History YMMV / FinalFantasyTheSpiritsWithin

* RetroactiveRecognition: Aki Ross is voiced by Creator/MingNaWen, long before she attained much greater recognition for her appearances as Fennec Shand in several ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' animated and live-action series.

* AnimationAgeGhetto: An interesting case. It wasn't marketed as a typical animated film, perhaps due to the awareness of this phenomenon, but adult audiences avoided it anyway. Notably, it did not perform any better in Japan, where the ''Final Fantasy'' franchise was created and is quite popular.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** The banter between Neil and Jane is either just friendly, or he could be flirting with her. Notably when she tells him to get a girlfriend, he winks and says "I'm working on it" - and alludes to Jane always picking on him in a {{Tsundere}} way.
** General Hein stopping at nothing to [[spoiler: continue firing the Zeus Cannon into the Phantom Crater]], even when his own workers warn him that it's overheating. Ostensibly he hates the Phantoms and wants to exterminate them at all costs. But what if there's more to it than that? After [[spoiler: the Phantoms overrun New York thanks to his plan, he goes MyGodWhatHaveIDone]], so it's possible he's so determined because he thinks he can justify going to such extremes if it results in wiping the Phantoms out? Or does he think he'll be found out eventually and this makes for a SuicideByCop scenario that'll hopefully take out the Phantoms too?

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: By the standards of mid-2000's moving forward, the animation (especially facial expression) is nothing to write home about, but considering the film came out 3 years before the first movie in performance capture (''WesternAnimation/ThePolarExpress'')... well, at the time it was pretty damn impressive. It certainly scared the hell out of the Screen Actors' Guild when it released, who sent a few representatives out to talk to media outlets about how they didn't support the burgeoning rise of "virtual actors." As CGI technology improved, the film in retrospect, resembles a 100 minute cutscene for an eighth-generation video game.

* FandomRivalry: With fans of ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'', and to a lesser extent, ''VideoGame/ChronoCross, since one of the producers at Creator/MonolithSoft who was at Square in the late-[=90s=] confirmed that a sequel to ''Xenogears'' never happened because of the money Square was investing into ''Spirits Within'', thus causing the crew behind that game and ''Chrono Cross'' to depart Square and found Monolith Soft, who then went onto create the ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' games out of unused material from the planned installments of ''Xenogears'' under [[Creator/BandaiNamco Namco]], and then were sold to Creator/{{Nintendo}} in the late-[=2000s=] under whom they did the ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles'' series as a BroadStrokes remake of both ''Xenogears'' and ''Xenosaga''.

* UnintentionalUncannyValley: Being the first animated film to use photorealistic visuals (and without MotionCapture mind you), it's inevitable the film would fall into the valley. The human characters all look like they're made out of plastic and their overall movements, especially facial expressions, can sometimes be unnatural.

** Didn't do that well with critics (Creator/RogerEbert [[https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/final-fantasy-the-spirits-within-2001 loved]] it, however) or audiences when it came out. These days it's got a lot more fans, who praise the SceneryPorn and overall story. It's bordering on CultClassic as the years go by.

** The "virtual actor" concept seemed pretty pie-in-the-sky, but the idea (a single character model and voice being used to fill many potential roles over different projects) ended up being oddly prescient of machinima, especially ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' SFM projects.

* UncannyValley: Being the first animated film to use photorealistic visuals (and without MotionCapture mind you), it's inevitable the film would fall into the valley. The human characters all look like they're made out of plastic and their overall movements, especially facial expressions, can sometimes be unnatural.