What does Advent Children mean to you?

[Sephiroth]

I’m not sure what you guys are arguing about but didn’t Sephiroth appear as several horrible monster-human hybrids in the game? How is appearing in the movie as a normal human that can fly, wield a sword, manipulate children, taint the Lifestream, and die after a single omnislash more powerful than his form in the game where he killed a lot of people, summoned an asteroid, required ~nine people to defeat him, and had all of Jenova or whatever?

Well, to be honest, whether he appears as Humanoid Sephiroth, Rebirth Sephiroth or Sepher Sephiroth does not really mean anything about his current power because he still wields the inner strength that he has gotten by simply bathing in the lifestream. The metamorphosis in FFVII was just a simple effect of his power gain. That does not mean he does not have the power in a human form - do not forget Sephiroth can shapeshift anyway so he could get back to that form without any problems. But I know that you just wanted to answer to point out that the human form does not necessarily indicate that he was massively stronger than in the final battle - not really appropriate considering he created his own corrupted lifestream and even scared away Aerith while laughing at her so she had to call out for the Cetra to purify parts of the lifestream again but I know what you mean.

Denzel is kind of a jarring experience since he would appear to such people as to coming out of nowhere. Similarly, the three Sephy clones also come out of nowhere, but at least fans can guess their origin at least. I'm not even against the idea of writing separate stories to expand smaller characters, but these two sets of characters were important to the main narrative, so to have it removed from the main event and left for supplement material is just a bad move and you don't even need to be some award winning author to see that. I simply feel the film should have spent a few minutes getting the viewer up to speed on what's going on because a film is usually meant to be a self contained experience.

I agree that I would have liked one more scene of introduction for Denzel. One of the few additions I like in Advent Children Complete is where Cloud decides to take Denzel home from the church. But I disagree that excluding the rest is a bad move.

At the end of the movie, Kadaj disappears back into the Lifestream, which suggests that’s where he came from in the first place.

I would not directly say it has to mean that automatically because dissolving and becoming a part of the lifestream is normal in FFVII - especially considering everything at one point already was a part of it. I know you mean "not too long ago and he was taken from the lifestream as manifestation/host for Sephiroth's plans" but still.

unless you want to sit there and claim that excluding boring, irrelevant explanations is bad writing.

As a fan who is interested I do not call that boring but I agree that it can be distracting, especially for a movie that is supposed to be short and all. Exactly why you also have to reduce to the characters to certain aspects and then risk running into the claim that they are "one-dimensional". Well, of course Ghost Aerith will not show her funny side when it is not needed for the movie at all. Of course Cloud does not show his arrogant side (that he even has while not confabulating) when his self-critical side directly flows with his sadness and fits this whole Geostigma thing.

When it comes to THAT, this I must say could have been shown a bit more in flashbacks and explained. The novella does explain it thoroughly and the movie tackles it just a bit. The Geostigma and people like Cloud having it because of reason xyz indeed could have been better in the movie. That I guess is more relevant than the whole Kadaj, Loz, Yazoo question because while both has sort of an explanation in the movie and also in the book, the Geostigma in the movie is also a way more present factor as it affects the entire planet again (not really all people but all over the world).

(Sorry, Sephiroth. I’m on your side. I’m just defending the movie from a different perspective.)

I actually wondered why you explained me something I knew, then I noticed that that was not even your point but that you were only using my post to point something out.

I think the movie did a good approach of making true what the originally wanted. One of their initial points for the games was "Sephiroth returns again". That is why they wanted to call the movie "Reunion". But they did not want to be blunt about it so they used "Advent" reflecting Sephiroth coming back. And as they also wanted Children in the title as they wanted the children to play some sort of role in the movie they then went with "Advent Children". And theme-wise they had a lot of natural writing directly related to Final Fantasy VII-1. A lot of people are just not invested enough to see that THIS stuff indeed is also in one way or the other in the game. They rather read their Brittenham or Wikia interpretations or other stuff and make Sephiroth Jenova's marionette or say that he wants to merge with her - which is not only in one way redundant but in another way also contradicted by the plot and Sephiroth's psychology illogical as well and all that other stuff and expect multi-facetted, cheery, yet sad and angry characters in a short movie that is supposed to be a tribute about a game that so many people wished to be continued. But sadly we live in a world where "fanservice" is a swear word and whenever you say "not all fanservice is bad" people try to argue about how this and that is bad because of how forced this and that is. You know what is forced in FFXV? The Open World. It reeks of "The fans ranted about FFXIII" even though XIII-2 and XIII-3 managed to work with the critics and still reflected how the devs did what they want with their own think. You know what else? Ardyn. For Sephiroth it at least works well together because he is an alien-hybrid and already over the top in the first place in the whole game and AC is basically what he did in the game already: Him using one of his bodies ad abilities to fulfill his plan and destroy the world . But Ardyn is even forced in the one game that he has because he is supposed to be the "cool, annoying Kefka character". And as I say, Kefka is shallow as hell but Kefka is way better in my opinion and Ardyn is the for me worst Final Fantasy villain ever. Even worse than Garland. I had to re-play FFXV to at least "dislike him a bit less". FFXV is one of those installments that actually lacks substantial story where it should be. But I will not be mad about it because as long as I get that info through no matter which media it is fine for me. Especially Luna updates.

The problem is we live in the age of cyber communication and people can get heavily influenced through a peer of strangers. And yes, that is no nonsensical claim, it is exactly like that. Just like FFXIII never had a chance the moment it came out. People in December 2009 ranted about it and the internet exploded with ranting comments and this immediately tainted them. That hatred even influenced me because I had it in my mind all the time and it bothered me so much because I liked it so much because of the words (paraphrased) "its linear its bad its linear its bad its linear its bad its linear its bad". It was not bad for me but people ranting on about it still haunted me. It was very similiar with XII. So many people in forums hated it. I also had my problems with it but please, I won't hate something just because it is different and now suddenly everyone jumps on the FFXII train like it was never treated as garbage by so many people. The internet is a dangerous place. Because it contains words.