CGI fur is hard, yo.
Headcanon: it's short for Tiffany.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The truly frustrating thing is that you could replace Rufus with Reeve in the movie and apart from the specific lines where Cloud asks how he survived, nothing would need to change. He's still running the Turks, still running Midgar (adjacent) but trying to do right this time, still an uneasy ally to Avalanche. I guess they just wanted a more anime boy????
It was, and they were (not so much nowadays but that's as much from generational turnover as anything), which is what makes it so depressing. No more escape from the zaibatsu than there is from Sephiroth.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If someone buys me a PS5 I will
I fully intended to play FF7R2 day of release, but that was before I was reminded it's a timed PS5 exclusive. Now I'm... not sure how I'll manage, because the thought of just waiting a year for a PC release makes me wither inside. I guess I'll have to save up. With the generous help from my readers I've just managed to get enough for that oven I was talking about before Christmas (will buy it tomorrow probs) but scrounging up an extra 500 bucks is a challenge
Imagine how it feels writing it.
I really should have gone with the "quick plot summary then address the themes and where it succeeds and fails, 5k words tops" approach but it's my first time doing a Let's Watch of a movie and it turns out I struggle to not break things down and go on about every little frustration.
Knock yourself out!
I really do appreciate it though. It's very cathartic to have someone go through and examine what and why exactly something doesn't work, or more frustratingly when it does. But boy howdy, there's so MUCH and it's so DENSE it feels like running a marathon.
There's the WRO which is effectively the standing government, and is responsible for the rebuilding effort. I believe Rufus is also partially funding it...somehow. Our (my) favorite put-upon-exec Reeve heads it, effectively making him World President. So, of course, upon assuming office as the most political and economically powerful man on the Planet, he immediately begins dressing as a wizard and makes the Org's logo Cait Sith.
How can you not love this man?
Last edited:
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The fact that Reeve is not even in the movie as himself (only as Cait Sith) is a huge loss tbh.
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
That's not Reeve, it's Xevere.
RogueIce
Noctis Æternæ
- Location
- New Lunar Republic, Equestria
Reeve is like Batman: Cait Sith is his true self, Reeve is just the mask he presents to the world
- Location
- Texas
The only thing I can really think of with Oil Baron Barrett is that they were in an energy crisis. Cosmo Canyon has wind turbines, but that's a far cry from manufacturing and installing enough of them to run entire cities. Meanwhile, presumably there were some oil rigs being used to source petroleum based plastics. Pivot to power, renovate the facilities that got mothballed or shut down with Mako so prevalent, and you've got a stopgap solution just two years after the initial crisis.
Reminds me of the Pyramids of Giza, in a way.
Reminds me of the Pyramids of Giza, in a way.
This just makes me angry that we had references to the Sephirot and the Nine Realms of Yggdrasil, and did next to nothing with either of them.
- Location
- Phoenix
Well, you've got plenty of material to go through for that year.If someone buys me a PS5 I will
SPECIAL FEATURE: Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, Part 2/2
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Welcome back to Final Fantasy Advent Children.
Last time we were here, the Turks were getting trounced by Loz and Yazoo. But that's not really what we're here for, is it? While they are busy, the real piece de resistance is unfolding: The Bahamut fight. The blast of his breath attack knocked Tifa out, but also snapped Denzel out of his trance; seeing Tifa hurt and in reckless disregard for his own safety, Denzel calls Bahamut a 'son of a bitch!' and rushes after it, but before he can get smote by the dragon, he is saved by the timely arrival of…
…
Barret, my man, what have they done to you.
This is the worst drip I have ever seen. Holy shit. What is that… fishnet shirt and sleeveless parka combo… the color choices… God, even his face doesn't look right.
God though, what the fuck is that gun. It's like a triple machine gun with a central laser cannon? It's too big, it's trying to look cool but it just doesn't look right!
Tifa finally gets up, expresses her surprise, Barret tells her Marlene better be safe, and he starts charging Bahamut, soon followed by…
They're on screen too briefly and moving too much for me to take a non-blurry screenshot.
Cait Sith, riding on Nanaki's back, who pounces atop Bahamut's face.
That's right. This is the movie's big Avengers Assemble moment, where every member of the original party (...minus Aerith, of course) comes back together to fight the one apocalyptic threat to the city.
Yuffie jumps off from Cid's airship and immediately experiences a delayed bout of air sickness.
Cid is lacking his trademark cigarette, probably for reasons of child-friendly ratings - I get why this happens, but for some characters it really ruins the vibe.
Vincent is re-introduced asking where he can buy a phone while in the middle of a Bahamut attack, which I'm pretty sure he means completely seriously. Top comedy man.
First Barret, then Cait Sith riding Nanaki, followed by Yuffie, then Cid, and finally Vincent, accounting for everyone, just waiting for Tifa and Cloud to join the fight. Although… wait, just one second. That ship Cid came flying in with most of the party, it's not the Highwind, its silhouette is different. What's its name..?
…
Cid. You named your ship. The Shera.
I'm not even going to question these two's relationship at this stage. Maybe we were meant to take Cid's protests and abusive behavior as them really being in a weird couple dynamic after all. Maybe he forgave her and they became an item after she saved us from the rocket. Maybe in the two years since the game, she finally got her wish to be incinerated in a blaze of nuclear hellfire and he honored her memory by naming the ship after her. Who knows.
Speaking of items associated with characters, the game is weirdly inconsistent about upgrading character equipment. Cloud has the Fusion Sword, a fancy new weapon that changes shapes multiple times throughout the movie. Barret has this incredible new futuristic gun that can fold into a hand (and also happens to look hideous, but it's clearly meant to be cool). Vincent's gun is too small and seen at the wrong angles for me to get a good sense of it. Yuffie, meanwhile, is using what I think is the 4-point Shuriken, her starting weapon, or at least it looks like it, while Cid seems to be just using some random spear. Nanaki's weapons are hair clips, so there's no chance I can tell them apart, and Cait Sith isn't carrying a megaphone, but at least they're glorified cameos. But Tifa, who is the lead female role in the movie and has one whole fight scene for herself, has gloves. Not, like, any of the special weapon-gloves she has in the games, literally just leather gloves. And it fits her aesthetic, don't get me wrong, but she's really getting screwed over in the weapon upgrade department compared to Cloud or Barret.
Speaking of Cloud - Tifa tells Denzel to run to the bar, but seeing all the wounded and dead from the monster attack causes him to have a PTSD flashback to the Sector 7 Plate Collapse in which his parents died; Cloud arrives at the last moment, cutting three shadow beasts out of the air with a sword-throw and allowing Denzel to escape, and the battle is on.
So! Everyone shows up and starts fighting Bahamut. The fight is more or less split into two phases: the Fight, and the Ascent.
The first phase has its ups and downs. It's a big, sweeping setpiece where everyone gets at least one hit in, but it doesn't achieve much. On the ups: Seeing everyone come together to fight one giant monster is cool. Bahamut has a great design and is a fantastically intimidating opponent, both immense and agile, punching through construction scaffolds and tearing chunks out of high-rises with its claws. The verticality of the fight gives everyone a chance to show off their own incredible mobility, dancing around the beast and jumping from building to building - even, in several cases, bouncing around the beast itself, with Cid stabbing his spear into its back and Vincent doing flips between its limbs and its heads while shooting it.
A suitable dragon for our heroes to slay.
Wait, no, I was wrong, there's Vincent's gun.
Yuffie just ran vertically up the incline of that building, backflipped off it, and threw her Shuriken mid-flip.
The main issue with this fighting scene is that it looks cool but it doesn't really achieve much. Part of it is that the animators are clearly sword guys and struggle to sell the effects of gunfire on a beast like this, so Barret and Vincent, our dedicated gun-users, are shown repeatedly firing in the beast's direction and for all it's concerned, they might as well be firing at the sky. I'm sure in the fiction of the story they are somehow contributing, but there is no visual feedback for this beyond the dragon raising its claw to shield its face from Vincent's gunfire at one point (without slowing down or seeming at all injured). Barret's multigun has a central 'plasma fire" mode, it seems, but both times he tries to use it it's played for comedy and interrupted before he can do anything with it, first by having Bahamut charge at him and forcing him to run away, and later by having Bahamut fire a much bigger Flare which swallows Barret's plasma shot before blowing him up into the sky where he's rescued only by Cloud's timely appearance.
I'm sorry, Barret.
(FAKE EDIT: While reviewing footage of that scene frame by frame, it appeared to me that Barret actually does manage to successfully fire his plasma shot once, the first time he uses it, he's just doing it from off-screen and by the time Bahamut looks at him, his gun is jamming and he can't fire again, which is played for comedy.)
This is still better than Cait Sith, who doesn't do anything. That's not me making fun of the character, as far as I can tell he literally doesn't do anything in the entire fight except ride on Nanaki's back. He has no Materia to cast spells from and he's not piloting a Moogle and he doesn't have a Megaphone, so he is literally just There, not doing shit. Neither does Tifa, though she at least has the fig leaf of being busy first seeing Denzel to safety and then approaching Cloud, so she arrives late to the party.
Other characters fare slightly better. Cid gets to plant his spear in Bahamut's back and ride the tiger for a bit, Nanaki is frequently portrayed hanging from Bahamut's fleshy part with his teeth and gnawing at him, and Yuffie lands at least two cool-looking hits (though without causing visible injury).
All in all, Avalanche is fighting a successful delaying action, but it's clear they're not beating Bahamut-SIN; they're managing to draw it away from the main concentration of people, to keep it busy and get it mad, and they're scoring mild hits, but they're not winning this fight.
If I were watching this scene for the first time in 2005, I would probably feel really hype for all my blorbos showing up to beat on a new design for one of the franchise's most iconic summoned monsters, as it is I've seen it enough time before that the whole 'nobody is really accomplishing anything and they're just waiting for the main character to save the day' vibe is really overshadowing it all.
But then, the Hero appears.
The difference is immediately and glaringly obvious, and signaled by an appropriate shift of the music to epic choirs. Cloud is able to single-handedly engage the beast in combat and injure it, swapping between various configurations of the Fusion Sword as the fight goes on. Cloud can't fly, but he might as well be flying; he is capable of using his environment and Bahamut's own body as a platform to bounce off, keeping himself continuously in the air and on Bahamut's head. Within less than a minute of his arrival, Cloud unleashes Braver, shattering a chunk of Bahamut's face-mask, crippling its left eye and sending it toppling down with its first visible injury.
The gap of competence between Cloud and the rest of Avalanche is both obvious and obviously intentional. The movie will actually bring it up explicitly later on, but even now, it's clear the main character is just miles ahead of everyone else, including Tifa.
Bahamut is pissed. It's also, it seems, smart enough to have realized that the reason all these ants were able to injure it is because it's staying low enough for them to use the architecture to attack. Roaring, it starts charging up a flare and takes off straight up into the sky.
Move back to Kadaj and Rufus. Kadaj is gloating about how fun the power of Materia is, and asking Rufus if he has requests for what spell or monster to unleash on Midgar next.
Which is when the funniest moment in the entire movie happens.
Rufus Shinra. A character who definitely died in the last movie, whose survival and inexplicable continued leadership of Shinra is an absolute ass-pull/retcon that makes a mockery of the plot of the original game, but who at least, at the very least, was thoroughly crippled by the Diamond Weapon's attack. Who has spent all movie doing a Hannibal/Will Graham routine with Kadaj, just sitting in his wheelchair being pushed around by the movie's main antagonist, exchanging philosophical quandaries and barbs and arguing about humanity and history. From whom Kadaj has been trying to extract the hidden location of Jenova's head using various forms of threat and coercion while clearly enjoying their conversation and feeling in total control of the situation. This Rufus.
Stands up from his wheelchair, dramatically tossing his cloak away, revealing that he is both physically almost completely fine and that he has been holding the container with Jenova's head in it the entire fucking time.
The whole movie.
It was right there.
Just under his cloak.
"A good son would have known."
This is the funniest beat of all time, I knew it was coming and I still literally laughed out loud when it happened. Absolute peak.
And then that cheeky brat just tosses the Jenova box over the side of the building, to Kadaj's horror and fury.
Back to the Bahamut fight, the situation is looking dire. Bahamut is soaring into the sky, increasingly out of reach of everyone, charging up what's probably a Petaflare that will annihilate the Midgar Edge. Cloud attempts to jump after it, and Barret grabs him by the hand mid-jump to give him a boost. Cloud hits Bahamut's face, the beast soars higher, Cloud is falling back down… And Cid is there to catch him on the flat of his spear and throw him higher.
That's the Ascent, probably the most iconic part of that fight, and the way the movie reconciles "we've established a mile-wide gap between Cloud and everyone else" with "we want everyone to contribute to the victory against Bahamut and show that Cloud is supported by all his friends." One by one, every character in the original party is there to provide Cloud a boost as he soars into the sky after Bahamut.
First Barret, then Cid, then Nanaki (Cait Sith is providing encouragements but no actual help whatsoever), then Yuffie, then Vincent, and finally Tifa, boosting Cloud at the highest stage of the construction equipment, and then it's nothing but the sky and Bahamut-SIN.
Cloud is charging up a Limit Break as he goes.
This is, ever so slightly, not enough. Bahamut fires its impossibly huge Flare like a goddamn Genkidama, and Cloud hits it straight on.
So what now?
Come on.
Like you need to ask.
Aerith's spirit appears to give Cloud his last boost. OF COURSE SHE DOES. IT'S THAT KIND OF MOVIE.
