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Anime: Final Fantasy The Spirits Within

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a computer animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the kitten-stranglingly popular Final Fantasy series of role-playing games.

In the year 2065, an alien infestation has overrun Earth; the remaining humans live in "barrier cities" all over the world while trying to free their planet from the spectral alien beings ("Phantoms") that devastate everything in their path. Dr. Aki Ross, alongside her old mentor Dr. Sid, hopes to unlock the secret behind these Phantoms and find a way to destroy them without harming Earth — but General Hein has plans to annihilate the Phantoms using a huge space cannon, regardless of the damage it can do to the planet.

Although it bears the Final Fantasy title, this movie has close-to-zero connection to the video game franchise of the same name. While The Spirits Within holds a place in film history as the first feature film to attempt photorealistic CGI characters (with less-than-desired results), it also holds a place in history as a huge Box Office Bomb (it earned $30 million in the U.S. with a production budget of around $140 million). The Spirits Within almost single-handedly ended Square Pictures' existence as an independent entity, nearly killed Squaresoft's merger negotiations with Enix, and — in an ironic twist — eventually became the most critically-acclaimed movie based on a video game on Rotten Tomatoes — which isn't saying much, but still.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within contains examples of the following tropes:

Action Girl: Jane
After the End: At some point, the Leonid meteor crashed into Earth and dispensed its payload of Phantoms. Mankind has been reduced to a handful of cities around the world, and virtually no life exists outside these safe havens.
Alien Invasion: Subverted, as what the human authorities assume was a deliberate invasion is really just an accidental collision between a huge haunted chunk of the Phantoms' home planet and the Earth.
Almost Kiss: Aki and Gray in the elevator.
Animated Actors: Hironobu had intended for Aki to appear as a digital actress in a number of feature pictures. However, the failure of her debut film cut her career tragically short, though she did have a photo spread in Maxim magazine.
Apocalypse How: Earth has already suffered a Class 4 before the movie even starts, and the Leonid meteor is revealed to be the result of a Class X.
Armoris Useless: The soldiers wear all of this heavy armor that does nothing to protect them.
Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Implied with Gray with the white hawk.
Author Existence Failure: Some people might at least consider the film's use of incredibly realistic CGI to be the cornerstone for an Award Snub for Best Visual Effects. However, it couldn't have won any awards; Square Pictures was disbanded before the Oscars that year.
Big Applesauce: Most of the action takes place in and around New York City.
Big Damn Heroes: The first scene of the film: Aki has gotten herself surrounded by Phantoms, who look like they're about to move in for the kill, when we hear a transport flying overhead. Four objects are launched, firing some kind of gelatinous mass at the ground, softening the impact as they land. When the gel dissolves, we see it's the Deep Eyes, who take aim and fire immediately.
Big "NO!": Jane when Neil is killed.
Bittersweet Ending: The Phantoms are gone, and it's vaguely implied life will return to the earth, but at the moment it's a barren, lifeless world.
- Not to mention that only two named characters are still alive, and the population has been reduced to a fraction of its former size.
- And they blew up their awesome space cannon!
Body Horror: The Phantom sealed within Aki, providing her empathic dreams about its world's ultimate fate.
But Not Too Foreign: Aki Ross.
Captain Obvious:
Aki: We're surrounded!
Jane: No shit!
Collision Damage: Touching a Phantom is almost always fatal. Hell, most of the bigger Phantoms don't actively attack, but rack up a body count just by wandering around.
Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: When visible, the spirit energy is this. Phantoms (and anything else native to their planet) show up as red energy. Humans (and other creatures native to Earth) show up as blue energy. When the Phantom particle sealed with Aki's chestplate makes its Heel Face Turn, its energy color changes from red to blue to signify its new loyalty.
Combat Tentacles: Most Phantoms possess these; in particular, the Hand Cannons of the Phantom Soldiers had a variety of pipes and tubes which became their deadly tentacles upon their passing.
Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like:
Aki: Nobody asked you to save me.
Gray: You have not changed a bit!
Aki: Gray?
Gray: (removes his helmet) Yeah. Nice to see you too.
Cool Car: Aki's ATV, armed with gel missiles for soft landings and an anti-Phantom barrier generator.
Cool Ship: Aki's Black Boa.
Creator Killer: Killed Square Pictures, but didn't actually force Square's merger with Enix (infact, it delayed it).
Death Is Dramatic
Decontamination Chamber: The domed cities have decon protocols to keep out the phantoms that haunt the outside world. Though, for some reason people with enough clout get to skip them if they feel like it.
Doing in the Wizard : While the film does not, as some fans have complained, completely strip its setting of the magic that is one of the franchise's signature elements, it does recast it into a form of science that only just dabbles a bit into the area of Magitek.
Domed Hometown: The City. Eventually ends up becoming a Doomed Hometown.
Driven to Suicide: Hein, realizing that he was responsible for the Phantoms massacre of the New York Barrier City, drifts into space within his ship and unloads all but one of the bullets from his gun, with the intention of shooting himself. He changes his mind before pulling the trigger, instead opting to head for the Zeus Station and destroy the Phantoms at their source.
Dying Declaration of Love: Gray's Last Words to Aki just before his Heroic Sacrifice are that he loves her.
Dynamic Entry: Gotta give it to the Deep Eyes - they know how to make an entrance.
Endless Conflict: The Phantoms were from an alien race that fought each other constantly. Eventually, they used a Doomsday Device that destroyed them all, locking them in a violent post-mortal energy state.
Exact Time to Failure - It can apparently be determined down to the second how long an infected person has before it is too late to save them from the Phantom.
- The countdown was until the Magitek barrier containing the infection failed.
Explosive Overclocking: Safety controls exist for a reason...
"I know!"
- Defiant to the End
  "But it must be done."
Faceless Goons
Fanservice: Several images have been released in this manner. One has Aki wearing a tight black leather outfit, which exposes her navel, has a very seductive look on her face with her hair in the middle of a "wave" motion (and oddly, her nipples evident from beneath the leather). Another has Aki posing in a bikini. And one has Gray posing completely shirtless.
Five-Man Band:
- The Leader: Gray
- The Lancer: Ryan
- The Big Guy: Jane
- The Smart Guy: Neal
- The Chick: Aki
- The Mentor: Dr. Sid
Frothy Mugs of Water
Gaia's Vengeance: Invoked explicitly by Aki and Dr. Sid.
General Ripper: General Hein, Played by James Woods.
Go Through Me: When Aki's Phantom infection becomes more unstable, and Gray elects that they need to get her to a hospital rather than being put into military custody, as per his orders, Hein's men attempt to relieve him of his command and force Aki's arrest. Gray, held at gunpoint, tells them that they'll have to shoot him first.
Gotta Catch 'Em All: The Eight Spirits needed to create the anti-Phantom wave. (Although, to the writers' credit, several of these spirits have already been collected as the film opens - specifically five have already been collected and the sixth one is collected in the opening scene. This is a double Shout Out to Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy IV, which open in a similar way.)
Heroic BSOD: Gray has one during the ride to the Phantom crater after being forced to watch helplessly as the other three members of his squad were slaughtered in front of his eyes in the previous scene.
Heroic Sacrifice: Gray Edwards sacrificed himself as a medium needed to physically transmit the completed spirit into the alien Gaia.
- Ryan performed one in order to draw the Meta Phantom away from the Black Boa.
- General Hein thought he was doing this when he overloaded the space cannon.
Hilarious Outtakes: Of the spoof variety, of course. Featured on the DVD.
- Even better is an Easter Egg of the characters doing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (considering the monsters are ghosts, fitting)
In Name Only: The difference in medium may partly be the cause of this one. The games often run for dozens of hours and feature fairly intricate settings, but films are generally around two hours, a length that simply does not justify crafting an original setting of the franchise's usual complexity. This may explain why Final Fantasy films that use settings which have already been established in the games, such as Advent Children, tend to be far truer to the source.
