What does Advent Children mean to you?

[fat_moogle]

Where's Mother?

Mother?

MOTHER?!

I told her to take a left at the Wall of Text but she gets confused, bless her Jenova Cells. Anyway I realise my dilly dally silly shally post didn't contribute to this at all so let me say that when I first saw Advent Children, I enjoyed it. It was pretty. There were some flashy scenes. There were guys in leather (<3 Kadaj). However when I watched it again a month or two later and took off those rose tinted glasses I found myself thinking exactly what WK said in his original post. So yeah, he hit the nail on the Jenova head there.

[silentfuzzle]

The plot is weak, largely because someone thought it would be a great idea to release it as a novel separate from the film, which ultimately weakens the films ability to tell an actual compelling story because so many important plot elements are cut out.

Okay, I looked it up and Case of Denzel and Case of Tifa were released with the original film in 2005. My mistake. But I still stand by the idea that the film stands well enough on its own.

I agree that a film can be weakened by placing crucial elements of its plot in other media though. Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV is a good example. I haven't beaten FFXV yet, so I'm not sure if even knowing the story in the game can redeem this terrible movie, but Noctis was a crucial element of the plot. Without him, the film doesn't even have a conflict. The deplorable characters fight over magical objects and people to save a nebulous future. We're given no reason to care about them or their successes, and even if they fail, the prince is still safely outside Insomnia and could probably save the future himself. Regis dies, Insomnia falls, the Crystal's stolen, Luna threatens to kill herself, no one can use the ring unless Regis and the other former kings allow it, and the movie ends on a hopeful note, so what was the point of trying to save any of them?

I don't think this is the case with Advent Children because even if we don't know all the details of geostigma, Sephiroth's revival, Denzel, Tifa, etc., the film has conflicts and explains why Cloud needs to address them, which are the basic pieces of a story. Whatever happens in novel didn't seem to hinder the film's ability to tell its story.

As a matter of fact Rufus is way way way more different in the original as he is also much more direct with his disrespect. He flat out calls Cloud "wannabe-Ex-SOLDIER" which then is later picked up by Cloud when Rufus calls him as the Ex-SOLDIER and Cloud just responds with "wannabe ..."

I assume you're comparing the scene between Rufus and Cloud in the original film and in Advent Children Complete. I really like the dialog in that scene in the original. It's very to the point and says a lot about both their characters.

However when I watched it again a month or two later and took off those rose tinted glasses I found myself thinking exactly what WK said in his original post. So yeah, he hit the nail on the Jenova head there.

The only negative retrospective thoughts I remember having when the film first came out was I wished Cloud had to work a little harder to cure his geostigma. I think I understand what the creators were doing in the scene where he's healed now, but then, I wished it were different. The more I've watched this film, the more little details I pick up in it, and the more I appreciate what the creators appeared to be doing.

[Forsaken Lover]

More than X-2, it symbolized the dilution of the Final Fantasy brand as FF game were no longer those amazing, revolutionary works they once were. Now they were pandering sequels and remakes and remakes of pandering sequels. What it means to me is cheap fanservice.

It's gorgeous, though. I would do naughty things to Kadaj. Music was good, too.

[Fynn]

Yeah, it's definitely an end to an era. Even if you like what came after, AC kind of signifies a certain shift in the values and aesthetics the brand represents.

[Wolf Kanno]

Lots of stuff to get back to it seems.

You should know from my other posts that I indeed do use the quote button. I simply used the quotation marks because I was not home when I wrote this and had no time to correct the broken quote that I had. So I used the quotation marks instead.

Fair enough, but it does seem sometimes you forget to come back to the posts.

He saved the villain with the same kind of technique he wrote for the first installment - a skill that is not even the ordinary Reunion but simply the shapeshifting ability he used. Sephiroth resisted the lifestream and travelled through it in FFVII already. Then he made use of Jenova's body after initiating the Reunion he shapeshifted the body into an exact duplicate of his own to run around in it while regenerating inside of a giant crystal. Sephiroth has the power to, let's call it in a funny way, use his consciousness like Wireless Lan. He can exist lose of one specific body and project himself into bodies and control them. Which is one of his greatest powers as it is one of his basic "a highly powerful entity with Jenova cells can willingly control the cells, even when not in his own body" aspects. If anything you can say it was "lazy" that he used it again. As a matter of fact if Nojima-san would have wanted to make it again more overkill he would also have made use of the fact that there was no reason for the Silver Haired Men to search the cells because Sephiroth can use them no matter where they are. But he did not. I think you are blaming Nojima-san way too much just because you dislike him as a writer, not seeing how he indeed did write several things that many would see as both appropriate as well as a good choice instead of something else that many others would rant on about as real "asspulls" as the kids would say.

Part of my issue here is that Sephiroth surviving the dissolution into the Lifestream feels somewhat counter to the vision Cloud sees of him actually doing so in the original game's ending. We witness his consciousness shown as a different colored Lifestream get engulfed and absorbed rather nonchalantly I might add. Even if we disregard that as only being "half the story" as the novella retcon into being, said novella reveals that Sephiroth did indeed take quite the psychological beating from the endeavor as he is described as being on a spiritual deaths door so to speak, which is why he couldn't reform and had to use the shades instead. Which brings me to my first point, when did Sephiroth suddenly gain the power to will matter into existence? He could have used such a power when he was being defeated in the original game, even if it was something gained from the Lifestream, there really isn't such a power shown within VII's original world to suggest the Planet itself is capable of turning thought into matter. Because if it did have such an ability, I kind of feel like it could have dealt with Jenova without the Ancients, not to mention that it's established in the novella that Sephiroth's will and identity are holding on by a thread, so how is he suddenly multitasking staying sentient against the collective will of every living being on the planet, using magic to create thought people to do his bidding, and still have time to use Geostigma to make Cloud a sad panda? You have to admit when it's written out like that, it sounds a little goofy in hindsight. Not to mention as you said, that if Sephy still has the power to control Jenova, why would he even need his though people when he could have simply hijacked her body and build himself up? Not to mention, if Jenova is virtually immortal and Sephy's consciousness is stuck in the Lifestream fighting for its independence, couldn't Jenova pottentially regain its own will and just go back to doing its own thing?

This is part of my issue here, Sephy's got some pretty extreme powers and yet it kind of feels to me the plot is ignoring some of his powers, in order to give him new ones, in order to create a rather contrived situation that results in the films plot, despite the fact the game itself has shown that Sephy has the power to make all of this a non-issue. It would have made more sense to have Sephy simply body hop his consciousness to the living remains of Jenova (which technically he kind of does in the film with Geostigma) and use simply wait out the regeneration process to come back and face Cloud. Nojima is trying a bit too hard to have his cake and eat it too, but suggesting that Sephiroth is so weak, he has to come up with a resurrection plan to fill up the space where the plot is, but still somehow be omnipotent in comparison to Cloud and the others.

Frankly, the idea of Sephiroth's will being strong enough to go toe to toe with the Collective unconscious of all life on the planet always felt a bit far fetched to me. We've shown that Cloud is strong willed enough to beat Sephiroth, you mean to tell me that their isn't a million stubborn consciousness making up the Lifestream that they couldn't squash Sephy's will like a bug? I mean I can get behind him and Cloud surviving a Lifestream bath since their consciousness are still attached to a physical form, but I find it hard to believe that once the body is gone the Lifestream wouldn't have made short work of him, which is ultimately how I interpret his final scene in the game.

Yes, I don't care for Nojima's writing, but it largely stems from him being kind of sloppy and his insistence on coming up with far fetched plot twists even if he has to kind of break the rules of his worlds to make them happen. At best, he tends to be inconsistent with the rules he established within the worlds he creates, at worst, he tends to create rules that should have logically allowed for the plot to be a non-issue. With that said, he does occasionally come up with some good ideas. Cloud's past was a clever idea and I liked the Zack twist, and I've mentioned before that I feel Squall is one of the best written protagonists in the main series, which is kind of saying something coming from me and my bias love of the older titles.

It makes direct sense with the rules established for Sephiroth's power. First of all, Nojima-san would have never had the obligation to write that Sephiroth became weaker and was about to lose himself to the lifestream. But he did so at least there was some kind of narrative difference and drive for Sephiroth to do what he did instead of simply going all "oh, no I am back" and making him absolutely invincible. So he was not even treated like what he would normally be if you would actually consider all of his powers and using them in the most efficient way possible. And do you see me saying Nojima-san is a bad writer because of that because he did not let Sephiroth, a highly intelligent person, use them like this? No. Because I know it would be absolute overkill.

