The newest trailer for the "movie" Advent Children has been added to the japanese site.  Go watch it, and then come back here and read the rest of this post, wherein the author pontificates on the failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

I am not sure what I think about the story:

The story takes place two years after the end of Final Fantasy VII. The planet has become a peaceful place, industry and cities seem to be in ruins. However most of the surviving people have been affected by "Star Scar" syndrome (or Seikon-Shoukougun in Japanese).

Cloud has been living alone, likely having lost those who were his friends and companions in FFVII. He feels some guilt as to what he had done in attempting to save the world. Was it the right thing to do? Was it all worth it. He feels alone in the world as it is now.

Granted not much is known at this time, but this still seems a bit weak and forced.  One of the best things about this development is that Square Enix did not completely shut down Square Pictures after the collosal failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.  The parent company Square Company, Ltd. has ceased funding that much is true, but it looks as though the remaining talent (Square Pictures cut its staff in half not too long ago) is finding work elsewhere.

So what happened?

I have always believed that the failure of FF:TSW was due to the horrible script choice and not the quality of the filmmaking.  I would hope that after The Final Flight of the Osiris from the The Animatrix Square Pictures have proved themselves capable of creating beautiful film, if not compelling stories.  There were many failures in the story for FF: TSW, but I think the largest was how completely other it was, from an, if I can use the word here, canonical sense.  Those of us who went to the theatres excited about this movie went expecting a 2 hour Final Fantasy VII cut scene.  We found something else entirely.

The argument can be made of course that they knew we would be expecting that and wanted to give us something else, both for our benefit as well as to avoid being boxed in artistically and stylistically.  I think we can see from the US run and the Japanese run that they should have played it a bit more safely.  The fans were screaming for Final Fantasy VII: The Movie and that is exactly what they didn't get.  While there were definately aspects of the FF universe in the movie, it felt almost like an after-thought; couple that with the absense of series composer Nobuo Uematsu and you had a sure fire recipe for serious fan-boy dissapointment. (please note: the author is a serious fan-boy so please don't take the preceeding as an indictment of some kind.)

So why not play it safe Square Pictures?

One word, Pixar.  After the ridiculous success of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 Pixar was a household name.  To make matters worse word started getting out about Monsters Inc.  SP new they were in a bind, they might very well lose the fight before they even entered the fray.  So they gambled.  For better or worse SP tried to do something different, and we of course know the rest.

Speaking of Pixar, what about that The Incredibles!  Wow.

Pixar's The Incredibles

I have not enjoyed a movie that much, in a very, very long time.  As has been said elsewhere, I am not sure there is anything that was not executed perfectly in that movie.  Visually it was stunning, and the script was better than anything Hollywood has churned out this year.

That being stated, I would venture to say that given the right script and funding Square Pictures could rival Pixar in this arena.  It would of course require just the right script coupled with the correct director.  Maybe a Transformers Movie I don't know.  It will be interesting to see what projects SP will be a part of in the near future.