Advent Children

**Tsen** · 09-16-2005 01:42 PM

So I just watched it the other day, and I thought I'd post my review.

Graphics: AMAZING. That had to be said first. You've probably seen the previews, and the whole movie's nothing if not better.

But, once you're past that, things go a bit downhill. The storyline was good, but somewhat hard to understand at points if you haven't played FFVII, and they had a tendency to think of the plot as secondary to the action scenes.
Out of the entire movie, there was only about 15 minutes that WASN'T a fight scene. This is an hour and a half movie, too. Now, I like fight scenes and all, but they could be overdoing it...I really wish they'd have used at least SOME of that time to expound on the story line.
I mean, at one point, everybody in the old party just suddenly APPEARS (Heh...I guess that's a mild spoiler, but it's not too bad. I mean, most of 'em were in the previews, so you had to figure...) Anyway, we never know exactly WHERE they'd been, what they'd been doing, or how they magically appeared all at once. Just a slight gap in the story, y'know?

Still, I'd highly recommend it to any FFVII fans, and even to people into any sort of action movie. Well, anybody who's into action movies and doesn't mind the occassionally highly-stylized video-game fighting that pops up in this movie. Not that that's a bad thing, just slightly annoying sometimes...

Anyway, finally, I'd give it:
7/10 for story
11/10 for graphics
4/10 for the way they acted out the storyline.
Total, I'd give it three stars ***

Honestly, I just wish they'd explained things a bit more.

**Alex D** · 09-16-2005 09:11 PM

Originally posted by Tsen
Honestly, I just wish they'd explained things a bit more.

But that's what FFVIII

oC is for.

**Tsen** · 09-16-2005 09:31 PM

I guess, but it still made watching the movie slightly less enjoyable.

But the fight scenes WERE awesome. Cloud has a big sword, if you didn't know.

**Alex D** · 09-16-2005 10:15 PM

Originally posted by Tsen
I guess, but it still made watching the movie slightly less enjoyable. *

But the fight scenes WERE awesome. *Cloud has a big sword, if you didn't know. *

I thought it was a big silver paper airplane.

I haven't seen it yet, but I will in about 1 day 21 hours.

**Tsen** · 09-16-2005 10:25 PM

lol

BTW, Tifa kicks arse. Major arse. But you don't need to see the movie to know that

**MSG** · 09-21-2005 07:02 AM

hrm... my friend told me to download it and am right at this second and have been for hours. I might actually decide to watch it...

btw is it really in japanese because um i dont know japanese very well actually not at all

**Tsen** · 09-21-2005 05:02 PM

Yeah, it is. If you're downloading a DVD rip, there's sites out there that have English subtitles available for it. E-mail me and I'll link ya' (The site is legally questionable so I won't post it on DV)

**AirRick101** · 09-23-2005 05:10 AM

I doubt many people on this board watched it yet.

But I did get the torrent a few days after it came out. (needed some time for seeds to grow) I had my eye on it for a while.

It was brilliantly directed, especially from a team that's only amateur at cinematic hits. There's a way to download the RAW (just japanese) and srt (subtitle files) and junction them with a movie player. But of course, if it's already encoded with subs, that's better.

I was a big time ff7 fanboy growing up, and it was my fav ff of them all. It's above FFX on my list. Ok, for the first time viewer, they will be lost, like everyone's first viewing of the Matrix. It's very hard to follow if you don't know the game. But you'd enjoy it anyway. The party barely gets any spotlight, except for a few select characters, like Tifa and Cloud, and a lil of Vincent.
In the previews I was skeptical cuz I don't remember seeing Sephiroth, and he is necessary to fill the equation as the legendary antaganist..and whilst I try not to spoil it, his role in it was glorious enough! Graphics were orgasmic, like the quality of a slightly beefed up FFX cinematic. (which is finally not "one hour worth of movie time" dispersed with gameplay polygons that don't match)

The action was creative enough, and they clearly wanted to exercise a great deal of emotion with it. Which is what I really respect of Final Fantasies, involving emotions (if you pay attention) I would get the DVD definately, when it comes out legally.

**phayden** · 09-23-2005 02:34 PM

Really looking forward to seeing this, been a Final Fantasy addict for years. VII is by far my favorite out of the lot. I can play that game over and over again without getting board. Ahh... if only they could make another Final Fantasy that gave me the enjoyment of VII.

Whats this FFVIII

oC all about?

**MSG** · 09-24-2005 04:57 AM

oops!... I accidentally took some screenshots of the movie. Golly gee. No spoilers though, i swear this is all within the first two minutes of the movie.

knote: looks two million times better while moving, stillshots look blurry and supercompressed.

Its not copyright infringement if you crop it a few pixels.

**Tsen** · 09-24-2005 05:08 AM

Yup, those are all in the first two minutes.
Reno and Rude were SO freakin' cool in the movie.

**Lobe** · 09-24-2005 05:50 PM

I just saw the last half of it, went to a friends place and they were half way through it. The action scenes are brilliant and it has a very video-gameish feel to it - far far FAR better than the atrocious Final Fantasy Spirits Within movie...

**Alex D** · 09-24-2005 06:29 PM

Originally posted by pOOp

REEEEEENOOOOOOOOOOOO. <3

Seeing as the version I had wouldn't work for some reason, I'm waiting for the DVD. I still know everything but the ending now... thank you spoilers.

**Tsen** · 09-25-2005 01:13 AM

Where did you get your torrent? And what media player did you use? If it's just a problem with the player, try downloading VLC Player. It runs just about anything, and the file isn't big.

