FFVII: Advent Children

[Griffith]

Ok I admit one thing: it's not perfect. perfect might be the wrong term for it, since it can't be any better then. That's true and I withdraw that "perfect".

Wow! I'm so proud of you! Hey, maybe in a few years you'll even realise it's not very good. I'm sure they'll have more "stunningly perfect" CGI by then, anyway.

But I think it's stunning. It's outstanding. And it's way more than a random movements & flashlights piece of shit. But you wouldn't admit that even once.

Because I don't feel that way. If it impresses you, that's super duper, but don't just blow it off when people point out real flaws in that perception. Are positions aren't equal, my position is simply that it sucks, you were claiming it was a "stunningly perfect achievment." Obviously, that's a much higher standard with a greater burden of proof (impossible is more like it). It's fine if it's your personal favorite, but don't act like it's objectively the best thing ever made and we should all just see that.

not close to a 100. and not a single one i would support.

Of course not, it's so stunningly not-quite perfect, and reading reasons why it's not might get in the way of that unfounded opinion, right? Speaking of which, why don't you answer to CnC's in-depth critique of the graphics and animation? Why waste time arguing with a bad guy like me? Aren't you going to blow him away with your awesome reasons for why it's good?

He wrote a huge post explaining why it's not so good and you just ignored it. This is exactly why I stopped wasting time trying to have intelligent debates in these situations. You say I've changed, well look in the mirror and see why. Oh, and reply to CnC if there's any real strength to your convictions here.

and please do me a favour and post another of your pictures now. may every stupid shit on this board enjoy it.

You'd probably think it was perfect.

 

[Ramen4ever]

As a person who's never played more then 20 minutes into the game (lack of time), I feel i must post on this ( again)

*note i still think it was decent.. for reasons such as, Tifa has nice ( . Y . ), Vincent has a awesome cloak/coat thingy ( his sonic boots are  flaming though), and compared to other animes i tried to watch recently, it wasn't half bad.

now back to what i wanted to say.
1. I had no idea what the hell was going on for most of the movie, and relating to Walter's comment, I wasn't quite sure how the children were linked in the movie, except for having geostigma, and getting funky eyes after drinking water contaminated by Kadaj' curlies ( pubic hair) -cont* 5.-
2. I had to read a full spoiler story on the game and a lil history about the game, before i started understanding the story.
3. the music was way too over dramatic at parts. Parts that weren't very exciting.. Like the part where clouds fighting Sephy and this music kicks in with a screaming choir.. they sound like there saying Sephiroth at one point. Of coarse this music is at a in between the fight scene, as some black dust/cloud like stuff is falling torwards the city "wopidy-doo" nice way to add a extra 50 seconds to the movie.
4. all this leads me to think that the producers cut back funds half way through production, resulting in as CnC stated, a lack of facial expression ( or more like quality animation.. but i have to give them a lil justice, the characters looked really real like, as long as they didn't smile or do anything real ppl do). as well as the over dramatic scenes i mentioned before. I guess they tried to make something " big " but came up short.. its like the saying " you cant make a castle out of shit"
5. as for the plot or story, i still got no idea how kadaj and the other two came into being? a test tube? what purpose do the children serve, other then giving a excuse for cloud to ride his pimp ride, and adding tension by cloud being at the mercy of Kadaj for a brief 2.4 seconds or so. another thing, the flower girl.. forget her name, her story is never fully explained apart from the couple of clues that point to her death.
6. how did cloud get geostigma?
7. Is Sephiroth the only decent main bad dude the ppl could come up with.. i hope he doesn't return, yet again.. in Dirge of Cerberus.. but you never know, maybe they want to throw out creativity ( something they excelled by creating so many diverse FF's)
those are the first things that come to mind. the only other things i wasn't quite sure about was how they could fly 200 ft up in the air and survive the fall.. but the laws of physics never did exist in anime (exception Rurouni Kenshin OVA 1-4, omg lvl of amazing-ness )
..so yea i should have been brief and just said. without playing the game or reading a full story review on some website, i would of had no idea what was going on, and to some part i still don't.

 

[Majin_Tenshi]

Since I still haven't received a valid justification for it, and the topic is quite alive, I'll reiterate my question: Please explain the movie's focus on the children in AC; what role did they serve in the movie?

I believe this is one of many possible valid criticisms of the movie. Not only does the lack of the children's involvement in the summoning of Sephiroth nullify a good portion of the running time, it makes the logical leap of Kadaj's Sephiroth transformation that much more incomprehensible ("Oh but Wally, Kadaj is a seed of Sephiroth!" Right, explain that to me again in layman's terms, since I'm unfamiliar with FF7 botany.). Sure, the Sephiroth scene was prosthetically DRAMATIC, but what function did it (or the entire movie for that matter) serve for the plot that wasn't already resolved by the original game?

