Forum - View topicREVIEW: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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I'm happy that most people can recognize that it's a fun movie if you're a fan of the game and really a pretty terrible one if you're not.
The "fan" in me loves this thing, warts and all, because it's just nostalgia. The critic in me knows it's a load of crap with impressive CG work. Sometimes you have to draw that line. Any critic worth his salt will recognize the movie's extremely obvious flaws, which is what Carlo did. |
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TranceLimit174
 Posts: 958 |
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I love Advent Children but you can't argue with the review. They just fabricated a shell of a story to bring everyone back together. It's great for The FFVII fan but for a non-fan it's something that doesn't make a whole lot of sense but still looks pretty. Personally I really enjoyed the fights (although I think they really pumped up the characters power-wise, don't care though still loved it). Yes Advent Children is a movie that just cashes in on nostalgia, but you know...it did the nostalgia well. That's why I think it's held in such a high standard despite the lack of any real substance.
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Hunter Sopko
 Posts: 259 |
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Slight difference in this case. Eva fanboys are at least Eva fanboys because of the series' merits. Advent Children is mostly being rated on the game's merits. |
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Ataru
 Posts: 2306 Location: Missouri (Strikeman) |
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Yeah, FF7:AC is like one of those Hong Kong Action flicks without English dub or subtitles. Sure is fun to watch, but if you haven't played the game, you'll be lost... execpt if you watch the Story Dairy, that'll give some people a clue or two on what's going on. None the less, I liked it and recommend it to other RPG gamers or people that like CG.
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Shiki MSHTS
 Posts: 738 Location: NoVA |
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Pixar is very much quite awesome, but I think that to compare the two is somewhat hard to do. Pixar movies typically excel all around, but the designs are never quite discribed as "realistic", though they're quite awesome. Square seemed to go with their current trend of photorealism, and in that aspect, I feel they really did make the new "industry standard". Don't get me wrong. I'd enjoy just about any Pixar movie more than this. They're just not entirely comparible. I think it's hard not to agree with the review. Cloud and Sephiroth always have struck me as highly generic characters, with not many strengths other than "I can utterly ignore the law of physics and swing around a 50lb sword with one arm." Eh. What can you say? it's eye candy. |
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SnowStar_7*
 Posts: 87 |
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I just bought this movie two days ago. First time I think I've actually bought a dvd on premiere week! Well, I had to take advantage of the almost ten dollars off sale on first week.
I admit it I have not ever played a Final Fantasy game. I remember when I really wanted to buy one of them a long time ago even before I was an anime fan so I had always been attracted to the look. When I saws creencaps of it in Newtype I knew I had to buy once it came out here. I knew right on that I would perhaps not understand much, but like a few fandoms I'm into I bought it for the spectacular animation. I was not dissapointed in the least in that aspect. I forwarded through the whole movie looking for the action (which most of it is anyway) parts. My favorite one was the one with Cloud and the guys motorcycle duel. Perfection. I have seen a little of the making off and loved it when the guy said that they opted to not making it realistic (movements and such), and I agree what's the point in that? I still have yet to see it all through though. If anything this movie encourages people to buy the video ames. Ahh, those marketing strategies. 
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Dachande
 Posts: 89 Location: Savannah, Ga |
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I've relaized that with the exception of Cloud, Tifa, and Vincent all the characters from the game are absolutly useless and seem to just be put in there for the people who like them, much like a fighting game anime.
