Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is the first movie with the Final Fantasy name and the first attempt to make a photorealistic rendered 3D feature film. Released on July 11, 2001 by Columbia Pictures it used a budget of $137 million dollars, but only managed to gain $85 million dollars worldwide. Considered a box office bomb this delayed the merger between Square Co., Ltd. and Enix. Despite this the film had received nominations for five different awards and the main character herself received considerably media coverage in the debuting year.

Sharing few aspects with the Final Fantasy series the story follows scientists Aki Ross and Doctor Sid in their efforts to free Earth from a deadly alien race known as the Phantoms, which has driven surviving humanity into barrier cities. They must compete against General Hein, who wishes to attack the aliens with the Zeus space cannon to end the conflict.

Story
The year is 2065 AD. The Earth is infested with alien spirits, and mankind faces total extinction. The story starts with Aki Ross onboard her ship, the Black Boa waking up from a dream about the Phantoms. After she records her dream, she lands in Old New York City, on a mission to find the 6th spirit. She continues looking until she runs into some Phantoms, and it appears that she is about to be killed until a squad known as Deep Eyes, led by an old acquaintance of hers, Captain Gray Edwards, arrives to save her life. Despite the captain indicating to her that she is under arrest, Aki runs and eventually finds the 6th spirit, which is a plant. Back at New York, Aki talks to her mentor, Dr. Sid; she thus confirms that the plant she found is indeed the 6th spirit. Sid shows Aki a diary he wrote when he was her age, and after she has read it, he burns it, stating that their ideas are unpopular among men. Later, after waking up from another Phantom dream, Aki is drawn into a debate on whether to use the Zeus Cannon, a weapon that was designed to destroy the Phantoms. Sid argues against the use of the cannon, saying that the cannon would destroy "Gaia, the spirit of the planet". General Hein, leader of the armed forces, mocks this concept and asks for proof. Aki then shows him proof by revealing that she has been infected by the Phantoms, yet still remains alive.

Paranoid that Aki might be a spy for the Phantoms, the General orders Gray and Deep Eyes to guard Doctor Ross and report any suspicious behavior. If she acts in any way abnormal, she is to be arrested.

Dr. Ross, accompanied by the rest of the squad, then leaves the barrier city for the Tucson Wasteland, where she hopes to find the 7th spirit. After dropping energy buoys to distract the Phantoms, they descend and attempt to locate and retrieve the spirit. After a while, they find it - it is contained in the living tissues inside the back pack of a dead soldier; the organic matter within the pack had kept the spirit intact. After retrieving it, they discover that they are surrounded by Phantoms, who, apparently, have been attracted to the one located inside Dr. Ross. The squad is picked up, but the General's soldiers try to apprehend Dr. Ross. One is killed by a Phantom, and the team narrowly escapes.

General Hein, meanwhile, is desperate to gain clearance to fire the Zeus Cannon. He tells the operators of New York's barrier to lower the shields in a section of the city. Hein's plan is to sacrifice a small part of the population in order to convince the government that the Phantoms can breach the shields, allowing him to take necessary steps. His plan backfires, as the Phantoms are able to use plasma conduits to travel through the rest of the city. Aki and only a handful of her crew survive the resulting attack. Subsequently, Hein is floating in space, about to commit suicide, when a transmission comes in, saying that following the disaster, he is now authorized to use the Zeus cannon.

Aki and Dr Sid devise a plan to destroy the Phantoms at their heart, the Phantom crater. The plan involves Aki and Gray being lowered into the crater inside a bio-etheric shield vehicle, and finding and removing the 8th spirit, which is a Phantom. The pair have just located the Phantom when suddenly a beam from the Zeus station crashes into the crater, killing the Phantoms on the surface, including the 8th spirit. The beam leaves the vehicle shieldless and exposed to the Phantoms, which now cover the crater in response to the attack. Gray leaves the vehicle to protect Aki from the Phantoms.

Meanwhile, Aki has her final vision in which a Phantom tells her that the spirit within her is in fact the new 8th spirit. When Aki wakes up, she calls Gray in to use his energy pack battery to project the completed wave pattern of the eight spirits. As the projection begins, another Zeus beam penetrates the atmosphere, completely obliterating the bio-etheric shield vehicle, and triggering a massive reaction from the Phantom world's spirit, which resides in the crater. This attack, however, overloads the Zeus cannon, destroying it and killing General Hein.

With the vehicle destroyed, Gray sacrifices his own life to distribute Aki's wave, using his body to transmit it directly to the Phantom world spirit. The Phantoms all turn into bright floating orbs which return to space, and the end scene is of Aki holding Gray's body and looking into the newly liberated world.

Developers

 * Director: Hironobu Sakaguchi
 * Co-director: Moto Sakakibara
 * Producer: Jun Aida, Chris Lee
 * Scenario Writer: Hironobu Sakaguchi
 * Original music composed by: Elliot Goldenthal
 * Art Direction by: Moto Sakakibara

Connections to the Final Fantasy series
The movie was generally unpopular within the Final Fantasy community due to the very little content it featured which related to the series. However:
 * Fans have drawn parallels between the concept of Gaia and the Lifestream, and how ultimately it took the combined forces of the Spirits and the Planet itself to overcome the Phantoms.
 * Dr. Sid is this movie's incarnation of the Cid character in the series.
 * The Chocobo shows up as cameos in three scenes:
 * Appeared in one of Aki's document folders,
 * Appeared on Aki's shirt as she wakes up from a dream,
 * Appeared as a keychain on a briefcase during the Phantom attack on New York Barrier City.
 * The alien Phantoms have at least design similarities to certain creatures in the series:
 * The soldiers had small resemblance to the Elvoret particularly their snouts.
 * There are Phantoms who resemble the summon Leviathan.
 * The Phantoms crashed on Earth via a meteor. In Final Fantasy VII, Jenova also came on a meteor.
 * The Phantoms wanting to turn Earth's lifeforce into that of their own planet is somewhat similar to Garland's attempt to assimilate Gaia and Terra in Final Fantasy IX.

Trivia

 * The movie was the second-biggest animated box office bomb in cinema history, losing over $120 million dollars and leading to the closure of Square Pictures.
 * In the work print, right before Gray dies, Aki tells him that he must not die because she is pregnant with his child. The audience at preview screenings hated this plot point so much that it was cut out for the theatrical release.
 * The total production time on the film was over four years. By the time the final shots were rendered some of the earlier ones had to be redone because they didn't match anymore. Also, the software used to create them had become more advanced (and hence more detail was possible).
 * Each movie frame has twice the resolution of a high-definition TV signal and contains 10 megabytes of data.