FF:AC, kong's review

[kongurous]

Having recently acquired the english version of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, I must say... it's a good movie, no matter the version. Only difference is the voices... which are quite different indeed. Here is what I thought of the voices, and the real review of the movie will come later... spoilers will possibly be abound, so read at your own risk.

Cloud - His voice was alright. Didn't have the punch I expected, but it worked.

Sephiroth - I liked his voice. It didn't have the rage I expected, but then again, Sephiroth was never rageful... just sadistic and efficient.

Tifa - Still hot. Her voice fits her personality, but the "drifting" part in the Japanese version was changed to "dilly dally, shilly shally" which sounds really, really, REALLY stupid.

Red XIII - He sounds like a sheltered, cultured British rich dude. I'd expect his voice for an advisor or tactician, rather than a gigantic red dog.

Barret - He's like Mr. T. Nuff said.

Cid - Since when was he a backwoods bumpkin? He's a friggen astronautical scientist, not a redneck!

Cait - didn't expect greatness, didn't get it.

Kadaj - sounded too young for me

Yazoo - sounds older than Kadaj... which doesn't make sense.

Loz - He sounded pretty good.

Rude - His voice seemed better suited for Cloud.

Reno - liked it

Yuffie - Liked hers, too

Rufus - No complaints.

Overall, the voice acting was pretty good. They didn't change any of the lip movements from the Japanese to American version, and at some points, this is obvious, but still a good job nonetheless.

Now, onto the actual review....

The graphics of the movie are extremely well-done. At times, it is difficult to tell it is a CGI film, and the production quality was consistant throughout. However, as said earlier, the lip-synching didn't always match up, and that detracted somewhat from the effect. There was also product placement in the form of a Panasonic phone that Cloud owned. The phone, a Panasonic FOMA P900iV, is not available in the US, and the color that Cloud had it in was... wait for it... Cloud Black.

Soundwise... still very good. The Black Mages did the music for the movie, and for those who don't know, the Black Mages are a band headed by Nobuo Uematsu, the director of sound of all the Final Fantasy games. I particularly liked the remake of One Winged Angel. The voices were generally well-done.

All in all, I think this was a very well-made movie with good sound and good production quality. The storyline was also good, but its best if you played FF7 beforehand. I give it a 8.5/10.

[Neo]

...the "drifting" part in the Japanese version was changed to "dilly dally, shilly shally" which sounds really, really, REALLY stupid.
I actually prefer that to the drifting w/e.

Because personally, it sounds like something Aeris would've said.

This move is so awesome, and regardless of the product placement (FFS why does that even matter?) its still a kickass movie.

The way that things are explained and such really makes sense -- and to see Sephiroth and his 'emotions' were really interesting, it was like giving him a much deeper personality then he had before.

I didn't realyl like Cloud in the beggining -- mostly because of all that "oh poor me, its all my fault shit" but that seems to happen often in the world of FF >_<.

Oh, and Vincent was awesome.

http://www.adventchildren.net/ff7ac/media/screens.php

-Neo

[B.A.Baracus]

How might I "acquire" AC? Because I was a huge FF7 fan, and I wana see how badly they butchered the poor FF7 charactors.

[GrassDragon]

Generally movies are aquired in a multitude of illegal ways, namely torrents or other programs like LimeWire. You could probably find this movie on any torrent site, and that'd be your preferred method for movies. But we don't condone that, so don't do it. It's illegal and bad. And stuff.

[Ktan]

Is it true Cait Sith sounded Scottish?

[Neo]

Is it true Cait Sith sounded Scottish?
Red XIII sounded british if that counts.

Cait Sith just sounded like comedic relief.

-Neo

[MidnightGladius]

Red XIII sounded british if that counts.

Oh, no... that's just WRONG. From the game, I'd expect him to have something like a low, soft voice (kind of like the Cosmo Canyon music).