Ink Suit Actor: Hein looks a lot like James Woods. However, a lot was made of making Gray (voice by Alec Baldwin) look a lot like Ben Affleck.
Just in Time: Averted Aki manages to defeat the Phantom infecting Edwards with a whole 1.02 seconds to spare.
Lampshaded Double Entendre: Sid to Aki: "And stay away from your friend, the captain. He saves your life, you save his life... I was young once too you know?"
Large Ham: James Woods plays the General Ripper. Expected hamminess ensues.
Kill Sat: The Zeus space cannon.
Kill Them All: Only Dr. Aki and Dr. Sid manage to survive in the end.
The Lifestream: The planetary gaia force is pretty much directly modeled after the Final Fantasy VII concept.
Metaphysical Fuel: "Bio-etheric energy" which is produced by living things. The OVO-Packs used as batteries supposedly harvest this energy from bacteria, though the Eight Spirits (extracted from more complex lifeforms) have to be sacrificed for the Spirit Wave to work.
Mickey Mousing: The first appearance of the Zeus Cannon takes this to such (ear-shattering) extremes it borders on Narm.
Mook Lieutenant: Major Elliott.
Mr. Exposition: Dr. Sid.
Mundane Made Awesome: One of the biggest publicity points about the film was Aki's strands of hair being individually animated — which resulted in Aki jerking her head around wildly whenever she talked (so the animators would have plenty of chances to show her hair moving). This led to several reviewers joking about Square creating "the world's first virtual George Clooney."
My God, What Have I Done?: General Hein, realizing that he accidentally let the Phantoms into a major population center.
Mythology Gag:
- Several references to the game series, including a Chocobo embroidered on one of Aki's shirts, and some of the Phantoms are based on creatures and bosses from the series.
- Hein is named after a major boss in Final Fantasy III.
No Flow in CGI: Averted a little too well with Aki's hair.
Non-Action Girl: Aki isn't a Distressed Damsel, but she's clearly a non-combatant scientist who hangs around with four very competent soldiers.
Our Souls Are Different. And Our Ghosts Are Different, too.
Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Apparently the little girl Aki met at a hospital.
Aki: She, uh, told me that she was ready to die. She said I didn't have to make up stories to make her feel better. [pause] Only seven years old and ready to die!
Pillar of Light
Please Don't Leave Me: After the final blast from the Zeus cannon, Gray is wounded and decides that the only way to transmit the completed waveform is by him sacrificing himself to the Phantom Gaia. Aki pleads for him not to go through with it and that they can find another way, but after putting her on a safe ledge, he reassures her that he now believes that death isn't the end, and tells her he loves her before the Phantom Gaia descends upon him and takes his spirit.
Power Crystal: The common series tie-in element is worked into the movie as being part of the life-support device Aki has embedded in her chest.
Powered by a Forsaken Child: The fifth spirit is collected from a dying child.
Preview Piggybacking: The soundtrack contained a preview for Final Fantasy X.
Psychic Dreams for Everyone: They started haunting Aki at first, but then she shared them with Gray...
Putting on the Reich: The Soldiers under the leadership of General Hein.
Random Encounters: One of the few things seemingly taken from the source material, the movie comes up with an explanation of why monsters can just pop up out of the ground at any time.
Real Is Brown: A sad foretelling of what many video games would be.
Recurring Dreams: Dr. Aki Ross has these, which prove to be integral to the story.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Almost a Trope Codifier.
Rescue Romance: Used, reciprocated, and helpfully lampshaded by Dr. Sid between Aki Ross and Gray Edwards. Though it should be noted, that unlike the typical examples, the rescue did not initiate the romance, but rather rekindled it, since Aki and Gray were already in a relationship prior to the events of the film, until Aki became infected and left, cutting off communication with Gray, in order to work on finding the remaining 8 spirits. Her and Gray are reunited whilst she's tracking the 6th.