At no point in VII was it revealed that Jenova has the power of Zenkai and can somehow magically come back stronger from certain death. Kitase and Nojima mention in the Ultimania that Sephiroth is practically a transcended being in AC that was stronger than when Cloud fought him with the party in the game.

His will is practically a caricature of itself after being eaten away by the Lifestream, and while I won't contest the fact he should still have the power of the Lifestream, he probably shouldn't really be in a state to use it effectively since his will is eroded away. His physical ability should really be no stronger than Jenova since he's basically just hijacking her body again and using its regenerative powers, but in no way should he somehow be stronger than he was in the game when he had time and Jenova's full body to resurrect and pull off his master plan. Where did all this power come from since we've established he's been spending all his time simply surviving and coming up with a means to gain anew body? Not to mention that in the game, even with the power of the Lifestream, it took him seven years to fully regenerate and yet he somehow gains instant regeneration within the film? This is kind of what I'm talking about with Nojima. He tends to be very inconsistent with how powers work in his stories.

That is purely subjective. I knew AC before the novella and never had a problem with Denzel.

Good for you, it didn't stop half my anime club coming up to me asking me who this kid was and why he was important. I still stand by the fact the film should have addressed it better for the audience.

They are no clones, even the FFVII "replicas" are far from that. And Kadaj even hints that they are "fragments" as well as that they want the Reunion and that Sephiroth will come back. And Vincent also explains what Kadaj is. I will give you THAT one, because semantically spoken Vincent's explanation is highly misleading. The book really only goes into the detail that they "are Sephiroth but also are not" and actually are three dead guys that he found in the lifestream and made use of them.

I meant clones figuratively since they hold a resemblance to him and contain an aspect of his personality.

In which way does not knowing more about Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo hurt the movie? By that logic the book is also "bad" because it only gives like 1 more detail about them. The question might be silly because you dislike Final Fantasy VII in general and your answer will be most likely "the book IS bad" but the point is, Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo are, despite being present in the movie not nearly as relevant as people as you might think. And that is exactly what it is about. Because the movie really only wants to present you some tools to "show Sephiroth without actually showing him and in the end really showing him". Do you know how many people in the last 12 years I have ever met or read from that complained about not knowing about the three Silver Haired Men? Not many at all. I only ever read "who were they?" and I answered and they said "ah, okay". They are fragments. (They once were normal guys, not ready to accept death.) Sephiroth uses them to return. They represent Sephiroth. And that's all that is important for the plot. Everything else would lead away from that.

You kind off missed my point here, and frankly I feel Denzel is the worst offender compared to the Terrible Trio. I even mentioned that most fans would figure them out, but to introduce a character who is meant to be both important for the plot and the emotional crutch for one of the characters and not bother to really go into detail within the film itself despite the fact you did write out an eloboarate backstory for them anyway is kind of just a bad idea all around. Films have a bad enough wrap with masses as it is, they don't need to add skimming the Wiki articles before going in to understand the story.

This brings me back to my main point concerning the novella and by extension, any media sidestory with important plot points contained within, which is that if its important to the plot, you leave it in. Again, I'm not saying the novella is some abomination that should never have been made, but I do feel the contents of some of the pieces were too important for the film that they should have been addressed within the film as well. You can't create a character whose meant to be an emotional crutch that helps move the story along and at least not tell us why he's important. It would have been nice to see Cloud and Dezel interact with each other more to not only gain a better understanding of their relationship but to also help the viewers understand why Cloud is so invested in saving this kid.

"Bob fought the dragon to save his wife" makes sense, but isn't very compelling.

"Bob undertook a journey to save Sarah, the girl he grew up with and used to play in the grassy meadows behind the farm. This same meadow is where he proposed to her with a ring made from lily petals that were her favorite flowers. She was taken away by an evil dragon who lived in the mountains nearby and thus he had to save the love of his life. " Not only makes sense but places you in the context of how Bob is thinking. We understand that Sarah is more than just a wife, but a childhood friend he's known his whole life and likely the most important person in the world to them.

Denzel deserved better man, and the viewers would have come away from the film with a richer experience if they had at least done more to make him feel like more than MacGuffin. Even if the film was solely about Cloud, its made obvious that Denzel is important to him and had he been better developed and established in the story, could have helped to tell Cloud's story better.

I think Kingsglaive is a fantastic example. I watched it before the main game. And therefore I knew what happened. And I had absolutely no problem considering "ah, okay that is what happened between chapter 1 and 2. But what Kingsglaive could not do, no matter if it was included or not was solve problems of the main scenario and focus of the game. Which is exactly why I am so glad that there will be more to give further explanation.

See this is simply an issue of us both having different desires in a project. I watched Kingsglaive before playing as well but even knowing that information didn't really help the slow crawl of the plot at the beginning of XV, and likewise, I feel Kingsglaive was kind of dumb for focusing on a bunch of characters who were never intended to be in the main game anyway, the fact the villains had better representation in it than the main game, and agiain, inconsistant rules concerning the powers of the Ring of Lucis considering the King and Nyx used several powers and abilities with the ring not scene in the game like Protect Spells and Force Lightning. See its not just Nojima who does this.

While I agree that adding Kingsglaive wouldn't help the larger problems in XV's story, I still feel it would have been a large improvement for the earlier sections and potentially address other issues, like dropping the Kingsglaive themselves since they are largely unimportant to VX as a whole, and simply focus the story on Regis and Lunafreya, who are crimninally underultilzed in the main game proper. I'm not suggesting just adding the story in, I'm talking about integrating it as a gaming component as well. I would have loved to play through the Fall of Insomnia with a party of Regis, Lunafreya, and Gladios dad.

Bottom line here is that I'm a fan of the FF games, why is Squenix cutting out content from these games and making me pay for it separately so I I can enjoy the thing I like that they make which are games? Its a business yes, but some business practices are just bad and shouldn't be encouraged.

But half of the novella is in the game as flashbacks? I agree some more flashbacks that made them more human and all like Lightning swearing on her mother's grave to be there for Serah or Serah and Snow buying the knife while laughing about how Lightning would look with a plushie or the power plant thing with Dahj or Cid and Lightning's talk would have been cool. I also understand that you might think it would be better for it to be in the game to make you feel more immersed but I never ever had a problem taking all of that into account. This must be a personal problem.

Probably since I'm genuinely cyncial and not terribly sentimental, so I usually need more reason to care and feel invested in people. I'm not the type to take things at face value and simply go along because I'm told to, so saying that I should care about the cast feeling conflicted about destroying their homeworld when the only part of it I've seen is the sheepl driven death squads doesn't exactly make me sympathize with their conflicting issues when I barely seen any reason to care for the place or understand what it means to them. Simply being their "home" doesn't mean anything to me without context. I wanna know why they care.

I also just feel that introducing a character at their low point (or close to their low point in XIII's case) without a baseline of their personality beforehand is kind of a gamble, writing wise, since most people size up others pretty quickly and it's hard to change a first impression. Watching Cloud be a jerk back to blustering blowhard but charmingly ineffective Barret is kind of amusing, watching Lightning do the same thing to obviously fish out of water, but wise cracking civilian Sahz just kind of makes her look mean.

We're both aware of the fact that I have a lot of issues with XIII's narrative, but this isn't the place for it so we'll continue this at another time.

I'm also going to skip over the more personal stuff, so bear with me. I don't wish to detract from this thread anymore but I do appreciate the insight it has given me.

[QUOTE]

And how in the world is that "amusing"? A story is something someone composes and yes, this "word of god" that you are calling it can also include so called "retroactive continuity". Whenever Nojima-san writes something that is directly conform, it is fine. He is one of those he decides. Whenever he decides to change something of what he wrote before, fine, he is one of those who decides. Saying retcons (if they actually happen) are not following "the word of god" is like saying "you can never change what you said in your life/correct yourself and everything needs to be the first stance you have had for the rest of your life". I respect Sakaguchi-san a lot. But he is neither an officially employed writer for Final Fantasy VII as it stands right now, nor does his stance about sequels and going on and all mean anything about the "word of god" that affects that fictional universe or how fans should see that. If he was still working for Square and said something about the game the story stuff could be different if he were a writer. But even then stances like what should or should not have further installments are nothing that should affect anyone. No person working for Square can affect me when it comes to that because it is something completely different from me saying "that person said this detail x is like y in the game". It just is not the same thing.

