This Week In Retro: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Patreon)

July 11, 2001: Final Fantasy goes Hollywood and nearly fades away

by Diamond Feit

Final Fantasy is a rarity amongst Japanese video game franchises, as it is one of the few to achieve global recognition early in its existence while also maintaining a strong following in its home country of Japan. This is extra unusual when you consider that the JRPG genre was not an immediate success in "Western" cultures, and one of the key titles in popularizing the format overseas was none other than Final Fantasy VII.

However, in its 34 years on store shelves, Final Fantasy has had its shares of ups and downs. Many of the early titles took years to surface outside Japan, increased development costs have slowed the series' output, and all the brand's recent E3 announcements were met with varying levels of...skepticism. Considering Final Fantasy's unquestioned place on the list of "most popular game franchises" worldwide, the lows have been pretty low.

This week, though, we must turn history's unflinching gaze on one of Final Fantasy's biggest mistakes. Twenty years ago, Square gambled on an attempt to push the series beyond video games and into mainstream pop culture. The company bet big on Final Fantasy's famous creator, Hironobu Sakaguchi, and invested millions to create a full-length computer-generated animated film which he would write and direct. That bet did not pay off, so much so that it nearly sank the entire company.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within premiered in theaters on July 11, 2001. Like so many games in the series, it has no direct connection to any previous Final Fantasy properties, as the characters and setting are unique to this story. Of course, the themes at play in this movie would be familiar to any Final Fantasy fan at the turn of the century, for Spirits Within delivers science-fiction, action, environmentalism, a love story, and a tale of faith all in one package.

Set in the year 2065, The Spirits Within opens with Dr. Aki Ross dreaming of a far-away planet while she sleeps in Earth's orbit. She tells the audience that she's been dreaming about this strange place a lot lately, so much so that she records her visions in the hopes of deciphering their meaning. It's all relevant to her job of searching our planet for life forms that might hold the key to staving off a nest of alien creatures called Phantoms.

The Phantoms arrived via a giant meteorite years earlier, and the people of Earth now live behind energy barriers in a stable but desolate world. Normally invisible, these creatures can phase through solid matter and drain the human body of life with a single touch. Earth's remaining military forces have prepared a giant space laser to destroy the meteorite and everything in it, but Aki is pursuing an alternate method, one she believes is connected to her recurring alien dreams.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within began production shortly after Final Fantasy VII became a worldwide hit, in part thanks to its then-advanced CGI cutscenes which made full use of the PlayStation's CD-based storage capacity. As former president/CEO of Square Tomoyuki Takechi told Polygon, "Square was a very ambitious company, and as a digital entertainment company, we were talking about wanting to be bigger than Disney...We’re not just a company that makes games. So why don’t we make movies as well?"

On paper, it all made sense: The advancement of video game technology meant that games were becoming more cinematic in the 1990s, and Square's JRPGs channeled that energy to draw fans from outside the usual video game circles. Removing the barrier of gameplay and just delivering a scripted narrative to movie theaters could reach a wider audience than just console-owners.

Adding to the appeal was Square's pitch that Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within would be a computer-animated movie featuring realistic human figures, a daring technical innovation at that time. CG animated films were no longer revolutionary in the 21st century (Pixar and Shrek were household names by summer 2001), but if they featured human beings at all, they had a cartoonish appearance. The characters in The Spirits Within all resemble actual people, and early marketing efforts treated them, especially Aki Ross, as stars unto themselves. Maxim magazine (Gen Z, ask your parents) even included her on a list of "sexiest women of 2001" despite her being neither a woman nor a corporeal organism.

As a technical achievement, I believe Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within holds up well even 20 years later. Obviously technology has improved by leaps and bounds since 2001, and the movie today no longer outclasses its video game peers. However, as a cinematic experience, The Spirits Within looks fantastic, with plenty of sweeping landscapes, massive cyber-cities, and the aforementioned Phantoms appear genuinely other-worldly.

Far less impressive, though, is how these realistic human characters behave and interact with one another. It's not an acting problem—the cast is all top-notch—but a script problem. Aki Ross and Dr. Sid (no, not Cid) are unambiguously heroic, the military leaders are transparently evil, and the soldiers who end up protecting our protagonists are all willing to die to advance the plot. The movie asks the audience to accept a lot of far-out theories as fact and rushes to a conclusion based on everything Sid believed being true all along.

Ironically, I think The Spirits Within would have worked better in video game format, as the characters would have been given time to gradually grow on the player as they fought Phantoms or explored the world searching for life energy. With no previous legacy to build on, the audience has little reason to connect with these particular Final Fantasy heroes. Contrast that with the Resident Evil CGI animated productions which all center on established characters from the games being cool and doing exactly what fans want to see.

While Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within garnered much attention upon its release and praise from some famous critics, its dismal box office performance overshadowed its artistic merits. The film debuted in fourth place and never recovered, grossing just $32 million during its American theatrical run. Square had spent a fortune to build a studio in Hawaii and establish Square Pictures to create The Spirits Within; analysts estimate the company ended up losing more than $90 million. Square Pictures folded in 2002 without ever producing a second feature film. Sakaguchi, who had already stepped down as Square Executive Vice President in early 2001, would leave the company altogether a few years later.

The good news is everyone landed on their feet. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within may have lost money, but the film is still widely available and it has its fans. Square avoided bankruptcy and merged with Enix; today there are still plenty of Final Fantasy (and Dragon Quest) games in production. Hironobu Sakaguchi founded Mistwalker and his latest game is getting rave reviews, even if it is trapped on Apple Arcade.

Perhaps the only true casualty of The Spirits Within's financial woes was Aki Ross. Despite all the positive press, her "career" as a virtual performer ended prematurely, though she did get one last gig. Before the lights went out, Square Pictures produced The Final Flight of the Osiris, a short film included as part of The Animatrix. A demo reel included on home video editions features a short-haired Aki grappling with a Sentinel one-on-one, showing the world that Aki had the range to do action as well as sci-fi.

Alas, she never got the chance; once Square Pictures shut down, she fell into disuse. There's probably a hard drive sitting in a locked Hawaiian warehouse to this day containing an entire digital person. Just imagine the missed opportunities SquareEnix is sitting on: Aki Ross could become a sensational Vtuber, life-streaming Final Fantasy games to adoring fans around the world.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.