I can't even be mad. I did experience A Feeling when this happened. This entire climbing scene is the epitome of "it's so cool, but it's so dumb, but it's so cool, but it's so dumb."
Anyway, Cloud takes Aerith's hand, punches through the Petaflare (scattering its energy harmlessly in the process), hits Bahamut, and Climhazzards it in fucking half.
Fight Scene Rating: 5/5, He cut a fucking dragon in half, did you see that!? I'm only human
Also, at one point during this whole shebang, Denzel has a scene in which he sees one of the Shadow Monsters attack people, and he takes his courage in hand and grabs a crowbar and uses it to hit a fire hydrant, which sends out a spray of water which knocks over and completely disables the monster, revealing a weakness to water that matters somehow, and completing something about Denzel's character arc or whatever. Who cares.
Meanwhile at the Kadaj/Rufus scene, Kadaj fires a Firaga that knocks Rufus off the ledge, Kadaj realizes Mother is falling and jumps off, Rufus pulls out a gun and shoots him mid-fall, it's incredible.
One of the bullets hits the case, causing Jenova's green ichor to start dripping, the Turks see Rufus falling and panic, Elena and Tseng show up out of nowhere with grappling guns they use to catch Rufus mid-fall, Kadaj grabs the case, Loz and Yazoo converge on him, they get on their bikes and ride away, Cloud arrives having somehow survived falling from a mile high after cutting Bahamut in half and gotten on his bike and there in the literal last twenty seconds (I'm not kidding; we see Cloud's perspective when he sees Kadaj fire Firaga and everything afterwards happens in real time) and chases them, the Turks and Rufus are reunited, cue chase scene.
Kadaj races ahead. Cloud is after him, but Loz and Yazoo catch up and run interception, forcing him to fight them first while the Turks follow with an armed chopper. What follows is five minutes of pure unfiltered action. I have called the first motorcycle fight in the movie 'proof of concept,' and if it was, then this is the final form, the apex of the 'dudes with swords and guns on motorbikes fight each other' scene.
The Matrix Reloaded came out in 2003. There is zero doubt in my mind its "Freeway Fight" scene was a major influence on this sequence in Advent Children, but if anything, Advent Children tops it. I am not going to break down this scene. My review boils down to three pictures:
No action scene has ever been so perfectly designed to be experienced, not as itself, but as shittily edited late 2000s AMVs set to Nightwish.
Fight Scene Rating: AMV/5, Nightquest quest not for the past, but for tomorrow to make it last-
At the end of the chase, Rude and Reno ambush Loz and Yazoo using timed explosives, blowing them up and taking them out of the picture (for now), allowing Cloud to pursue Kadaj unimpeded. And with this begins the last stretch of the movie.
Cloud chases Kadaj into the heart of the Midgar ruins, where they clash a couple times, and Cloud pauses briefly to finally take off the long black sleeve he wears over his Geostigma arm, which serves to reveal both the extent of the stigma and…
A red ribbon tied around his biceps, same as Tifa.
Now, I thought I had a really clever take on this. You see, this whole time, the movie has been incredibly evasive around the topic of Tifa and Cloud's relationship. Are they friends? Are they a couple? The closest we get to 'couple' language is a refutation, when Tifa says they aren't a real family. Sure, they live together, but in the same way Tifa and Barret used to live together, they have their offices in the same building. The movie is conspicuously refusing to follow up on the implications of the original game, and Tifa and Cloud never act romantically towards one another.
But then! I saw this! And I thought to myself, of course! The fact that Tifa and Cloud both wear a red ribbon tied around their arms represents the East Asian red thread of fate which mythically connects those who are bound to meet and fall in love! It's a subtle, implicit indication of their status as a couple!
Look at Yuffie's arm.
All the Avalanche members wear a red ribbon. Because it's meant to be a tribute to Aerith, who wore a red ribbon in her hair. Obviously.
Sometimes you can just way overthink things.
Kadaj eventually stops in… Where else… Aerith's church. Because in a city the size of Midgar, which lies utterly in ruins, everything has to eventually lead back to a place which featured all of twice in the original game. There, he takes a break to look at the case, and realizes that there's a gash in it, much larger than the one from Rufus's bullet, most likely a hit from Cloud's sword while they were trading blows.
We don't see what's inside the case, but from Kadaj's reaction I'm pretty sure it is in fact meant to be the face of his mother.
Kadaj has a look of slowly dawning horror, his adoration at the idea of holding 'Mother' turning to pain and grief, and he holds the case against his chest, crying. Then his expression turns to anger as Cloud arrives, and the two briefly engage in another bout of motorcycle fighting, Kadaj firing Materia spells that blow up Church pillars and Cloud driving the shit over Aerith's flowers, what the hell man, then Kadaj fires a spell that blows up a chunk of the ground… And reveals Lifestream waters pooling up just underneath the floorboards, which animate and attack Kadaj and heal Cloud's Geostigma?
This is sudden and mildly confusing, until Cloud hears Aerith's voice again telling him "Let's go, Cloud," so I guess she is actively guiding the Lifestream to help him fight the new threat to the Planet.
Man. Aerith really did graduate to the Galuf style of Force Ghost since the end of FF7.
Kadaj flees, Cloud pursues, and they reach the heart of Midgar, just under the Shinra Building, where the rubble is too thick for even their implausible bike tricks, so they both climb down for one final confrontation.
Kadaj rejoices in being reunited with Jenova, and Cloud asks him what's next - but Kadaj doesn't know. He'll only do as his Mother wills. And what if he's a puppet? After all, wasn't Cloud one once too?
They fight. Kadaj honestly puts up a good fight, but the movie is all too aware that he's the underdog, that he's doomed. Cloud, despite being the protagonist in a climactic duel, is the dominant force; his sword is bigger, he has more reach, his blows are heavier. Instead it's Kadaj who adopts the usually more protagonist-like role of the fast, agile underdog. His sword is shorter, his blows are weaker, but he darts around Cloud's attacks and does moves like 'stomp on Cloud's sword to get leverage'. He's the one who has to constantly dodge and give grounds.
One exchange, where and Cloud fight on a a narrow ledge around the side of a building where Kadaj uses his superior agility to pin Cloud's sword and wrench it out from his grasp, I feel is inspired by one of the encounters between Guts and Serpico in Berserk, though the similarities aren't quite so obvious as to be certain.
Now, like I said, Kadaj does put up a good fight. You could be forgiven for looking at the footage of their fight and tell me I'm just imagining this whole 'Kadaj is the doomed underdog' vibe.
If it wasn't explicitly stated by the characters themselves.
This is an incredible sequence. After all I said earlier about Materia, Yuffie shows up carrying a literal armful of Materia, and Vincent tells her "no he doesn't need those, Kadaj is a bitch, Cloud can Attack-spam to the win." I can't stress this enough that everyone is right here, in the Shera, watching Cloud fight, fully capable of intervening and they all go "Cloud can take him, no sweat." In fact, this is followed up by Tifa delivering one of the most fascinating lines in the movie:
Tifa: "...think of the strength we all had when we fought that last battle. It's only been a couple years… but already that feeling is gone. But Cloud, I think he's found it again."
Tifa is literally saying that the character level system is real, but that it resets at the end of each game, so she got owned by Loz because she's lv 1 but Cloud had that whole personal journey so now he's back lv 60 like at the end of the last game.
I'm just. This is such a fascinating way to connect game mechanics to the narrative. Literally just say that everyone lost their power in this time of peace. It… Kind of? Works? In that it ties into the Limit Break concept, the idea that pressure, threat, drive and motivation, passion, combine to draw out our strength, instead of people permanently growing more powerful over time as they beat challenge after challenge? But it's so counter-intuitive, and such a handwave. "Yeah the rest of Avalanche won't be able to take part in the Sephiroth Fight because they got hit with the Nerf Bat since the end of the game, explicitly and in-setting" is such an asspull. But at least it would justify their inaction in the narrative… If they didn't also throw in some "You don't get it Yuffie, that's a Man Thing, we have to let Cloud settle this on his own, and that means not giving him any of the dozens of Materia we have at hand right here."
You tell 'em, girl.
And I can kinda see the 'no need to interrupt him in the middle of a fight' argument when he it's still Cloud having the upper hand against Kadaj who only appears as a local threat, but they're going to stay that way through what's to come.
Speaking of which.
This movie has some fantastic shots.
Kadaj attempts a final jumping attack and Cloud knocks him away with a Finishing Touch, until they're staring at each other like Scar and Mufasa, Kadaj hanging by only one hand from the ledge.
Slight note: Because Kadaj needs one hand to hold the ledge, he has to choose to let go of either his sword, or the Jenova case. The fact that he lets go of the sword, and thus any chance to win this fight, speaks to his priorities.
Fight Scene Rating: 4/5, Solid swordplay but too much characters talking
What would Cloud do here? What would he say? Would he kill Kadaj, or offer him mercy? I don't know. I could go either way, both based on his original FF7 characterization and his characterization in this game. We don't find out, anyway. Kadaj's last gesture is to throw the Jenova case at Cloud, who reflexively raises his sword to deflect the projectile, the case is sent flying away… And its top opens, sliced in half by the blow.
Kadaj leaps right after it, catches it out of the air, and reaches with his hand to pull out its contents (conspicuously kept out of the camera's view), then lets the case go and cradles its contents in his arms, curling up, fetus-like, around his "Mother" as he falls.
I know writers who use subtext, etc.
Kadaj invites Cloud to witness his Reunion, and Cloud dives after him. Kadaj moans in pain, black energy coming out of his body, but at the last moment before impact, balances himself, lands upright, holds up his hand, and Cloud slams into him with enough force to cave in the giant steel beam he's standing on.
And there he is. No more Kadaj. The Man Himself has returned.
I can rag on this movie and the idea of bringing back Sephiroth as much as I want, it's impossible for me not to feel the hype in that moment. Kadaj transforming into Sephiroth at the moment Cloud hits him and casually holding up the Fusion Sword with his hand is pure cinema.
So here we are. Sephiroth is finally presented to us in glorious 3D and full voice acting (we're going to ignore that Kingdom Hearts exist for now). This appearance is probably going to define a lot of his further appearances; FF7!Sephiroth only shows us a very limited set of movements and actions from Bishieroth as a pseudo-PC, and we only ever fight him in his monster forms. Furthermore, the movie has so far been all over the place with the 'power level' of its characters, with the justification of everyone being lv 1 and Cloud slowly growing in level throughout. So what does it mean to fight the Toughest Guy in FF7 at the apex of your power in full 3D?
Well, first off, Sephiroth knocks Cloud away with a swat of Masamune and takes to higher ground, flying off and drifting down, and then starts monologuing.
Cloud is… remarkably unsurprised by Sephiroth's reappearance, even considering that it's been raised as a threat during the movie. He doesn't bother with any 'that's impossible!'s or 'How!'s, his first reaction is a frown and asking "Sephiroth! What do you want?" Like most of us, he's read ahead on the script and knew this was inevitable, but it's honestly kind of funny how he seems more mildly annoyed than anything at this world-threatening new development.
Sephiroth gives us as good an explanation as we got in the base game for his motivation: the souls of the Geostigma dead, tainted by Jenova, will corrupt and choke the Lifestream, allowing him to take control of the Planet. He's still on his old 'god' kick, but now at least, we get a clearer view of why he desires to be a god:
Sephiroth: "What I want, Cloud, is to sail the darkness of the cosmos with this planet as my vessel, just as my mother did long ago. Then one day we'll find a new Planet, and on its soil we'll create a shining future."
We are firmly in "Sephiroth is and has always been the one in control and he speaks of Jenova as someone dead, but he's also absorbed her motivation for his own" territory here. Just as Jenova once crossed space in a meteor, he wants to sail across infinity on this planet, until he finds a Promised Land of his own.
I don't say this often, but this is a line from Advent Children I wish had been in the base game. It has gravitas. It gives Sephiroth a clear, cosmically grand goal to which godhood is a means. It just sounds sick. It also leaves some ambiguity as to the degree to which he's been warped by Jenova's influence while making it clear he's himself and in charge rather than a meat-puppet, which is either good or bad depending on your preference for the base game.
As he speaks, Sephiroth raises his hand to the sky, and out of the twilight sky the clouds suddenly converge and cast all of Midgar into darkness.
This particular visual, I realize now, made a deep impression on me. For a long time, I've loved "weather control" as a shorthand for demonstrating power, a character who can turn blue skies to storm with a gesture to testify how much power they have over the world, and I think it all comes back to this one scene.
Sephiroth's performance - whether it's Toshiyuki Morikawa in JP or George Newbern in EN - is outstanding, but I do have to speak to some particular fondness for the EN. When Cloud asks "what about this planet?", Sephiroth's answer of "Well, that's up to you, Cloud," hits that perfect mix of lofty aloof tone that nonetheless can't help but let slip that edge of petty taunting, that hint that this is personal, that's it's all between the two of them, as far as he's concerned. 'Shall I give you despair?' from later into the scene is an iconic line for a reason, his delivery is perfect.
Then the fight is on.
Let's break this up for image count.
Last time we were here, the Turks were getting trounced by Loz and Yazoo. But that's not really what we're here for, is it? While they are busy, the real piece de resistance is unfolding: The Bahamut fight. The blast of his breath attack knocked Tifa out, but also snapped Denzel out of his trance; seeing Tifa hurt and in reckless disregard for his own safety, Denzel calls Bahamut a 'son of a bitch!' and rushes after it, but before he can get smote by the dragon, he is saved by the timely arrival of…
…
Barret, my man, what have they done to you.
