Gonna send this to my dad, for some reason he REALLY likes this movie. Doesn't even know what Final Fantasy is

This is Max Caulfield's favorite podcast now. She doesn't care what anybody says, that's one of the best sci-fi films ever made.

The older I get the more I realize hironobu sakaguchi has influenced tons of media that I consumed growing up and I hope as time goes on he gets a credit he deserves for the work he has done.

I need to Find myself a friend I can have a 2 hour conversation with about Final Fantasy The Spirits Within.

I love how high concept the movie is. It had a lot of big ideas, from its lore to its big ideas about CGI film making, digital actors, etc...

I hope Sakaguchi and co are getting their royalties from Mass Effect sales.

"I think Aki's hot." - Casen Sperry, 2024 For real though, love that you guys are covering this. Curious if either of you have ever watched Final Fantasy Unlimited.

For the algorithm. Long live Resonant Arc.

I still like modern Square but now they JUST feel like a great software company. The Square of the late 90's felt a finger snapping juggernaut with complete chad energy with insane creative ambition you couldn't help but laugh admire/remember fondly.😂 The setting of FFX is totally unique in fiction nevermind gaming. Square was Playstation in ways, symbolised a lot of the other wild creativity coming out, even the demo disc music and menus/backgrounds bleed tripiness.

I remember the advertisement tagline being "Fantasy becomes reality". I had a poster with that in my room for years.

This movie has a special place in my heart. It's not a great movie by any means, but the fact that they made a big budget movie, with all of that high end actor talent tied to the voices, and with Final Fantasy in the title was a big deal to me back in high school.

The idea of The planet being a living organism really resonated with Sakaguchi. It made its way into his initial plans for the the Lifestream in Final Fantasy VII, and he revisited the concepts in Final Fantasy IX and Spirits within. Chrono Trigger used this concept as well. On that note I'd probably say that Final Fantasy IX encapsulates Sakaguchi's true vision this idea. Gosh I want you to do FF9 so bad lol.

Casen: this movie isn't good Also Casen: this movie is great!

I really enjoyed the brief VFX segment at the end, it didn't overstay its welcome, it was brief and informative. I know it's not the primary focus of the podcast but I wouldn't mind if you guys did it more with games or movies where it's pertinent, especially when something is done particularly well or bad by your estimations. For single episode podcasts I recommend Papers Please and Return of the Obra Dinn by Lucas Pope, they are short games and both can be finished in 1 sitting (a couple of hours or less if you know what to do). Although they are not that heavy either thematically or in terms of writing, as they lean more into fictional history and a serviceable "basic" plot. But I still think they are worth talking about in a short format

This is a video by you guys i always wanted but never thought about! Im sooo excited to dive in!!!! Keep winning kings

In Lovelock's first book on the Gaia Hypothesis, he does lean into what is now referred to as "hard Gaia", a strong version of the theory that suggests Earth acts as a living thing. He backed away from this later, as it was trashed by most scientists. Some work is still being done on weaker versions of the theory which have merit. Been looking into it all recently myself, what a huge coincidence that this episode comes out.

The Gaia hypothesis is utterly captivating. A rabbit hole I keep falling down. Regardless whether it is fact or misconception, it is so enchanting to think of our planet as a self-regulating - "Living" - organism.

I was obsessed with this film when it came out. I had it on DVD and would watch it constantly. I loved the sci-fi combined with spirituality but also... Steve Buscemi! Going to have to dig it out.

You should make one of this about Lost Odissey, the last great Final Fantasy.

I saw this movie in theaters when it first came out. I thought it was quite good at the time and I wasn't that familiar with Final Fantasy. Then years later I hear it was a financial bomb and reviewed poorly. There's no way to tell what movies are going to become popular, unpopular, or popular for the wrong reasons. Hindsight is completely different from what you experience in the moment

I remember when I heard they were making a final fantasy movie. All I could think about was a final fantasy 7 movie. Little did I know that would come later.

I was at the exclusive premiere in Germany, it was the first time i saw a movie with a fully digital projector, that alone blew my mind.

The Mass Effect connection is wild to hear, because every time I play an ME game, I name my Shepard after "Gray" from Spirits Within. For no reason in particular other than I liked the name and Shepard just kind of reminded me of that character from a design standpoint, and I like that particular "generic scifi soldier man" aesthetic.

I would like to vote for a Paddington 2 episode.

I agree, they shoulda just titled it Spirits Within or Gaia: Spirits Within

I haven't watched this movie in a long time, but I remember loving it. And yes it was the Gaia part, which grab by very deeply. I did knew about it before hand. I found out after playing FF7. But i remember wishing it to be more FF7 like getting deeper withing the real plot that is related to Gaia and the spirits.

