Thoughts of the movie

[Ishin Ookami]

In FFVII, it was a team effort to save the planet, in Advent Children, cloud does it all himself. Which wouldn't have been so bad if he wasn't such an A$$ hole in the film.

Except that, you know, it took the entire team to help give him the momentum to reach Bahamut and strike him. It looked like a grand team effort to me...

team effort to save the planet, in Advent Children, cloud does it all himself.

Meaning team effort, everyone working together to defeat the main enemies, like kadaj, loz, Yazoo, and sephiroth. And notice during the fight against Bahamut, only cloud lands any real damage against bahamut. And only cloud can defeat the three new villains in combat. Only cloud fights Kadaj. Only Cloud fights Sephiroth. The films real subtitle shouldn't have been Advent Children, It should have been Cloud the Bipolar and his Amazing Super Friends.

Like I said, it wouldn't have been so bad if cloud was actually likeable. FFVII has some interesting characters like Vincent, Yuffie, Cid, and Red XIII. Why not actually let them have a respectable amount of spotlight?

You asked why someone would consider the rest of FFVII's main cast to only being relegated to clouds comic relief, that's the answer. Because THEY WERE relegated to the background. And when a film takes it's best characters, and makes them bit players in their own film, something is terribly wrong.

You seem to be under the impression that was meant to be a group sequel film. It wasn't, it never was, and certainly never meant to be. This started off life as a 15 minute retrospective on Cloud and his life after events of the game. It then grew it something larger, but the main focus and point was always on Cloud.

Thank you for answering your own question about why someone would complain about all other characters besides cloud being relegated to his comic relief.

Also, we all saw the film. and yes, only cloud defeated kadaj, sephiroth, yazoo, Loz, and Bahamut. Shooting at bahamut and hitting it, perhaps hurting it slightly doesn't count as defeating it. Fighting against Loz, and yazoo don't count as defeating them. Which is Advent Children's main weakness. It's little more then a fanfiction dedicated to how cool cloud is. It's the "Wolverine" syndrome at it's worst. Wolverine is a cool enough character in the X-Men Comics, but he is over-exposed and at times made to be a bit too tough, which makes him irritating. Ditto for cloud, but he isn't even a likeable character. Making the film a 90 minute+ wank fest over how tough he is just makes the film even worse. Yuffie is cute, amusing, yet has a sense of duty and tradition in her heritage. Vincent is cool and mysterious, as well as conflicted about his past. RedXIII is conflicted and attempting to mature, to follow in his fathers footsteps. THESE are characters I wouldn't mind seeing given a good 90 minutes or so to develop in their own film. If there IS another FFVII film, then I hope square hire's a better script writer and puts one of these characters in the spotlight.

But the fact is, they weren't relegated to comic relief. They each played a roll and helped out in the battle. There was nothing laughable about anything that they did. Only Reno and Rude, and a lesser extent Cait Sith, were actual comic relief. If hitting it doesn't count as defeating it, then Cloud did not defeat Yazoo and Loz. Reno and Rude did. Then they all exploded and killed Cloud and themselves with the blast. And it was the entire group that gave Cloud the strength and momentum, not to mention Aeris, to defeat Bahamut. And if it wasn't for Aeris, Cloud would still have the Geostigma and would have fallen to Kadaj. Like it or not, even if only Cloud, Tifa and Vincent were at the forefront of this movie, they each played a huge roll in things.

Cloud appearing to always be tough? I guess you didn't really see the film or play the game then. The entire concept of the game was that he thought that he was weak because he didn't live up to someone else's expectation or ranking of him, when in reality, he truly was. And again, throughout the entire game, it was only his friends helping him along and to discover his true self, that helped out. This is mirrored and repeated in the film, with Cloud all depressed and feeling weak, until Tifa and the others aid him.

I guess you didn't see the movie then. Because EVERY major battle was decided by cloud and cloud alone. Hardly a weak pressence in the film. Noone else got half the spotlight that cloud did. Vincent barely had five minutes of screen time, and tifa has one lousy fight scene, then she is either pathetically weak, whining, or relegated to being clouds cheerleader. I hope those are not what you consider to be major roles.

Also the term, Comic relief, does not only apply to those who are supplying the humorous lines or portrayals, it is also a cinematic term used to sum up the role of background characters of no real importance to the film. Think about it, take out Cid, Yuffie, Barrett, Cait Sith (Please, take him out) and Red XIII and just how much does AC lose, next to nothing. Take out vincent, and all you lose is a explanation as to just what Geostigma is and an explanation as to what kadaj is. Take out Tifa, and all you lose is one mediocre fight scene, and a whole lot of whining and inexplicable pining over cloud. These are what would be known as tertiary characters, or to use a more common, less wordy term among cinematic circles, comic relief.

Hence why calling everyone else but cloud in the film, comic relief, is technically accurate since noone else but cloud did anything of real importance. Save Aerieth, but aint she supposed to be dead. Dont get me started on how stupid it is to have a dead chick solving all the films problems. I can kinda see all the scriptwriter sweating over cloud flying through the omega flare, wondering how he survives this one, then a guy walks in cosplaying as Aerieth shouting "never fear, Aerieth is here" and the scriptwriter just tosses his hands in the air and says "hey why not?"

Also, I find statements like these to be rather contradicting...

Cloud appearing to always be tough? I guess you didn't really see the film or play the game then. The entire concept of the game was that he thought that he was weak...

So, cloud thinks he is weak but is actually strong. Great, instead of being yet another "Wolverine" type character in AC, he's wolverine, except he whines alot. How exactly is this supposed to be in any way a charismatic concept?

Also note we are not talking about the game here, we are talking about the movie. Hence all the Advent Children topics everywhere in this thread