This is the worst drip I have ever seen. Holy shit. What is that… fishnet shirt and sleeveless parka combo… the color choices… God, even his face doesn't look right.
God though, what the fuck is that gun. It's like a triple machine gun with a central laser cannon? It's too big, it's trying to look cool but it just doesn't look right!
Tifa finally gets up, expresses her surprise, Barret tells her Marlene better be safe, and he starts charging Bahamut, soon followed by…
They're on screen too briefly and moving too much for me to take a non-blurry screenshot.
Cait Sith, riding on Nanaki's back, who pounces atop Bahamut's face.
That's right. This is the movie's big Avengers Assemble moment, where every member of the original party (...minus Aerith, of course) comes back together to fight the one apocalyptic threat to the city.
Yuffie jumps off from Cid's airship and immediately experiences a delayed bout of air sickness.
Cid is lacking his trademark cigarette, probably for reasons of child-friendly ratings - I get why this happens, but for some characters it really ruins the vibe.
Vincent is re-introduced asking where he can buy a phone while in the middle of a Bahamut attack, which I'm pretty sure he means completely seriously. Top comedy man.
First Barret, then Cait Sith riding Nanaki, followed by Yuffie, then Cid, and finally Vincent, accounting for everyone, just waiting for Tifa and Cloud to join the fight. Although… wait, just one second. That ship Cid came flying in with most of the party, it's not the Highwind, its silhouette is different. What's its name..?
…
Cid. You named your ship. The Shera.
I'm not even going to question these two's relationship at this stage. Maybe we were meant to take Cid's protests and abusive behavior as them really being in a weird couple dynamic after all. Maybe he forgave her and they became an item after she saved us from the rocket. Maybe in the two years since the game, she finally got her wish to be incinerated in a blaze of nuclear hellfire and he honored her memory by naming the ship after her. Who knows.
Speaking of items associated with characters, the game is weirdly inconsistent about upgrading character equipment. Cloud has the Fusion Sword, a fancy new weapon that changes shapes multiple times throughout the movie. Barret has this incredible new futuristic gun that can fold into a hand (and also happens to look hideous, but it's clearly meant to be cool). Vincent's gun is too small and seen at the wrong angles for me to get a good sense of it. Yuffie, meanwhile, is using what I think is the 4-point Shuriken, her starting weapon, or at least it looks like it, while Cid seems to be just using some random spear. Nanaki's weapons are hair clips, so there's no chance I can tell them apart, and Cait Sith isn't carrying a megaphone, but at least they're glorified cameos. But Tifa, who is the lead female role in the movie and has one whole fight scene for herself, has gloves. Not, like, any of the special weapon-gloves she has in the games, literally just leather gloves. And it fits her aesthetic, don't get me wrong, but she's really getting screwed over in the weapon upgrade department compared to Cloud or Barret.
Speaking of Cloud - Tifa tells Denzel to run to the bar, but seeing all the wounded and dead from the monster attack causes him to have a PTSD flashback to the Sector 7 Plate Collapse in which his parents died; Cloud arrives at the last moment, cutting three shadow beasts out of the air with a sword-throw and allowing Denzel to escape, and the battle is on.
So! Everyone shows up and starts fighting Bahamut. The fight is more or less split into two phases: the Fight, and the Ascent.
The first phase has its ups and downs. It's a big, sweeping setpiece where everyone gets at least one hit in, but it doesn't achieve much. On the ups: Seeing everyone come together to fight one giant monster is cool. Bahamut has a great design and is a fantastically intimidating opponent, both immense and agile, punching through construction scaffolds and tearing chunks out of high-rises with its claws. The verticality of the fight gives everyone a chance to show off their own incredible mobility, dancing around the beast and jumping from building to building - even, in several cases, bouncing around the beast itself, with Cid stabbing his spear into its back and Vincent doing flips between its limbs and its heads while shooting it.
A suitable dragon for our heroes to slay.
Wait, no, I was wrong, there's Vincent's gun.
Yuffie just ran vertically up the incline of that building, backflipped off it, and threw her Shuriken mid-flip.
The main issue with this fighting scene is that it looks cool but it doesn't really achieve much. Part of it is that the animators are clearly sword guys and struggle to sell the effects of gunfire on a beast like this, so Barret and Vincent, our dedicated gun-users, are shown repeatedly firing in the beast's direction and for all it's concerned, they might as well be firing at the sky. I'm sure in the fiction of the story they are somehow contributing, but there is no visual feedback for this beyond the dragon raising its claw to shield its face from Vincent's gunfire at one point (without slowing down or seeming at all injured). Barret's multigun has a central 'plasma fire" mode, it seems, but both times he tries to use it it's played for comedy and interrupted before he can do anything with it, first by having Bahamut charge at him and forcing him to run away, and later by having Bahamut fire a much bigger Flare which swallows Barret's plasma shot before blowing him up into the sky where he's rescued only by Cloud's timely appearance.
I'm sorry, Barret.
(FAKE EDIT: While reviewing footage of that scene frame by frame, it appeared to me that Barret actually does manage to successfully fire his plasma shot once, the first time he uses it, he's just doing it from off-screen and by the time Bahamut looks at him, his gun is jamming and he can't fire again, which is played for comedy.)
This is still better than Cait Sith, who doesn't do anything. That's not me making fun of the character, as far as I can tell he literally doesn't do anything in the entire fight except ride on Nanaki's back. He has no Materia to cast spells from and he's not piloting a Moogle and he doesn't have a Megaphone, so he is literally just There, not doing shit. Neither does Tifa, though she at least has the fig leaf of being busy first seeing Denzel to safety and then approaching Cloud, so she arrives late to the party.
Other characters fare slightly better. Cid gets to plant his spear in Bahamut's back and ride the tiger for a bit, Nanaki is frequently portrayed hanging from Bahamut's fleshy part with his teeth and gnawing at him, and Yuffie lands at least two cool-looking hits (though without causing visible injury).
All in all, Avalanche is fighting a successful delaying action, but it's clear they're not beating Bahamut-SIN; they're managing to draw it away from the main concentration of people, to keep it busy and get it mad, and they're scoring mild hits, but they're not winning this fight.
If I were watching this scene for the first time in 2005, I would probably feel really hype for all my blorbos showing up to beat on a new design for one of the franchise's most iconic summoned monsters, as it is I've seen it enough time before that the whole 'nobody is really accomplishing anything and they're just waiting for the main character to save the day' vibe is really overshadowing it all.
But then, the Hero appears.
The difference is immediately and glaringly obvious, and signaled by an appropriate shift of the music to epic choirs. Cloud is able to single-handedly engage the beast in combat and injure it, swapping between various configurations of the Fusion Sword as the fight goes on. Cloud can't fly, but he might as well be flying; he is capable of using his environment and Bahamut's own body as a platform to bounce off, keeping himself continuously in the air and on Bahamut's head. Within less than a minute of his arrival, Cloud unleashes Braver, shattering a chunk of Bahamut's face-mask, crippling its left eye and sending it toppling down with its first visible injury.
The gap of competence between Cloud and the rest of Avalanche is both obvious and obviously intentional. The movie will actually bring it up explicitly later on, but even now, it's clear the main character is just miles ahead of everyone else, including Tifa.
Bahamut is pissed. It's also, it seems, smart enough to have realized that the reason all these ants were able to injure it is because it's staying low enough for them to use the architecture to attack. Roaring, it starts charging up a flare and takes off straight up into the sky.
Move back to Kadaj and Rufus. Kadaj is gloating about how fun the power of Materia is, and asking Rufus if he has requests for what spell or monster to unleash on Midgar next.
Which is when the funniest moment in the entire movie happens.
Rufus Shinra. A character who definitely died in the last movie, whose survival and inexplicable continued leadership of Shinra is an absolute ass-pull/retcon that makes a mockery of the plot of the original game, but who at least, at the very least, was thoroughly crippled by the Diamond Weapon's attack. Who has spent all movie doing a Hannibal/Will Graham routine with Kadaj, just sitting in his wheelchair being pushed around by the movie's main antagonist, exchanging philosophical quandaries and barbs and arguing about humanity and history. From whom Kadaj has been trying to extract the hidden location of Jenova's head using various forms of threat and coercion while clearly enjoying their conversation and feeling in total control of the situation. This Rufus.
Stands up from his wheelchair, dramatically tossing his cloak away, revealing that he is both physically almost completely fine and that he has been holding the container with Jenova's head in it the entire fucking time.
The whole movie.
It was right there.
Just under his cloak.
"A good son would have known."
This is the funniest beat of all time, I knew it was coming and I still literally laughed out loud when it happened. Absolute peak.
And then that cheeky brat just tosses the Jenova box over the side of the building, to Kadaj's horror and fury.
Back to the Bahamut fight, the situation is looking dire. Bahamut is soaring into the sky, increasingly out of reach of everyone, charging up what's probably a Petaflare that will annihilate the Midgar Edge. Cloud attempts to jump after it, and Barret grabs him by the hand mid-jump to give him a boost. Cloud hits Bahamut's face, the beast soars higher, Cloud is falling back down… And Cid is there to catch him on the flat of his spear and throw him higher.
That's the Ascent, probably the most iconic part of that fight, and the way the movie reconciles "we've established a mile-wide gap between Cloud and everyone else" with "we want everyone to contribute to the victory against Bahamut and show that Cloud is supported by all his friends." One by one, every character in the original party is there to provide Cloud a boost as he soars into the sky after Bahamut.
First Barret, then Cid, then Nanaki (Cait Sith is providing encouragements but no actual help whatsoever), then Yuffie, then Vincent, and finally Tifa, boosting Cloud at the highest stage of the construction equipment, and then it's nothing but the sky and Bahamut-SIN.
Cloud is charging up a Limit Break as he goes.
This is, ever so slightly, not enough. Bahamut fires its impossibly huge Flare like a goddamn Genkidama, and Cloud hits it straight on.
So what now?
Come on.
Like you need to ask.
Aerith's spirit appears to give Cloud his last boost. OF COURSE SHE DOES. IT'S THAT KIND OF MOVIE.
I can't even be mad. I did experience A Feeling when this happened. This entire climbing scene is the epitome of "it's so cool, but it's so dumb, but it's so cool, but it's so dumb."
Anyway, Cloud takes Aerith's hand, punches through the Petaflare (scattering its energy harmlessly in the process), hits Bahamut, and Climhazzards it in fucking half.
Fight Scene Rating: 5/5, He cut a fucking dragon in half, did you see that!? I'm only human
Also, at one point during this whole shebang, Denzel has a scene in which he sees one of the Shadow Monsters attack people, and he takes his courage in hand and grabs a crowbar and uses it to hit a fire hydrant, which sends out a spray of water which knocks over and completely disables the monster, revealing a weakness to water that matters somehow, and completing something about Denzel's character arc or whatever. Who cares.
Meanwhile at the Kadaj/Rufus scene, Kadaj fires a Firaga that knocks Rufus off the ledge, Kadaj realizes Mother is falling and jumps off, Rufus pulls out a gun and shoots him mid-fall, it's incredible.
One of the bullets hits the case, causing Jenova's green ichor to start dripping, the Turks see Rufus falling and panic, Elena and Tseng show up out of nowhere with grappling guns they use to catch Rufus mid-fall, Kadaj grabs the case, Loz and Yazoo converge on him, they get on their bikes and ride away, Cloud arrives having somehow survived falling from a mile high after cutting Bahamut in half and gotten on his bike and there in the literal last twenty seconds (I'm not kidding; we see Cloud's perspective when he sees Kadaj fire Firaga and everything afterwards happens in real time) and chases them, the Turks and Rufus are reunited, cue chase scene.
Kadaj races ahead. Cloud is after him, but Loz and Yazoo catch up and run interception, forcing him to fight them first while the Turks follow with an armed chopper. What follows is five minutes of pure unfiltered action. I have called the first motorcycle fight in the movie 'proof of concept,' and if it was, then this is the final form, the apex of the 'dudes with swords and guns on motorbikes fight each other' scene.
The Matrix Reloaded came out in 2003. There is zero doubt in my mind its "Freeway Fight" scene was a major influence on this sequence in Advent Children, but if anything, Advent Children tops it. I am not going to break down this scene. My review boils down to three pictures:
No action scene has ever been so perfectly designed to be experienced, not as itself, but as shittily edited late 2000s AMVs set to Nightwish.
Fight Scene Rating: AMV/5, Nightquest quest not for the past, but for tomorrow to make it last-
At the end of the chase, Rude and Reno ambush Loz and Yazoo using timed explosives, blowing them up and taking them out of the picture (for now), allowing Cloud to pursue Kadaj unimpeded. And with this begins the last stretch of the movie.
Cloud chases Kadaj into the heart of the Midgar ruins, where they clash a couple times, and Cloud pauses briefly to finally take off the long black sleeve he wears over his Geostigma arm, which serves to reveal both the extent of the stigma and…
A red ribbon tied around his biceps, same as Tifa.
Now, I thought I had a really clever take on this. You see, this whole time, the movie has been incredibly evasive around the topic of Tifa and Cloud's relationship. Are they friends? Are they a couple? The closest we get to 'couple' language is a refutation, when Tifa says they aren't a real family. Sure, they live together, but in the same way Tifa and Barret used to live together, they have their offices in the same building. The movie is conspicuously refusing to follow up on the implications of the original game, and Tifa and Cloud never act romantically towards one another.