Squaresoft building their own movie studio to make one movie is just so emblematic of one of their biggest self-imposed problems. It's a mindset that they seem to feel like they always have to start from scratch and build everything themselves from scratch rather than ever make use of resources that already exist that would reduce production time or costs. And a lot of the time, they won't even re-use THEIR OWN assets. It's insanity. They recently said that doing a remake of FF6 would take them 15-20 *years.* Good grief, these guys need to get a grip and learn when to dial back ffs.

I watched it in theaters, and yeah, I stand by it. It’s good enough for me to own it on Blu-ray.

you guys should try the front mission series

I didn't realize Elliot Goldenthal composed the score for this! I know him for doing the Alien 3 score, which is the best part of that movie and honestly my favorite score of that franchise by far.

I saw this back then in the theaters and it was so good despite not being really final fantasy. And it still looks good til this day.

I always wonder if they got Nomura's help on this whether it would still be such a flop. I feel like Nomura's style flare and mysticism coupled with Sakaguchi's down to earth storytelling were a match made in heaven and one is often lacking the additions of the other. Take Advent Children, popular but often criticised by fans for being too action focused and obtuse with the characters. AC and Spirits Within seem to be two polar extremes of many of the things we like about Final Fantasy

"Hang on, they're covering WHAT?!"

Damn, this was a happy surprise. Great Episode. Anytime you guys talk about production struggles and all the interview stuff its nice. You scrounge a bunch of info i never knew about it. Much appreciated

Actually, I think the movie was more hated in the United States because it was heavily bombarded by the media in a very savage way, probably due to the irrational fear that CGI would replace actors. We all know what the power of castes can do. In other countries, the movie was not poorly received. The movie looks good, has good music, a good story, etc.

This movie reminds me of my favorite book, Last Dream: The Soul Inside.

i kept rewatching this when i finally got a copy years ago. i just liked the look of the army dudes. Hearing you guys' talk about it is a pleasant surprise.

Love this movie and seems to be largely forgotten, or as forgotten as something can get in this Information Age,.

Hey. I discovered your channel in 2019 for final fantasy content. Thank you for making a video for final fantasy the spirits within. I loved this movie as a kid for its ground breaking animation at the time.

Could not wait to sit and watch this when it was first recommended to me the other day, now I can’t wait for y’all and Max Derrat to collaborate on planescape. I am slowly going through ffx along side y’all’s podcast, I may just jump ship and do planescape as episodes come out.

I remember seeing this movie in theaters when I was 11 and it scared the hell out of me lol. Coming off of FFIX, the movie was not at all what I expected, the horror elements especially took me off guard and at the time I reacted negatively to horror.

I was so hyped for this film. I was a recent convert to the whole Final Fantasy phenomenon. Had played 7, 8 & 9, knew everything about the first 6 thru the nascent internet, and was looking forward to 10. Made my parent take me. And if I came out of it befuddled, God only knows what they thought. I don’t hate it tho. I’ll take a failure that wears its hearts on its sleeve like this over pandering nothings like Advent Children and Kingsglaive. Despite being a box office bomb, I think this film has subtly influenced cinema, especially in its visual design. And as you go through the film, I keep thinking of Death Stranding! Film was also cool for having Steve Busemi, Ving Rhames and Peri Gilpin from Frasier in it! And Elliot Goldenthal’s music is amazing, as it always is

Fascinating as always fellas, I too, came away with very little from this film. You guys really hit your stride towards the back end there with all this tying together with philosophy and symbolism, it made me start appreciating the film vicariously! You've actively made me want to give it another spin.

I love this movie because the design of the movie it’s basically a game where you find the spirits and at the end you fight the final boss and Aki becomes a final summon to fight the last boos

Hey, since you will be talking about other stuff until the Planescape podcast, which I'm very excited about, a fascinating movie you could take a look at is the 2008 Speed Racer live action. Even though it's not a "filosofficial movie", more like a fun kids movie, it is a amazing work of art and it would be really interesting to see your view of it.

The Tuscon wasteland line really is the very best part of this movie

I thought that Square's involvement in The Animatrix went further and that they were responsible for the "Final Flight of the Osiris" segment.