[B.A.Baracus]

Oh, no... that's just WRONG. From the game, I'd expect him to have something like a low, soft voice (kind of like the Cosmo Canyon music).

Come on now MG, that would take effort on the part of the movie producers. Why put any effort into something your milking when you know your gonna make money off it anyway, well at least thats how they think. I dont even really want to see how badly they dis-respected FF7.

[Vhaeraun]

I actually prefer that to the drifting w/e.
Drifting Drifting makes so much more sense. I interpreted it as her talking about Cloud's lack of direction with his motives and his life, rather than simple small talk...

[kongurous]

Is it true Cait Sith sounded Scottish?

Yeah, Cait sounded Scottish.

[Neo]

Come on now MG, that would take effort on the part of the movie producers. Why put any effort into something your milking when you know your gonna make money off it anyway, well at least thats how they think. I dont even really want to see how badly they dis-respected FF7.
They spent something like 3 or 4 years on this movie.

Dude, the same people who MADE FF7 worked on the movie.

'disrespected ff7?'

Dude thats a bunch of bull shit. Don't act as if you know anything about this movie and keep dissing it. Its a fucking awesome movie, and its true to FF7 in a lot of ways.

Cait sith did not sound scottish -- he sounded comical. Red XIII sounded SOMEWHAT british, but not quite. He actually sounded like I would've thought he would.

-Neo

[kongurous]

Cait sith did not sound scottish -- he sounded comical. Red XIII sounded SOMEWHAT british, but not quite. He actually sounded like I would've thought he would.

-Neo

Go listen to his voice again. It's a Scottish/pseudo-Scottish accent.

[Sikawtic]

My buddy picked up a copy, I haven't been able to. If we don't have a trip planned to a store which may have it... I might just order it online.

[Demon_Child]

My buddy picked up a copy, I haven't been able to. If we don't have a trip planned to a store which may have it... I might just order it online.

Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Best Buy, Target, Circuit City, Etc. Though Amazon.com has got it for like 45% (or so) off.


As for the movie, let's just say that the minds behind the movie had made it in a sort of way to which none of the other movie makers had been able to do before. For example, notice how the supposed "camera" takes nearly flawless shots of Cloud on his motorcycle as he was being chased by Loz, Yazoo, and the Shadowcreepers near the beginning? You can't have that done with ease in both real life movie shots or in CG animation unless you put in a lot of effort into it.

[Vhaeraun]

I didn't like Kadaj's voice. It didn't strike me as right. Most of the others were fine.

And yes, Cait has a Scottish accent. It sounded meh, and Denzel saying "son of a bitch" sounded *really* off...

Only complain I have about the lines is the end when Cloud said "I pity you. You don't know anything at all." They should've left that line alone, because it was perfect in the japanese version (For those who haven't seen the japanese version, the line was originally "I pity you who understand nothing")

Still, it was a great movie, and I really liked watching it again.

[Neo]

I didn't like Kadaj's voice. It didn't strike me as right. Most of the others were fine.

And yes, Cait has a Scottish accent. It sounded meh, and Denzel saying "son of a bitch" sounded *really* off...

Only complain I have about the lines is the end when Cloud said "I pity you. You don't know anything at all." They should've left that line alone, because it was perfect in the japanese version (For those who haven't seen the japanese version, the line was originally "I pity you who understand nothing")

Still, it was a great movie, and I really liked watching it again.
For those of you complaining about that "I pity you who understand nothing" was NOT an official translation, therefor, you've no idea if thats the actual line or not!.

Same with dilly dally shilly shally.

Yeah I realized that Cait had a scottish accent last night while I watched it again... though it wasn't to bad.

And I still think Red XIII's voice was perfect.

Kadaj's voice was done by some dude who did digimon... >_<

-Neo

[kongurous]

For those of you complaining about that "I pity you who understand nothing" was NOT an official translation, therefor, you've no idea if thats the actual line or not!.

It still sounded cooler.

