an impact they just fade off into the sunset...


It gets me frustrated when I hear people say "the movie had nothing to do with final fantasy," as if that was a reason to justify the stifling of great art.

In all fairness, it wasn't really a "Final Fantasy". That's probably what irked most fans; they came to see a Final Fantasy movie, and got nothing except a Sid and a chocobo on a briefcase.
Truthfully, Cid and the Chocobos are the things that are in every single Final Fantasy game, at least most of them, only excluding 2 games

and about the movie, i still love it, i noticed a tie in of sort in the Gaia

The lifestrwam is what i thouhgt, and what my brothers thought when the movie came out, so i guess that is 3 things in common with the rest of Final Fantasy.

[BarelySeeAtAll]

they all apart from whats-her-face, aki ross i think, DIED, they all died at the end so, that was quite annoying

[Zechs]

With the hype over FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX and the barley teased FFX. Hironobu used the Gaia theme, as in FFVII and a bit in FFX, since his mother passed. There is a referance to her in TSW, and it motivated him when he developed the Lifestream and the Pire Fly concepts.

He put too much effort into 'his baby' and kept it under the Final Fantasy name. With the generated PS final Fantasy hype, keeping the FInal Fantasy name was the big mistake. Had it been named soley TSW it would have been much better.

[Vyk]

I agree. People would have wondered what Square did that wasn't FF related and went in with a lot more open mind, and critically forgiving. As it stood they had something to base their critique on considering the name it was carrying and its lack of simmilarity toward that name. It failed to hold up the name for what it stood for. The movie on its own wasn't bad. But it wasn't Final Fantasy in anyway. I was disappointed myself

[Discord]

Actually, this was the first FF product I "consumed" and to say the truth, I really liked it. I went to cinema quite a bit that summer and it was definitely the film I liked the most. That was the same summer when they've ran Pearl Harbour in the theatres.

Anyway, for me FF was a totally new term so I didn't get distracted by it. The problem which the FF fans might have had was the lack of FFiness, but to say the truth, if you added things like Biggs, Wedge and the classic FF characters like Wakka or Zell, the film would have lost its entire atmosphere.

Quite a few FF feature a tragedy scenarios, e.g. FFX, FFVII, however this is the first one to be 100% tragic. There's no scene where you get Aki Ross playing blitzball in a bikini or anything similar. It was about death, death and again death. So... I don't really think that chocobos and phoenix downs would really do any good. If you want that plot, you have to take away the FFness of it.

As for the other viewers, SE needed something to attract the masses. Obviously the fact that it takes place on Earth, not in Delling City, and does not feature moogles was a plus in that area. However, the story was a little bit too high-end for an average viewer. For somebody who cheered with Cloud and Squal, it's a normal plot; however, not too many people can start something with Gaia, spirits and so forth. As somebody said already, it was a bit too foreign.

So what we got in the end was a FF plot in a non-FF setting aimed with 16+ rating and huge production costs. Obviously, it didn't work. I still loved the film.

PS: I doubt that anybody will disagree if I say that it was quite a bit better than AC.:p

[Bolivar]

it's a shame that it did fail, because the series would most likely be at a very different point than it is now. In effect, it caused Sakaguchi to lose his series.

I thought it was pretty good when I saw it. Alot of my friends didn't because it had nothing to do w/ FF, but I thought it was very deep, and it had alot of the same themes as VII.

Not to mention it pretty much owned any other CG animated movie up to that point. The word "Impressive" does not do justice to how ahead of its time that was. I remember at some points being shocked at how real they really looked.

[Laddy]

Too many deaths, too futuristic, just felt empty.

[Roto13]

PS: I doubt that anybody will disagree if I say that it was quite a bit better than AC.:p

I would. At least AC had nice action scenes. TSW had nothing.