From what I remember, the Sephiroth clones had the potential to become "another Sephiroth." That having nothing to do with AC, it was something from the original game. On my original playthrough, once I got to the northern crater and saw that Sephy had been there for years, I concluded (erroneously) that I'd been chasing possessed clones around the world.

Kadaj or someone says that they're "ghosts" or something. (A little reading beyond the movie says that they are remnants of Sephy's memory that survived his death, but surviving Sephiroth clones works too.) They didn't know how to become Sephiroth, they just knew thats what they wanted to do. I think they knew about the Jenova Reunion theory and knew that getting more Jenova cells was on the right track. The Geostigma victims had J-cells, so they tried messing with them a bit, didn't help.

One could argue the whole movie is about Cloud getting over the regrets he had left over from the run of the game, and his fight with Sephiroth showed his his willingness to, y'know, live his life rather then live by his regrets.

http://www.ff7acmovie.com/articles/ff7ac_reviews_and_analyses/cloud's_6_piece_sword_in_ff7ac.html
Check the 3rd page if nothing else.

 

[Walter]

I meant the little kids, rather than the capital C children. As far as Cloud displaying character development in getting over his regrets, he'd already gotten over them at the end of Disc 3. The scene with Tifa outside the Highwind proved that to me.

 

[Majin_Tenshi]

Meh, that was "The world's about to, I oughta go out at least half happy" >.>
<.<
>.>

They managed to do a little character growth in Cloud, just not from where they left him off.
Though, really, he had saved the whole planet. Thats quite an accomplishment, but its pretty much downhill from there. I mean really, doing deliveries? Thats gotta seem relatively pointless. Probably had plenty of time to dwell over mistakes as he rode between cities.

kids, like Denzel, or like the gif of the baby with the AC shirt? Kadaj and them messed with the Denzel and the other kids cause they had J-Cells and as was proved later, J-Cells were what was needed to become Sephiroth.


Ohyea, and on the subject of Dirge of Cerberus. As strongly tied as Vincent is to Sephiroth, I wouldn't be at all suprised if they throw Sephy in in some fashion. Hopefuly as nothing more then an optional boss, preferably some sort of dream sequence type thing.

 

[Griffith]

Cloud was vaguely sad at the beginning of the movie and at the end he's vaguely not sad; big development.

Real revolutionary stuff, it was certainly worth 90 minutes of unrelated filler and reneging on the ending of the original. =)

 

[Walter]

kids, like Denzel, or like the gif of the baby with the AC shirt? Kadaj and them messed with the Denzel and the other kids cause they had J-Cells and as was proved later, J-Cells were what was needed to become Sephiroth.

But... the kids weren't used in the summoning. Hence my point.

 

[Majin_Tenshi]

It did contributed to the whole "Kadaj's gang doesn't really know what they're doing" bit though.

And GNM, just in case you've gotten the impression that I feel the need to defend the movie, I don't. I found it entertaining, much the same way that I found the ending of the Hellsing anime entertaining. Allways fun to argue though, when I can come up with points.... and addressing them might actually be helpful, like my point about Cloud having peaked at the end of the game.

 

[Walter]

It did contributed to the whole "Kadaj's gang doesn't really know what they're doing" bit though.

Which in turn, contributed to about 30-40 minutes of time wasted in the movie. The children's nullification makes entire scenes moot. Great structure, Square!

 

[Griffith]

And GNM, just in case you've gotten the impression that I feel the need to defend the movie, I don't.  I found it entertaining, much the same way that I found the ending of the Hellsing anime entertaining.  Allways fun to argue though, when I can come up with points.... and addressing them might actually be helpful, like my point about Cloud having peaked at the end of the game.

No problemo, I'm just glad I didn't INSULT you in the process, requiring us to get into a 2 page flame war. =)

 

[CnC]

No problemo, I'm just glad I didn't INSULT you in the process, requiring us to get into a 2 page flame war. =)

wait. You mean this ISN"T the "take offense at previous poster thread"?? shit! my bad, folks!

And,
Lets hear it for the Kadaj group! The finest group of ladies ever to grace the cinema!

 

[trapped_soul]

Alright,

CnC if you say the facial acting was overdone, then i can't follow. If I look at Tifa's face for example when she's talking to Marlene during the scene near the flowers - I think that's really breathtakingly good facial animations. It feels right for me. If it doesn't for you, I don' t wanna mess with that. I still think it's awesome.

Why do I like the movie?
AsI've said several times the overall quality of the graphics were stunning to me. It really surprises me that y'all think otherwise, but that's the way I see it. I don't wanna convince anyone to take my point of view, Griff, but I just wanted to find out how you can consider AC sort of the worst animated movie that has ever been created - be it from a graphics/image or storyline/char point of view. I don't get it, for I enjoyed it very much. I expected great graphics with a decent story and they gave it to me.

