[dr . bang]

Well, it was almost soldout but luckily i still got in. Anyway, the movie's CGI was amazing, better than i had expected, the plot was not the best ever but its the best this summer. But there are some minor fault in this movie like the mout movement and the expression of the face but those things are very minor, and it doesnt change my movie experience a bit. Go see it if you can, it was well worth the 10 bucks for me.

[exo13]

Whoa, 10 bucks? What theater did you go to?

[Helferlein the Guildmaste]

Hmm, it's out in canada. So it will be out here sometime next year here in germany

[Frosted Flame]

Yea, I saw it last night too. It was fucking phenomenal. I couldn't believe the realism they achieved! The doctor "Sid" looked SOOOOO real. My mouth was hanging out the entire movie. There were some pretty cheesey lines, but they weren't THAT bad. It's well worth the money just for the visual experience alone, in my opinion.

[oneiros]

I liked it a lot actually. I agree with dr., the mouth movements were so-so, but early in the movie i decided to ignore them. The were a couple of scenes in which I thought the voice acting was just plain painful, but despite those things, this is a movie I'll see again. If anything, to be able to see those ships again. OMG. talk about awesome modeling/texturing.

The storyline was actually a bit better than I expected, and it felt at least inspired in part by the some of the elements of the plot in one of the earlier games (won't say which to avoid any possible spoilers).

[PlantMan]

I found some pictures of some of the meshes they used and they looked ok... So how come it is so realistic? I heard they painted the textures manually but surely this would take FOREVER?

[schabe]

is it better than "shrek" ? well, imho "shrek" wasnt that technically innovative but it was funny. anyway, have to wait some months to see ff

[Lunatique]

Saw it last night. I was disappointed. I waited over 2 years for this movie.

You guys have to remember something: eye candies does not a good film make. It doesn't matter how polished the CG looks, if the voice acting, plot, script, direction and everything else lacked, it is a failure as a film.

As far as the CG goes, there has been CG of similar quality coming from intro animation of Japanese games(Silent Hill 2, Tekken Tag, Resident evil: Code Veronica..etc).

The truth is, there really is no point in making a photo-realistic CG film if you CAN'T do the lip-syncing and facial emotions perfectly. What you end up with is a cast of characters that look like funny looking versions of "real" humans, and act very stiffly. Why bother? There is absolutely No reason why they couldn't do this film in live-action(maybe even save some money), and have it looking just as good if not better. BUT, I appreciate it as a statement to the world that "the age of CG film is here. Watch out, this is just the tip of the iceburg!"

Also, I think making a photo-realistic CG film is pointless. I think the technology is better suited to created stylized characters that can take advange of the whole idea of "doing what you can't with live-action." I would love to see a CG film done with characters that aren't any more realistic than the ones in FF8. Sort of realistic, but highly idealized. I also think that showing EVERY spec of dust and wrinkle is actually a bad artistic direction. You should PICK your details, and ommit them when they are not important. The same way people pick and choose what to show in a painting. That way, it'll truely be a work of art instead of CG trying to copy the look of live-action films.

Just my 2 cents.

On another note, I saw AI right after FF, and I enjoyed that FAR, FAR more. And I was dreading it since I'm a Kubrick fan. AI managed to make me feel emotions and care about the characters, which is not something I can say about FF.

Just to clarify, I love CG. I wouldn't be in the game industry if I didn't.

Now, I'm looking forward to Planet of the Apes, and Lord of the Rings.

[dr . bang]

"You guys have to remember something: eye candies does not a good film make. "

The film is ok by itself, what makes this movie seems bad is its the dialogue. For the voice acting, i guess its a lesson Square learn, to not let the actor do all the voices before the movie is completed.

"it is a failure as a film. "

It's a success for the first attempt, and some minor mistake in a dialogue and mouth sync doesn't make it a failure.


"Also, I think making a photo-realistic CG film is pointless"

The point of photo-realistic CG film is to show the world how far computer animation can go.

"You should PICK your details, and ommit them when they are not important. "

It's weird but sometimes people pay attention to the most unimportant part of the scene. If they don't see any details on those part, the obvious thing that comes up to their mind is "this sucks, the CGI is not very good at some part!" There are millions of viewer out there, you can't just expect them to focus on one point.

