6 Reasons Why "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" is the Worst Videogame Movie Ever

Dorkly: It was the late 90's and Final Fantasy was an unstoppable juggernaut that shattered the boundaries of digital storytelling. Riding this wave of praise, money and ambition, Square went for broke and started a film project directed by the creator of the original series. After 4 years of intense work and a record-breaking production budget, it was finished and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within hit theaters across the globe... with a thud. Feeling a case of the "nostalgies" I went back and rewatched it for the first time in 13 years and it turns out, this might be the worst videogame movie I've ever seen.

[NovusTerminus]

Thing is, it was not a video game movie... Final Fantasy is a series of series'. This movie was not based on, or butchering the lore of any game out there, like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, and Street Fighter.

It was a standalone story like all other FF before it.

No, it was not a great movie, just kind of average as a whole. But it's not like it took characters and such and ruined them.

[Neonridr]

Technically by definition it is a video game movie. It is a movie based off of a successful video game franchise. No it isn't based of of any specific game and had its own unique characters and storyline, but you still have to classify it as much. Otherwise why does it have the name Final Fantasy in its title? They could have just called the movie The Spirits Within and left it at that. They were trying to capitalize off of the games' success.

Regardless, DOA will always be the worst of the bunch for me..

[Godmars290]

Loosely based. So loosely based that it could be considered not to be based on FF at all.

[Neonridr]

loosely based yes, but if it wasn't based on Final Fantasy at all, then why include the name in the title?

[Godmars290]

"then why include the name in the title?"

To bring in FF fans. A blatant exploitation of the brand when really that was the last thing they should have done.

[Neonridr]

lol, fair enough

[stloony]

This is NOT a video game movie.

Resident Evil is a video game movie.
Tomb Raider, is a video game movie.

The only thing FF:Spirits Within has in common with Final Fantasy, the video game, is the name in it's title and the same employees working on the CGI.

These 2 things do not make it a video game movie.

[UltimateMaster]

Like Godmars290 said, it's hardly Final Fantasy.

Don't get me wrong, the movie would have turned out great, if it didn't had the Final Fantasy Logo title attached to it.

Had it been called anything else; but said: "From the creators of Final Fantasy" it would have sold well.

People went into this thinking it was Final Fantasy and got something else entirely.

[Irishguy95]

The spirit withins themes where extremely 'final fantasy'....

just saying. The plots of FF are always different, the themes are normally similar along with certain story elements.

[NukaCola]

Honestly, I haven't seen this in ages, but I don't know why FF was even in the title. It was an Alias Maya engine CGi video which was 90% sciFi with a mix of ghost stuff. Never felt like a FF movie.

I think the worst game movie is probably a Uwe Boll flick, but I will never watch any of them again, or any new ones so I can't pick. Maybe House of the Dead. That was horrendous.

I think one of the best game movies is Resident Evil Degeneration. At least a top CGi game movie. I liked it quite a bit, was a great finally before Capcom destroyed the franchised all the bloody heck.

[DonMingos]

I liked TSW. It was good anime movie with a FF vibe.

In my opinion, the best videogame movie ever was Dead Space Downfall. What a great movie, it really build up for the great game the first one was.
Playing Dead Space only feels like a complete experience, after watching this master piece.

The first Sillent Hill movie was pretty good to.

[rainslacker]

I didn't mind TSW. It was decent enough, but kind of plodded along. The final fantasy themes were certainly there, but it was a bit too focused on one theme instead of the broader meaning of it.

I found the same thing with Advent Children. Certainly more FF'ish, but all the focus was on Cloud, with everyone except Tifa coming in at the last moment. I couldn't see either being made into a full game with the story they provided.

Anyhow, the worst video game I remember seeing is Dead or Alive. It was horrendous. But at least it didn't take itself too seriously. I'd say the best was probably the MK ones, because they were about as true to the series as you can get, but rather shallow as an actual movie.

[PLASTICA-MAN]

I can add to the fifth reason. Fonal Fantasy games are well known for their ighly detailed characters in pre-rendered cutscenes that can hardly be equalized by other pre-rendrered movies let alone in game video game characters. Aki Ross uses 500k polygons. The Dark Sorcerer from Quantic Dream uses around one million polygons and moves and looks miles better than here and feels like a real human and he is an ingame video game character. They didn't put much efforts in that movie TBH.

