* BoxOfficeBomb: Budget, $135-167 million. Box office, $85,131,830. Lost over $100 million. One of the reasons why Square Pictures was discontinued.
* BudgetBustingElement: A large part of the budget was spent animating Aki's hair, which consisted of 60,000 individually rendered hairs.
* CelebrityVoiceActor:
** Creator/MingNaWen as Aki, Creator/AlecBaldwin as Gray, Creator/DonaldSutherland as Cid, Creator/JamesWoods as General Hein and Creator/SteveBuscemi as Neil.
** In the Mexican Spanish dub, Cid is voiced by Mexican soap opera actor Hector Bonilla.
* CreatorKiller: The film's bombing is commonly cited as the reason Hironobu Sakaguchi resigned from Square. The Square Pictures division also closed down after the film bombed. And while it didn't kill Square ''itself'', it came close enough that they were forced to merge with longtime competitor Enix shortly afterwards. Additionally, the amount of focus and money Square put into ''The Spirits Within'' also resulted in the departure of the team behind ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'' and ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'', who went on to form Creator/MonolithSoft under Namco and develop ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}}'' and ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'' as spiritual successors respectively, before being sold to Creator/{{Nintendo}} in 2007 and subsequently developing the ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles'' games.
* DarkhorseCasting: Ming-Na Wen was an unconventional choice to voice Aki as she was neither a bankable star - only in a recurring role in ''Series/{{ER}}'' - nor an established voice actress (with only ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'' to her name).
* DuelingMovies: The film was this with multiple other films from the time. Ranging from ''Film/LaraCroftTombRaider'' (both being video game movies with female leads), ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' (a DarkerAndEdgier sci-fi/action-adventure animated film), and three other CGI films from the time (''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'', ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc'', and ''WesternAnimation/JimmyNeutronBoyGenius''). ''The Spirits Within'' would be at the losing side in all of these fronts, even up against the [[Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney]] BoxOfficeBomb that was ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire''.
* GenreKiller: The film's failure ([[WesternAnimation/TitanAE alongside]] [[WesternAnimation/TheRoadToElDorado other]] [[WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire Western-made]] [[WesternAnimation/TreasurePlanet animated films]] [[WesternAnimation/SinbadLegendOfTheSevenSeas from the time]]) made sure that DarkerAndEdgier teen-oriented action-adventure animated films, and the more serious animated films that made up UsefulNotes/TheRenaissanceAgeOfAnimation would die out as a trend, in favor of DenserAndWackier family-friendly animated comedy films such as ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}''.
* PreviewPiggybacking:
** The soundtrack and DVD contained a preview for ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX''.
** Screenings of the film had the notable pre-9/11 teaser of ''Film/SpiderMan1'' shown.
* ReferencedBy: The technological aesthetics of ''Franchise/MassEffect'''s human armor and omni-tools were lifted from ''The Spirits Within'', as the game's art director was a fan of the movie's style. Ironic, considering shortly after the release of ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', in a PR move, Bioware executives publicly dissed the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' franchise.
* ShootTheMoney: The filmmakers went to great effort to avert NoFlowInCGI, which was quite costly, so Aki doing a lot of {{Hair Flip}}ping was to show off the technology.
* StillbornFranchise: The idea of Aki Ross being an AnimatedActor and appearing in other films was destroyed by the movie's failure.
* {{Tuckerization}}: Aki was named after Hironobu Sakaguchi's mother, who had died several years before and inspired him to think about what happened after death.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** Aki Ross was originally going to be an {{Animated Act|or}}ress that was going to appear in other films. Since the movie tanked at the box office and Square Pictures was discontinued, the only remnants of this was a Maxim Poster of her in a bikini and footage of her [[RogerRabbitEffect interacting with live action actors on the DVD.]] Ming-Na Wen said she was open to continuing to provide the voice for Aki, but it's never been said whether she would have had the same voice actor.
** Concept art shows that Ryan would have had a robotic arm, as a ShoutOut to Barrett from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''.
** In early drafts of the script, Aki was Cid's granddaughter. In the final film, they are just co-workers.
** Characters were dropped from the script as it kept changing. The Deep Eyes would have had a fifth squad member called Robert. A smaller girl called Meg would have had a larger role, but the only reference to her in the final film is Aki saying she had to draw the fifth spirit from a terminally ill child.
** Aki's original design was a more typical sexy scientist. In order to make her seem more realistic, they removed her makeup and shortened her hair. Her spread in ''Maxim'' is closer to the original design.
* WorkingTitle: ''Gaia''.
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