But then! I saw this! And I thought to myself, of course! The fact that Tifa and Cloud both wear a red ribbon tied around their arms represents the East Asian red thread of fate which mythically connects those who are bound to meet and fall in love! It's a subtle, implicit indication of their status as a couple!
Look at Yuffie's arm.
All the Avalanche members wear a red ribbon. Because it's meant to be a tribute to Aerith, who wore a red ribbon in her hair. Obviously.
Sometimes you can just way overthink things.
Kadaj eventually stops in… Where else… Aerith's church. Because in a city the size of Midgar, which lies utterly in ruins, everything has to eventually lead back to a place which featured all of twice in the original game. There, he takes a break to look at the case, and realizes that there's a gash in it, much larger than the one from Rufus's bullet, most likely a hit from Cloud's sword while they were trading blows.
We don't see what's inside the case, but from Kadaj's reaction I'm pretty sure it is in fact meant to be the face of his mother.
Kadaj has a look of slowly dawning horror, his adoration at the idea of holding 'Mother' turning to pain and grief, and he holds the case against his chest, crying. Then his expression turns to anger as Cloud arrives, and the two briefly engage in another bout of motorcycle fighting, Kadaj firing Materia spells that blow up Church pillars and Cloud driving the shit over Aerith's flowers, what the hell man, then Kadaj fires a spell that blows up a chunk of the ground… And reveals Lifestream waters pooling up just underneath the floorboards, which animate and attack Kadaj and heal Cloud's Geostigma?
This is sudden and mildly confusing, until Cloud hears Aerith's voice again telling him "Let's go, Cloud," so I guess she is actively guiding the Lifestream to help him fight the new threat to the Planet.
Man. Aerith really did graduate to the Galuf style of Force Ghost since the end of FF7.
Kadaj flees, Cloud pursues, and they reach the heart of Midgar, just under the Shinra Building, where the rubble is too thick for even their implausible bike tricks, so they both climb down for one final confrontation.
Kadaj rejoices in being reunited with Jenova, and Cloud asks him what's next - but Kadaj doesn't know. He'll only do as his Mother wills. And what if he's a puppet? After all, wasn't Cloud one once too?
They fight. Kadaj honestly puts up a good fight, but the movie is all too aware that he's the underdog, that he's doomed. Cloud, despite being the protagonist in a climactic duel, is the dominant force; his sword is bigger, he has more reach, his blows are heavier. Instead it's Kadaj who adopts the usually more protagonist-like role of the fast, agile underdog. His sword is shorter, his blows are weaker, but he darts around Cloud's attacks and does moves like 'stomp on Cloud's sword to get leverage'. He's the one who has to constantly dodge and give grounds.
One exchange, where and Cloud fight on a a narrow ledge around the side of a building where Kadaj uses his superior agility to pin Cloud's sword and wrench it out from his grasp, I feel is inspired by one of the encounters between Guts and Serpico in Berserk, though the similarities aren't quite so obvious as to be certain.
Now, like I said, Kadaj does put up a good fight. You could be forgiven for looking at the footage of their fight and tell me I'm just imagining this whole 'Kadaj is the doomed underdog' vibe.
If it wasn't explicitly stated by the characters themselves.
This is an incredible sequence. After all I said earlier about Materia, Yuffie shows up carrying a literal armful of Materia, and Vincent tells her "no he doesn't need those, Kadaj is a bitch, Cloud can Attack-spam to the win." I can't stress this enough that everyone is right here, in the Shera, watching Cloud fight, fully capable of intervening and they all go "Cloud can take him, no sweat." In fact, this is followed up by Tifa delivering one of the most fascinating lines in the movie:
Tifa: "...think of the strength we all had when we fought that last battle. It's only been a couple years… but already that feeling is gone. But Cloud, I think he's found it again."
Tifa is literally saying that the character level system is real, but that it resets at the end of each game, so she got owned by Loz because she's lv 1 but Cloud had that whole personal journey so now he's back lv 60 like at the end of the last game.
I'm just. This is such a fascinating way to connect game mechanics to the narrative. Literally just say that everyone lost their power in this time of peace. It… Kind of? Works? In that it ties into the Limit Break concept, the idea that pressure, threat, drive and motivation, passion, combine to draw out our strength, instead of people permanently growing more powerful over time as they beat challenge after challenge? But it's so counter-intuitive, and such a handwave. "Yeah the rest of Avalanche won't be able to take part in the Sephiroth Fight because they got hit with the Nerf Bat since the end of the game, explicitly and in-setting" is such an asspull. But at least it would justify their inaction in the narrative… If they didn't also throw in some "You don't get it Yuffie, that's a Man Thing, we have to let Cloud settle this on his own, and that means not giving him any of the dozens of Materia we have at hand right here."
You tell 'em, girl.
And I can kinda see the 'no need to interrupt him in the middle of a fight' argument when he it's still Cloud having the upper hand against Kadaj who only appears as a local threat, but they're going to stay that way through what's to come.
Speaking of which.
This movie has some fantastic shots.
Kadaj attempts a final jumping attack and Cloud knocks him away with a Finishing Touch, until they're staring at each other like Scar and Mufasa, Kadaj hanging by only one hand from the ledge.
Slight note: Because Kadaj needs one hand to hold the ledge, he has to choose to let go of either his sword, or the Jenova case. The fact that he lets go of the sword, and thus any chance to win this fight, speaks to his priorities.
Fight Scene Rating: 4/5, Solid swordplay but too much characters talking
What would Cloud do here? What would he say? Would he kill Kadaj, or offer him mercy? I don't know. I could go either way, both based on his original FF7 characterization and his characterization in this game. We don't find out, anyway. Kadaj's last gesture is to throw the Jenova case at Cloud, who reflexively raises his sword to deflect the projectile, the case is sent flying away… And its top opens, sliced in half by the blow.
Kadaj leaps right after it, catches it out of the air, and reaches with his hand to pull out its contents (conspicuously kept out of the camera's view), then lets the case go and cradles its contents in his arms, curling up, fetus-like, around his "Mother" as he falls.
I know writers who use subtext, etc.
Kadaj invites Cloud to witness his Reunion, and Cloud dives after him. Kadaj moans in pain, black energy coming out of his body, but at the last moment before impact, balances himself, lands upright, holds up his hand, and Cloud slams into him with enough force to cave in the giant steel beam he's standing on.
And there he is. No more Kadaj. The Man Himself has returned.
I can rag on this movie and the idea of bringing back Sephiroth as much as I want, it's impossible for me not to feel the hype in that moment. Kadaj transforming into Sephiroth at the moment Cloud hits him and casually holding up the Fusion Sword with his hand is pure cinema.
So here we are. Sephiroth is finally presented to us in glorious 3D and full voice acting (we're going to ignore that Kingdom Hearts exist for now). This appearance is probably going to define a lot of his further appearances; FF7!Sephiroth only shows us a very limited set of movements and actions from Bishieroth as a pseudo-PC, and we only ever fight him in his monster forms. Furthermore, the movie has so far been all over the place with the 'power level' of its characters, with the justification of everyone being lv 1 and Cloud slowly growing in level throughout. So what does it mean to fight the Toughest Guy in FF7 at the apex of your power in full 3D?
Well, first off, Sephiroth knocks Cloud away with a swat of Masamune and takes to higher ground, flying off and drifting down, and then starts monologuing.
Cloud is… remarkably unsurprised by Sephiroth's reappearance, even considering that it's been raised as a threat during the movie. He doesn't bother with any 'that's impossible!'s or 'How!'s, his first reaction is a frown and asking "Sephiroth! What do you want?" Like most of us, he's read ahead on the script and knew this was inevitable, but it's honestly kind of funny how he seems more mildly annoyed than anything at this world-threatening new development.
Sephiroth gives us as good an explanation as we got in the base game for his motivation: the souls of the Geostigma dead, tainted by Jenova, will corrupt and choke the Lifestream, allowing him to take control of the Planet. He's still on his old 'god' kick, but now at least, we get a clearer view of why he desires to be a god:
Sephiroth: "What I want, Cloud, is to sail the darkness of the cosmos with this planet as my vessel, just as my mother did long ago. Then one day we'll find a new Planet, and on its soil we'll create a shining future."
We are firmly in "Sephiroth is and has always been the one in control and he speaks of Jenova as someone dead, but he's also absorbed her motivation for his own" territory here. Just as Jenova once crossed space in a meteor, he wants to sail across infinity on this planet, until he finds a Promised Land of his own.
I don't say this often, but this is a line from Advent Children I wish had been in the base game. It has gravitas. It gives Sephiroth a clear, cosmically grand goal to which godhood is a means. It just sounds sick. It also leaves some ambiguity as to the degree to which he's been warped by Jenova's influence while making it clear he's himself and in charge rather than a meat-puppet, which is either good or bad depending on your preference for the base game.
As he speaks, Sephiroth raises his hand to the sky, and out of the twilight sky the clouds suddenly converge and cast all of Midgar into darkness.
This particular visual, I realize now, made a deep impression on me. For a long time, I've loved "weather control" as a shorthand for demonstrating power, a character who can turn blue skies to storm with a gesture to testify how much power they have over the world, and I think it all comes back to this one scene.
Sephiroth's performance - whether it's Toshiyuki Morikawa in JP or George Newbern in EN - is outstanding, but I do have to speak to some particular fondness for the EN. When Cloud asks "what about this planet?", Sephiroth's answer of "Well, that's up to you, Cloud," hits that perfect mix of lofty aloof tone that nonetheless can't help but let slip that edge of petty taunting, that hint that this is personal, that's it's all between the two of them, as far as he's concerned. 'Shall I give you despair?' from later into the scene is an iconic line for a reason, his delivery is perfect.
Then the fight is on.
Let's break this up for image count.
SPECIAL FEATURE: Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, Part 2/2 Cont.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The Final Duel
The final duel between Cloud and Sephiroth embodies all the best and all the worst of Advent Children. It is simultaneously the most hype fight scene ever put to CG (in the 00s, we've kind of advanced since then) and the most weightless 'this is cool, right, they'll think it's cool' half-try. It is my ideal and my bane.
I have mentioned before that The Matrix Reloaded's Freeway Fight likely had an influence on the motorcycle chase with Loz and Yazoo. In the same way, I feel confident that The Matrix Revolutions' "Neodammerung" final fight was profoundly influential on Cloud vs Sephiroth. Nothing so objectionable as a ripoff, but there's a style to it, a way of depicting 3D battles between melee opponents possessing partial flight…
Here's the example that most stands out to me: Both Cloud vs Sephiroth and Neo vs Smith open with the character flying into the sky, engaging in a brief bout of aerial melee between abandoned buildings, and then the antagonist knocking the protagonist through the wall of a skyscraper, following him inside it, and going from wide open flying combat to interior close-range fighting knocking each other through walls and furniture for a while while exchanging some important banter, before the protagonist punches the antagonist out into the open sky again. That's a pretty specific beat to follow!
And I mean. It's a great beat. In fact, I have used it myself. And it doesn't play the same in each movie; not plagiarism, but inspiration.
Look. Listen. I'm sorry, guys, but if you've been following my work and you thought I would not go into unhinged breakdowns of the composition of a fight scene, you don't really know me. Themes? Who gives a shit about themes.
Here's why this final duel works and why it doesn't.
Neodammerung and Cloud vs Sephiroth have in common being divided into three different types of action: Clean Swordplay, Godlike Power, and Weightless Bullshit. The fight moves frequently between each to keep it fresh, but what the animators didn't realize, drunk on 2005 CGI power as they were, is that the third component drags the other two down.
In Clean Swordplay, Sephiroth and Cloud are both either grounded, or darting short distances with impossible agility. 'Grounded' is a loose term; it can happen even while both are standing on the surface of a chunk of debris toppling out of the sky, just as long as they are stable. In these exchanges, Cloud and Sephiroth use technical moves, parries and dodges, their stances and holds shift, they are actually trying to stab each other and keep each other from being stabbed. These are the best choreographed moments in terms of pure fighting skill, echoing Tifa vs Loz, the best fight in that domain, but it doesn't, by itself, sell that these characters are demigods going at it for the big prize. (In The Matrix, this is any of the close engagement utilizing actual martial arts choreography.)
Clean Swordplay.
In Godlike Power, Cloud and Sephiroth demonstrate that they are very clearly superhuman, and that the 'human' look of their close engagement is mostly because their mutual speed and strength cancel each other out. In these sequences, Cloud leaps a dozen yards from one platform to another, Sephiroth cuts off an entire building so it falls on Cloud's head, Cloud cuts through several tons of concrete with a single sword blow, his attack cuts off giant grooves in the ground, or both of them stand up on a vertical surface as if ignoring gravity. This sells the scope of the fight and the sheer power of the two opponents. (In The Matrix, this is every time Neo and Smith punch each other so hard the rain is pushed back by the shockwave, or whenever they knock each other through walls or pavement.)
Godlike Power.
In Weightless Bullshit, Cloud and Sephiroth are also demonstrating godlike power, specifically freedom from the bonds of gravity… And as a result they smash into each other like figurines held by a child. They meet each other in the air and try to stab each other, but it doesn't sell, because there is no grounding, they don't obey momentum or inertia in a way comprehensible to humans, so it's just noise, floaty and meaningless. (In Matrix, this is mostly not an issue with the long range air-punches, which actually have weight, and instead is an issue with most of the messy airborne grappling where it's not clear what they are actually doing.)
Weightless Bullshit.