Concerning the story.
I thought the role the children had to play was pretty obvious? Since the children were infected with the geostigma - jenova cells corrupting their inner lifestream - the were to be used by Kadaj and his pals to complete the reunion. They all wanted to unite to create _the real_ Sephiroth and figured this was the way to do so. It didn't happen after all, since Cloud & co crossed their plan.
And as for there being no Story... it's definitely true that the movie doesn't work for itself, but i figure it's simply not meant to be! Yet if you are familiar with the aspects of the Story of FFVII including Shinra, Mako-Reactors, the lifestream, Sephiroth, Cloud's past, the Cetra and Jenova, you should know there's a whole lot to it. And AC was built on this story. This one wasn't challenging i admit (and that's also why i withdraw my "perfect") but it wasn't bad at all.
Since CnC said "There's no plot. Period" I made a brief reminder of Dwarfkickers
resume for it obviously negates that conclusion. As far as I am concerned I thought the story was ok. AC standalone of course doesn't work, i don't have a problem with that at all.

What's is your problem with the movie? It's one thing to deny it's a great show - but to call it a plotless piece of shit does simply not reflect what it is very well.

We're coming from totally different perspectives. And we cannot find out the truth about the movie, because the experience depends on the attitude when you watch it and it's merely subjective.

 

[yota821]

Ugh, every time I watch this movie (yeah, I've seen it more than once.... ) I can never stand to listen Tifa's voice acting. It's grating to the ears, and in one of the (supposedly) emotional/dramatic scenes of the movie (where Tifa is confronting Cloud about is doubts) she sounds monotonic and emotionless.

Trapped_Soul, you apparently ignored Majin Tenshi and Walter's comment on how the children didn't have any relevance at all. Repeating an answer that has been shot down before really doesn't give you any relevance.

 

[trapped_soul]

Trapped_Soul, you apparently ignored Majin Tenshi and Walter's comment on how the children didn't have any relevance at all.  Repeating an answer that has been shot down before really doesn't give you any relevance.

i was writing my message at the same time as they did.

 

[yota821]

Fine.

Walter inferred in his post that he raised the same question before, and that is was never satisfactorily answered. I'm too lazy, but perhaps you could peruse the previous pages to find where he raised the question, was answered with the same argument, and was similiarily shot down?

 

[Walter]

Well since the children are unjustifiable, I'll give you AC fans another chance!

Kadaj summons Bahamut to retrieve Jenova's head from the fountain in Midgar (he even makes the children hold hands around the fountain, so I should have already known it would have been another moot scene). Bahamut creates a lot of havok in the process, and the main cast has to appear from nowhere to throw pointy/spikey things and or shoot at it futilely, until Cloud can appear to leap 2 miles up in the air and slash it in two with the power of Grayskull.

As it turns out, Jenova's head was in Rufus' arms the whole time. That being the case, what was the point in wasting the audience's time with the Bahamut scene? Why was it even introduced? Wouldn't it have been more wise to have tied one of the summons to... oh, the main story?

Examples like this make AC's story just plain insulting to the audience. If it were a 90 minute tech demo with no aspirations to a sequel or a plot, fine. But why try to justify it with this.. this.... asdnf43wtnmm,n aw53q4 sdfgq34 ERROR aksdgakw ERROR ERROR INPUT ERROR asdfaset3 AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

[CnC]

Dwarfkicker's resume again, huh? You must have read my thread in detail...

but what the hell, why not repeat myself, I love to hear the sound of my own typing...

I'll leave the equation of plot = shit to someone who understands the plot of the game a bit better. As you said yourself, its meant to have the game as a crutch instead of being a standalone story. In my opinion, thats not a movie but to each his own. I'll let someone else deal with that.

CnC if you say the facial acting was overdone, then i can't follow. If I look at Tifa's face for example when she's talking to Marlene during the scene near the flowers - I think that's really breathtakingly good facial animations. It feels right for me. If it doesn't for you, I don' t wanna mess with that. I still think it's awesome.

Nope. In fact the entire scene is cold and lifeless. I've seen better acting done in a soap opera.
And now for the "why" (this is the step you should utilize more often, your ability to feel is not a "why")...

