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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Blu-ray) (2001)

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Blu-ray) (2001)

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Released 21-Aug-2007

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Action Main Menu Introduction
Menu Animation & Audio
Trailer-Teaser
Audio Commentary-Sakakibara (Co-Director) et al
Audio Commentary-Animation Director, Staging Director & Editor
Trailer-Theatrical
Featurette
Biographies-Character
Featurette-Vehicle Scale Comparisons
Scene Editing Workshop
Featurette-Trailer Explorations
Featurette-The Gray Project
Storyboards
Featurette-Matte Art Explorations
Outtakes
Featurette-Compositing Builds
Featurette-Original Opening
Featurette-Aki's Dream
Easter Egg-Kelly's Thriller
Rating Rated M
Year Of Production 2001
Running Time 103:43
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By Hironobu Sakaguchi
Moto Sakakibara
Studio
Distributor

Sony Pictures Home Entertain
Starring Ming-Na
Alec Baldwin
Ving Rhames
Steve Buscemi
Peri Gilpin
Donald Sutherland
James Woods
Case ?
RPI $42.95 Music Elliot Goldenthal


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 5.1 (640Kb/s)
English Linear PCM 48/16 5.1 (4608Kb/s)
Japanese Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 1080p
Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English
Spanish
Portuguese
English Audio Commentary
Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement Yes
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was one of the first significant movies of the 3D animation era of film-making, and likely the most ambitious yet. Aiming for a near photo-realistic look to its animation and a complex sci-fi storyline, it succeeded with the former and failed with the later. It was both the first and the last picture produced by Square Pictures (an offshoot of video game juggernaut Square Ennix), having become one of the first major flops of the millennium. Many pundits of the day declared 3D animation to be dead on arrival (only to change their tune a few short months later when a green monster named Shrek burst onto screens). It is hardly any wonder the recent Beowulf is the only non-family oriented CGI film we have seen on the big screen since (and even that wasn't "true" animation, as it relied heavily on extensive motion capture).

    Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was, in many ways, the Ishtar of its generation. Sporting a respectable cast, a bankable premise and huge budgets, both were completed years later than expected, went significantly over-budget, were savaged by critics upon release and were enormous commercial flops in their theatrical releases. In a shrewd marketing move, Sony (or Columbia as they were known back then) managed to salvage their investment to a reasonable degree through DVD sales, riding the first wave of the DVD sales boom. Unlike Ishtar, which no end of marketing spin could save, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within managed to find a modest appreciation from the geek hordes thanks to its superb animation (our original DVD reviewer was certainly one of them). By delivering a reference-standard feature presentation and pimping the release with an enormous number of extras, many of which pushed the boundaries of DVD interactivity, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within became a hit on DVD. Many early DVD adopters bought the movie purely as a demo disc.

    Re-watching the movie today, little has changed. The movie looks stunning. Few movies since have even approached a level of 3D animation that looks this good. Unfortunately, the story is complete gobbledegook (something about ghostly aliens invading the population and a scientific lass who has to find eight "spirits" to ward them off before a mad general destroys the world) and the dialogue is awful (even Steve Buscemi, James Woods, Donald Sutherland and Alec Baldwin can't sell it). The action sequences have been liberally borrowed from other movies, but at least they've exercised a good degree of taste when selecting what to pinch and from where (Aliens is certainly owed a debt). The movie isn't hard to enjoy despite these faults, but viewers will spend most of the time thinking about how cool the movie looks rather than follow anything that is going on.

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Transfer Quality

Video

Disclaimer: Please note that this disc has a video resolution of 1080p. It has been reviewed on a display device with a maximum native resolution of 576i (PAL). More information can be found here.

    The original DVD collector's edition of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was a show-pony for early adopters of DVD. The same goes for this Blu-ray edition, at least in terms of the video. This film looks stunning.

    The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio with a 1080P resolution.