Advent Children's final duel is at its best when it's moving between Clean Swordplay and Godlike Power to emphasize each component. One of the best examples of this is when Sephiroth cuts through the falling top of Shinra HQ, sending an avalanche of steel and concrete towards Cloud, who does a complex maneuver planting his swords to give himself the momentum to leap off and cut through it, but then it turns out Sephiroth used the falling rubble as a smokescreen to mask his next cut, he drives Cloud down onto a falling piece of floor where they briefly exchange blows and parries, then Sephiroth adopts a low stance to either thrust or parry against a blow that doesn't come as another piece of falling rubble interrupts Cloud before his next attack and they have to relocate. Meanwhile, the Weightless Bullshit tries to add dynamism to the scene, but instead mostly robs it of such, making it feels like these characters are unmoored and moving arbitrarily. There are moments where each category treads on the other; some of Cloud's "cut through a falling debris" moves are too easy and accompanied by an utterly weightless jump that makes it look like he's just floating.
This is born, I think, of a misunderstanding of what makes DBZ fight scenes work when they're at their best. Their characters do engage in flying combat where they punch each other twenty times in mid-air before bouncing up and down and left and right over several miles, but it works because there is an attention to the kinetic force between each motion - for a good example of what I'm talking about, check out Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which is the pinnacle of DBZ animated combat. I, myself, have attempted to portray a scene I only now realize is heavily inspired by Cloud vs Sephiroth and the specific mix/alternance of Clean Swordplay vs Godlike Power in my Aizen vs Tousen & Harribel fight.
Man, I am discovering things about myself today.
When this combination of styles is at its best, Cloud vs Sephiroth is absolute kinography. But because it keeps tripping in the process, the final result is mixed. Which side of the 'great vs good vs bad' spectrum it falls on will depend on the viewer.
The final leg of the fight, though, does not really have this issue. Cloud and Sephiroth land at the shorn-off top of the Shinra Building, and engage in a brutal bout of close combat, Sephiroth even mixing in some grappling and knee strikes, pushing Cloud so far that he does it - he unleashes the Omnislash, the technique which beat Sephiroth once, his whole body shining blue and unleashing a devastating onslaught finishing with the trademark jumping downward strike.
Sephiroth dodges or parries every single one, and counters Cloud's jumping downstrike with an upwards thrust - and his reach is superior. He catches him in the chest, scattering the Omnislash light, and holds him up in a perfect mirror of their first battle in Nibelheim.
Then, a single black wing emerges from Sephiroth's back.
Because he's the One-Winged Angel. Get it?
I would lie if I pretended I didn't think this is absolutely sick.
He hurls Cloud in the air and leaps off after him, delivering a devastating series of cuts and slashes - Cloud does his best to parry the first couple, but is swiftly overwhelmed. In a movie that has so far been relatively sparse with gore, it's a shockingly bloody onslaught, complete with the wet squelching sounds of steel cutting through flesh. Finally he flicks Cloud down to the ground, where he lies bloody, struggling to get up. Sephiroth taunts him, asking him what he cherishes most in the world, so that he can take it away.
Then… Heavy sigh.
Cloud goes into the white place, where he has his back to Zack.
It's a classic shounen bit, I have seen it in countless manga before. Zack gives Cloud a pep talk, asks him if he needs a hand, and Cloud tells him no, he can do it, Zack tells him he has already beaten him once before and can do it again.
…
It's my impression that it's not uncommon for the character I've referred to in my playthrough as the Backseater to be interpreted as Zack's spirit supporting Cloud from beyond the grave. And I don't think that's correct in the game as a standalone text: Nothing in FF7 indicates that Cloud and Zack's bond is spiritual in nature. Cloud wasn't bequeathed Zack's memories, he had a psychotic break that erased his friend's presence from his memories until he could piece his identity back together. The Backseater, to me, is the same voice that guides Tifa during the Lifestream sequence, the voice of Cloud's old memories trying to reach him past his layers of trauma. But it seems clear that later material emphasized their bond as something more metaphysical, and this movie in general loves to put Cloud in white spaces where he hears the voices of the dead. Sure, part of it is that there is a theme of Cloud being on the brink of death, untethered from the world of the living, slipping in and out of the Lifestream, but part of it is also that the movie is incapable of letting what was gone in the original stay gone. Everyone has to come back, multiple times. We are now at two Aerith scenes and one Zack scene, and they're not the last.
So.
Cloud, inspired by Zack, stands up, leaps after Sephiroth, and declares that he pities him - Sephiroth doesn't understand there isn't a single thing he doesn't cherish. They go for a clash of blades, and as they lock, the Fusion Sword explodes.
Actual surprise.
The Fusion Sword is a combination weapon, with a thin, hollow core, and multiple smaller blades which can be combined with the core to form various configurations of different weights and size or dual wielded. But here, all the components fly out on each side of them, forming a circle of glowing blades. Cloud, shrouded in light, flies to each sword one after the other, leaving behind an afterimage of himself, and strikes Sephiroth with the blade he's just picked up, doing this over and over from multiple angles and forming a circle of afterimages. Throughout the entire thing, Sephiroth's expression is a mix of shock and outrage, a genuine disbelief that this twink is clowning on him with a Limit Break yet again.
0-4.
Then, all the afterimages attack at once, an onslaught that completely overwhelms Sephiroth, ending with a final plunging strike from Cloud going straight through him.
Cloud lands in a circle of his swords, and looks up as the clouds clear up and the sun returns.
"Stay where you belong," he says. "In my memories."
Sephiroth, seemingly uninjured but with shadows trailing out of his body, clearly on the verge of losing his physical integrity, looks down.
"I will never be a memory," he says. Then his wing closes around him, and vanish in a flurry of feathers, leaving only Kadaj to fall to the ground, haggard.
Wait, how did he get his sword back?
Fight Scene Rating: 10/5 I have never recovered from seeing this at the tender age of fifteen my brain has been broken ever since
"I will never be a memory."
Honestly.
The cheek.
I mean he's saying it like it's all philosophical and shit. He'll never be a memory, their connection is too strong, the trauma he inflicted is lifelong, his spirit will always be there to haunt Cloud, sure, okay, that's part of it.
He's also literally saying "Disregard the ending of the game, my spirit is going to retain its integrity in the Lifestream basically forever, ensuring I can reincarnate and turn into a new boss fight every time someone's brain opens to the Jenova Frequency due to tampering with Jenova cells or fucking with the Lifestream or whatnot."
Which is to say, what he is figuratively saying is "We at Squeenix have now opened the path for a potentially infinite number of sequels featuring me, specifically, as the final boss. You're going to see me again and again and again, for the next three decades."
Goddammit. On some level, I respect how bald-faced this hustle is. But at the same time, it's so nakedly putting franchising ahead of artistic integrity.
Well. The fight with Sephiroth is over, but we still have a few minutes to go. No 'fight' with Kadaj though, not really - Mama Boy here can barely swing his sword, collapsing immediately into Cloud's arms and starting to bleed away black dust. Whether it's his injuries or just the strain or mantling Sephiroth or both, he's not long for this world.
(AND HOW IS THAT FOR A METAPHOR. HE LITERALLY COULDN'T CARRY THE WEIGHT OF THE MOVIE'S PLOT ON HIS SHOULDERS. I KEEP TELLING YOU THEY KNEW EXACTLY WHAT KADAJ'S WEAKNESSES AS A CHARACTER WERE AND THE SCRIPT IS DELIBERATELY POINTING AT IT WITH SUBTEXT AND OUTRIGHT TEXT. DOES THAT EXCUSE NOT WRITING KADAJ AS A BETTER CHARACTER IN THE FIRST PLACE? ABSOLUTELY NOT, BUT IT'S STILL WORTH REMARKING ON. WHY AM I YELLING?)
Kadaj, dying in Cloud's arms, calls out to his 'Brother,' and Cloud does seem to have some compassion for him in these last moments, but it's another voice that answers instead. It's…
Sigh.
It's Aerith. Of course. Rain starts to fall. Choirs break out in soothing songs. "Kadaj," Aerith says, "You don't have to hang on any longer. Everyone's waiting, if you're ready." Kadaj asks if this is his mother, and holds out his hand; it closes around another, invisible hand, and his body is pulled up from Cloud's arms, into the air, where it dissolves into Lifestream energy.
…
Aerith is God now, isn't she.
That's what all this has been about. They took that one last shot from FF7 where Aerith is implied to have guided the voices of the Lifestream to support Holy, and they made that into Aerith is the voice of the Lifestream. She can always just show up. She talks to people. She soothes them in their dying moments. She personally, physically lifts them up into the afterlife.
The emotional cornerstone of FF7 was her brutal, uncompromising death which was explicitly not a sacrifice and which denied everyone closure leaving them to make their own peace with her passing and moving on while retaining their ow grief, AND THE MOVIE MADE HER INTO THE FUCKING VIRGIN MARY.
Fuck you, Advent Children!
Whatever. Before we go on to the ending proper, I want to touch on one last thing.
The Original Sephiroth Fight
Aside from Denzel's whole plot, the Sephiroth fight is probably the most heavily impacted aspect of the Complete version of Advent Children.
It's genuinely difficult to find a version of the full movie that isn't Complete. Which is a shame, because the original version of the fight is shorter, but might actually be… Better?
It's shorter, that's for sure. But specifically, what is 'cut' ('hadn't been made yet' but you know) is the sequence in which Cloud uses the v1 Omnislash, is countered, Sephiroth impales him and does a multi-slash attack that leaves him bleeding and broken, then Cloud sees Zack's spirit who inspires him to stand up and he unleashes the v6 Omnislash.
Instead, Sephiroth stabs Cloud in the shoulder when they reach the rooftop and asks him what he cherishes, Cloud experiences a vision of a bunch of characters from the movie that lasts only a second but sums up instantly everyone he's fighting for (that montage is in Complete, of course, but it is immediately followed by the Zack scene which is much longer and weightier in presentation), pulls the blade out of his shoulder, tells Sephiroth there is nothing he doesn't cherish, and attacks, at which point Sephiroth evades to the sky where he is confident his flight grants him superiority only for Cloud to feint him and unleash the v5 Omnislash and win.
It's shorter, but it's to the point, and while it doesn't drive Cloud to as much of a nadir of a 'oh no he's definitely losing,' maybe Cloud doesn't… need to? He already beat this guy once, that's the point.
I think this is because Crisis Core came out in 2007, and a lot of aspects of Zack's character as well as his relationship to Cloud which I don't know but suspect were introduced in Crisis Core didn't exist at the time, and were retroactively inserted into the movie with Complete in 2009.
Also - and this was pointed to me by @ZerbanDaGreat, I cannot claim credit for this observation, but the Complete version of the fight fucks up the soundtrack. FF7:AC uses a special orchestration of One-Winged Angel which is synched with the fight. This means that the rock instrumental section ends when Cloud is stabbed in the shoulder, followed by the rising strings while Sephiroth taunts him, then the swelling orchestral movement as Cloud sees everyone he's fighting for, the choir resumes when Cloud gives his answer and chases after Sephiroth, the first "SE-PHI-ROTH!" rings out as Cloud comes in with the final Omnislash blow and Sephiroth stares up in shock that he's about to lose, and the second "SE-PHI-ROTH!" hits when Cloud stands up from the ground and grabs his sword on the descent, and the final rising part and the third and last "SE-PHI-ROTH!" come in when Sephiroth looks down and says he'll never be a memory, his wing appearing and closing and he vanishes. It's perfectly timed.
Meanwhile, the Complete version of the fight has to drag things out with a middle part of instrumentals and a couple of muted "Se-phi-roth!"s when his wings show up, while not having a particularly impressive accompaniment on the rising multislash, then OWA completely cuts off for the Zack vision, kicking up at the chorus when Cloud jumps for the Omnislash, the first "SE-PHI-ROTH!" hits correctly during the first hit of Omnislash, the second one hits in the middle of the general rush, and the third and final one hits when Cloud raises his hand to pick up his sword, leaving a generic instrumental background track to play during Sephiroth's "I will never be a memory."
It's off, is what it is.
Back To The Plot
It's almost over. The rain which fell on Cloud and Kadaj falls on the whole city, but it is no mere rain, it is the same Lifestream waters which rose up in the church, and wherever they fall, people's Geostigma disappear. All the orphans abducted by the Remnants are freed from the sickness and rejoice in the rain. Rufus, too, is sitting on his wheelchair, surrounded by the Turks (who all survived), as his own stigma vanish. Onboard the Shera, the crew rejoices; Tifa looks at a drop of water and says "Somehow I knew you were there. Thank you." Cloud looks at the ship that is there to pick him up, and takes a moment to tilt his head back and enjoy the rain.
Then he gets shot in the back.
No, for real; the movie tries to trick the viewer into thinking it's going for one of these 'at the last moment, tragedy strikes due to an unresolved plotline.' Specifically, Loz and Yazoo, actively disintegrating into black energy, have stuffed themselves full of Materia and crawled all the way to the rooftop to take Cloud with them in a desperate suicidal attack.
Cloud cries out in anger, raising his sword, and charges at them, and they hold their hands out to cast their spells, and the entire rooftop explodes.
Welp, guess Cloud's dead!
Tifa shouts in concern, and we cut away to… Denzel and Marlene? Who are watching the rain? And Denzel says, "he'll come back, he said that he would."
Then the phone rings. It's the landline in Cloud's office. Denzel hurries down, picks it up, and looks surprised and happy. Then he and Marlene run out into the streets, and are soon joined by all the Geostigma children, who are all looking excited and cheerful. They, and soon a massive crowd, representing probably every Geostigma infected (now cured) in Midgar Edge, but possibly everyone in Edge in general, is proceeding towards…
The Sector 5 Church.
