Future of CG movies, why did FF fail?

#81

that was one of my main gripes too. that shrek was full of old one liners, given to expensive actors ( which are “getting old” imo ( mike myers, and eddie murphy in particular. )
story wasnt too interesting either. some of the virtual sets werent all that great, and on the dull side. ( some looked awesome tho ).
it just felt “cheap” like scary movie, where the whole point is to try hard and make fun of whatever topic.
what i did like a whole lot was shreks facial animation and some of the extras on the making of shrek.

#82

The main animation was good, but the background people looked like puppets with only 2 key frames. There was a feeling of corners being cut. Same thing on Antz… very simple backgrounds, but good characters.

#83

some very good points in this thread…

however, to this day…this model still brings out the fanboy in me :buttrock:

#84

Originally posted by KWAK
[B]some very good points in this thread…

however, to this day…this model still brings out the fanboy in me :buttrock:
[/B]

While that certainly looks good, it just goes to show that Final Fantasy looks great as still frames, but looks horrible in motion. One gets the feeling that the people in charge on FF:TSW judged how close to realism they had come solely by rendering quality, paying little attention other than “character X needs to walk to point Y in Z seconds” to the animation end of it.

#85

He looks nice, but with all that work, the jeans are still rubbish.

ergo. (woot) the films cg still isnt that jaw dropping amazing.

I think everyone is a bit biased today because of the high standerd of modern stuff compared to this, which is getting old now, in CG years at least (thats a year to a week i guess)

#86

My theory is if the movie wasn’t called Final Fantasy more people would like it. I bet lot of the people that saw this movie were Final Fantasy fans. They were expecting it to be like the games. If they called it Space Ghosts the Final Fantasy fans that saw it would of liked it. And its kind of surprising how the story sucked on the movie. Usally Squaresoft makes great stories. I wonder if they even had the creaters of Final Fantasy games do this movie. I bet the Squaresoft company from US made the movie thats why it probly sucks.

Well if your going to make a movie called Final Fantasy, shouldn’t it do something with Final Fantasy.

Considering the group you are trying to really attract, your core and demograph would be Final Fantasy players and admirers. The fan base is in the millions world wide!!! Wouldn’t you want to shoot for that crowd and attract the rest through that crowd?

Point being it was Final Fantasy without the Fantasy.

The movie was like making Xmen with out mutant powers

Making Spiderman with a man in a black jacket and jeans

Making banner simply turn green without any massive changes.

Making Peter Pan without pirates or lost boys

Making Godzilla 20 feet tall

Final Fantasy failed to capture its core audience. If you played the games and knew the stories in the games you probably wouldn’t like the move as a Final Fantasy movie, maybe a movie but not a FF movie.

No Chicobo’s, no swords, no visible monsters with meaning.

You had the Gaia, and thats about the jest of it.

Woopie freakin doo!!!

FF the games have an anime feel to it. Have an epoch feel. This was just some dudes with guns, no memorable characters. I ddin’t care if the character died or lived. They were boring freakin soldiers.

Where were the characters?
1 Cute girl
2 Boy Hero
3 The rogue leader
4 the goofy monster
5 the tough guy monster
6 the mechanical genious
7 the cleric
8 the chosen one
9 the summoner
10 the warrior
11 the ninja
12 the knight
13 the young adventurer
14 the loner alien

you had

  1. Scientist chic
  2. soldier
  3. soldier
  4. soldier
  5. soldier
    6 soldier
    7 soldier, soldier, soldier and another soldier

and not 1 stankin Chicobo

Not Final Fantasy at all

Not the standard anime characters

No Swords

What were they thinkin? Ooooh real hair, wow, I’ve seen Poser characters that look just as real.

Siskel and Roper gave it 2 thumbs up. Yeah, they really have an idea of what a movie is. Half the stuff they choose as good bores the heck out of the average folks.

CG was great, but even it itself was boring. I can see real people in real life. Hello name of the movie is FINAL FANTASY!!! Not Final REality.

#87

I can appreciate that FF fans would be disappointed. However, I’m glad I’m not a fan, follower, fanatic or player of the FF series - and enjoyed the movie!

The lipsync and facial expressions needed much more to give the characters life. Otherwise I thought it an okay use of my $8, and I pull it out every once in a while to view on DVD.

The Gaia twist and the earth spirit/mech weapons contrast worked for me. I liked the creature and mech designs, and the references to “Aliens”. I liked it as a SF tale with a twist - not entirely successful, but fun to watch nonetheless.

Much more fun than Wing Commander - ugh.

#88

Well, thats like comparing which piece of crap tastes better… WC or FF…

Its a lose-lose situation. Atleast FF has some really nice looking renders… you could play some music over it and have it play in the background at party…

#89

I don’t entirely agree. Wing Commander was a poor movie, especially in the “love story”, overall direction, and design departments. There were a but few moments that worked, between the lead and his “mentor”.

Final Fantasy was ambitious and succeeded in many more areas: voice talent, concept design, overall direction, matte painting, lighting, music and editing.

They needed more time devoted to character emotion (face animation, lipsync, nonverbal communication).

#90

lol whats wrong with the guys pants they look fine to me, maybe its cus u think their jeans when they arent? FF hold sup pretty well visual wise cus its fairly stylized it will look older as time guys by but its got enough stylization to hold up fairly well

#91

Point being it was Final Fantasy without the Fantasy.

Preach on BROTHA!!!

That’s exactly the point. Most people watching it were expecting something totally different. Something to do with the continuity of the games at least. Where are the Chocobo’s?!?

Dude, thats their whole point, to make the movie look as realistic as possible…

Look, my point here is this, there was no other reason in doing “the most realistic CG movie ever” than the soul purpose of, as what someone already pointed out, SHOWING OFF. Tell me please what other purpose does square have? what exactly are they trying to do with this movie? Tell a good story or show people how real fake characters can truly be? Yeah they looked good, but could they act? hellz no!

I’m not disputing the fact that the actual CG of final fantasy was AMAZING, in fact, i applaud the 3D in the movie as some of the best CG i’ve seen. However i do have a problem with the animation. Why motion capture? I’ve always felt that motion capture was a sort of “CHEAT” in 3D. Isnt the point of animation “mimicking real life actions?”

Basically we’re far from achieving true realistic 3d animation that would fool the human mind. Let’s all face the fact that Final Fantasy failed in that respect, showing us realistic characters, however it wasnt the CG that made the movie fail…it was the story bottom line.

#92

Re: Garma.

Fact - I love FF:TSW. Thats why its in my DVD collection.

The film is just sooo…dull. The games where bursting with life and colour! This film just seemed soo…umm…dull and very little colour! I personally feel that it suits the film’s theme - but it doesn’t fit the theme of the Final Fantasy games. In a nut-shell, Square Pictures sold it as something it wasn’t - and THAT is what is wrong with the film…

I suppose if we look at it at face value - its a nice film in its own right. But, selling it on the name “final fantasy” was a major mistake. Many were devastated when they got to the cinemas only to find that it had nothing to do with the FF series.

Other than that - its a nice film, but it hardly has you leaping out of your chair shouting “Yeah! You show that turd whos boss!”.

Do you see what I’m getting at?:shrug:

#93

Re: Garma.

I know - I’ll put it this way…

Do you remember the “Reign of Fire” movie posters? They gave the impression that there was a “independance Day” style battle between loads of Helicopters and loads of Dragons…

Well, how many Helicopters were there in the film? One - and that gets taken out very quickly! Did they have a big sky battle anywhere in the film? Nope.

This is called “giving a false impression” and it appears that it damaged the critical reception to FF:TSW as well…

#94

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