I swear there is a subliminal message in Spirits Within cause everytime I watch it, I get in the mood to play VII/IX.

I think Kyle said it best as to why it came out the way it did. I also think Sakaguchi was trying to challenge fans idea of what FF was, cause by this point, there was some arguments among the fans about the heavy fantasy in the earlier games versus the more modern sci-fi elements of the more recent entries. Unfortunately, he shot his own foot and learned the hard way that just because you're the creator, doesn't mean you can ignore what the fans want, and as such he made a film that pretty much alienated all of his fanbase. Considering early fan speculation was that it was going to be a FFVII movie didn't help him either.

I still like the movie though, and don't consider it the trash people make it out to be, but I do feel the movie itself pretty represents the problem with the FF direction, by being more about technology than being well crafted.