[NovusTerminus]

Lets step back a moment and think of the time gap here.

A year old tech demo
A 13 year old movie

Of course Dark Sorcerer would look better. They have far more tech under the hood now then compared to back then. That is just an unfair point.

KillZone Shadowfall used 40k per model.

Using 500k Polygons in 2001 was top of the line, and it's more then just polygons that make a game look good, Diffused Lighting, Particle Effects, HDR, Ray Tracing and so on.

Some of those iirc were not around when TSW was made.

[stloony]

Are you kidding, the movie looked gorgeous. That's the only thing that shouldn't be up for debate, but oh well.

[rainslacker]

This movies CGI was pretty ground breaking for it's time. it even holds up pretty well today. Sure, FF13 has better animations and stuff, but we're talking about a pretty broad gap in terms of technology and techniques.

[LordMaim]

I agree. I actually thought it wasn't bad, but definitely didn't blow the roof off of the theater.

How anyone could possibly think this movie was a worse video game movie than the truly awful Mario Brothers movie or even worse, Street Fighter the Movie, I have no idea.

Weird that this comes out of left field like this years after the fact.

[Fishermenofwar]

I liked it..

[Ace Killa 08]

Also street fighter, mortal kombat are worse movies than final fantasy.

[Phoenix76]

@Ace, hell, DOOM was a worse movie!!!!! Lmao

[rainslacker]

I always put the Mario Bros. or SF out of my mind when trying to figure out which was the worst. However, at least with the Mario one it was bad enough to actually be funny. The SF one...yeah, not so much.

[Adrian_v01]

The name killed it. I actually liked the movie quite much, it was something different and somewhat refreshing back then. I guess many people, when they heard Final Fantasy, expected swords, fights, summons and stuff like that, things the games were known for. The only connection I see was the whole Gaia idea, similar to FFVII and Cid.

They should have named it just Spirits Within, or The Last Spirit or something like that. I believe the title is what caused the hate.

[CorndogBurglar]

Exactly. I liked the movie quite a bit. It was just disappointing and made me mad that it wasn't a FF movie at all.

However, after watching it a few times a couple years later, I realized that it actually is a very good movie with a good story.

[CorndogBurglar]

What you seem to forget is that even though most of the FF games are stand alone stories, they all have things in them that show that they are FF games. Like Chocobos. Things like that.

My point is, you can pick up any FF game, and even if you didn't know what the title was, you would KNOW it was an FF game.

This movie could have been called ANYTHING, and no one would have had any idea it was supposedly an FF movie.

[hduce]

This movie was a lot better than Double Dragon, Street Fighter, and that rediculous Super Mario Bros movie.

[iceman06]

Exactly!!! Final Fantasy was okay. It was beautiful to look at for it's time. Double Dragon, Street Fighter, and Super Mario Bros. were just very, very BAD in just about every way possible.

[GameSpawn]

The Street Fighter with Jean Claude was SO BAD that it was actually kind of good. Seriously, it was almost satire. I can't stand the more recent live action attempt at Street Fighter, but the older one is entertaining and some fun to watch. It was never too serious about itself and again comes off almost as satire.

Now the anime versions of Street Fighter are actually pretty good and tend to stick closer to whatever lore the Street Fighter games have created.

[randomass171]

Spirits Within was pretty melodramatic all things considered. Advent Children was much better IMO and not even because it had good drama. Mostly because the fanservice and action scenes are just that amazing. :D

[MrSwankSinatra]

This movie is the whole reason why Hinorobu Sakaguchi doesn't even work for Square anymore. He got moved down to figurehead status after this movie flopped big time, therefore he left to start his own company. This movie almost caused Square to go out of business, I remember Enix didn't even want to merge with Square because of this movies failure, but they had to though since the landscape of gaming was changing at the time. Sony had to buy stock in Square Enix just to keep the company afloat.

[Clogmaster]

I didn't like the movie. But it had cool effects, and the car crash safety blob thing. I can see why sci-fi fans would enjoy it.