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Hunter Sopko
Posts: 259 |
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I dunno. Cloud only seems generic now because of everything that came after him. At the time, he was pretty original and had some good story behind him. I'm a fan of his plot twist. Sephiroth, however, you're right. Sephiroth has about as much personality as a crayon. And not one of those fancy Crayola ones either. |
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Nagisa
Moderator
 Posts: 6128 Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh |
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Designs are one thing. Emoting and conveying character motion through those designs (the former of which Advent Children was rather stiff and unconvincing on...either that or obnoxiously emo, same difference), pushing the story along through the animation as well as through script, and using such animation principles as timing and exaggeration to achieve more convincing motion, however, are something else entirely. And it's in the fact that Pixar utterly smokes Advent Children in all of those regards that continues to make them and studios like them the standards of the industry (and, incidentally, what makes their films so universally beloved outside of a single, obsessive niche). As for photorealistic CG characters, I think WETA still has the industry cornered in that department. Just because they don't make animated features doesn't mean they don't do CG characters, after all. |
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Shiki MSHTS
Posts: 738 Location: NoVA |
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I won't argue with you on overall mastery. Pixar overall, definately has it down in essentially every important catagory. However, the markets aimed for, dispite the technology used, are substantially different. Pixar's features mainly appeal to a very wide, broad, family oriented crowd, with stories that stand alone extremely well and characters that are anything but generic. Advent Children was aimed towards a very specific crowd; mainly the fanbase of the original game, with a few curious outsiders as well. I think this is what made AC so overall blah (and is the point which has been stressed quite a lot in this thread). It's essentially impossible to enjoy it based on the story alone, Cloud and Sephiroth are still annoyingly generic and simple, things show up without explaination, new abilities emerge when most convenient (which is every 5 minutes), and the whole thing ends in the most predictible manner possible. Dispite all this, I still cannot help but applaud the animation itself (granted, the emotions are very stiff, but I mainly focused on the action scenes), which is the best I've yet seen (I'll note, I'm not familiar with WETA). Overall, of course it can't compare to Pixar, but I don't think it was ever really intended to. |
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DarkTenshi90
 Posts: 440 Location: Nebraska |
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I actually really enjoyed the movie. Heck, I obsessed over it when I downloaded it, and then now am re-obsessing because I just bought it. Preferably, the dub wasn't great. Aerith seemed more depressed than well... happy, in my opinion.
... and Cait Sith had an Irish voice.... that some how fit... But yeah, my dad was never a big "FF Fanatic" but he loved the movie. I'm happy that Square made a digitally animated film that doesn't have "goofy looking characters" in it... well, most of it anyway, you should catch my drift since Cait Sith ain't in the movie much... and yes, I know Red XIII talks too. Really, though, everything about this movie was eye candy. I mean, you have the awesome fight scenes (I actually prefer the motorcycle scenes a lot, especially the big Highway Chase), and really, it never had you bored. I felt at the edge of my seat when I was first watching it. So yes, Square-Enix is a genius to continue their FFVII series with a movie and ... three games. I wish the cell phone game would come out here, though. 
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darkhunter
 Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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Wow 2003, that's 6 year after the game was release. I guess you have to play the game back in 97 or be a long time rpg fan really appreciate FF7. If they ever do a remake, I'm sure it would do a lot better than the rpg they're coming out now a days, Grandia 4 anyone? 
Nope, the Turks is also important. And it helps to know all the mechanics like Materia, limit breaker, summoning and so on. It's not up to the movie to explain all these aspect, because it expect you to know the original game. Overall, AC had too many long drawn out fight scene that goes on forever. |
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Successful_Troll
Posts: 132 |
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The difference between Grandia III and Final Fantasy VII, is that Grandia III had a pretty mediocre story. Final Fantasy VII was just bad. I'm not at all surprised people are buying Advent Children, it's very graphically impressive. That's pretty much the only thing that sold VII when it came out. I still don't understand how so many people can fawn over Final Fantasy VII, yeah, if it was the first RPG you played it might have clouded your judgement, but surely you've played one since then? I mean the odds are that if you've played an RPG since VII you've played a much better one. I just hope they don't make that remake for PS3, or we'll have to hear another generation of graphic whores talk about VII for another decade. |
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W-General
Posts: 280 Location: Ithaca, NY, USA / Taichung, Taiwan |
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Yeah I have, a lot of them. However, only one actually was better, it's called Xenogears. #1: Xenogears #2: FF7 #3...N: The rest. |
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Aromatic Grass
 Posts: 2424 Location: Raleigh, NC |
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Me too. If I were to rate it on ANN's scale, visuals = Masterpiece, story = So-so. Actually, I have rated the overall movie Masterpiece only because I didn't really care what happened, as long as there was more "Ooh, shiny." I probably should reconsider that rating, it's not very true to what I really feel. I also agree that Pixar's stuff looks "better." |
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), while studios like Pixar are still held in the highest regard as the main "standard" to strive for.
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