Story
Earth is a desolate wasteland in
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Humanity has been decimated by an invasion of Phantoms, insubstantial aliens that extract and devour the spirits of living things. The few remaining humans have retreated to a handful of cities that are protected by massive bio-energy shields. The beautiful Dr. Aki Ross (voiced by Ming-Na) and her mentor Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland) have discovered that the energy signatures of eight key Earth spirits can cancel out and destroy the Phantoms. With the help of Captain Edwards (Alec Baldwin) and his band of marines, they must scour the globe for the last two remaining spirits before General Hein (James Woods) manipulates the refugee government into attacking the aliens with an orbital laser that may also destroy the Earth.
Hironobu Sakaguchi's film is taken from the popular
Final Fantasy video game franchise, which is particularly well suited to film adaptation with its series of original stories, but the movie features entirely new characters and settings. And like
Toy Story and
Shrek,
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is completely computer generated. Unlike those cartoon comedies, though,
The Spirits Within is a serious science fiction drama with astonishingly human digital actors. Aki, the female lead, appeared in a full-page spread in
Maxim magazine's Hot 100 list--and was indistinguishable from the real-life models. The setting and conflict make for incredible action, but it's the larger issues, character interaction, and human elements that really make the movie shine.
The Spirits Within is not simply a science fiction movie, in the same way that
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is not simply a kung fu flick. The result is a fantastic summer movie with better action and more emotion than
Pearl Harbor, and actors more lifelike than those in that other video game movie,
Tomb Raider.
--Mike Fehlauer DVD Features
Disc One:Production notes
Theatrical trailer(s)
Feature-length commentary by co-director Motonori Sakakibara, sequence supervisor Hiroyuki Hayashida, sets & props lead artist Tatsuro Maruyama, and Phantom supervisor Takao Noguchi (in Japanese with English or French subtitles)
Feature-length commentary by animation director Andy Jones, editor Chris S. Capp, and staging director Tani Kunitake
Isolated score with commentary by composer Elliot Goldenthal
Storyboard/Playblast selects of the film with optional filmmaker commentary or subtitled factoids
Interactive animated menus, featuring CGI introductions created by Square Pictures
Disc Two:
Original interactive documentary: "The Making of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within." Dig deeper and link out to information pods that spotlight: Final Fantasy Thriller music video, mini-movie: Aki's Dream, two face wraps (Aki, Dr. Sid), character morphs, matte art explorations, compositing builds
Multiple workshops including: seven in-depth character files, three vehicle scale comparisons (Bandit, Quatro, Black Boa), trailer explorations, sets and props
Final Fantasy Shuffler: Become the filmmaker by re-editing the council conference-room scene from the film. Complete the edit and play back your final cut.
DVD-ROM exclusive interactive film exploration: complete screenplay, virtual tour of Square Pictures, screensaver, Weblinks
Interactive animated menus
Cast