**A Lost Soul** · 09-25-2005 12:07 PM

[size=24]*******SPOILERS AHEAD*******
So don't read this if you don't want to be spoiled, duh!

Hey, Poop, could you "accidentally" take a few screenies of the scene where Sephiroth is raising his arm to the sky and the storm is forming over his head? It's such a killer angle and I want to paint that scene so bad but it kills my system to keep the player paused while I paint (I need more ram, lol).

Anyway, Lucius and I "acquired" Advent Children a day after it was released in the states (subtitles included, though I had to do a bit of ninja work to get them working). I think we had our mouths hanging open through the whole movie. Holy shit, Cloud was hot (am I the only girl posting in this thread, by the way?) and the fights scenes kicked my ass. It was like anticipating great sex... and getting it. This movie was everything we had hoped for and more. I think our only complaint was that it was too short. Ah well.

Tsen: I used boring Windows Media to watch everything (with DivX codecs, of course). I also recently downloaded a free program called VobSub, which displays subtitle files. It's remarkably easy to use.

**Tsen** · 09-26-2005 01:41 AM

Good to hear it's working now. BTW, I think you are the only girl. But for us guys, Tifa was hot. And Aeris wasn't bad. But Tifa was hot. Very hot.

Anyway, it isn't too surprising that you thought that about Cloud. Wasn't the 3D model for the character based on Gackt?

**A Lost Soul** · 09-26-2005 10:42 AM

Originally posted by Tsen
Good to hear it's working now. BTW, I think you are the only girl. But for us guys, Tifa was hot. And Aeris wasn't bad. But Tifa was hot. Very hot.

Anyway, it isn't too surprising that you thought that about Cloud. Wasn't the 3D model for the character based on Gackt?

Tifa was pretty hot. I have to agree. I'm glad they made her a strong woman lead and not like "Eek, Cloud, save me!". As a female, I thought it was nice to see a pretty girl kick ass. Aeris was pretty as well and even if I didn't really like her in the game, it was still neat to see her in the movie (plus I'm rather fond of her seiyuu--Maaya Sakamoto).

I''ve heard that Squall was based on Gackt, but I honestly didn't see the resemblance. AC Cloud, however, looked a lot like him. Especially his face. In fact, Reno looked like Gackt too, in the Malice Mizer days (with the candy hair, lol). For the record, I'm very fond of Reno's seiyuu as well. He played Hughes in the Japanese Fullmetal Alchemist. (More useless info: Rufus' seiyuu played Roy Mustang. I'm very interested in animation and voice actors. ^_^ )

So hey, any character based on Gackt gets no complaints from me!

And oh my god, Lucius and I have watched that Sephiroth scene over and over and over. We've probably seen it more than ten times now. And that song! I love Nobuo Uematsu and my favorite song (and probably one of his most famous) is "One-Winged Angel". I was thrilled when it was in the movie, especially during that scene, and then suddenly it was like "BAM!" and the old song we thought we knew rocked out. I've been frantically searching for it, but I don't think the OST is even out yet.

By the way... does anyone else know a little Japanese? My Japanese is horrible, but I did notice something. Was it just me, or was Sephiroth's speech somewhat feminine? (watashi, anata, the use of wa, etc.)

**MSG** · 09-27-2005 02:41 AM

OOPS

gosh darnit

**MSG** · 09-27-2005 02:47 AM

and yeah, cloud is pretty hott. expecially with boobs

79:52</span>

<span style="color:red">EDIT:

dammit... that girl at the end in the deep red jacket totally ruined the ending of the movie for me because her face totally looked like someone I know...

**Ex Nine** · 09-27-2005 06:18 AM

The ring-tone victory music at the end of Tifa's fight was classic. I don't think I've had a single boisterous laugh like that one in a long time.

**A Lost Soul** · 09-27-2005 11:10 AM

Poop is my hero.

And the ringtone, lol. Lucius and I were like "wtf?" and then immediately died laughing.

**Tsen** · 09-27-2005 10:22 PM

Ditto, that was HILARIOUS!

**Ex Nine** · 09-27-2005 11:51 PM

I hope there's a little more love to go around.

Maybe it's because I'm an aspiring computer artist and I look for these things, but I was a little bothered at how some of the mattes were noticable. The strength of 3D animation is being able to automatically render dynamic effects, like light and shadow, across multiple objects, and unify everything into one scene. But in a film as complex as this, you need to render so many things separately and piece it together later, in order to smooth production, and in doing so you lose a lot of unifying subtle details in lighting. The mattes weren'tt as noticable in The Spirits Within, but that had more funding, I suppose.

And the characters moved really quickly sometimes. When you go down frame-by-frame in Tifa's fight, for instance, it almost seems like they did it in order to cut production time. But that's fine, I guess... that's kind of what the genre of anime is all about.

**MSG** · 09-28-2005 02:25 AM

Originally posted by A Lost Soul+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(A Lost Soul)</div>

Poop is my hero.[/b]

That would make like absolutely no sense on any other message board.

<!--QuoteBegin-X9
it almost seems like they did it in order to cut production time. But that's fine, I guess... that's kind of what the genre of anime is all about.

yeah, thats why I think the ending credits scene was just cloud and his bike composite on a real(natural, all you debaters out there) background. They probably didnt have the time or money to create a whole new set of scenes just for a couple seconds each in appearance. I wuv modeling also, but since im becoming more mobile i have less and less time to sit down at a workstation and just go for it. I need a tablet PC....