Its not so much that I'm against retcons, I'm a Metal Gear fan for crying out loud and Kojima has retcon the history of the series with every entry since MGS1, but between the retcons made by Kojima and Nojima (this might become a tongue twister after awhile), I feel Kojima's retcons were better ahndled and actually expand the story in a good way. Nojima, not so much, but I blame this one Nojima introducing elements and tropes from other mediums that I don't particulary care for as well as the fact that while Kojima has always left his game more open ended with sequels in mind, VII to me was a fairly self-contained story and didn't leave itself open to as much expansion as I felt the Compilation gave it. I mean truth be told, I like the Last Order because I felt it was a story that should have been told and the retcons it made I felt actually fixed some issues I had with VII's original narrative. Crisis Core ended up doing the opposite for me, and Before Crisis started off promising before jumping into weirds-ville. AC is ultimately just redundant to me since I never felt the story did anything for the mythos that the original game had not already addressed.

With all that said, I feel its fine to actually disregard the canon presented by the writer if its awful enough. Even writers make bad calls from time to time and so I feel that as a fan, its fine to take it as word of god from a case by case scenario. Nojima says VII and X are indirect sequels to each other, but I'm honestly going to choose to ignore that truth because I feel its kind of stupid. I like the fact that when Sakaguchi created the franchise, he made a rule that said no direct sequels and forced the teams to be more creative with each new installment and I love how that concept fits well with the series title itself by each game being the "Final" Fantasy of their respective worlds. This doesn't necessarily mean that I feel Sakaguchi hasn't come up with his fair share of bad ideas that I don't support, nor does it mean that everything Nojima has said about his works are ultimately awful and should be disregarded. The issue comes that I tend to agree with Sakaguchi's ways of doing stuff, but his era was my era, so his vision of the franchise coincides with my own interpretation of what I feel the series is.

Nojima on the otherhand just doesn't write the type of stories I like, and while I can agree he comes up with clever ideas, he just can't seem to follow through with them to my satisfaction, so its a little easier for me to blow off his authority cause I often disagree with his ideas. If it makes you feel better Motomu Toriyama is probably closer to someone I actively dislike that works at SE; but that's largely due to his hissy fit about the Western fans after XIIIs release, along with my general dislike for his storytelling and game design choices. He might be a cool dude in person, but he kind of ticked me off with that news debacle.

It was not "inflammatory" against you. I am simply responding in the same manner you once did by without calling my name and yet blunt enough talk about the posts of people who sleep with the Ultimania Omega (paraphrased by me, definitely not respectful and with some very obvious stance), so it is not like you never "tried" anything. Maybe I am wrong about you having talked about me that time? But I can't help feeling that it was meant to target me for real.

Well, I wasn't exactly singling you out with that statement, so I apologize if I caused any offence and made you feel that way. I've dealt with my fair share of fans who treat the Ultimania's like the Bible, so it was meant to be a generalized statement that you happen to be grouped within, but I was honestly thinking of people like The Crystal, Bolivar and njoran of whom I've had a longer history of debating the merits of VII and its Compilation with. Even then, while I disagree with their opinions on the matters, I have generally no ill will against any of them, and I'm actually "friends" maybe "frenemy" with Bolivar as we eventually came to an understanding and only debate each other to troll each other anymore. I'm simply a very blunt person when it comes to my opinions and that often means. Again I apologize if it hurt your feelings.

Sorry, Shauna.

I'll behave.

Half way done, now to round two.

[QUOTE=silentfuzzle;3670151]

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?[quote]

Its something mentioned off hand in the Ultimania guides for VII. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either as you can tell from me pointing out some logical errors, which is what we're kind of arguing about.

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.

The Complete version addressed my intial problem with it. I'm not implying his whole backstory had to be in there, but I feel the film should have addressed him in a way that assumes the viewer wouldn't have access to all of the supplement material.

I think this is explanation enough when the details of how Sephiroth came back to life have nothing to do with Cloud’s story, which is what the movie is ultimately about. This isn’t lazy writing. Most authors agree that you shouldn’t info dump stuff that doesn’t matter into your story. The author needs to know all these details to create a cohesive world, but he isn’t obligated to bore his viewers with them. In this case, fans who care about the details can go read the novella in stories where those details advance the plot. What's in the movie is enough for its story… unless you want to sit there and claim that excluding boring, irrelevant explanations is bad writing.

Whether its boring is in the eye of the beholder, but frankly I felt the film was a bit too vague and people simply assumed Sephy just redid what he did in the game with the actual clones despite that not really being possible anymore. Still, there are many ways this could have been addressed without info dumping, and luckily the visual medium offered by film could have come up with a few cool ideas to foreshadow an expalantion better. Letting Cloud have a "dream" about Sephiroth who simply mutters that he can't fade away and simply calls out Cloud's name over and over with more anger each time. Meanwhile he envisions three black shadows taking human form over Sephiroths simple dialogue. That could have been a minute and half sequence that would have done a better job connecting all the pieces and making sense of the part of the expalanation we got in the film.

While Advent Children is a sequel, it also functions very well at introducing newcomers to Final Fantasy. This movie was my introduction to the games, and I don’t think it would attract new people as well if it hit them with more complex details and terms from the game.

Agreed, and I felt the opening did a good job of recapping the important bits of VII's story without the details. Though I feel it can be a double edged sword in some ways as well as I've met plenty of people who watched it as their intro to the series and promptly chose to ignore the franchise after wards because too much backstory and information wasn't addressed and the person wasn't intrigued enough to bother learning all of the gritty details. It can be a great gateway story, but it can also deter people who simply wanted a cool action flick.

For me personally, I prefer my films (and games) to stand on their own, so I can't help but feel that AC has some problems within the story for not really addressing important aspects from the game. Yet I feel that's a third issue behind the action to story ratio and the issues regarding Denzel.

Just throwing this out there because it’s my goal to say it as much as possible. Kingslgaive is garbage in almost every way, and the game is lesser because Noctis was excluded from the events that take place within it.

I'm not bothered by Noctis being absent but I strongly feel it would have served XV better had it been implemented as a gaming experience in the early chapters to run counter to the slower and more blissful events of Noctis and his entorouge trying to get to a wedding. It also would have been a great way to expand Lunafreay and Regis' characters within the main game and we could have even had a taste of power section playing as Regis.

I wouldn’t describe Advent Children as ultra-realistic and the creators didn’t either. In The Making Of featurette, Takeshi Nozue says, “If it looked too real, then we might as well shoot it live.” Do the characters look like real people? Have they ever looked like real people? This film is often classified as photorealistic, but it definitely has a lot of anime influence, at least in its character designs. Ridiculous, physics-defying action still exists in a lot of anime (e.g. Attack on Titan). It’s far from a tired concept.

In comparison to the original art style, which had a distinct and unapologetic anime aesthetic, AC feels like Nomurra redesigning the cast as if they were real people.

With that said, I still feel the defiance of the laws of physics were a little more over-the-top than they should be and while its still prevalent in anime, it's an aspect I don't like in the medium either. I just dislike Rule of Cool, because it often feels like the product is trying too hard to impress me, and that kind of just takes me out of the experience because I become aware that the film is trying to manipulate me with visual wonders.

Wait, was Advent Children always intended to be released alongside a novel? As I understand it, the novel came out with Advent Children Complete when the creators decided they needed to make the story more “complete.” I think they did this to appease fans who wanted more details and characters they knew from the game. But in my opinion, Advent Children Complete only adds fan service and irrelevant filler that isn’t required to understand the original film. I haven’t read the novel, but I assume it’s the same, considering that I like the story in the original movie just fine.

Sephy will answer this better than I could since my first foray into the film was a bootleg copy a friend acquired the day the film released, but I'm pretty sure the novellas were part of the Japanese boxsets of the films original release.

What did Denzel, the children, Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo have to do with fanservice? Why didn’t we see more of Cid, Barrett, Yuffie, Red XIII, etc? Why did Cloud’s fight with Sephiroth only last five minutes? Isn’t that what fans want to see? The Tekken: Blood Vengence movie has a ridiculous plot featuring mostly characters from the game and ends with a twenty-five-minute-long battle between characters who combined had less than five minutes of screen time in the rest of the film. I fail to see how Advent Children classifies as pure fanservice.