Honestly though, it was such a dumb idea to use the Final Fantasy name and not release a movie with awesome magic, sword fighting, and summoning.

[MrSwankSinatra]

TBH when this movie was announced, It irked me why Square chose to make a movie rather than invest money into more games.

[Gazondaily]

I liked this movie.

[Godmars290]

It was a good enough movie. Just not the type to bet the success of an entire movie studio much less its parent game company. Proved to be a massive indication of how out of touch Square would become in regards to making a story.

[SamPao]

Thank you. I was hoping I am not the only one.
I bought the dvd and watched it more than once.

[Gazondaily]

Same here. Watched it quite a few times.

[Nicaragua]

cool, please can you tell me what the f$%k it was all about because I have no idea.

[Antifan]

I loved this movie as a kid. The whole concept was unique.

[C L O U D]

It wasn't that bad to be honest...I could watch it again

[WeAreLegion]

It's a good flick.

With movies like Alone in the Dark and Postal out there, it's hard to put this one in the "bad" category. Even Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter are fun to watch, despite some unfortunate story telling and dialogue.

[SliceOfTruth888]

uhhh yeah ok someone has never seen the MK sequel

[Shinuz]

Or the Double Dragon movie...

[Pozzle]

Or any of Uwe Boll's game movies.

[Antifan]

Worst video game movie EVER!!

[R6ex]

Hey, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. While its not one the best, its still a quality movie.

[Viperoholic]

This was the,worse movie best part was the boring movie turned into a beej with the gf.

[Paprika]

What? The beej and the whomameboob?

[rigo8582]

Worst video game movie ever? not even close. Its better then every movie made by Uwe Boll. All his movies are the worst video game movies ever.

[Fullmetalevolust]

It was a misleading title but a solid sci-fi story and some kick ass special effects. I remember being wowed when it first released.
You were better off forgetting the cannon associated with final fantasy and just enjoy the movie for what it was.

[mochachino]

So no one saw the Street Fighter Movie or the Mario Brothers movie? Those were pretty bad.

[dumahim]

Or any Uwe Bol movie.

[randomass171]

Any Uwe Boll film takes the cake if you ask me. At least the other movies tended to have higher production value and they actually tried. Kinda.

[Dark_matter]

I've only seen a bit of FF: spirit within. I have seen FFVII: advent children, that was pretty good

[Fishermenofwar]

Advent was badass....The funny thing its actually better when you watch it in its native Japanese language..

KAZAAAAAAA

[Gamer777]

I disagree. While the film wasn't amazing I could actually sit through it and finish it. Unlike those Uwe Boll films that plagued the early and mid 2000s.

[burza1982]

The worst videogame movie ever?
I guess the person who wrote this article did not watch about 50% others videogame movies.
FF is not great movie but definitely not even in Top 10 worst movies.

[Spotie]

Yeah, it's not actually that bad, though I was pissed when it first came out.

Oh, and it's not a video game movie.

[izumo_lee]

Actually my take on this film was if you take away the aspect that this has the Final Fantasy name to it, its actually a pretty decent sci fi film. The same way i think if you remove the Final Fantasy name to FF13 it is a very good game.

Sakaguchi-san at the time was riding high on the success of the franchise. Unfortunately for him that success got to his head & instead of full filling the wishes of the fans he made a movie he thought fans would love. Like some have said it lead to the downward spiral that Square endured at that time.

[Godmars290]

I always thought that if you took out the FF aspect, you'd have a movie about a douche general who's so obsessed with a personal vendetta that he endangers humanity. That there wouldn't have been any conflict whatsoever if not for him.

And yes, it failed because it was a vanity project, which didn't take fans into account otherwise it would have lent towards the IP it was based on, and it was banked against the necessary success of the movie studio that was built around it.

[tigertron]

I didn't like it when I first saw it at the cinema, but I recently bought it on Blu-ray and I really enjoy it.

The CGI was very impressive for the time too.

[Double_O_Revan]

If this movie was just called The Spirits Within, there wouldn't be a problem.

It was a decent movie, but having little to nothing to do with Final Fantasy is what hurt it. The name was nothing more then a selling point for the movie.

[cooksauce]

It was a tech demo and a damn good one for its time. The movie itself wasn't even that bad.