Final Fantasy?: The Spirits Within

by Moux Cow Petau

Like many RPGamers (and non-RPGamers) out there, I had a chance to venture out to my local AMC Googlaplex to see Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Expecting little as I walked through the sticky aisles to my seat, I was soon staring in awe at the screen in front of me.

As I'm sure is the case for many of us, the first thing I thought was "Wow, is that a real human eye?" The detail in the movie was absolutely astounding. There is just no other word for it. From the abandoned Times Square to Aki's hair (20% of the programmers' time was spent on it alone!), Square Pictures really did an excellent job not only with the visuals, but with the details that went with them.

Now, what's so different between this and, say, Titan AE? Well, unlike Titan AE, The Spirits Within actually had a great plot! For the sake of avoiding spoilers and/or since most of you know the plot anyway, I won't talk about it here; however, I will say that it finally does honor to the "video-game-made-into-a-movie" genre.

This, however, brings me to my main point (and the reason there's a question mark after Final Fantasy up top). There were only two parts that reminded me even remotely of it being Final Fantasy-related; those being Cid and a part near the ending. Why then was it called Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, as opposed to maybe just The Spirits Within?

There are two possible arguments to this question. First of all, we all know that no two Final Fantasies are totally alike. Each game takes place on a completely different world, with different characters, different enemies, and sometimes even different summon monsters. Therefore, by this logic, we could conclude that The Spirits Within is just like any other chapter in the Final Fantasy series.

Then, there's the second argument that hides behind the "Square can do no wrong" mentality in the back of my head, which is that Square simply attached the words Final Fantasy to sell the movie. As much as I'd hate to disbelieve this notion, I think this is why they decided to include the Final Fantasy prefix.

But why? Why would Square need to do something like that? Don't they think that we (their loyal customer base) would go see the movie whether or not it had the name Final Fantasy attached to it? Oh sure, of course they expect us to go see it. However, we also need to consider that none of Square's games have really been huge sellers in the United States - Except for the Final Fantasy series. Therefore, to maximize the recognition of the movie, they had to include "Final Fantasy" in the title.

There's one more notion that crossed my mind. When was the last time that Square "used the Final Fantasy name in vain" - that is, used the name for a completely unrelated project? Well, if you remember back in the early 90's, Square wasn't exactly making a huge profit. Therefore, in order to maximize on their releases, they gave practically every game they released the name Final Fantasy - from the Seiken Densetsu series to the SaGa series. Now then, flash forward ten years. Once again, you read that Square is having financial problems. In addition, they have gotten themselves into a $100 million film project. My theory is that, because none of their other projects have had the kind of success that Final Fantasy has had, they weren't confident enough to release a movie simply called The Spirits Within. That, my friends, is why we know it as the Final Fantasy movie. Now, with all this said and done, I still have one more thing on my mind: since Square is exponentially more popular in Japan than they are here, will The Spirits Within carry the Final Fantasy title there?