Indeed, what did any of those character have to do with anything besides force Cloud (and Tifa) to jump from one extravagant fight after the next, simply so we could follow a story whose entire purpose is really to have that five minute fight with Sephiroth, which is about the only thing people really remember about the movie besides wondering what the hell happened to Reno's personality.

I'm not saying its the worst fanservice movie (that would be the second Mortal Kombat movie), but Cloud's story is kind of redundant, the children being infected really never amounted to anything meaningful, most of the returning cast show up for one fight and then stand by watching Cloud get his ass handed to him for four and half minutes with the fate of the world at stake, and Reno and Rude drop any pretense of their cool persona to go full on Gilgamesh for the flick cause we needed some humor. It was also not surprising that Vincent, one of the fan favorites of the film got more screentime than the rest of the supporting cast. In fact the major characters from the game that feature prominetly in the plot are largely the favorites from the game.

The film largely runs on Rule of Cool and the plot always felt to me like it was there to string it all together. So its hard not to call it like I see it.

Yeah, the story is about some guy struggling to accept his past and find his place in the present. I can see where some fans of the game would be frustrated by this in that it somewhat rehashes what happened in the game. But when you think of it as just a movie, it’s a compelling and relatable story (even with all the weird Jenova-Sephiroth-geostigma stuff in the background). The fact that this personal drama is told in an action movie makes it even more interesting.

I would have preferred finding a new way to explore Cloud's character, especially since we never really got a good grasp of the real Cloud in the game. So to have him simply reguritate the same drama as before was kind of a letdown and simply felt like the writers were too lazy to come up with anything new, so they simply rehashed the old story. To be fair to AC, Square-Enix does this with most of their sequels, but what's the point of continuing a story if you're not going to really do anything new with the characters. This is why most sequels fail anyway since a majority of them are just more of the same as the first film.

I can see where it wouldn't be an issue if you've never played the game, but that brings us back to the plot and lack of developing the rest of the cast leaving the viewer needing to consult a secondary source to really get the full picture. I can't say it's a good standalone film. Great CGI work? Yes, but for me it, lacks any substance to validate it so its really just some flashy visuals and a nice way to kill a few hours before moving onto something more mentally stimulating.

With all that said, writing these long responses is kind of exhausting for me, and not how I like to spend my evenings anymore. So I'm going to have to courtesly bow out of the discussion for the time being.

[Sephiroth]

I assume you're comparing the scene between Rufus and Cloud in the original film and in Advent Children Complete. I really like the dialog in that scene in the original. It's very to the point and says a lot about both their characters.

No, in general, he says 自称 and referring to him as an Ex SOLDIER and that means "you wannabe-Ex-SOLDIER". In both the normal and the Complete Edition.

Wolf Kanno, I do not have the time to read through your post now. I will answer it in ~9 hours.

[Sephiroth]

I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT MY POST WAS KILLED AGAIN!

[silentfuzzle]

I didn't realize Final Fantasy VII fans were so negative about this movie. This might be because I look at Advent Children in the context of other CGI movies rather than in the context of Square Enix's other content, but from the first trailer I ever saw, Advent Children was unique. To this day, there's still nothing like it. The thing about CGI movies is that as soon as you step outside the typical children and family genre, storytelling and filmmaking techniques go out the window. No one seems to know how to use CGI effectively to tell a story. Most of the time, the story is just an excuse to make something that looks photorealistic (e.g. The Polar Express, Beowulf, Kingsglaive) or the art style mimics 2D animation with cell shading, as if that can make up for the fact that the film gives the viewer no reason to care about its protagonist (e.g. Vexille, Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker, .hack//Beyond the World).

If this is just a cash grab, it's a well crafted one. Someone on the team knew what the heck they were doing when they made Advent Children. Someone apparently had a vision of a story they wanted to tell and a message they wanted to say. Someone cared about shot composition, video editing, and lighting. Each shot and each scene says something or does something that advances the story, builds the world, and/or develops the characters. Someone realized that they didn't have to cell shade or make the film photorealistic to avoid The Uncanny Valley. Someone decided to tell the story in an unconventional way through visuals rather than spoon feeding the plot through dialog. They give us reasons to sympathize with Cloud and don't turn him into an invincible super protagonist. While he has superhuman strength, he's sick, distraught, and easily exhausted. The characters don't follow the laws of physics, but they follow more than The Rule of Cool to keep dramatic tension.

the story is contrived and only serves as a means to move the viewer from the action scenes which make up the majority of the film, giving the movie the same format as a porn film.

You say everything in the film is just an excuse to get from one action scene to the next, but isn't that the point of all action movies? I agree in a bad action movie, the action scenes are pointless visual spectacles/action porn, probably featuring a city being destroyed in a tsunami and hundreds of thousands of people dying while the seemingly invincible protagonist and antagonist beat each other in the face. There are no stakes. There are no rules. There's no reason to care about what's happening unless you just like looking at it.

But the action scenes in Advent Children are scenes, integral to advancing the plot, building the world, and/or developing the characters. Because Advent Children doesn't use the laws of physics, it must establish its own rules and elements of battle as part of the fight scenes, which it does. The shot choices establish where the characters are in space, show what they're feeling, and their personalities. This is why the battles have significance for the characters and look so great. Cloud and Tifa are introduced to the bad guys in fight scenes, Cloud confirms his uselessness when he attempts to save the orphans in a fight scene, all the fight scenes are losses until Cloud regains his confidence in a fight scene alongside his friends, Cloud attempts to prove he can fight alone with his battle against Kadaj but he still needs the memories of his friends to defeat Sephiroth in the final battle. What Cloud really needs to do in the film to be happy is reunite with his friends, but the fights are where he confronts the demons and memories in his head, which is one way to show an invisible struggle in a visual medium.

Advent Children is mostly action and visuals because that's how it tells its story. Using dialog minimally is how the creators chose to tell the story, not a flaw. Perhaps the creators could have had a little more explanatory dialog, but that doesn't discredit the entire story as garbage. Of course, the action scenes look spectacular. That's what an action movie is supposed to do. Of course, the visuals look beautiful. Who wants to look at butt ugly artwork for an hour and a half? The fact that this movie looks good doesn't mean that it's empty visual spectacle.

I can see why you wouldn't like this movie if you don't like action movies or you don't think a Final Fantasy VII movie should have been an action movie or you simply don't agree with what happened in the film based on what you saw in the game, but that doesn't make this movie or its story objectively bad.

[Edge7]

I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT MY POST WAS KILLED AGAIN!

I've been having the same problem. I've taken to copying my text just in case.

When I first saw the movie, I was 12 and I LOVED it. Since High School though I just find it boring. The action scenes (really for a lot of people, the movie's main sell) don't really do much for me because there's no personality to it. A fight can look as cool as it wants, but extended fight sequences are supposed to be more than clashing swords in 30 different cool ways. Empire Strikes Back has Vader trying to lure Luke into the carbonite freezer (while also showing that Luke relies too much on his light saber and too little on the Force), Pirates of the Carribean shows Will's dedication as a blacksmith and a swordsman, Princess Bride establishes the relationship between Wesley and Inigo Montoya, and characterizes Wesley as a show-off. Advent Children has people doing cool flips and trout. I will say, I like Tifa's fight scene in the Church; it's brief and they worked her limit breaks into the choreography (actually reminds me of a lot of scenes in the Street Fighter II movie). The Sephiroth fight also has dramatic stakes as Cloud's super outmatched, but I agree with Kanno that it doesn't exactly make sense for Sephiroth to be as powerful as he is.

Anyway, regarding the plot, I'll go ahead and say I agree with the detractors. Too much is left out for the movie to feel like its own product. I've read a few of the Novellas, and I really liked Case of Denzel and Tifa (the others vary for me). I feel like another problem with the movie's writing is that every non-action scene with Cloud (of which I think there are 3?) is the same:

Rufus: Cloud, help us save the planet...
Cloud: Not interested, let me grieve

Tifa: Cloud, we gotta save the kids!
Cloud: I'm not up for it, let me grieve. Besides, Reno and Rude have this.

Vincent: Exposition, also are you gonna head back to save the city?
Cloud: I dunno... I could grieve
Marlene: Seriously?!
Cloud: You know what, yeah, I'll give it a shot.