To be frank this channel and almost every video is so well crafted and prepared I feel at home as a millenial who grew up with these games. Glad to see normal, healthy adults have genuine conversations about the intellectual, philosophical and psychological aspects of said games while reminiscing in nostalgia and trying to be objective about the subject at hand. Often these days you get dissed by Gen Z for not enjoying shallow content. For instance I get regularly bashed online on a specific topic: for preferring the Zelda Classic formula to the New Breath of the Wild formula of the last two games, because story suffered due to linearity being eliminated, and god do I ride with story over gameplay. This is not something I think will happen on this channel. Nobody will overzealously defend FF15, FF16 or whatever is new and around the corner. People will generally try to look beyond the hill and the qualities of what made media great and not be subjective just because something is trendy and new. So I am thankful a channel like this exists where deeper things are analyzed and where a search for meaning actually is the point. So thanks for the videos guys!😊

Even the Hyperdimension Neptunia games Square-Enix insert has her whole character arc based on the assumption that the movie killed Squaresoft and Enix had to step in, which I still find very funny.

This was a fun episode. The excitement towards the end is priceless.

this will be interesting. I haven't seen Spirits Within since I saw it in the theater when it released. Such a significant event in SE's history.

It may be important to note that Uematsu was pretty burnt out after the masterpiece that was FFIX's soundtrack. This is a huge reason contributing to why Uematsu worked with other composers for FFX's soundtrack, and their different styles are very apparent in-game. I wouldn't be surprised if this was also another factor in Uematsu not composing for this film.

The episode I didn't know I needed. Thanks for reviewing this guys! A couple of episodes I'd like to see if possible would be Never ending story and Akira.

I've been meaning to revisit this movie forever. I watched it when I was way too young to gleam anything from it I think.

There was a short movie included in the Animatrix short film compilation that was produced by Square Film studio. Other than that and the Spirits Within I don't think they produced anything else.

The Spirits Within was my first Final Fantasy

NO WAY- it's cool that you guys covered this

I would LOVE to hear a discussion on The Last Story.

Take all the time you need, Planescape is 100% the game that can push you guys the way Xenogears did, At least for RPGs pre 2018.

You guys should cover more games/movies that were poorly received, but had a really good premise. This made me appreciate the movie more. What else did I miss out on by only judging things surface level? I've enjoyed some really average to bad games/movies where I knew it could've been a better experience if they just tweaked some things. I'd like to hear what games or movies you guys enjoyed that could be considered mediocre to bad.

Awesome thank you guys excited for what’s next

Hearing you mention Planescape: Torment just makes me think how much you would probably enjoy Disco Elysium! I would love so much to hear your thoughts and analysis for that one too.

I never played the final fantasy games till 12 and the reason i played it was this movie 😊

I still love this movie to this day.

I didn't realise I needed this in my life.

Just got notified, can't watch this fast enough.😊

When I was 12 I was fresh out of FF7, so I was looking for things that hinted at a lifestream, I kinda saw the ending as a FF7 prequel because the new Gaia formed from the balance between Earth's spirit and the spirit on the shard of that alien world, that resulting Gaia seemed to be more present and more able to influence the material world. And on the idea of balance between the wave of Earth spirits and alien spirits, I saw it as a way to make it fit in a non-destructive way, not really destroying the alien spirits, but I think even the characters in the movie don't think that they are reaching a merge instead of anihilation. And I don't know if you guys would ever do this, but a joke episode about the lore of Palworld would be interesting.

This was a very interesting view on the movie, and indeed what's behind the scenes explains a lot of things better and the possible intention for it. It kinda makes want you guys to approach the Final Fantasy Unlimited anime, it had a lot of issues too and was unsuccessful but it did carry a lot of core elements from final fantasy that I found amusing. It even got a couple of novels to expand the story too.

With how many games square had in the works all at once, it's really amazing how well they all turned out. FF 9 and 10 are pretty universally loved, 8 is a bit polarizing but I think the overall feeling on it is still mostly positive, 11 I've never played but people who did seem to like it, and the I felt the ports of their old games to PS1 game out reasonably well. Really the movie is the only thing that went poorly.

I had never played the game that you guys were about to cover so I was pleasantly suprised to see this 😊. I may still check the game out but now I have some time lol

Well geez. Definitely need to give the movie a new watch with the pregnancy angle now!

Also, speaking of preparation, it's absolutely bizarre to me that it got released for and plays half decently on the Switch.

Would you guys consider covering the Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind manga? I realize you two have previously analyzed the film, however the manga is another beast entirely, with a different story, characters and ending. It would be amazing to see you two cover the manga in its seven volume entirety!

Also for one episode movie suggestions Robert Egger´s the lighthouse is soooooooooooooooooooo full of symbolisms that id love to see you two scholars take a crack at it because im sure a lot flew over my head.

I actually rewatched this movie some 3 or so months back. Part way through the movie I kinda forgot I was watching something final fantasy until more toward the end of the movie when the Gaia stuff starts to really come to forefront. I have a friend who was told by his dad that this movie was related to VII and upon rewatching the movie I see how his dad could think that lol

Great analysis!