[ July 12, 2001: Message edited by: dr . bang ]

[FatPenguin]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lunatique:
There is absolutely No reason why they couldn't do this film in live-action(maybe even save some money), and have it looking just as good if not better.

---

That's not quite true. Even though getting a cg character to look somewhat photorealistic is very difficult, once you have the characters made, you have no limitations to the kinds of situations you can put them in. Having characters walk around in huge futuristic cities, or flying around in zero g and so on becomes relatively simple once everything is in 3d.

I saw the film yesterday, and fortunately i entered the cinema not expecting to see any more than a fancy demo of nice computer graphics. The visuals are certainly nice. The voice acting is horrible, the characters are stupid (especially the perfectly evil villain) and the plot is nothing special. But i would still recommend than anyone go see it, just because it will be remembered as a significant piece of filmmaking

[Pat]

Heh. The best part of the movie was seeing Yasushi Nirasawa's name quickly followed by Craig Mullins' name in the end credits. Yay Craig!

-Pat

[J Bradford]

I saw it, and I must say the CG was fantastic. I understand how hard it is to do, but I thought perhaps the facial expression could have been slightly better, although I was impressed enough as it was. The movie was motion captured, which is something I detest, but they did something to the characters to seem like they were animated by hand. "Sid" was my favorite character in terms of realism, it seemed with the beard he had more like to him.

[Briareos]

What do you expect from someone who has never Directed a feature film. The artistry was out of this world though. Great stuff.
I want to know which were Spooges paintings! I hope he can post 1 or 2 if he can get the OK from Square.

[n8]

ur kidding...spooge dun sum stuffs for the movie??..ha...i really have to spend more time around here..and as far as real peeps vs cg goes, they can also make the camera do amazing things in cg, no limitations to where it can go..nywho..yeah..

[smalls]

IT WAS AWESOME!!!!! I saw it opening day..mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... did i mention..mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... for real... soooo good.. the graphics make you drool and the story line is really quite good.. yeah

smalls

[Jabberwocky]

Okay this movie being so ralistic won't actor be worried about losing jobs? If it take on all you'll need is a good voice... oh well job security for us!

Going to see it tomarrow.

[Ahcri]

I just saw it today. I loved it. However, even though the characters' skins are very detailed, the models still look unnatural. It still have a hardness to it, except for the hair, Aki could have easily be in a shampoo commercial. But sometimes under zero gravity, Aki's hair srill floats unnaturally. And it's always so perfect, it never messes up. So I think actors will not lose their jobs just yet, CG models still look like plastic dolls.

[Chris]

quote

Quote:

Okay this movie being so ralistic won't actor be worried about losing jobs? If it take on all you'll need is a good voice... oh well job security for us!

I was sort of debating that to in my mind, but I didn't feel the charactors in the movie at all. Like when some died (not telling who ) I didn't feel any remourse. The honor in that one guy shooting till his death, I didn't feel like I did in other movies in the same situation. I don't know, maybe it was me, I just can't feel the charactors yet. I think human actors still have a long career ahead of them

[Jabberwocky]

Well I saw it today and they weren't as real looking as I thought they would be... They were good and all, but almost to good... no natural faults.

quote

Quote:

Like when some died (not telling who ) I didn't feel any remourse. The honor in that one guy shooting till his death, I didn't feel like I did in other movies in the same situation. I don't know, maybe it was me, I just can't feel the charactors yet. I think human actors still have a long career ahead of them

I have to agree with you there, but that one guy who was the "bad guy" was really pissing me off though, and when she was talking about the 7 year old girl she really didn't have much emotion in her face as she did in her voice.


And was it just me or did that ending SUCK.

[Blade]

Ok I havent read ALL the posts so far but I dont feel like it and I just want to put something out there for you to think about.
This movie may not be the best in terms of the packaged deal, but it brought something out onto the table for all directors to take a look at and say hey, I think I might be able to do something with this.
If you take the game Everquest, it was a great innovation, I played it and liked it, some hated it, but you gotta take a step back and see what it did for the online gaming community. What it did was get other gaming companies to think about this type of game and see if they cant make something worthwhile give it some more edge, more interative, fix it a little bit here and there and eventually there are going to be some AMAZING mmorpgs. (massive multiplayer online role playing games) Of course its just a game I am talking about, but the same principle's can be applied to this movie, look what it brought out to the market. It made a big hype and everyone took notice no matter if it was great all together or not, but since everyone took notice everyone is going to start thinking about this and expand and make it better. if you dont get what im saying by now then either im not saying something right and im not going to anymore or you just dont get it.