I used to be a lot harder on Cloud's characterization in this movie, but I do think that writing Cloud as depressed is a solid believable choice. Despite his character arc in the game, it's very easy to believe he could have a relapse. My problem is that EVERY SCENE that features or involves him is the same (and the only dialogue heavy scenes between multiple characters that aren't about Cloud are about Kadaj asking Rufus for Jenova's location). I'm not really an Evangelion fan, but I like Shinji Ikari because while the character is known for his insecurities and not wanting to act, a large amount of his screen time is spent on his relationships with other characters. He's allowed to exhibit a range of emotions; he gets flustered, irritated, prideful, content. At the end of Advent Children, if I hadn't played FFVII, I would only know Cloud as "that angsty guy with the big sword" and surprise, surprise, that's how gaming culture at large remembers him.

Anyway, I know people personally who like this movie, and I'm well past the age of telling them they shouldn't. That being said, I don't think Advent Children is well written or particularly interesting. Last Order and Case of Denzel are probably the most well written things to come out of the Compilation, honestly. The latter is a great self-contained story with well defined stakes that feels relevant to the original game, as opposed to creating a new threat for someone to deal with "just because" (and yes, despite their relation to Sephiroth, I would classify Kadaj Yazoo and Loz as a "new threat").

[Sephiroth]

I swear this post at least took me 40 hours of one day.

Fair enough, but it does seem sometimes you forget to come back to the posts.

Not quite. I am just busy for 50%-75% of the day for the next three weeks and I often come home late because of that. If you are referring to another post you must tell me.
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...spiritual deaths door so to speak, which is why he couldn't reform and had to use the shades instead.

Well, he could not reform because his time in the lifestream made him forget his old shape as, as mentioned or to be mentioned, he willingly threw away some of his memories as well as did not care about some of his, in his eyes, irrelevant memories fading away as he did not hold onto them and only cared about his very being.
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Which brings me to my first point, when did Sephiroth suddenly gain the power to will matter into existence?

Eh~ Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo do not consist of normal bodies that Sephiroth manifested out of thin air. They are remnants/fragments, directly bound to his being and their shell consists of the cell leftovers, which is also why Kadaj can get damaged from Great Gospel.
And I have not even begun telling you that your assumption is wrong. The planet can manifest matter. It did with the Weapons. These are these kinds of things that I mean. Dislike stuff you want, that's totally fine. But if it is based on something you don't understand then that is what makes no sense. And yes, that is what most people do. It is nothing those that argue with them "do not understand". It is that those who say "this and this is bad it did not make sense" just did not understand it in the first place and now are not ready to accept that because they were not ready beforehand and now ignore the entire rest. You cannot ignore that stuff. You have to put all important pieces together.
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Because if it did have such an ability, I kind of feel like it could have dealt with Jenova without the Ancients, not to mention that it's established in the novella that Sephiroth's will and identity are holding on by a thread, so how is he suddenly multitasking staying sentient against the collective will of every living being on the planet, using magic to create thought people to do his bidding, and still have time to use Geostigma to make Cloud a sad panda? You have to admit when it's written out like that, it sounds a little goofy in hindsight.

I have explained it further below how Sephiroth makes use of his will, his powers, his plan and how he starts off as weakened first but does not stay like that all the time. He did so much in the game. Regaining his strength and then being back to business is pretty believable, especially considering he was written as too strong in the first place.
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Not to mention as you said, that if Sephy still has the power to control Jenova, why would he even need his though people when he could have simply hijacked her body and build himself up?

Mentioned below but his heritage is not to be disputed. It is just skills that he has. We see them in the game, we can read him thinking about using them again and the usage of one or the other thing in the movie as well.
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Not to mention, if Jenova is virtually immortal and Sephy's consciousness is stuck in the Lifestream fighting for its independence, couldn't Jenova pottentially regain its own will and just go back to doing its own thing?

What Jenova is is heavily misinterpreted by so many people. Jenova is nothing but a super-intelligent animal but it is not even an actual character. And no, I don't mean it in the "humans are intelligent animals as well" way. There is not much Jenova can do at this point. The id that Jenova personified for itself as well as the id that lives on in Jenova cell bearers will always exist but that does not mean the tick with two tentacles and an abstract female body and a heart behind its shell will come back. Jenova is still doing its thing in a more passive way. But now its time for the better one to do the job - the trademark character next to Cloud. Also Jenova cell fragments and just a few Jenova cells that could be found - there is not much Jenova can do. But I have explained further below that the cells will of course somehow still be a thing.
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This is part of my issue here, Sephy's got some pretty extreme powers and yet it kind of feels to me the plot is ignoring some of his powers, in order to give him new ones

It does not really ignore them, it just gives them another narrative form. The only really new thing is the existence bond. Everything else stands in direct relation to something else of his powers.

... the game itself has shown that Sephy has the power to make all of this a non-issue.

THAT is an unfair treatment. The game itself should already be a non-issue for the very fact that Sephiroth is too strong. It is like asking "why did Cell not use the Kaiouken against Son Gohan?" when it actually is a fact that he can use it or "why did he not use Shunkan Idou to teleport behind Gohan for his Kamehame-Ha?" when he actually copied it form Goku. Sometimes you just want to write a story the way you want to write it and I will go into further detail in a below paragraph.
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It would have made more sense to have Sephy simply body hop his consciousness to the living remains of Jenova (which technically he kind of does in the film with Geostigma) and use simply wait out the regeneration process to come back and face Cloud.

Sephiroth wanted to appear before Cloud as an astral projection but he failed doing so. So he used the next appropriate way that did fit with the new elements of Geostigma established in the story. Final Fantasy VII-1 makes a normal reunion and Sephiroth using the powers of Jenova more convenient because he has the center of the Reunion itself with him and then just after intiation used the rest of his nifty abilities for this stuff. Do you really want a story: "... yeah ... uhm ... there are no leftovers ... but actually the normal cells ... and Sephiroth used his old trick of CD1-CD2, not even written with a new and fance shape ... and then he comes back ..."
I don't. I mean, I do. But a new shape for everything does not bother me.
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but suggesting that Sephiroth is so weak, he has to come up with a resurrection plan to fill up the space where the plot is, but still somehow be omnipotent in comparison to Cloud and the others.

But that is just your claim all the time. "Sephiroth is weak. He was weakened after the final battle so it makes sense he is weak for x time units". YES, Sephiroth was weakened. But he does not stay weakened. He is never treated like he still is half dead. He is treated like he happily enjoys his life in the lifestream once he does his existence link and all and just from time to time it gets referred back as stuff like "oh, crap baskets, I don't even know my own image anymore". And that's it.
The problem with these kinds of posts is that they are not based on actual knowledge. Either people ignore important facts or simply do not understand them. And once you confront them with it they either ignore it again or try to once more act as if you were the problem even if you flat out acknowledge everything needed. It is all in the story.

Frankly, the idea of Sephiroth's will being strong enough to go toe to toe with the Collective unconscious of all life on the planet always felt a bit far fetched to me. We've shown that Cloud is strong willed enough to beat Sephiroth, you mean to tell me that their isn't a million stubborn consciousness making up the Lifestream that they couldn't squash Sephy's will like a bug? I mean I can get behind him and Cloud surviving a Lifestream bath since their consciousness are still attached to a physical form, but I find it hard to believe that once the body is gone the Lifestream wouldn't have made short work of him, which is ultimately how I interpret his final scene in the game.

Sephiroth works like that though and he always worked like that. How is a fictional story about an alien-human entity less farfetch'd than a specific power that person has. It is exactly the same thing as a Universe Busting attack in Dragon Ball hitting a character and this character just not being fazed from it. They just can do it. Sephiroth is so powerful, he can both use the Meteor and hold back Holy as long as he is not defeated and therefore weakened for the moment of the finale. So yes, I am telling you that he is better than all of them. Because that is just how he is. I don't make him a powerhouse, he IS a powerhouse. Also why are you insisting on him having a physical form? You do realize a body is just a shell and the spiritual parts/psychological parts that "we" truly are? And those are what makes Sephiroth so damn strong. Yes, he has some very cool physical powers. But that's not all. Cloud is shown to be an incredible weak-willed person. Whether he suffers from confabulation or him having his own doubts about his being and all. He is just a broken boy even before being used by Sephiroth. But the final scene simply was there because Cloud a) finally got his crap together and wanted to get the consciousness bond of him and laughing Sephiroth be disconnected as well as b) fight for what's important for him. Cloud is a total "loser turns hero" character. But that does not mean he can make use of his powers all the time and I say that so often. That is also why he only can overwhelm Sephiroth when both actually giving it his all as well as grudging Sephiroth, the man who was defeated by a 16-yeard old blue guard, once more underestimating him - both total shonen trope.
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At no point in VII was it revealed that Jenova has the power of Zenkai and can somehow magically come back stronger from certain death. Kitase and Nojima mention in the Ultimania that Sephiroth is practically a transcended being in AC that was stronger than when Cloud fought him with the party in the game.