I am so hyped for this video

Hey guys! Since you are about to tackkle Planescape:Torment, consider playing it with the Unfinished Business mod installed, since it replaces many things that modders found in the games files, but that the devs hadn't managed to incorporate into the final game due to their deadlines. Love from Greece!

I remember being in math class working on the computers when I saw a trailer for this and me and my friend were all excited because we swore up and down we saw something that resembled the high wind and I believe bahamut and maybe some thing of some sort that resembled the life stream so in our head this was Final Fantasy 7 but with a more grounded approach and different characters leading up to the game. Boy were we wrong lol.

The Gutch was used as a scapegoat after the bombing of the movie, so sad.

When I first saw the film I was definitely in that group of being disappointed how little it tied to the series, and that if it were named something else it might've done much better. The marketing really hurt it. Now I think slightly better of it, as a somewhat entertaining CG stepping stone. I also think the concept of the spirits was... quite terrifying? Ghosts that can go through walls that RIP OUT AND DEVOUR YOUR SOUL just by touching you? Overpowered nightmare fuel.

I'm not sure the timing works for Kingdom Hearts having been significantly reworked in response to the reception of Spirits Within - the latter was released July 2001, and KH released March 2002, roughly 8 months later. I can certainly believe that Sakaguchi's view was influenced by the path Spirits Within was heading down, even if the full reaction hadn't confirmed that view yet. I also had/have a slightly different take on the movie's ending - I focus more on the alien spirit - the phantoms, and the Xenogaia fragment itself, are stuck in a cycle of rage and grief, reliving the trauma of death, until they finally find a way to let go - the 8th spirit, a phantom spirit, finds the "promise of new life", and, turning to embrace the future, lets go of the trauma of the past - stops obsessing over the war and moves on - both ready for rebirth, and, with the completion of the spirit wave, and the new compatibility with Gaia, actually able to be reborn at last.

Welp. You convinced me that I need to watch the movie so I went out and bought it. Haha. So kudos to you for that! Hmm. In terms of recommendations for one offs, maybe childhoods end?

Spirits Within is legit quite go-... well, it isn't bad. I like it, but I know it isn't amazing and it doesn't need to be. Yes, the money and corporate drama and the overall reputation, but there's something about it. I honestly find it quite watchable. The music though, is stunning. I unironically listen to the soundtrack every now and then. I'd almost like to see some kind of remake that irons out more of the basic film-making issues, but keeps much of it the same perhaps.

If this didn't have Final Fantasy in the title it would be even more of a cult classic. Loved it in theaters and still believe it holds up today. 😊

Here’s an interesting tidbit/connection: The first ever fully CG full length movie (Toy Story) and the first ever fully CG full length photo-realistic movie (The Spirits Within) both contain a character named and spelled “Sid”.

I am so excited

I want to see the different timeline where this film inspired lifelike adult animation to hit the cinema big beyond Pixar and Dreamworks fare. The Marvel craze doesn't count. Its very Eastern and beyond its time still in terms of what it expects from the audience.

I just remember being so let down as a kid.

I love this movie. It’s not amazing, but I love it. Btw, the character model for Aki Ross was still used in the Animatrix for The Final Flight of the Osiris segment because they did still do the animation for it.

I hated spirits within when I saw it as a big ff fan in theaters when I was 15 but upon a rewatch in my 20s I’ve come to understand the movie more and appreciate it for what it is.

April Fools came a bit too early. Still very admirable to analyze something almost no one was willing to take seriously.

love this Channel

Thanks guys for another insightful podcast.

FFVII Remake players: “Plot ghosts are ruining Final Fantasy!” Spirits Within viewers: “First time?”

I went to the cinemas to watch this. I also love the music video Larc en Ciel made for the movie. I remember all the normies enjoying the movie. Only the people who were FF fans hated it because it didn't look like FF.

This is one of my favorite movies to watch, I never understood the excessive amount of hate for it. Lara Fabian killed it with that theme song, too

This movie certainly made an impact, but probably not the one Square wanted.

Thanks for the Spirits Within Recap/Analysis! I'll never forget this movie from my childhood. I was on vacation in Malaysia (I'm a Canadian-born Chinese in my 30s now) about 9 years old with nothing to do in my relative's house. Going to the movies and seeing this movie which was my first exposure to a Final Fantasy property, really gave me something to latch onto while ruminating and pacing in my room dealing with my ADHD and PTSD. Maybe I'll rewatch it sometime. I appreciate the general duality and interactions between the themes of pro-nature and pro-human Capitalism. Very reminiscent of FF7! Great job!

This movie’s cast is insane btw