[travis travis]

I haven't seen it yet, but what I've seen of the CG puts a spark in even my jaded heart. they really worked their asses off there. I can also tell that the whole dramatic/story telling element, i.e. - the movie - was pretty much blown. I'm sure there's a bit of eastern sentiment there that offers natural refreshment to closed western minds, but if it's all played out so 'soullessly' (that's a confusing way to put it when they are achieving artistry on one level but unfortunately neglecting many more relevant ones) then from the critical view, yes, it is for naught.

even so, I'm sad that it only did a paltry 11 million dollars it's opening weekend. great achievement in visual arts is better then no great achievement at all... I wouldn't care to see it rack up all the dollars with it's gimmick, but something more proportional to their efforts and expenses would be nice.

p.s. - being steeped in computer art like the rest of you, its just impressive every step to see how much they really had to push, innovate, really reach out and try to break new ground with their CG techniques. I think we all know how in general CG tends to be cookie cutter bad, and to innovate is really tremendous work plus artistic spirit, and I'm sure they missed a bunch of points here, but the point is, no one else is even remotely trying on a level like this

[ July 16, 2001: Message edited by: travis travis ]

[Dan3d]

The main problem with the lip syncing and facial expressions (IMHO) is that everyone else seems to get this right! i mean, even Bugs Life and both Toy Stories had convincing lip syncing, body movements and facial expressions. It should not have been any more difficult to achieve something similar (as far as emotion and lip syncing go) in Final Fantasy.

The person who posted that this movie could have been filmed better with live actors is absolutely correct. It would have been easier (and cheaper) to integrate the live actors into the CG sets and the movie would have been a lot better. But then FF wouldn't be a completely CG film.

Other than the "humans", the film was totally awesome! A friend and I discussed this film and we came to this conclusion. If Square had rendered out stills fromthis movie and made a detailed comic book from it, then it would have been totally awesome!

[PandaX52]

I liked the ending, it left things open in a weirdly feminine way...The movie wasn't horrible...but it wasn't absolutely incredible either, allthough I did leave the theater satisfyed that I had finally seen the damn thing...

[Jabberwocky]

I was empressed with it... , but "drawn" movies such as Titan AE had a lot of human movement and facical features... I was really empressed with that movie...

I was okay with the lip and words not going together. My b/f love Jackie Chan so I watch a lot of his first movies...

And about having human actors instead... would that make it a lot like Tomb Raider... game to movie! It being computer image set it apart.

[ambient-whisper]

they werent going to use live models no matter what. square is a cg studio. and they did just that, cg. they wanted to show off how far they could take cg. and not just make a movie. think this movie as their ..."demoreel"

[Guy]

well i loved it! story and all. sure the lip sync and facial expressions wernt perfect, but its still pretty fucking good. some of the better cg stuff ive seen. its not perfectly real, but im not going to let that ruin it for me. i try to never expect to much from a movie or game or whatever. it helps to leave me feeling more satisfied then disapointed in the end.

[ July 19, 2001: Message edited by: Guy ]

[FireFry]

I agree with what guy said.
Now a days people's expectations of games/movies/whatever are so high they usually leave themselves feeling dissapointed.

I though the movie wasn't bad. Definitly won't be breaking any grounds other than in the CG department. Acting and storyline obviously could've been better, but for a first try in a photorealistic cg motion picture I think they did a good job.

I'd just hope that they'd use that movie as a model of 'what works, what doesn't, what needs improvement' for when someone else attempts at making a movie similar to this.

just me 2 cents

[Perplexer]

Seen it last night for the first time-- F*CKS ME UP! Any critique is a waste of time... i mean incredible! Unfortunately i only got to see an mpeg2 rip, but i can't wait to see the thing in all its crystal clear brilliance on the big screen! I LOVED the end- anything else would have been cheesy.

[dr . bang]

i chosed not to download this movie off the net, even when i have the chance to! Either i go see it at theather right now or wait for the DVD.

[Perplexer]

your absolutely right bang, its normally not a good thing to do, but i just couldn't wait any longer. i have been waiting years for this movie to come out and seeing everyone talk about it here i just HAD to do it... i'm sure the theater experience will blow me away once again anyways.