    The image is razor sharp, but looks surprisingly natural thanks to a very fine level of grain that has been applied to the image. The grain level increases slightly in darker scenes, replicating the look of a live action film. There is an amazing level of depth to the shadows and dark scenes.

    The colour palette is stunning. The depth of colours is remarkable, particularly in the desolate dream sequences that drive the film's back story. Contrast levels are well balanced throughout.

    There are no MPEG artefacts or film artefacts visible in the transfer.

    English subtitles are available. They appear to be reasonably accurate and well timed.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    An uncompressed PCM 5.1 audio track and a Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps) audio track are available. Both tracks sound excellent, although PCM track is noticeably clearer than the Dolby Digital track. It seems a bit of a shame that no 7.1 track is provided, as that would have been enough to make this a perfect demo disc for high-def (interestingly, the film did have an 8 channel soundtrack but using Sony's unusual SDDS surround system rather than a format that has made its way to home systems).

    The film's dialogue is crystal clear and well voiced. The lip sync is a little rough compared to more recent animated features. This is not a fault in the transfer, rather a sign of how much better animators have gotten at making lip movements look natural.

    The film's score, by New York composer Elliot Goldenthal, is generally a competent orchestral affair but tends to get a little over the top at times. It has been mixed beautifully into the soundtrack and makes good use of the surrounds.

    The surround channels are put to great use throughout the whole film, creating an immersive and dynamic soundscape. The subwoofer gets a frequent and diverse workout, from low level hums of machinery to a barrage of bangs and thumps during the action sequences.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

    Most of the extras on this Blu-ray edition have been recycled from the original DVD Collector's Edition. Left out is an isolated score track with commentary from the film's composer, the Scene Editing Workshop (a rather clunky gimmick that allowed viewers to reassemble a scene from segments of footage), a featurette entitled Boards/Blasts (an 81 minute doco that traced the development from storyboard to feature, probably the most significant omission) and DVD-ROM content (to be honest, there may be DVD-ROM/Blu-ray-ROM content on the disc that isn't listed in the menu but I don't have access to a computer Blu-ray drive to check). All are presented in standard definition except for the trailers, which are both 1080p. Whilst there is nothing new here, the extras are a little overwhelming and worth a look if you haven't seen them before. It is a bit of a shame that the extras haven't pushed the Blu-ray format the same way that they did the DVD format back in 2001.

Information for the standard definition extras in this section has been recycled from our previous standard definition review, with thanks to its author.

Menu

     The menu is heavily animated, accompanied by Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded audio, and is 16x9 Enhanced. The menu theme is excellent,

Audio Commentary - Motonori Sakakibara (Co-Director), Hayashida (Sequence Supervisor), Noguchi (Phantom Supervisor) & Maruyama (Lead Sets/Prop Artist)

     Rather unusually, this commentary is presented in Japanese, rendered as a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack with surround-encoding and the film's original soundtrack mixed in at a lower level. Thankfully, subtitles are provided for those who do not understand Japanese, but reading the subtitles and listening to the rather odd sound of the Japanese speech can get tiring. This commentary shares all sorts of insights about what is going on in some sequences that might escape the notice of most viewers at first. It is worth the time listening to (and reading) this commentary in order to get a better insight into the film.

Audio Commentary - Andy Jones (Animation Director), Tani Kunitake (Staging Director) & Chris Capp (Editor/Post-Production Supervisor)

     This commentary is rendered in English Dolby Digital 2.0 with surround-encoding, with the film's original soundtrack mixed in at a lower level. This commentary shares little bits of information about the lengthy production of the film and what challenges were faced in completing the final version. Again, this is worth a listen for the details about how this unusual film came to fruition.

Featurette - Trailer Explorations

     This four minute and forty-two second featurette is more of an extended trailer, with the teaser trailer and a theatrical trailer combined together with some cursory footage of a crew member explaining the design goals behind the trailers. It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 with 16x9 Enhancement and Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound.

Theatrical Trailer

    The film's theatrical trailer, presented in 1080P with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. The trailer has been beautifully remastered in high definition and makes for a great quick demo of your HD setup.