Cue the White Space again.
Yes. Of course we're back here. THERE'S EVEN THE FUCKING WOLF.
But not just the wolf. No. You see, we've had the Aerith Vision before. And we've had the Zack Vision a short while ago. So what time is it? Of course! It's time for THE ZACK AND AERITH TOGETHER VISION!
We don't see them, granted, except for Aerith's hand touching Cloud's forehead, but we hear them talking to each other, bantering about how everyone keeps mistaking Aerith for their mother. She jokes that Cloud is too big to adopt, and then Zack tells Cloud he doesn't have his place here, and it's time to go back.
I've seen that beat too, many times. A character is on the verge of death and another character, who had already died, tells them it's not their time yet and sends them back. And as much as I loved Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, it's a cliché. Which wouldn't necessarily be bad, except COME ON. YOU'RE LITERALLY JUST GOING TO HAVE ZACK AND AERITH CHATTING ABOUT IN THE AFTERLIFE?
Am I even supposed to be sad they're dead?! They're clearly doing pretty well for themselves! One of them is hanging around Cloud's mind as a spirit advisor, and the other has become God!
Ah, well. Then we see tiny hands hold Cloud's chest, and the white space dissolves, and we are back in the Sector 5 Church.
Cloud looks at the children quizzically, and Moogle Girl (I haven't talked about her before, but she's a minor character in Denzel's subplot) tells Cloud: "It's like she said: 'Wait here and Cloud will come back.'"
That's right. That phone? IT WAS A FUCKING GHOST CALL FROM AERITH. OF COURSE IT WAS.
…
Okay.
So this isn't "Cloud suffered great injuries in the Remnants' Materia explosion but was healed by the waters of the Church." That, at least, would have… Well, not so much 'made sense' as…
Look. That final explosion took place at the top of the Shinra Building, in the center of the Top Plate of the ruined Midgar, miles from the Church. There is no Lifestream sinkhole Cloud could have just dropped into in the explosion and come out at another well. He blew up a mile high at the top of a giant industrial building.
No. The Remnants blew the shit out of Cloud, and then Cloud and Aerith kicked him out of the afterlife, and he came out of the church spring with a new body.
This movie just introduced True Resurrection to the FF7 setting. You can literally just disintegrate someone and if the plot doesn't want them to stay dead, they'll fucking materialize out of the Lifestream.
At Aerith's Church, of course! Where else! This is after all the most important location in the world.
Anyway. Cloud looks out to the crowd, and in them, sees all his friends gathered.
Marlene is holding Cait Sith like a plush toy, which is funny. Nanaki is there, he's just been cropped out of the shot for some reason.
This is it. This is the very final scene of Advent Children. Now, how would you end this movie? How would you conclude a movie based on a game that very occasionally depicted Kabbalistic concepts ("Sephiroth") but did not have a particularly Christian bend beyond the occasional cross on a grave?
If you answered "with a baptism," I'd like to thank you for reading this far, Mr. Kazushige Nojima. I know I've been pretty critical of your work on this movie, but it's coming from a place of love. I hope you understand.
Denzel wasn't exposed to the healing rain, apparently, for whatever reason, and so Cloud guides him into the waters and anoints him, which heals his Geostigma because it's the magic Lifestream water from Aerith. Everyone erupts in cheers. The children who still have Geostigma jump into the water. It's a big party.
…
FUCKING-
CLOUD MISTOOK AERITH FOR HIS MOTHER WHEN HE WAS IN THE WHITE SPACE, HE LITERALLY DIED AND THEN CAME BACK TO LIFE SOMEWHERE ELSE, AND INVITED THE CHILDREN TO BE BAPTIZED AND THUS SAVED FROM THE GEOSTIGMA?
THEY MADE CLOUD JESUS. THEY MADE AERITH INTO THE VIRGIN MARY AND THEY MADE CLOUD INTO FUCKING JESUS???
IS THIS WHY HE AND TIFA AREN'T ALLOWED TO FUCK?
OH MY GOD. I AM SO FUCKING MAD RIGHT NOW.
It's over! The movie's over. This is the last scene! I am seething right now NO WAIT THERE'S MORE. ONE LAST SHOT. ONE FINAL GOODBYE.
Cloud turns to look at the Church, where he sees a woman talking to two children, then getting up to leave towards the bright light past the doors, and…
IT'S AERITH AND ZACK. IT'S AERITH MANIFESTING ON THE MORTAL PLANE TO GIVE CLOUD A LAST GOODBYE ALONGSIDE ZACK. WHOM I CAN ONLY ASSUME SHE IS NOW DATING IN THE AFTERLIFE BECAUSE APPARENTLY DEATH JUST MEANS BEING REUNITED WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND AND LIVING HAPPILY EVER AFTER.
"You see?" she says. "Everything's all right." Then they both turn around, and fade into the light.
The last shot of the movie is of Cloud's face, his expression softening into a smile, and he says "I know. I'm not alone. Not anymore."
Congratulations on completing your character arc a second time, Cloud. Congratulations on reaching the same point you'd reached in the original game and making the same realization you already had.
Cue credits.
Well, That Sure Was Advent Children
Godfuckingdammit.
What a mess.
This movie is so… mediocre. I can't even call it "awful," because it has some beats that really genuinely do hit, and it has a lot of bits that I just don't particularly care about, and the bits that are bad are mostly bad in relation to the game. Advent Children largely sins by taking clichés that the game had avoided and executing them anyway, making the story less novel, less hard-hitting, less interesting.
This movie feels like it was written by someone who was worried that FF7 might be too sad, so they set out to reassure the players that no, actually, it was fine. Death isn't that big a deal. Aerith and Zack are reunited and happy together now (but only implicitly, just like Cloud and Tifa aren't explicitly a couple, so that you can still ship whoever you like). Aerith is the Mother Goddess now. Even the bad guys aren't dead for good. Rufus was cool, right? And the Turks were funny? So they're both here and they're still corporate people doing corporate stuff but for a good cause now. And Sephiroth? Sephiroth is so cool, man. If he died then he would be dead! He couldn't take part in any further stories! He and Cloud couldn't fight each other again! We don't want that, right? So there, now Sephiroth is just hanging out in the Lifestream and can come back whenever we like.
No one's ever really gone. That's the ethos of this movie, decades before The Rise of Skywalker. You never have to say goodbye. Everyone you love is always there within arm's reach, and you don't have to look any further. The only new character you need is Denzel, at most. Kadaj and his lot are just preludes to Sephiroth, they literally exist to bring him back. We're going to do the plot of FF7 again, it worked fine the first time, after all! People don't need to grow except in the specific way they grew in the original game, going through it a second time.
We can just play Final Fantasy VII again. We don't need anything else. We'll always live in that moment where we meet Aerith in the Church.
You know that XKCD strip, the one that's been posted in this thread before?
Advent Children did that.
Advent Children went and downloaded the 'Aerith Lives' mod into your copy of FF7. It did it for you. It didn't need to ask, because it knew that's what you really wanted.
You're welcome.
Okay But There's More Than That To The Movie, Right
Yeah, of course. The fights are fantastic, the graphics were amazing for their time, the soundtrack fucks. Some of the character interactions are fun! There's decent comedy in there!
But like, I've just broken done these fights exhaustively, I don't have a good musical ear, I mentioned the character stuff I liked when it came up. But there's so much more that's wrong, that's off, that better merits talking about. I have now written… Over 18,000 words about Advent Children. I have gone through it in exhaustive, and exhausting detail. I hope you're exhausted. I sure am. What's there left to say?
How do we sum this all up in one final statement?
…
Thank you for reading.
Hello. Thank you for following me on this silly little side-project. If you'd like to support my work, you can always contribute to my Ko-Fi and Patreon.
For Christmas, generous readers and friends have gifted me with Chrono Trigger and Crisis Core Reunion. Both are games I'm interested in playing in the context of this thread for different reasons, but I want to reassure you that we will not be further dragging out the FF7 portion of this Let's Play; if I write anything about them (and I most likely will), it will be as a side piece at a later date.
It's time to actually move on, and find out what the next entry in the series has in store for us.
Next Time: Final Fantasy VIII.
The final duel between Cloud and Sephiroth embodies all the best and all the worst of Advent Children. It is simultaneously the most hype fight scene ever put to CG (in the 00s, we've kind of advanced since then) and the most weightless 'this is cool, right, they'll think it's cool' half-try. It is my ideal and my bane.
I have mentioned before that The Matrix Reloaded's Freeway Fight likely had an influence on the motorcycle chase with Loz and Yazoo. In the same way, I feel confident that The Matrix Revolutions' "Neodammerung" final fight was profoundly influential on Cloud vs Sephiroth. Nothing so objectionable as a ripoff, but there's a style to it, a way of depicting 3D battles between melee opponents possessing partial flight…
Here's the example that most stands out to me: Both Cloud vs Sephiroth and Neo vs Smith open with the character flying into the sky, engaging in a brief bout of aerial melee between abandoned buildings, and then the antagonist knocking the protagonist through the wall of a skyscraper, following him inside it, and going from wide open flying combat to interior close-range fighting knocking each other through walls and furniture for a while while exchanging some important banter, before the protagonist punches the antagonist out into the open sky again. That's a pretty specific beat to follow!
And I mean. It's a great beat. In fact, I have used it myself. And it doesn't play the same in each movie; not plagiarism, but inspiration.
Look. Listen. I'm sorry, guys, but if you've been following my work and you thought I would not go into unhinged breakdowns of the composition of a fight scene, you don't really know me. Themes? Who gives a shit about themes.
Here's why this final duel works and why it doesn't.
Neodammerung and Cloud vs Sephiroth have in common being divided into three different types of action: Clean Swordplay, Godlike Power, and Weightless Bullshit. The fight moves frequently between each to keep it fresh, but what the animators didn't realize, drunk on 2005 CGI power as they were, is that the third component drags the other two down.
In Clean Swordplay, Sephiroth and Cloud are both either grounded, or darting short distances with impossible agility. 'Grounded' is a loose term; it can happen even while both are standing on the surface of a chunk of debris toppling out of the sky, just as long as they are stable. In these exchanges, Cloud and Sephiroth use technical moves, parries and dodges, their stances and holds shift, they are actually trying to stab each other and keep each other from being stabbed. These are the best choreographed moments in terms of pure fighting skill, echoing Tifa vs Loz, the best fight in that domain, but it doesn't, by itself, sell that these characters are demigods going at it for the big prize. (In The Matrix, this is any of the close engagement utilizing actual martial arts choreography.)
Clean Swordplay.
In Godlike Power, Cloud and Sephiroth demonstrate that they are very clearly superhuman, and that the 'human' look of their close engagement is mostly because their mutual speed and strength cancel each other out. In these sequences, Cloud leaps a dozen yards from one platform to another, Sephiroth cuts off an entire building so it falls on Cloud's head, Cloud cuts through several tons of concrete with a single sword blow, his attack cuts off giant grooves in the ground, or both of them stand up on a vertical surface as if ignoring gravity. This sells the scope of the fight and the sheer power of the two opponents. (In The Matrix, this is every time Neo and Smith punch each other so hard the rain is pushed back by the shockwave, or whenever they knock each other through walls or pavement.)
Godlike Power.
In Weightless Bullshit, Cloud and Sephiroth are also demonstrating godlike power, specifically freedom from the bonds of gravity… And as a result they smash into each other like figurines held by a child. They meet each other in the air and try to stab each other, but it doesn't sell, because there is no grounding, they don't obey momentum or inertia in a way comprehensible to humans, so it's just noise, floaty and meaningless. (In Matrix, this is mostly not an issue with the long range air-punches, which actually have weight, and instead is an issue with most of the messy airborne grappling where it's not clear what they are actually doing.)
Weightless Bullshit.
Advent Children's final duel is at its best when it's moving between Clean Swordplay and Godlike Power to emphasize each component. One of the best examples of this is when Sephiroth cuts through the falling top of Shinra HQ, sending an avalanche of steel and concrete towards Cloud, who does a complex maneuver planting his swords to give himself the momentum to leap off and cut through it, but then it turns out Sephiroth used the falling rubble as a smokescreen to mask his next cut, he drives Cloud down onto a falling piece of floor where they briefly exchange blows and parries, then Sephiroth adopts a low stance to either thrust or parry against a blow that doesn't come as another piece of falling rubble interrupts Cloud before his next attack and they have to relocate. Meanwhile, the Weightless Bullshit tries to add dynamism to the scene, but instead mostly robs it of such, making it feels like these characters are unmoored and moving arbitrarily. There are moments where each category treads on the other; some of Cloud's "cut through a falling debris" moves are too easy and accompanied by an utterly weightless jump that makes it look like he's just floating.
This is born, I think, of a misunderstanding of what makes DBZ fight scenes work when they're at their best. Their characters do engage in flying combat where they punch each other twenty times in mid-air before bouncing up and down and left and right over several miles, but it works because there is an attention to the kinetic force between each motion - for a good example of what I'm talking about, check out Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which is the pinnacle of DBZ animated combat. I, myself, have attempted to portray a scene I only now realize is heavily inspired by Cloud vs Sephiroth and the specific mix/alternance of Clean Swordplay vs Godlike Power in my Aizen vs Tousen & Harribel fight.
Man, I am discovering things about myself today.