But I even hinted his whole power gain. His sheer power representation still does not have the same magnitude than whenever he went all out. Sephiroth gets stronger all the time. That does not mean he goes all out. Did you really think the final battle in AC was all of his power? It wasn't. And Sephiroth very much has an easy written way in the game that allowed for his power gain. All he needed for that he also still had with him in the book. I delve further into that in another paragraph.
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His will is practically a caricature of itself after being eaten away by the Lifestream, and while I won't contest the fact he should still have the power of the Lifestream, he probably shouldn't really be in a state to use it effectively since his will is eroded away.

But it is really not. Which spiritual components highlight the person Sephiroth the most? His consciousness as the existence "Sephiroth" that he never wants to give up and even thinks the Lifestream might to that, should he actually give in and his will power. The will power of Sephiroth CANNOT be harmed in any true way. This is why he lasted such a long time in the Lifestream and had no problem with it. And when he was about to get dragged with the Lifestream a bit he did some safety net stuff. You know, just because Sephiroth gives up memories and all this super-powerful engine that is his will does not automatically belong in the trash bin.
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His physical ability should really be no stronger than Jenova since he's basically just hijacking her body again and using its regenerative powers, but in no way should he somehow be stronger than he was in the game when he had time and Jenova's full body to resurrect and pull off his master plan. Where did all this power come from since we've established he's been spending all his time simply surviving and coming up with a means to gain anew body?

You know that Sephiroth is an energy consuming entity or do you not? He can live from the planetary energy and strengthen himself the same way Jenova does. How does he do that? He confronts planetary energy/life energy/knowledge -> Is the will of the reader strong enough to withstand? Yes? He can make use of it and get stronger from that. No? -> He is pretty much wrecked. And Sephiroth even more strengthened his own power in a way because he instead of just going with his ordinary life reading and converting it to his own power thing he even creates his own part of the lifestream that he can even easier use because of this whole tainting and using the mentality of the dead thing, et cetera. Anyway, whether he starts off as a bit weakened or not does not matter. His concept of a self-feeding reactor makes him too strong. He gets stronger because his will allows for his capacity to not be overloaded. This makes him strong enough to become stronger again, blablabla.
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Not to mention that in the game, even with the power of the Lifestream, it took him seven years to fully regenerate and yet he somehow gains instant regeneration within the film? This is kind of what I'm talking about with Nojima. He tends to be very inconsistent with how powers work in his stories.

That is wrong. And I even explained it already. This "Reunion" of Sephiroth in AC as well as this "regeneration" has nothing to do with what we normally see of him. His AC "Reunion" is a direct use of the shapeshifting ability that he used with Jenova's headless cells and yes, he did that instantly and not in 7 years. They just wrote the story different now because of new circumstances.
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Good for you, it didn't stop half my anime club coming up to me asking me who this kid was and why he was important. I still stand by the fact the film should have addressed it better for the audience.

You know you are using the term "fact" wrong here and you are intelligent enough that I should not even need to point that out.
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You kind off missed my point here, and frankly I feel Denzel is the worst offender compared to the Terrible Trio. I even mentioned that most fans would figure them out, but to introduce a character who is meant to be both important for the plot and the emotional crutch for one of the characters and not bother to really go into detail within the film itself despite the fact you did write out an eloboarate backstory for them anyway is kind of just a bad idea all around. Films have a bad enough wrap with masses as it is, they don't need to add skimming the Wiki articles before going in to understand the story.

I am not really missing the point. I know what you mean. It is just that I feel you expect too much from Denzel just because he was the "main child" together with Marlene.
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"Bob fought the dragon to save his wife" makes sense, but isn't very compelling.


"Bob undertook a journey to save Sarah, the girl he grew up with and used to play in the grassy meadows behind the farm. This same meadow is where he proposed to her with a ring made from lily petals that were her favorite flowers. She was taken away by an evil dragon who lived in the mountains nearby and thus he had to save the love of his life. " Not only makes sense but places you in the context of how Bob is thinking. We understand that Sarah is more than just a wife, but a childhood friend he's known his whole life and likely the most important person in the world to them.

You must be a massive fan of Tolkien who even describes the every colour on every piece of leaf. Whenever I write my stories I so much want to be consistent with what I establish. I want the world to feel rich. And I want it to be detailed. But very often I find myself just neurotically following this pattern and that for something that often is not even the point of things. And if we are absolutely honest, is forgotten, ignored or misunderstood by 99% anyway. It can take away your own entertainment or make you drift away from what you actually want to do. I very often add my details and explanations. But, for example, whenever I write an action scene I make use of several abilities of a character or in a conversation between characters I delve more in their psyche, making things cohesive with that pattern and do throwbacks to old moments. BUT sometimes the situation simply makes it feel awkward because it is not the place and time for it. You might say now "but you could rewrite it to make it fit". But that's exactly the point. Why should I rewrite something that is more important for me just to make something fit in that has no relevance in that situation? It ruins the motivation and your drive to do what you want. Whenever you want it and feel like it, great. But don't force yourself to add something that you feel has no place here.

Denzel deserved better man, and the viewers would have come away from the film with a richer experience if they had at least done more to make him feel like more than MacGuffin.

I see Americans always using the word "McGuffin". I should google one day what that means. We don't use it here.
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Even if the film was solely about Cloud, its made obvious that Denzel is important to him and had he been better developed and established in the story, could have helped to tell Cloud's story better..

Would have been cool but then the movie would have to be longer, more expensive and once more drift away from the main points a bit.
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See its not just Nojima who does this.

I cannot help but point out that Nojima-san also worked on the basic script of FFXV itself.
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While I agree that adding Kingsglaive wouldn't help the larger problems in XV's story, I still feel it would have been a large improvement for the earlier sections and potentially address other issues, like dropping the Kingsglaive themselves since they are largely unimportant to VX as a whole, and simply focus the story on Regis and Lunafreya, who are crimninally underultilzed in the main game proper. I'm not suggesting just adding the story in, I'm talking about integrating it as a gaming component as well. I would have loved to play through the Fall of Insomnia with a party of Regis, Lunafreya, and Gladios dad.

I knew what you mean but that is still just not enough for me. And in a way I think adding Kingsglaive would have given it a very weird tension this early. The tension was already there because of just that affecting the world but this for real being there for the player - if it were in the game I would have placed it later. FF has the tradition to start with moment with tension and action, yes. But this seems like an extreme overkill.
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Bottom line here is that I'm a fan of the FF games, why is Squenix cutting out content from these games and making me pay for it separately so I I can enjoy the thing I like that they make which are games? Its a business yes, but some business practices are just bad and shouldn't be encouraged.

Purely subjective. You know what should not be encouraged? Cigarettes and alcohol. They cause real problems and people still consume them.
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Watching Cloud be a jerk back to blustering blowhard but charmingly ineffective Barret is kind of amusing, watching Lightning do the same thing to obviously fish out of water, but wise cracking civilian Sahz just kind of makes her look mean.

Cloud and Lightning are both supposed to be absolutely "inappropriate" simply because their shell made them socially awkward. Whether they talk with the one that gives off some cartoony feeling with his talking against asshole wall Cloud or wise Sazh, as you call him, does not really make to much of a difference. As a matter of fact Lightning is even easier to talk with because while she is grumpy queen #1 she at least does not reflect absolute disinterest. You could see that from the very first chapter in the game already. I can point out some scenes to be more clear but only if that conversation continues. The post will be massive anyway.

I'm also going to skip over the more personal stuff, so bear with me.

Which personal stuff? There was not a single attack in my last post. If you mean the "that must be something personal", well, it has to be if it is about you. It is equivalent to saying "this must be subjective".
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... , but I blame this one Nojima introducing elements and tropes from other mediums that I don't particulary care for as well as the fact that while Kojima has always left his game more open ended with sequels in mind, VII to me was a fairly self-contained story and didn't leave itself open to as much expansion as I felt the Compilation gave it.

