Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

He oversaw the memorable space colony battle that opens that film, and Victory Gundam.

Murase proceeded to spend the middle part of the decade as a character designer, fleshing out the cast of a variety of productions, like Street Fighter II, the animated movie, Gundam Wing, Gasaraki, and Final Fantasy fucking 9, of all things.

He also worked on The Spirits Within.

I bet Sakaguchi lured him to Hawaii for a few years.

We'll be right back.

Let me just say, I like when video game composers get experimental and drop a battle track with lyrics.

I fucking love Uematsu's Rammstein-esque Otherworld, which plays during Final Fantasy X's final boss fight.

Final Fantasy XIII 2 has one too.

where was the snake though they had the big crab

we gotta move it on we gotta keep moving that's that's the problem i had with that movie it's just like i i'm not i'm not they're not letting me sit in anything long enough to for me to enjoy it anyway um underrated movie i'm gonna say it i probably said it before final fantasy the spirits within i think this movie gets too much for what it is it's it's you kind of have to go into it and not think final fantasy which is ironic it's kind of the anti antithesis of like the the super mario galaxy movie you know what i mean like it's anything but a video game it wants to be a movie And as time has gone on, I think people have learned to appreciate it that way, to let it be a movie that just has a video game name attached to it.

We're still getting, we're still, I'm still seeing a lot of like shit for it.

Sometimes I mentioned that people still are like, really? Like, why do you like that? So I was like, I don't know.

There's Resident Evil also had an anime adaptation.

I know there was a Final Fantasy movie as well.

I can't remember exactly what year that came

out.

Oh, yeah.

They're not trying to bring this back in a dramatic fashion like what was the name of the Final Fantasy movie.

Remember that? Yeah.

Yeah.

It just looks a little too real while also not looking real at all.

Which one are you talking about? The Spirits Within? The

Spirits Within, yeah.

Oh yeah, I agree.

It is pretty close to it.

To me, someone who remembered the big deal that was made about the Final Fantasy film, this doesn't look a whole lot different to me from the Final Fantasy film.

There's certainly some car chase sequences and some exteriors in this which look photorealistic, so I get that it's moved forward in that regard.

But the characters, the dull eyes, the jerky jaw movements when they're talking, those sort of things, I still think there's a bridge to cross here.

So in terms of technology, and look, I'm not a massive gamer and not to the point where I could probably talk about game engines and working through the real technicalities of it.

But I think that what you probably just need to consider is that there is quite a large gulf between what you're seeing as an animated film.

So I think about your Final Fantasy example from, what was that? It was like 99 or something? No.

Well, yeah, maybe even before that.

... something I absolutely wanna talk about, 'cause there's a lot of stuff in there.

Um, but I'm just curious, what, what, what was that stretch like for you? Like, what was the North American Square office actually like in those years? And also, I'm sorry, one other thing, were you there for that crazy Final Fantasy Spirits Within, uh, moment in time?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

...

but, uh, it's the 2001 animated film, uh, Final Fantasy: Spirits Within.

Oh, okay.

I've never seen it.

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So join us next time to find out what Annie thinks of Final Fantasy: Spirits Within.

And whether or not Dave still loves it after our discussion.