Revive Kills Zombie: The ultimate example, probably: the Phantom Gaia and all of its children are expelled at the end of the movie by a healing wave from the Eight Spirits.
Rule of Symbolism: The eagle. The suggestive placement of the Phantom tentacle that is cleansed by Aki's child. The fact that the Eighth Spirit is a brand new life brought into the epicenter of death.
Run or Die: The Phantoms, being limitless in number and instantly lethal to the touch, are this. Best displayed in the opening scene where the Deep Eyes rescue Aki from the ruined city.
Running Gag: Neil tends to receive an electric shock every time he attempts to hotwire something.
Samus Is a Girl: Jane Proudfoot.
Scenery Porn: And plenty of Scenery Gorn.
Roger Ebert: The reason to see this movie is simply, gloriously, to look at it.
Serkis Folk And how.
Sexy Discretion Shot: Occurs when both Aki and Gray are alone in Aki's ship, going through a Despair Event Horizon over the deaths of Neil, Jane and Ryan, as well as the loss of the New York Barrier City. It leads to them embracing (tearfully on Aki's part) and then kissing. They start softly at first, but the camera pans away when they start to become more intimate. And if there was any doubt as to whether anything further between them happened then, it's implied in the climax of the film that Aki is pregnant, which is what creates the 8th spirit.
Shouting Shooter
Shout Out:
- Two tiny, easily-missed references to Chocobos hidden in the background in the entire movie.
- Also, General Hein and his flying dungeon/Kill Sat are a very obvious reference to Final Fantasy III, although most Americans wouldn't be able to recognize it as such until about 8 years after the movie came out.
- Every FF has a Cid. The Spirits Within addresses it with a Sid.
- The Deep Eyes are a subtle shout-out, as well. The squad contains four members; four is the traditional number of party members in an FF game, with Aki functioning as a Guest Star Party Member.
- The Leonid Meteor is actually a chunk of a Death World being used as a means of transportation for monsters.
- Gaia from The Spirits Within = The Lifestream from Final Fantasy VII
- The film's setting is based on the initial plot for FFVII, which took place on an post-apocalyptic Earth and AVALANCHE attacks Shin Ra's base in New York
Soft Glass: Played straight.
Someone to Remember Him By: Implied. Gray sacrifices his life so that the completed waveform can be transferred to the Phantom Gaia, which is completed when the 8th spirit is created by "the hope of new life" from within Aki causing Earth's Gaia to change her infection into the 8th spirit. Pay attention to where the Phantom's tendrils in her vision hit her (which is also the point where it begins to change) and note that Aki and Gray. This was actually made more explicit in the original version of the film (during the Please Don't Leave Me moment), but test audiences didn't respond well to it, and so it was mostly cut.
Soul Cutting Blade: The phantoms.
Vasquez Always Dies: Jane Proudfoot, the tough Space Marine, gets eaten, while Dr. Ross survives.
Villainous Breakdown: Suicidal tendencies + access to huge freaking space cannon = BAD THING.
Villainous BSOD: Which leads to the breakdown described above.
Virtual Celebrity: Aki was touted as the first CGI actress, and Square Pictures was hoping for a long and illustrious virtual career. Too bad about her debut movie...
Wave Motion Gun: The Zeus Cannon, once again.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: General Hein, though he takes to his task with such zeal he becomes a Knight Templar.
Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The Phantoms, when you learn their Back Story. The large ones aren't even people - they're animals akin to elephants and whales.
Working With The Ex: Gray and his squad are assigned to escort Aki as she searches for the remaining spirits by General Hein, as a way of keeping an eye on her and with instructions to arrest her if her Phantom infection becomes more serious (instructions that Gray disobeys due to his relationship with Aki).
The Worm Guy: Aki.
You Shall Not Pass
Zero-G Spot: Aki and Gray.