When this combination of styles is at its best, Cloud vs Sephiroth is absolute kinography. But because it keeps tripping in the process, the final result is mixed. Which side of the 'great vs good vs bad' spectrum it falls on will depend on the viewer.
The final leg of the fight, though, does not really have this issue. Cloud and Sephiroth land at the shorn-off top of the Shinra Building, and engage in a brutal bout of close combat, Sephiroth even mixing in some grappling and knee strikes, pushing Cloud so far that he does it - he unleashes the Omnislash, the technique which beat Sephiroth once, his whole body shining blue and unleashing a devastating onslaught finishing with the trademark jumping downward strike.
Sephiroth dodges or parries every single one, and counters Cloud's jumping downstrike with an upwards thrust - and his reach is superior. He catches him in the chest, scattering the Omnislash light, and holds him up in a perfect mirror of their first battle in Nibelheim.
Then, a single black wing emerges from Sephiroth's back.
Because he's the One-Winged Angel. Get it?
I would lie if I pretended I didn't think this is absolutely sick.
He hurls Cloud in the air and leaps off after him, delivering a devastating series of cuts and slashes - Cloud does his best to parry the first couple, but is swiftly overwhelmed. In a movie that has so far been relatively sparse with gore, it's a shockingly bloody onslaught, complete with the wet squelching sounds of steel cutting through flesh. Finally he flicks Cloud down to the ground, where he lies bloody, struggling to get up. Sephiroth taunts him, asking him what he cherishes most in the world, so that he can take it away.
Then… Heavy sigh.
Cloud goes into the white place, where he has his back to Zack.
It's a classic shounen bit, I have seen it in countless manga before. Zack gives Cloud a pep talk, asks him if he needs a hand, and Cloud tells him no, he can do it, Zack tells him he has already beaten him once before and can do it again.
…
It's my impression that it's not uncommon for the character I've referred to in my playthrough as the Backseater to be interpreted as Zack's spirit supporting Cloud from beyond the grave. And I don't think that's correct in the game as a standalone text: Nothing in FF7 indicates that Cloud and Zack's bond is spiritual in nature. Cloud wasn't bequeathed Zack's memories, he had a psychotic break that erased his friend's presence from his memories until he could piece his identity back together. The Backseater, to me, is the same voice that guides Tifa during the Lifestream sequence, the voice of Cloud's old memories trying to reach him past his layers of trauma. But it seems clear that later material emphasized their bond as something more metaphysical, and this movie in general loves to put Cloud in white spaces where he hears the voices of the dead. Sure, part of it is that there is a theme of Cloud being on the brink of death, untethered from the world of the living, slipping in and out of the Lifestream, but part of it is also that the movie is incapable of letting what was gone in the original stay gone. Everyone has to come back, multiple times. We are now at two Aerith scenes and one Zack scene, and they're not the last.
So.
Cloud, inspired by Zack, stands up, leaps after Sephiroth, and declares that he pities him - Sephiroth doesn't understand there isn't a single thing he doesn't cherish. They go for a clash of blades, and as they lock, the Fusion Sword explodes.
Actual surprise.
The Fusion Sword is a combination weapon, with a thin, hollow core, and multiple smaller blades which can be combined with the core to form various configurations of different weights and size or dual wielded. But here, all the components fly out on each side of them, forming a circle of glowing blades. Cloud, shrouded in light, flies to each sword one after the other, leaving behind an afterimage of himself, and strikes Sephiroth with the blade he's just picked up, doing this over and over from multiple angles and forming a circle of afterimages. Throughout the entire thing, Sephiroth's expression is a mix of shock and outrage, a genuine disbelief that this twink is clowning on him with a Limit Break yet again.
0-4.
Then, all the afterimages attack at once, an onslaught that completely overwhelms Sephiroth, ending with a final plunging strike from Cloud going straight through him.
Cloud lands in a circle of his swords, and looks up as the clouds clear up and the sun returns.
"Stay where you belong," he says. "In my memories."
Sephiroth, seemingly uninjured but with shadows trailing out of his body, clearly on the verge of losing his physical integrity, looks down.
"I will never be a memory," he says. Then his wing closes around him, and vanish in a flurry of feathers, leaving only Kadaj to fall to the ground, haggard.
Wait, how did he get his sword back?
Fight Scene Rating: 10/5 I have never recovered from seeing this at the tender age of fifteen my brain has been broken ever since
"I will never be a memory."
Honestly.
The cheek.
I mean he's saying it like it's all philosophical and shit. He'll never be a memory, their connection is too strong, the trauma he inflicted is lifelong, his spirit will always be there to haunt Cloud, sure, okay, that's part of it.
He's also literally saying "Disregard the ending of the game, my spirit is going to retain its integrity in the Lifestream basically forever, ensuring I can reincarnate and turn into a new boss fight every time someone's brain opens to the Jenova Frequency due to tampering with Jenova cells or fucking with the Lifestream or whatnot."
Which is to say, what he is figuratively saying is "We at Squeenix have now opened the path for a potentially infinite number of sequels featuring me, specifically, as the final boss. You're going to see me again and again and again, for the next three decades."
Goddammit. On some level, I respect how bald-faced this hustle is. But at the same time, it's so nakedly putting franchising ahead of artistic integrity.
Well. The fight with Sephiroth is over, but we still have a few minutes to go. No 'fight' with Kadaj though, not really - Mama Boy here can barely swing his sword, collapsing immediately into Cloud's arms and starting to bleed away black dust. Whether it's his injuries or just the strain or mantling Sephiroth or both, he's not long for this world.
(AND HOW IS THAT FOR A METAPHOR. HE LITERALLY COULDN'T CARRY THE WEIGHT OF THE MOVIE'S PLOT ON HIS SHOULDERS. I KEEP TELLING YOU THEY KNEW EXACTLY WHAT KADAJ'S WEAKNESSES AS A CHARACTER WERE AND THE SCRIPT IS DELIBERATELY POINTING AT IT WITH SUBTEXT AND OUTRIGHT TEXT. DOES THAT EXCUSE NOT WRITING KADAJ AS A BETTER CHARACTER IN THE FIRST PLACE? ABSOLUTELY NOT, BUT IT'S STILL WORTH REMARKING ON. WHY AM I YELLING?)
Kadaj, dying in Cloud's arms, calls out to his 'Brother,' and Cloud does seem to have some compassion for him in these last moments, but it's another voice that answers instead. It's…
Sigh.
It's Aerith. Of course. Rain starts to fall. Choirs break out in soothing songs. "Kadaj," Aerith says, "You don't have to hang on any longer. Everyone's waiting, if you're ready." Kadaj asks if this is his mother, and holds out his hand; it closes around another, invisible hand, and his body is pulled up from Cloud's arms, into the air, where it dissolves into Lifestream energy.
…
Aerith is God now, isn't she.
That's what all this has been about. They took that one last shot from FF7 where Aerith is implied to have guided the voices of the Lifestream to support Holy, and they made that into Aerith is the voice of the Lifestream. She can always just show up. She talks to people. She soothes them in their dying moments. She personally, physically lifts them up into the afterlife.
The emotional cornerstone of FF7 was her brutal, uncompromising death which was explicitly not a sacrifice and which denied everyone closure leaving them to make their own peace with her passing and moving on while retaining their ow grief, AND THE MOVIE MADE HER INTO THE FUCKING VIRGIN MARY.
Fuck you, Advent Children!
Whatever. Before we go on to the ending proper, I want to touch on one last thing.
The Original Sephiroth Fight
Aside from Denzel's whole plot, the Sephiroth fight is probably the most heavily impacted aspect of the Complete version of Advent Children.
It's genuinely difficult to find a version of the full movie that isn't Complete. Which is a shame, because the original version of the fight is shorter, but might actually be… Better?
It's shorter, that's for sure. But specifically, what is 'cut' ('hadn't been made yet' but you know) is the sequence in which Cloud uses the v1 Omnislash, is countered, Sephiroth impales him and does a multi-slash attack that leaves him bleeding and broken, then Cloud sees Zack's spirit who inspires him to stand up and he unleashes the v6 Omnislash.
Instead, Sephiroth stabs Cloud in the shoulder when they reach the rooftop and asks him what he cherishes, Cloud experiences a vision of a bunch of characters from the movie that lasts only a second but sums up instantly everyone he's fighting for (that montage is in Complete, of course, but it is immediately followed by the Zack scene which is much longer and weightier in presentation), pulls the blade out of his shoulder, tells Sephiroth there is nothing he doesn't cherish, and attacks, at which point Sephiroth evades to the sky where he is confident his flight grants him superiority only for Cloud to feint him and unleash the v5 Omnislash and win.
It's shorter, but it's to the point, and while it doesn't drive Cloud to as much of a nadir of a 'oh no he's definitely losing,' maybe Cloud doesn't… need to? He already beat this guy once, that's the point.
I think this is because Crisis Core came out in 2007, and a lot of aspects of Zack's character as well as his relationship to Cloud which I don't know but suspect were introduced in Crisis Core didn't exist at the time, and were retroactively inserted into the movie with Complete in 2009.
Also - and this was pointed to me by @ZerbanDaGreat, I cannot claim credit for this observation, but the Complete version of the fight fucks up the soundtrack. FF7:AC uses a special orchestration of One-Winged Angel which is synched with the fight. This means that the rock instrumental section ends when Cloud is stabbed in the shoulder, followed by the rising strings while Sephiroth taunts him, then the swelling orchestral movement as Cloud sees everyone he's fighting for, the choir resumes when Cloud gives his answer and chases after Sephiroth, the first "SE-PHI-ROTH!" rings out as Cloud comes in with the final Omnislash blow and Sephiroth stares up in shock that he's about to lose, and the second "SE-PHI-ROTH!" hits when Cloud stands up from the ground and grabs his sword on the descent, and the final rising part and the third and last "SE-PHI-ROTH!" come in when Sephiroth looks down and says he'll never be a memory, his wing appearing and closing and he vanishes. It's perfectly timed.
Meanwhile, the Complete version of the fight has to drag things out with a middle part of instrumentals and a couple of muted "Se-phi-roth!"s when his wings show up, while not having a particularly impressive accompaniment on the rising multislash, then OWA completely cuts off for the Zack vision, kicking up at the chorus when Cloud jumps for the Omnislash, the first "SE-PHI-ROTH!" hits correctly during the first hit of Omnislash, the second one hits in the middle of the general rush, and the third and final one hits when Cloud raises his hand to pick up his sword, leaving a generic instrumental background track to play during Sephiroth's "I will never be a memory."
It's off, is what it is.
Back To The Plot
It's almost over. The rain which fell on Cloud and Kadaj falls on the whole city, but it is no mere rain, it is the same Lifestream waters which rose up in the church, and wherever they fall, people's Geostigma disappear. All the orphans abducted by the Remnants are freed from the sickness and rejoice in the rain. Rufus, too, is sitting on his wheelchair, surrounded by the Turks (who all survived), as his own stigma vanish. Onboard the Shera, the crew rejoices; Tifa looks at a drop of water and says "Somehow I knew you were there. Thank you." Cloud looks at the ship that is there to pick him up, and takes a moment to tilt his head back and enjoy the rain.
Then he gets shot in the back.
No, for real; the movie tries to trick the viewer into thinking it's going for one of these 'at the last moment, tragedy strikes due to an unresolved plotline.' Specifically, Loz and Yazoo, actively disintegrating into black energy, have stuffed themselves full of Materia and crawled all the way to the rooftop to take Cloud with them in a desperate suicidal attack.
Cloud cries out in anger, raising his sword, and charges at them, and they hold their hands out to cast their spells, and the entire rooftop explodes.
Welp, guess Cloud's dead!
Tifa shouts in concern, and we cut away to… Denzel and Marlene? Who are watching the rain? And Denzel says, "he'll come back, he said that he would."
Then the phone rings. It's the landline in Cloud's office. Denzel hurries down, picks it up, and looks surprised and happy. Then he and Marlene run out into the streets, and are soon joined by all the Geostigma children, who are all looking excited and cheerful. They, and soon a massive crowd, representing probably every Geostigma infected (now cured) in Midgar Edge, but possibly everyone in Edge in general, is proceeding towards…
The Sector 5 Church.
Cue the White Space again.
Yes. Of course we're back here. THERE'S EVEN THE FUCKING WOLF.
But not just the wolf. No. You see, we've had the Aerith Vision before. And we've had the Zack Vision a short while ago. So what time is it? Of course! It's time for THE ZACK AND AERITH TOGETHER VISION!
We don't see them, granted, except for Aerith's hand touching Cloud's forehead, but we hear them talking to each other, bantering about how everyone keeps mistaking Aerith for their mother. She jokes that Cloud is too big to adopt, and then Zack tells Cloud he doesn't have his place here, and it's time to go back.
I've seen that beat too, many times. A character is on the verge of death and another character, who had already died, tells them it's not their time yet and sends them back. And as much as I loved Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, it's a cliché. Which wouldn't necessarily be bad, except COME ON. YOU'RE LITERALLY JUST GOING TO HAVE ZACK AND AERITH CHATTING ABOUT IN THE AFTERLIFE?
Am I even supposed to be sad they're dead?! They're clearly doing pretty well for themselves! One of them is hanging around Cloud's mind as a spirit advisor, and the other has become God!
Ah, well. Then we see tiny hands hold Cloud's chest, and the white space dissolves, and we are back in the Sector 5 Church.
Cloud looks at the children quizzically, and Moogle Girl (I haven't talked about her before, but she's a minor character in Denzel's subplot) tells Cloud: "It's like she said: 'Wait here and Cloud will come back.'"