The problem with this scene doesn't lie in its animation alone, though, as the foundation is weak. Before they even begun animating they more than likely blocked out the scene and had their voice talent (hehe) record the dialogue. This is where it can go horribly wrong. They aren't acting on a stage or in front of a camera, they're stuck behind a microphone. And whats worse, it sounds like they actually got a child to act. If this isn't the case, call me impressed, they actually found a woman who both sounds like a child and can't act well like a child. The acting is weak, there is no audible connection between the two actresses (its even possible they had to do this separately, but thats extreme). So then it comes to the motion capture people, and there are many ways they could have done this. They might have actually found a young actor to play the part in the suit and they could have done the scene together with the bigger actor, but the result leads me to believe that this was done with 1 actor doing the scene twice in different roles. My reasoning is just how distant the two seem (even though they're supposedly supposed to be close here).
Now on to the facial animation. This step was lacking for the same reasons that I've stated in my previous thread (control is limited to lips, eyelids, and eyebrows). There was a reliance on body movement to promote thought, as you could not discern that the actors were thinking from their facial expressions (i.e lack of movement). If tifa was thinking her head was pointed down and the animation done by the motion capture had to be used. It might be easier to describe by comparing this to a work done by pixar.
Pick any pixar character you want, if they're in thought, chances are you can tell not only that they're thinking but what they're thinking about purely from the facial expression and the movements of the eyes. Now back to FF:AC.
One thing that was well done about this scene, in terms of facial expression, was Tifa's look while leading marlene on. She has a good look of not only curiosity but borderline giddiness. I liked that but unfortunately Marlene's lack of adequate response brought me back to my chair and out of the movie again.

As I've said several times the overall quality of the graphics were stunning to me. It really surprises me that y'all think otherwise, but that's the way I see it.

And on that note, I'd like to include this point:

Final Fantasy: Spirits within was better designed than Advent Children.

Now to explain that point before I'm tarred and feathered...
Decent rendering from Square is expected these days, so the quality of the textures, models, ect. is expected. They still do well to that end. Its so much of a given its barely worth mentioning. However on to what creates a visual appeal, its design...
And with that, I'd like to point to a specific artist, Craig Mullins
Mullins along with a kickass team of matte artists, designers and concept artists created an extremely visually appealing world in Spirits Within. Just check the link, Mullins can create a disturbing amount of reality by just painting roughly but by using light. The matte paintings as well as the set design in general were not only interesting, but made for a better viewing experience. I think the success of Spirits' look was that they had a blank canvas to start with and talented artists to work with.
Now fast forward to Advent Children. The outside environments all run into each other (in terms of color). The designs also suffer. Why this sudden lack of creativity? Simple, there was nothing to design. The artists already had a game to base the designs on, there was no need to go too overboard in funding the design department. Just the basics will do. Just recreate the sets that the fans would recognize and you'll have accomplished the goals this movie was set to do. The only real establishment shots (they were used twice, btw, recycled footage) were taken directly from the game (as I recall).

We're coming from totally different perspectives. And we cannot find out the truth about the movie, because the experience depends on the attitude when you watch it and it's merely subjective.

Not only was I watching the movie from a standpoint of not knowing what to expect, I was watching with noteable optimism. My memory of the game was a bit sketchy, but shit, this was an entire movie done by square! they're known for at least having visual appeal.
I don't know how my attitude could have been any more accepting of this movie.

 

[Uriel]

Examples like this make AC's story just plain insulting to the audience. If it were a 90 minute tech demo with no aspirations to a sequel or a plot, fine. But why try to justify it with this.. this.... asdnf43wtnmm,n aw53q4 sdfgq34 ERROR aksdgakw ERROR ERROR INPUT ERROR asdfaset3 AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Colonel? Do you read me, Colonel?!?!!!

 

[w00t]

First of all - outstanding thread - has kept me amused during my lunch breaks.

Secondly - I finally got around to seeing the film last night. I'd rather have watched a dying man masturbate.

Complete and utter shithouse.

 

[Zelz]

I loved it... if just for the action. Thats one of the main reasons I watch a MOVIE anyway.

 

[Walter]

I loved it... if just for the action.

WWF: RAW IS WAR!!!!

Come to think of it, professional wrestling and AC have a lot in common. The character drama and plot are there as an excuse to see people beat each other up.

 

[SaiyajinNoOuji]

WWF: RAW IS WAR!!!!

Come to think of it, professional wrestling and AC have a lot in common. The character drama and plot are there as an excuse to see people beat each other up.

Don't insult my "rastling"

 

[Vaxillus]

But the guys in WWF wear speedos. Then again, Advent Children has more metrosexuals. Hm, here's a real question, which is more homo-erotic?

 

[SaiyajinNoOuji]

But the guys in WWF wear speedos. Then again, Advent Children has more metrosexuals. Hm, here's a real question, which is more homo-erotic?

http://www.actressass.com/W/wwe_divas/wwe_divas_smackdown.jpg

Going to have to go with FF:AC on the more homoerotic part.

 

[CnC]

I can't keep track of who has "the somethingoreanother belt", anyways, so I can't comment the wrestling. But then again, everyone in FF:AC looks like a woman...


What was the question?