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The Nextlander Watchcast Episode 115: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
🕑 Added 2024-11-18 23:21:07 +0000 UTCWe close out our November the only way we know how: with a bad movie. A bad Final Fantasy movie no less, in Spirits Within. Join us as we pick apart this troubled and expensive production, our own histories with Final Fantasy, and just what it is that happens to your soul when one of those phantom things eats it.
CHAPTERS:
(00:00:00) - The Nextlander Watchcast Episode 115: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
(00:00:51) - Intro.
(00:03:46) - The brief, expensive, and unremarkable life of Square Pictures.
(00:05:43) - There's SOMETHING here. It's not enough of something, but there's SOMETHING.
(00:13:50) - The cartoon villainy of James Woods. And also the cartoon villainy of James Woods' character.
(00:18:32) - Getting into the production history.
(00:35:44) - The first digital actress (and Maxim model), Aki Ross.
(00:40:16) - The aftermath of the movie's failure.
(00:42:53) - Our star-studded cast.
(00:53:20) - Briefly touching on the decidedly not-Final-Fantasy-sounding soundtrack.
(00:55:35) - Break!
(00:55:55) - We're back, let's get into Aki's dreams!
(01:02:26) - What Aki's getting up to.
(01:09:11) - A good old fashioned spirtual science argument.
(01:13:49) - Epic prank, Neil.
(01:17:59) - Hein's mandate, and realizing what's going on with the dream.
(01:20:48) - Finding the seventh spirit.
(01:26:38) - Fascist idiot does a whoopsie and wipes out New York.
(01:35:24) - This last act is ROUGH.
(01:48:56) - Final (Fantasy) thoughts.
(01:54:49) - Outro.
Comments
Stephen Powell
kinda new here, dumb question, I thought they talked over the movie mst3k style? Is that something else, or just not a thing?
csl316
Starring it girl Aki Ross, featured in Maxim! I can laugh now, but holy hell, a digital actress. Just like Laura from Enemy Zero and D! Felt like the future.
DeviTiffany
What I think is so interesting about this movie, is that they tried to make Final Fantasy but somehow made a Star Ocean movie instead
Jason Wineinger
I couldn't find a clear image but the Maxim page for Aki has a blurb that starts out with, "why should Hollywood be concerned with an impending actors strike?" 💀
Michael
Same! It’s a tear jerker and perfectly placed.
Bart Lievaart
The digital actor stuff about Aki reminds me of Kenji Eno's plans for Laura as a 'digital actress'. He used her model in D, Enemy Zero, and D2, all as different characters. It's a solution that makes sense when it took so much work to create a model, but feels quaint looking back.
Paul Dronet
I genuinely love that last song sung by Lara Fabian.
Matt Hannum
Was that Jeannie Moos for CNN up at the top there?
Michael Jacobson
With the final thoughts of a "Square Smash Bros", they did have an opportunity to put an Aki Ross reference in 2016's World of Final Fantasy (I never played it so maybe they did). I also had a thought when you were asking about other mature audience CGI western theatrical releases. Outside the cynical joke that's what Marvel movies are, the only other thought I had was 2007's Beowulf. So yeah, at least not much to point to at least with what comes up in my mind?
LandonVanBus
Super excited for the Batman Returns watch in December. It is an absolutely horrible Batman movie but is probably the best non-Ed Wood Tim Burton movie.
Michael
I stand by this actually being a really solid film. It’s definitely no masterpiece but it’s far from bad and unwatchable. One thing to keep in mind that I think the guys missed is that this is very consistent visually, where other animated films from this time are much more wonky and thus more distracting. With this in mind and the obvious heart in some aspects of the storytelling + the generic but still well executed military stuff means it holds up in my eyes. I remember the backlash at the time and being a little confused even then, felt like a bandwagon since it flopped in cinemas instead of commentary on the film itself.
Alice
I asked out my high school crush on a date to watch this movie and I think if it was better my life would've turned out very differently.
Dr. Judge, Private Eye
As someone who absolutely loves bad movies, and knows they're at their genuine worst when they're boring, I cannot wait to hear you make chicken salad out of this chicken shit.
Joseph Tavano
You crazy bastards. You were so preoccupied with whether you could that you didn't stop to think if you should. I actually love this movie. RIP Square Pictures.