I am an absolute sucker for sequels. For me there normally has to be at least one sequel to a story all the time so I can feel "okay, now it was solidly finished". It is not about me not being satisfied with what happens in the stories. I just do not want to leave them. They are created and alive in their own way. And I do not like it that you write something down and then lay away the pencil and never bother with the story ever again. The whole "self-contained thing" seems like an incredibly forced thing to me as well. If it works I say "okay" but I barely ever have the feeling that I do not want more of what I love.
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I mean truth be told, I like the Last Order because I felt it was a story that should have been told and the retcons it made I felt actually fixed some issues I had with VII's original narrative.

You know Last Order is just a re-interpretation to promote Crisis Core and was not there to actually tell or fix anything?
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With all that said, I feel its fine to actually disregard the canon presented by the writer if its awful enough. Even writers make bad calls from time to time and so I feel that as a fan, its fine to take it as word of god from a case by case scenario. Nojima says VII and X are indirect sequels to each other, but I'm honestly going to choose to ignore that truth because I feel its kind of stupid.

It is fine if you call it "just ignoring it" but that's exactly the point. You cannot do more than that. A car that you ignore will still drive and hit you because you ignoring it will not affect its existential state. Let me give you an example: I am a great Pokémon fan. But at one point in life I did not bother watching all the anime episodes again. I just did not bother. But I did not treat them like "they didn't happen". Because it does not have any effect. It is like me writing a letter to you, you choosing to ignore page 2 or simply acting as if it never was there and then claiming I did not write it and what was there did not matter for the expression of my inner world. You cannot decide that. That is the entire point. So why even bother using words like "disregarding"? When they want it to be canonical, it is canonical. If you want the power to change that, you have to buy the brand. Just because you disregard something does not mean they have to consider that in their next step. Actually it is the other way around. Or well, you just look away. As long as you know it will not stop it from existing and actually mattering.

I like the fact that when Sakaguchi created the franchise, he made a rule that said no direct sequels and forced the teams to be more creative with each new installment and I love how that concept fits well with the series title itself by each game being the "Final" Fantasy of their respective worlds.

Hironu Sakaguchi is one man who worked on Final Fantasy and he had the idea, yes. But he is not the only one, a whole company who owns it made it and as it stands right now, his position is not even that of an employee anymore. The company has evolved, just as Final Fantasy - though I would still say this whole "Final Fantasy is different" is an incredible exaggeration.
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Nojima on the otherhand just doesn't write the type of stories I like, and while I can agree he comes up with clever ideas, he just can't seem to follow through with them to my satisfaction, so its a little easier for me to blow off his authority cause I often disagree with his ideas.

I dislike a lot but I don't blow off any authority because it is not in my power to do so. I am nothing but a consumer of a product and treat what they create the same way I treat your words: I would never come out and say "NO YOU MEANT THAT!!! I KNOW YOUR INTENTION AND THEREFORE YOUR COGNITIVE COMPOSITION BETTER THAN YOU!!!!1111oneoneone".


That was some obvious hyperbole. You get the point.
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[quote]If it makes you feel better Motomu Toriyama is probably closer to someone I actively dislike that works at SE; but that's largely due to his hissy fit about the Western fans after XIIIs release, along with my general dislike for his storytelling and game design choices.[quote]
This is not about me feeling better and Toriyama-san is not the storyteller of Final Fantasy XIII-XIII-3. Daisuke Watanabe is. I on the other hand am shocked about how this forum thinks of it as funny how he looked when he was approached about many people disliking his work. This shows the very face of the world. Those people really think they have done nothing wrong with his incredibly sign of disrespect and yes, no matter how people try to twist it and try to come up with some excuses about how he deserved ultimately just reflecting the "I don't care" statement, by the end of the day approaching someone publicly and then people laughing about that and these people not giving a crap and don't even see what the problem of this is, THIS is bothersome.
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Its something mentioned off hand in the Ultimania guides for VII. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either as you can tell from me pointing out some logical errors, which is what we're kind of arguing about.

I would like to know what exactly you are referring to because it might just be a misunderstanding.
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Whether its boring is in the eye of the beholder, but frankly I felt the film was a bit too vague and people simply assumed Sephy just redid what he did in the game with the actual clones despite that not really being possible anymore.

Eh, its not like it is absolutely and under no circumstances possible anymore. It just was another take of all of that and so the whole cell leftover thing was done.
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I'm not bothered by Noctis being absent but I strongly feel it would have served XV better had it been implemented as a gaming experience in the early chapters to run counter to the slower and more blissful events of Noctis and his entorouge trying to get to a wedding. It also would have been a great way to expand Lunafreay and Regis' characters within the main game and we could have even had a taste of power section playing as Regis.

For me it would not have made much of a difference. I knew Luna from Kingsglaive and still wanted to see more of her in the main game and I don't mean seeing the movie scenes as well but really more. This is what for me is actually substantial for FFXV other than having a backstory of three marionettes in the movie instead of the novella.
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Sephy will answer this better than I could since my first foray into the film was a bootleg copy a friend acquired the day the film released, but I'm pretty sure the novellas were part of the Japanese boxsets of the films original release.

The novella is a collective of stories released over a certain amount of time. On Square's website Case of Denzel was readable when AC became a thing and the moment it hit theater a short prologue book with Case of Tifa and Case of Denzel came out. The rest was added a bit later then. It does not really matter though because it was always a widely known thing that there was some additional backstory for AC. I mean, it is not even the only backstory book that exists for FFVII.
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Indeed, what did any of those character have to do with anything besides force Cloud (and Tifa) to jump from one extravagant fight after the next, simply so we could follow a story whose entire purpose is really to have that five minute fight with Sephiroth, which is about the only thing people really remember about the movie besides wondering what the hell happened to Reno's personality.

You are hanging out with a great peer of one and the same people oppressed by peer pressure then. And I hope you are not one of them.
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but Cloud's story is kind of redundant

As a computer scientist the term redundancy in such a context hurts me. How is Cloud's story redundant? When was the last time he felt absolutely depressed about a friend dying, blaming himself and almost dying because of it, totally locking himself away from the rest of the world?

the children being infected really never amounted to anything meaningful

The children were used as cell radar and as another expression of the world's suffering. Also the children are the future life of the planet. How are they useless? It is like saying the True Ending of Zelda Breath of the Wild with its very last moment is useless/random when it is not. Zelda is back. And in a flashback before you see her picking a Princess Flower being sad that it might be the last one, standing for a) the flower's life, b) Hyrule's future, c) Zelda being the last of her kind and then BAM, Ganon is defeated and we see Zelda and a whole damn Princess Flower field with the camera stopping directly in front of one because it is a symbol for Zelda's future, the flower's future and Hyrule's future being saved.
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and Reno and Rude drop any pretense of their cool persona to go full on Gilgamesh for the flick cause we needed some humor.

THAT is wrong. Reno and Rude were never as intense as you remember them. The original installment, so the Japanese one, always gave them a somewhat mixed character. The Western version still got a bit of the whole thing but not enough. Crisis Core did it better. The Western version of Reno in FFVII appeared even though he showed some his funny moments, way too serious what he actually is. It is a shame - the stuff is still there and there are a lot of scenes where it can be seen but in the middle of all the transition something og that was simply lost.
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It was also not surprising that Vincent, one of the fan favorites of the film got more screentime than the rest of the supporting cast. In fact the major characters from the game that feature prominetly in the plot are largely the favorites from the game.


The film largely runs on Rule of Cool and the plot always felt to me like it was there to string it all together. So its hard not to call it like I see it.

I have a problem seeing that as another problem. If it feels forced for you then I can understand that because I feel like that about FFXV.
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I would have preferred finding a new way to explore Cloud's character, especially since we never really got a good grasp of the real Cloud in the game.

