WANTED: Reviews for the frontsite.

[Soul of Tarsis]

I wouldn’t say most of the people who were criticising the film did so because it wasn't a ‘Final Fantasy' movie. Indeed, out of the 100 that I read a good deal of them had never played a Final Fantasy game. I must admit though, there were some truly terrible reviews there. I want to kill the guy who tried to say that the phantoms were based off pyrflies with a rusty hook. Many of the reviews hit the problem with The Spirits Within right on the head: It’s boring. I’m not going to debate whether or not this movie was good or not in this thread though; I see you’ve made another thread on this particular topic that I might add to later.

My main problem with that particular paragraph is that is changes the tone of the entire review. You’re no longer saying that the movie was ‘misunderstood’; you’re saying that the people who saw it lacked the intellect to understand it. You then go on to comment on FFVII’s style of storytelling, basically stating that it lacked substance. Finally, you say that it is mainly FFVII fans which criticise TSW, which at the very least is stretching the truth. Combine this with your statement that ‘Hironobu Sakaguchi overestimated the intelligence of his fan base’, and you have a rather clear criticism against both FFVII fans and the game itself. What I am saying is this has no place in a review about The Spirits Within. If you had then gone on to comment on the various other groups that would have disliked this movie (eg those unaccustomed to the 'Anime-ish' style of storytelling), this comment may have been more acceptable. As it is however, it needs to be either added to, or removed entirely.

If you doubt FFVII was more flash than substance, than I suggest you at least rent the GBA version of FFIV. There are some moments in that game that are as equally cinematic and epic as any FMV in Final Fantasy VII such as the assault on the giant of babel or the destruction of Mist. though most would call FFVII superior because of its production values, to which I'd say no. Just more accessible.

Believe it or not, I’ve completed FFIV: Advanced, in addition to the chronicles version as well. I can honestly say that while I thought FFIV was an epic and compelling game, it couldn’t even begin to match the complexity and depth of FFVII-X inclusive, or indeed FFV. Hell, even the ‘2000 year time loop’ in FFI made you think a little; the only aspect of FFIV that I could say fascinated me was Zeromus.

There is a difference, and if you paid attention to my posts, I have no problem pointing out FFVII's and Advent Childrens good qualities, just as I have no problem criticizing their faults

The comments that you make every so often about how awesome the Turks were are slightly overshadowed by the colossal amount of posts you’ve made about the various aspects of the game you thought were half-arsed. You‘ve pretty much taken every opportunity you‘ve had to voice your opinion on the AC, and most of the time you are just reiterating the same points over and over again. If you didn’t have a vendetta against the FFVII compilation, you wouldn’t waste your time discussing it as much as you do.

….in the same way I did criticize sakaguchi for trying to tell too much story in just over two hours. This I felt was Spirits Within's chief weakness, too much was attempted and there was just too little time to do it in. But overall I felt Spirits Within had far more strengths than weaknesses, and I hope that Mist Walker is successful enough that sakaguchi will be able to deliver more films and take what he learned on spirits within and apply it there, while I hope that Nomura actually bothers to watch spirits within and takes notes on how to direct with some coherence

Perhaps at the same time, Sakaguchi can watch Advent Children and learn how to keep people paying attention for more than 10 minutes before falling asleep.