That's right. That phone? IT WAS A FUCKING GHOST CALL FROM AERITH. OF COURSE IT WAS.
…
Okay.
So this isn't "Cloud suffered great injuries in the Remnants' Materia explosion but was healed by the waters of the Church." That, at least, would have… Well, not so much 'made sense' as…
Look. That final explosion took place at the top of the Shinra Building, in the center of the Top Plate of the ruined Midgar, miles from the Church. There is no Lifestream sinkhole Cloud could have just dropped into in the explosion and come out at another well. He blew up a mile high at the top of a giant industrial building.
No. The Remnants blew the shit out of Cloud, and then Cloud and Aerith kicked him out of the afterlife, and he came out of the church spring with a new body.
This movie just introduced True Resurrection to the FF7 setting. You can literally just disintegrate someone and if the plot doesn't want them to stay dead, they'll fucking materialize out of the Lifestream.
At Aerith's Church, of course! Where else! This is after all the most important location in the world.
Anyway. Cloud looks out to the crowd, and in them, sees all his friends gathered.
Marlene is holding Cait Sith like a plush toy, which is funny. Nanaki is there, he's just been cropped out of the shot for some reason.
This is it. This is the very final scene of Advent Children. Now, how would you end this movie? How would you conclude a movie based on a game that very occasionally depicted Kabbalistic concepts ("Sephiroth") but did not have a particularly Christian bend beyond the occasional cross on a grave?
If you answered "with a baptism," I'd like to thank you for reading this far, Mr. Kazushige Nojima. I know I've been pretty critical of your work on this movie, but it's coming from a place of love. I hope you understand.
…
FUCKING-
CLOUD MISTOOK AERITH FOR HIS MOTHER WHEN HE WAS IN THE WHITE SPACE, HE LITERALLY DIED AND THEN CAME BACK TO LIFE SOMEWHERE ELSE, AND INVITED THE CHILDREN TO BE BAPTIZED AND THUS SAVED FROM THE GEOSTIGMA?
THEY MADE CLOUD JESUS. THEY MADE AERITH INTO THE VIRGIN MARY AND THEY MADE CLOUD INTO FUCKING JESUS???
IS THIS WHY HE AND TIFA AREN'T ALLOWED TO FUCK?
OH MY GOD. I AM SO FUCKING MAD RIGHT NOW.
It's over! The movie's over. This is the last scene! I am seething right now NO WAIT THERE'S MORE. ONE LAST SHOT. ONE FINAL GOODBYE.
Cloud turns to look at the Church, where he sees a woman talking to two children, then getting up to leave towards the bright light past the doors, and…
IT'S AERITH AND ZACK. IT'S AERITH MANIFESTING ON THE MORTAL PLANE TO GIVE CLOUD A LAST GOODBYE ALONGSIDE ZACK. WHOM I CAN ONLY ASSUME SHE IS NOW DATING IN THE AFTERLIFE BECAUSE APPARENTLY DEATH JUST MEANS BEING REUNITED WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND AND LIVING HAPPILY EVER AFTER.
"You see?" she says. "Everything's all right." Then they both turn around, and fade into the light.
The last shot of the movie is of Cloud's face, his expression softening into a smile, and he says "I know. I'm not alone. Not anymore."
Congratulations on completing your character arc a second time, Cloud. Congratulations on reaching the same point you'd reached in the original game and making the same realization you already had.
Cue credits.
Well, That Sure Was Advent Children
Godfuckingdammit.
What a mess.
This movie is so… mediocre. I can't even call it "awful," because it has some beats that really genuinely do hit, and it has a lot of bits that I just don't particularly care about, and the bits that are bad are mostly bad in relation to the game. Advent Children largely sins by taking clichés that the game had avoided and executing them anyway, making the story less novel, less hard-hitting, less interesting.
This movie feels like it was written by someone who was worried that FF7 might be too sad, so they set out to reassure the players that no, actually, it was fine. Death isn't that big a deal. Aerith and Zack are reunited and happy together now (but only implicitly, just like Cloud and Tifa aren't explicitly a couple, so that you can still ship whoever you like). Aerith is the Mother Goddess now. Even the bad guys aren't dead for good. Rufus was cool, right? And the Turks were funny? So they're both here and they're still corporate people doing corporate stuff but for a good cause now. And Sephiroth? Sephiroth is so cool, man. If he died then he would be dead! He couldn't take part in any further stories! He and Cloud couldn't fight each other again! We don't want that, right? So there, now Sephiroth is just hanging out in the Lifestream and can come back whenever we like.
No one's ever really gone. That's the ethos of this movie, decades before The Rise of Skywalker. You never have to say goodbye. Everyone you love is always there within arm's reach, and you don't have to look any further. The only new character you need is Denzel, at most. Kadaj and his lot are just preludes to Sephiroth, they literally exist to bring him back. We're going to do the plot of FF7 again, it worked fine the first time, after all! People don't need to grow except in the specific way they grew in the original game, going through it a second time.
We can just play Final Fantasy VII again. We don't need anything else. We'll always live in that moment where we meet Aerith in the Church.
You know that XKCD strip, the one that's been posted in this thread before?
Advent Children did that.
Advent Children went and downloaded the 'Aerith Lives' mod into your copy of FF7. It did it for you. It didn't need to ask, because it knew that's what you really wanted.
You're welcome.
Okay But There's More Than That To The Movie, Right
Yeah, of course. The fights are fantastic, the graphics were amazing for their time, the soundtrack fucks. Some of the character interactions are fun! There's decent comedy in there!
But like, I've just broken done these fights exhaustively, I don't have a good musical ear, I mentioned the character stuff I liked when it came up. But there's so much more that's wrong, that's off, that better merits talking about. I have now written… Over 18,000 words about Advent Children. I have gone through it in exhaustive, and exhausting detail. I hope you're exhausted. I sure am. What's there left to say?
How do we sum this all up in one final statement?
…
Thank you for reading.
***
Hello. Thank you for following me on this silly little side-project. If you'd like to support my work, you can always contribute to my Ko-Fi and Patreon.
For Christmas, generous readers and friends have gifted me with Chrono Trigger and Crisis Core Reunion. Both are games I'm interested in playing in the context of this thread for different reasons, but I want to reassure you that we will not be further dragging out the FF7 portion of this Let's Play; if I write anything about them (and I most likely will), it will be as a side piece at a later date.
It's time to actually move on, and find out what the next entry in the series has in store for us.
Next Time: Final Fantasy VIII.
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- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
@Omicron I got as far as
Do you love Advent Children?
Just, despite all the bad, do you love it?
I wanna know if I'm fully projecting, or if I'm - even if only via coincidence - correct in saying that I think a part of you fully loves this rather terrible film.
Personally: I fucking love this really bad movie. It's really bad, and I mean that in a powerglove kinda' way.
____
Edit: Due to 'The Fifth Act' by Sinnatous that I read way-back-when, I thought that the ribbons gave people immunity to status attacks/debuffs, and all of Avalanche just wore them as a matter of course.
And I gotta ask this before I read the rest of your post.
Do you love Advent Children?
Just, despite all the bad, do you love it?
I wanna know if I'm fully projecting, or if I'm - even if only via coincidence - correct in saying that I think a part of you fully loves this rather terrible film.
Personally: I fucking love this really bad movie. It's really bad, and I mean that in a powerglove kinda' way.
____
Edit: Due to 'The Fifth Act' by Sinnatous that I read way-back-when, I thought that the ribbons gave people immunity to status attacks/debuffs, and all of Avalanche just wore them as a matter of course.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I plead the fifth.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Fair warning on the Crisis Core Reunion game now that you have it: it's got a new subtitle, but its ultimately closer to a remaster than a remake in terms of gameplay. They fixed some bugs and added a bunch of QoL features and gave literally everything shiny new models, but under the hood its still a PSP game so don't go into it expecting a home console experience.
Which is ultimately what you want I suppose, as close to the OG experience as is reasonably available, just warning you that the HD visuals can be misleading.
Which is ultimately what you want I suppose, as close to the OG experience as is reasonably available, just warning you that the HD visuals can be misleading.
- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
The Weightless Bullshit thing seems to be a consequence of the proliferation of CGI in the 00s, because you see it a lot in anime in that period (Gundam SEED is a major offender; like half that show's fights are midair clusterfucks without any sense of place). Thankfully, the tech has advanced further and I think studios realized that people aren't really into floaty nonsense.
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
the Cerberus is absolutely hilarious, because you might wonder "how would a triple-barrel revolver work"?
THREE CYLINDERS, GAMER. THREE HAMMERS, THREE EJECTOR RODS, ONE TRIGGER, VINCENT SPENDS 98% OF HIS TIME IN COMBAT RELOADING AND HE WILL NOT CHANGE FOR ANYTHING
Which is when the funniest moment in the entire movie happens.
Rufus Shinra. A character who definitely died in the last movie, whose survival and inexplicable continued leadership of Shinra is an absolute ass-pull/retcon that makes a mockery of the plot of the original game, but who at least, at the very least, was thoroughly crippled by the Diamond Weapon's attack. Who has spent all movie doing a Hannibal/Will Graham routine with Kadaj, just sitting in his wheelchair being pushed around by the movie's main antagonist, exchanging philosophical quandaries and barbs and arguing about humanity and history. From whom Kadaj has been trying to extract the hidden location of Jenova's head using various forms of threat and coercion while clearly enjoying their conversation and feeling in total control of the situation. This Rufus.
Stands up from his wheelchair, dramatically tossing his cloak away, revealing that he is both physically almost completely fine and that he has been holding the container with Jenova's head in it the entire fucking time.
The whole movie.
It was right there.
Just under his cloak.
"A good son would have known."
This is the funniest beat of all time, I knew it was coming and I still literally laughed out loud when it happened. Absolute peak.
Honestly work, go off queen, unproblematic fav. Rufus is the funniest character in FF7 and he deserves everything in life.
Genuinely so infuriating, because I owned Advent Children on DVD back in the mid-oughts and watched it multiple times so I knew full well that they had fucked the dog on the sound timing once I finally got the chance to watch Advent Children Complete. Like, bro, listen with your fucking ears and update the soundtrack to match!!!!
Coward. You should do Crisis Core next and then lead directly into Rebirth, make Final Fantasy 7 last two years. No one's ever really gone.
When Advent Children gets cool, it gets really damn cool, even when it's also very, very dumb.
That's part of why I want to be more forgiving of its mistakes. It's mired in the past of FF7, but when it drags out a bit of fanservice, it can do at least something neat with it. Most of the time. At least half the time.
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GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
While you're probably right, I will point out that Karas came out in the same year as Advent Children, so it's not as if everything was afflicted with Weightless Bullshit Syndrome.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E_lsdOFoMM
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
Ok. That's it. I'm done. For now. With this line, I'm fucking off to watch that fight again
Fake edit: Notably, looking at the youtube vids, the multifold greater sound quality of the 720p clips is much more impactufl than the greater video quality of the 1280p videos.
Edit: fuck yeah that was awesome
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Not gonna lie, I'd enjoy a distant sequel to FFVII where Aerith is The Goddess, Sephiroth gets resurrected again, and a plucky band of teenagers have to go on a quest to defeat him. Bonus points if they're the descendants/reincarnations of FFVII characters (not necessarily the main party).
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Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
So, with the addition of Advent Children, we need a quick update to the wordcount comparison:
FF - 7 threadmarks (no double update ones) - 18,2 k words
FF II - 12 threadmarks (5 double update ones) - 27,9 k words
FF III - 16 threadmarks (9 double update ones) - 44,8 k words
FF IV - 20 threadmarks (5 double update ones) - 69 k words
FF V - 30 threadmarks (12 double update ones) - 110 k words
FF VI - 26 threadmarks (5 double update ones) - 140,5 k words
FFVII - 42 threadmarks (11 double updates, + 2 triple updates) - 318,5 k words
FFVII expanded its lead substantially, it seems. Although it seems we won't get an Emerald Weapon fight to round it up a bit more? That leaves me a bit sad, even if I understand the reasons behind it.
FF - 7 threadmarks (no double update ones) - 18,2 k words
FF II - 12 threadmarks (5 double update ones) - 27,9 k words
FF III - 16 threadmarks (9 double update ones) - 44,8 k words
FF IV - 20 threadmarks (5 double update ones) - 69 k words
FF V - 30 threadmarks (12 double update ones) - 110 k words
FF VI - 26 threadmarks (5 double update ones) - 140,5 k words
FFVII - 42 threadmarks (11 double updates, + 2 triple updates) - 318,5 k words
FFVII expanded its lead substantially, it seems. Although it seems we won't get an Emerald Weapon fight to round it up a bit more? That leaves me a bit sad, even if I understand the reasons behind it.
Lot of originality, ambition, and the actual best villain in Final Fantasy history. Which might just be the reason why I'm always so peeved that Sephiroth is the one who's been made into a recurring figure when his game proved he wasn't all that hot after all.
I mean, Ribbon in the game do exactly that. Whether the ribbons the group is wearing are the accessory from the game or not is up to interpretation. Also, I'm inclined to always agree with "The Fifth Act" simply due to the fact that, as the best Final Fantasy VII fanfiction ever written, it's superior to all the published game spinoffs, so it gets canon priority in my head.
- Location
- being near locations is my passion.
I know almost nothing about FF as a whole, and am not going to bother exploring it. Would you mind telling me who you are referring to here either via spoiler'd text or direct message, please?