THIS is one of the things I hate the most whenever a fan of FFVII says it. "Real Cloud is that". That is psychologically absolutely wrong. You can say that as a metaphor but using the word real is heavily misunderstandable. Cloud suffers from the Final Fantasy VII version of a defensive mechanism called "Confabulation". The brain prevents itself from getting damage by repressing troublesome parts of your very psyche/memories and replaces the surface with convenient bits and pieces to create half-truths. It does not make him any less "real Cloud" in a technical sense than when he is healthy. This is NOT the same as dissociative identity disorder. This is not a case of "Johnny Depp in The Secret Window". Cloud in Final Fantasy VII suffers from a mental sickness that James Sunderland in Silent Hill 2 also suffers from. In Final Fantasy VII they just went with the whole JENOVA stuff. I don't even know if they know what Confabulation is. With a dissociative identity disorder your brain splinters your psyche for the splinter to get its own consciousness/ego. THIS is the essence of a literal other and own individual being, even if it originally came from someone else. But with Cloud that is not the case. The "echo" he hears and he talks with and who we wonders about who that is, is not "an actual second or the normal Cloud", it is no "other consciousness of a second person that lives in that body". It is not a Sora & Roxas case. This talk is nothing but a subconscious echoing. The guy we see all the time IS OUR Cloud, he is just not fully restored and aware of what he normally is like and as a matter of fact a lot of what is his normal character is still very much on the surface. Aerith even noticed what came from him without Confabulation. Maybe you do not mean in in a literal sense but I cannot help but pointing that out because existentially this is a great great great difference. If you just give it a metaphorical meaning, fine.
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So to have him simply reguritate the same drama as before was kind of a letdown and simply felt like the writers were too lazy to come up with anything new, so they simply rehashed the old story. To be fair to AC, Square-Enix does this with most of their sequels, but what's the point of continuing a story if you're not going to really do anything new with the characters. This is why most sequels fail anyway since a majority of them are just more of the same as the first film.

You must hate Star Wars 7.
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I can see where it wouldn't be an issue if you've never played the game, but that brings us back to the plot and lack of developing the rest of the cast leaving the viewer needing to consult a secondary source to really get the full picture. I can't say it's a good standalone film. Great CGI work? Yes, but for me it, lacks any substance to validate it so its really just some flashy visuals and a nice way to kill a few hours before moving onto something more mentally stimulating.

I have the feeling you did not understand the ACTUAL message of the movie. The message was "Final Fantasy VII is back." And the Compilation is far from being over. It was even back in 2008, so AFTER Dirge of Cerberus and Crisis Core were out when they said "The Compilation's finale will need another form".
There is a reason why Sephiroth says "Watashi wa ... omoide ni wa naranai sa."


Sephiroth is not gone for good. And Genesis has not awoken for some beer in the next tavern. Advent Children was the key to open a door again.

[Example]

I used to like it when it first came out, but after completing FF7 for the first time a few years back I understand and even agree with why it's so hated. Even setting aside the fact that it doesn't make a lick of sense unless you've played the game, it's the ultimate nostalgic cashgrab that was 100% made for the money, no different than the notorious straight-to-video Disney sequels. It just went through the motions without doing anything new in terms of story, character development or lore, and it's even worse due to the majority of the game's beloved cast being shoved into the background to make room for three uninteresting, nearly identical villains with the same personality. At times it even detracts from the original FF7; it almost seems after playing the game for over 40 hours you never accomplished anything at all, since Sephiroth is destined to come back and probably still could come back at any time, and the Shinra corporation that had caused so much damage the planet is still in operation.

Basically it just had no real reason to exist besides making money off the fans.

[Goldenboko]

Off topic, sure, but it warms my heart to still see 5 paragraph essays posted here about whether or not these games and movies are magical art or awful trout.

[silentfuzzle]

Off topic, sure, but it warms my heart to still see 5 paragraph essays posted here about whether or not these games and movies are magical art or awful trout.

That's because this movie warrants this discussion. People don't talk about its merits enough!

The action scenes (really for a lot of people, the movie's main sell) don't really do much for me because there's no personality to it. A fight can look as cool as it wants, but extended fight sequences are supposed to be more than clashing swords in 30 different cool ways. Empire Strikes Back has Vader trying to lure Luke into the carbonite freezer (while also showing that Luke relies too much on his light saber and too little on the Force), Pirates of the Carribean shows Will's dedication as a blacksmith and a swordsman, Princess Bride establishes the relationship between Wesley and Inigo Montoya, and characterizes Wesley as a show-off. Advent Children has people doing cool flips and trout. I will say, I like Tifa's fight scene in the Church; it's brief and they worked her limit breaks into the choreography (actually reminds me of a lot of scenes in the Street Fighter II movie). The Sephiroth fight also has dramatic stakes as Cloud's super outmatched, but I agree with Kanno that it doesn't exactly make sense for Sephiroth to be as powerful as he is.

Not sure what you mean by "there's no personality to it." The fight scenes should have a goal other than to fight? Show the characters strengths and weaknesses? Show the character's personalities? Show the character's relationships? Reference moves from the game? Have dramatic tension? I could probably list how every fight scene in Advent Children does all these things, but I can understand if you didn't see it.

Too much is left out for the movie to feel like its own product.

I'm not sure if it's supposed to feel like its own product. Putting "Final Fantasy VII" in the title automatically warrants the question, "Where are the other six?" I think it can be enjoyed on its own though, especially considering that I'm probably the least familiar with Final Fantasy VII and its related games/media on this thread but enjoy Advent Children as much as or more than anyone else.

I feel like another problem with the movie's writing is that every non-action scene with Cloud (of which I think there are 3?) is the same:

Rufus: Cloud, help us save the planet...
Cloud: Not interested, let me grieve

Tifa: Cloud, we gotta save the kids!
Cloud: I'm not up for it, let me grieve. Besides, Reno and Rude have this.

Vincent: Exposition, also are you gonna head back to save the city?
Cloud: I dunno... I could grieve
Marlene: Seriously?!
Cloud: You know what, yeah, I'll give it a shot.

There's more than three (Cloud and Tifa in the church, the scene where Kadaj dies, Cloud with the townsfolk at the end of the movie...). The scenes you've listed are all from the first half of the movie, which is where Cloud gets his head together. I don't blame you for remembering only these scenes though. They're good ones! Also, half of Cloud's character development takes place in action scenes, so it's a little unfair to only count the non-action scenes.

I think the fact that Cloud is angsty is awesome. He actually feels like a human being. Action movies with confident/headstrong protagonists with no other perceptible weaknesses are boring to me. It's shocking how weak Cloud is despite his super strength and physics-defying abilities.

I'm not really an Evangelion fan, but I like Shinji Ikari because while the character is known for his insecurities and not wanting to act, a large amount of his screen time is spent on his relationships with other characters. He's allowed to exhibit a range of emotions; he gets flustered, irritated, prideful, content.

Cloud exhibits a range of emotions as well. Sadness is the one he talks about, but in the action scenes, even in the first half of the movie, he shows confusion, anger, cockiness, relief, confidence, fear, surprise, etc. They're all in the reaction shots.

Basically it just had no real reason to exist besides making money off the fans.

So when comparing it to the game, you hate Advent Children, but when not comparing it, you liked it? Advent Children is arguably a bad sequel, but does that make it a bad movie?


Advent Children actually does some really interesting and unique things with its story, character development, and filmmaking techniques. Consider that this is an action film that features a personal drama about a guy struggling with the deaths of two friends and memories of past enemies. This story could have taken place in a brand new universe, but it instead told this story through Final Fantasy VII elements. The film tells its story almost entirely through action and visuals as opposed to spoon feeding an obvious tale through dialog. Finally, it is a fully computer generated, feature length film that approaches but purposefully avoids photorealism and stars human characters that successfully cross The Uncanny Valley. This is an extremely unconventional action movie, both the story and the way it is told.


I'd also argue that this film makes sense but can be difficult to understand regardless of whether you've played the game or not. There are certainly things that only Final Fantasy VII fans will understand or care about, but I think almost anyone, fans and non-fans, can relate to Cloud and follow him through the film's strange setting. The problem is that Advent Children rarely uses dialog, and when it does, the characters rarely explain to the audience what's happening. The film gives its viewers the respect and space to put its pieces together themselves, which opens it to interpretation. It has a story... but only if you take the time to find it in its action and visuals. Unfortunately, many assume that it doesn't contain a story, or a good story, for a multitude of reasons without even examining the movie.


I find it hard to believe that this film exists only to pull money out of fans. It attracted many new people to Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy in general. You sound like one of them. Of course, the creators wanted to make money. Artists need money to continue making art, and this film can be examined and classified as art. Its association with a video game only makes it more often examined and classified as fan service. This film chose to experiment with CGI, a very young storytelling medium, and unconventional filmmaking techniques over creating a straightforward tale stuffed with characters, details, and references to the game as every other fan service film would do. If it exists only for fans, then why did it do so much else?

[maybee]

Movie I sold for about $5

[Fynn]

So much I idealism in this thread