[Neo]

It still sounded cooler.
It would've been even better if:

Cid actually cussing (Denzal says son of a bitch, and even does it in a cool fashion, but we get the southern accented cid who doesn't cuss even once. Nothing even like 'OMG BUTT').

Barret Cussing (see above, wtf mr t? -- it was alright though).

Seen more of the FF7 world.

The english dvd should have had that extra content on it, I forget what its called, something about an anime'd version of events leading up to FF7, which would've been awesome, regardless of language.

Cait Sith being dead and gone and smash and replaced with Reeve (actually visible).

To see Tseng and Elena for more then a couple seconds.

Lip Syncing matched (nitpick, not actually angry about this).

Better translation over all. Some of the stuff doesn't make much sense, like that whole seen with Marlene, Cloud and Vincent -- wtf?

Sephiroth didn't seem sadistic enough, it was like he was just visiting on his way over to Sora's world (-_-;;;)

Wouldn't it have been nice to have known that the town is called Edge and not Midgar? That edge is actually located to the side of midgar? They don't say that at all during the movie.

Would've been nice to have seen a little backstory on Denzel, even just a scene showing him trying to use cloud's cell phone and then passing out.

More materia action (wtf, summon shiva or something! Show my fire, ice, or lightning! Lets see some kickass effects :/ Not that they werent anyways, but it was based off FF7!)

Show the giant shinra gun ACTUALLY FIRING. THat was annoying. They showed them pumping Mako out of the ground into the gun like 3 or 4 times in the movie.

Cool to have seen a remnant of a weapon, or to see Junon, or even the Golden Saucer!

Now that was a rant -.-;;

-Neo

[Sikawtic]

I liked it... but I found the plot to be rather lacking. I'll be purchasing my own copy anyway, just because it was cool to see the FF7 charries in HD ^_^

I hate. I repeat... hate the one "brother..." the short haired one with the shock hand... he talks retarded, and although he fights pretty cool.... they should have given the other 2 some more scenes (the one had almost 0 cool seens...)

What are there names anyway? Kadaj is the one... the other two are???

[kongurous]

Kadaj becomes Sephiroth, Loz fights Tifa, and Yazoo just sits there and tries to look cool.

[MidnightGladius]

Yeah, Materia definitely would have been cool. I mean, WTF happened to my mastered Ultimate End - did they just let it sit in the box or something?! Besides, why didn't Kadaj use that instead of Bahamut Sin (who doesn't actually exist in the game. nor do any of the other Bahamuts look ANYTHING at all like)? It's not as if people don't know about KotRT.

Also, I find it kind of hard to see Rufus surviving with no real damage (all limbs are still attached :/) after the tower he was in got bombarded with Weapon fire and then exploded and collapsed. Meh.

Why didn't all of the characters on the Airship intervene after they realized Cloud was fighting Sephy and not Kadaj? Were they still just enjoying the show?

Weapons. While Cloud and Barret had some nice stuff, why the heck are Tifa and Vincent using their most basic weapons again? I would definitely have liked to see the Death Penalty in action.

Reno and Rude were so ridiculously weak! What happened to freezing people in golden pyramids and doing 2-3k damage per turn? Elena and Tseng needed more screen time, too, I would think.

And lastly, I think, as others do, that Denzel needed some sort of initiation/backstory. I just don't think he was explained enough. Or at all, for that matter.

[Neo]

And lastly, I think, as others do, that Denzel needed some sort of initiation/backstory. I just don't think he was explained enough. Or at all, for that matter.

Not in the movie; http://www.adventchildren.net/ff7ac/extra/prologue/1-1.php

There are 4 chapters.

-Neo

[Sikawtic]

Gladius -- Vincent uses Cerberus... which is teh master.

I was dissappointed when Tifa put on those gloves though :( I want something with spikes and razors.

[Leosam096]

i always liked Tifa's Godhands. :)

I loved FF:AC music, The hard rocking band The Black Mages are just so cool. :)