The cartoon, which at one time became a breakthrough in the schedule, failed at the box office. With a budget of $137 million, it only grossed $85, and that destroyed Square Pictures, which was its first and last film. There are several reasons for Tom.
The film does not have a target audience. For children, it is not bright, not emotional or colorful. For teenagers – not funny, not scary, not romantic, aliens are not revealed, fighting scenes are just no. For adults, it is not vital, and there is no depth in it, only an illusion of such. Finally, for players, it is not associated with any game of the eponymous series (this already looks like cheating fans). Yes, Final Fantasy games generally have different parts about different worlds and heroes, but it was about the film adaptation of a certain brand, and they decided to film one title. That utter reluctance to think about the audience destroys movies almost always. Yes, there are exceptions for some ingenious works that can conquer the whole world with a swing, but to bet 137 million that you will succeed on the first try was ridiculous. The authors were dreamers, they believed in success so much that they had already planned to turn Aki Ross into a virtual star, who would later live as Gorillaz and Hatsune Miku. Isn't it too early for Napoleon's plans?
Second, there's no plot. Yes, the characters shoot someone, fly somewhere, but no character is revealed and not remembered, they are all cannon fodder that the authors introduced to quickly drain. No place of action arouses interest, and in general there are no locations: while in other films they play on colorful cities, landscapes, colorful worlds, there are only cramped corridors. The romantic line is weakest, the villain is simply no, the concept of Gaia is distorted. There are almost no interesting turns. Except for one thing: How did the invaders survive on a fragment of the planet? They're ghosts. Well, yes, it's an interesting twist, but then nothing follows.
Also, the film sets a certain concept: for the story to happen, you need to collect eight spirits to run a powerful spell at the end. So the Glavheroes are busy grinding! It could be a plot for a bad game, but not for a movie. Okay, let’s say we have movies where the plot is a set of side quests, like Gone in 60 Seconds or Forbidden Reception, but there each subject is a separate adventure, dynamic, beautiful, each time different. It's still a questionable concept, I don't like it, but at least you can work with it. The cartoon lasts about 100 minutes, and theoretically you could fit into it eight interesting scenes about collecting Pokemon. But it starts with the fact that we have almost all caught, there are only a couple left. Imagine that Terminator 2 begins with the characters blowing up Cyberdine. What is this piece of history? Particularly ridiculous was the detail that the last component of the phantom substance was actually one of the ghosts. Is any particular ghost an antiphase to itself? Well, it's some random nonsense from a children's play in the yard.
And after all, ghosts are absolutely faceless, they do not develop any relationship with them. Even Godzilla, vampires, robots, aliens, predators, have some personality, some face to which a certain attitude develops. And here the heroes deal with ... phenomenon. Light tentacles fall on them like a fire. So what?
And finally, the strangest solution in the concept is to keep talking about Gaia, about the Earth, about the importance of life and the soul, while showing only black and blue corridors. This directly contradicts all the installations of Final Fantasy, which was originally built on beautiful luxurious technofantasy worlds, on the feeling of a huge journey, not only physical, but also the journey of the spirit. And he's not here. Heroes immediately have technology, resources, army, ships, they immediately know what to do, they have some tactics, and they adhere to it. Flights in space for them is not a miracle, but work. Well, they do have the magic of Gaia, but they know it from the beginning. In the film, everything that could give an impression is routineized.
The film has no ending. After the climax, it stops immediately. Well, yes, the heroes won, but the authors had nothing to say about what would happen next to these people and the world, because none of it was interesting.
Thus, there is nothing to look at here except the counton. And in his time it was really fantastic, but right now it's just the mid-cut scene level in games. And no, I don't think it was any bad, incompetent or harmful project. On the contrary, the authors tried, believed, they tried to do with the soul, the heroine is beautiful, there is an attempt to create an emotional connection of the viewer with something philosophical, cosmic, global. And I even have a liking for murky, not-so-made fiction. But -- it didn't work. This is very sincere, but very weak and unprofessional.