Teaser Trailer

    The film's theatrical teaser trailer, originally released almost two years prior to the film, presented in 1080P with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. This is a stunning remaster for a trailer that is almost ten years old.

Featurette - Aki Photo Shoot

    Clocking in at a mere one minute and ten seconds, this featurette shows various renderings of the Aki character, usually in next to no clothing. It is quite revealing in that it shows all the stages of animation that went into designing the character. It is presented in an approximate 1.85:1 ratio, although the "photos" are vertically oriented, and thus there is a lot of black space in each frame, and it is 16x9 Enhanced. Some music is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo.

Character Biographies

    All of the character biographies are presented in aspect ratios of 1.78:1 with 16x9 Enhancement and Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound. Brief facts about the actors who provided the voices are also provided, although they tend to get more and more cursory the further down the list you go. The character biographies provided here are for:

Featurettes - Vehicle Scale Comparisons

    A threesome of featurettes comparing the vehicles shown in the film with their current-generation equivalents is presented under this menu. They are all presented in the aspect ratios of 1.78:1 and 1.85:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound and 16x9 Enhancement:

Featurette - The Making Of Final Fantasy

    A fairly generic making of featurette which runs for thirty minutes and forty-one seconds. At certain points the viewer is able to branch out to additional content on some of the things discussed, which increases the runtime considerably. It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound.

Featurette - The Gray Project

    This five minute and twenty-eight second featurette is presented in aspect ratios varying between 1.33:1 and 1.85:1, without 16x9 Enhancement. It is a series of very rough animatics, presented with a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack.

Featurette - More Boards/Blasts

    A walk-through of deleted scene using incomplete footage and storyboards. This two minute featurette is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 with 16x9 Enhancement and Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded audio.

Featurette - Matte Art Explorations

    A six minute discussion with one of the film's background artists that focuses on the painted backdrops of two scenes. Presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound, this featurette is not 16x9 Enhanced.

Featurette - Joke Outtakes

    Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 with 16x9 Enhancement and Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound, this collection of "bloopers" in very rough form is very good for a giggle.

Featurette - Compositing Builds

    A brief featurette about the process of digitally compositing the final images. This seven minute and thirty-eight second featurette is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound, and it is 16x9 Enhanced.

Featurette - Original Opening

     This four minute and forty-five second featurette is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. It is not 16x9 Enhanced. I am glad that they jettisoned this opening and went with the one that appears in the finished film.

Featurette - Aki's Dream

     This nine minute and thirty second featurette is a combination of three dream sequences, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with 16x9 Enhancement and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.

Easter Egg - Kelly's Thriller Music Video

    Highlight the Spiderman 3 trailer option in the special features menu, press right (which should highlight a little symbol to the right of the menu) and then press enter. A take-off of the music video for Michael Jackson's hit single Thriller will begin. It is presented in an approximate 1.78:1 ratio with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    In terms of extras, the US Region A and Australian Region B editions are identical, save for a couple of different trailers for other movies (Region A gets one for Ghost Rider and Ultraviolet, Region B gets one for Spiderman 3).

    The Region A edition also features a supplementary French Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track for the main feature.

Summary

    Glorious eye-candy and a fairly shonky plot make for a decent watch, but certainly not a classic.

    The audio and video presentation of the feature (and theatrical trailers) is stunning.

    The disc features a significant proportion of the extras from the DVD 2-disc Collector's Edition, and two remastered trailers

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Adam Gould (Totally Biolicious!)
Friday, February 22, 2008
Review Equipment
DVDSony Playstation 3, using HDMI output
Display Samsung 116cm LA46M81BD. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 576i (PAL).
Audio DecoderPioneer VSX-D512. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials.
AmplificationPioneer VSX2016AVS
Speakers150W DTX front speakers, and a 100W centre and 2 surrounds, 12 inch PSB Image 6i powered sub

Other Reviews NONE