Dear fake father

Although you are likley right about how well the Final Fantasy movie will do in theater's, you are wrong about one other thing: the name. It isn't that big of a secret that recent Final Fantasy endeavors have been with the American audience in mind (usually to the effect of "give them some fucking polygons so they'll shut up"). This recent trend, along with the fact that the movie is being created in America, with quite a bit of American talent, and will be released in America first, leads me to believe that Square is desperately trying to make the Final Fantasy name a house hold one in America. Square already knows that Final Fantasy anything will rake in millions of dollars (or billions of Yen) regardless of quality. So now they attempt to conquer the North American market; after all, why not try and make Final Fantasy as big in America as it is in Japan? Now, if Square is indeed attempting this, wouldn't it be a smart, no, obvious move to keep the Final Fantasy name in the movie's title?

-Justin Freeman

In regards to the probable success of the Final Fantasy movie, I think it comes down to one factor, though the factor does have two parts: how the two upcoming "non-traditional" animated features do at the box office. The reason for my use of quotation marks will be explained in a second. The ones I'm referring to are "The Iron Giant" and "Mononoke Hime/Princess Mononoke;" there may be more that will affect the BO performance, but I must claim ignorance in upcoming releases of any non-Disney animated films in 2000.

Okay, why "non-traditional," and why are these two movies important? The reasons for deeming Mononoke this (and if you don't know about the film yet, shame on you!) are obvious, and it will be a real litmus test to see the American public's response to an adult animated feature in widespread release. If Mononoke succeeds, it will have also broken down a little bit of the barrier in the public's mind about "that weird Japanese cartoon stuff," and, as there's no way Square will be able to hide the fact that it's game-related, that will be important as well.

Even if they tried, I'm sure that there would be some coalition of concerned parents circling the theatres on release day, saying that the evil game movie was trying to warp their childrens' fragile little minds. And, if Mononoke doesn't succeed, this could actually be a problem. With Americans' tendancy to finger-point combined with the failure of the public to see animation as aimed at anyone but five year olds, the FF Movie could be seen as somewhat of a subversive influence. I mean, heavens, one of the characters from an earlier game wore a black trenchcoat and went around killing people! <insert horrified gasp, and start singing a song called "Blame Tokyo">

Now, the adult animation area has been explored earlier in American film history, albeit with limited success. The most prominent example is "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," but that succeeded as an adult movie because the live actors were there to soften the blow...or, rather, to harden it. That is truly an exception, however; compare Who Framed to its contemporary "Cool World," or earlier works by Ralph Bakshi, such as "Fritz the Cat" or "Heavy Traffic." While the latter two performed moderately well at the box office (with Fritz becoming somewhat of a cult classic), they did poorly compared to their live action counterparts. And "Cool World" and Bakshi's "Wizards" both bombed. We just simply can't seem to see cartoons as works in their own right, and it will be important to have Mononoke help break that stereotype. As it's already made a profit in Japan, it won't be seen as taking as large of a risk as were it original to the States; if it bombs, and the FF movie still manages to do well, bully for it. However, if both bomb (as would be more likely if the former does), the losses from the more expensive FFM would steer film makers away from doing a repeat of such an endeavor.

Okay, what would actually happen is that all the neat stuff along these lines to be released in the foreseeable future would be Japan-only. As they view animation as a medium rather than a strictly-defined genre, I have no doubts the movie will succeed there. But back to us.

I've rambled about Mononoke; what about my other choice, "The Iron Giant?" While less vital than the first, it will be an important little test as well. I've heard nothing but positive buzz about the movie, and I tend to read critics who bitch about problems rather than provide fawning soundbites for no reason other than to get mentioned in the ads. It is a more traditional (read: "less adult") movie, and, if not for one thing, it might seem to fit into the Disney mold. However, it has...no...songs (gasp!). While "Antz" might have seemed to be the test on this account, that movie suffered from the Armageddon/Deep Impact and Dante's Peak/Volcano syndrome with "A Bug's Life," and it doesn't really work to judge it by itself. The public, after all, saw it as just one of the bug movies. But...this is standing by itself. And it's different.

I honestly don't know what the public reaction to this will be. Even "Prince of Egypt," with its scenes of slaves being whipped, a man's corpse after a hundred-foot fall, and all the other Biblical stuff still had cheerful little ditties. Heck, it even had Steve Martin singing. And we *liked* that it had Steve singing. We're *comfortable* with Steve singing. The great lord on high that is Disney has decreed that all animated features will have songs, and have songs they do.

So, what was this more-than-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about- American-animation rambling about? In short, we're a nation of Pavlov's dogs, and only a certain kind of animated film is heard as a bell. If we can't be taught to respond to a buzzer as well before the Final Fantasy movie comes out, I doubt any amount of publicity will gain it the box office take from the general public we'll need to keep getting movies shipped to us from the Honolulu studio.

The sad thing is that I didn't have to look up a single one of those references.

-Kristen

Hi ya Drew,

Well this letter is in response to Uncle Pennybags letter about the FF Movie. Of course FFTM will sell millions. I remember when I was sitting down watching the super bowl, I saw a commercial like no other. The commercial had Laurence Forborne and Keanu Reeves wearing cool sunglasses, and I was in awe of the graphics.

From that day I knew I must find out "what is the matrix?" I guess my point is that graphics sell (just look at Final Fantasy VII). When the previews come out for FFTM people are going to want to see the graphics. End of Story.

PS. The guys who made Matrix have signed on with Warner Bros. to make two sequels, YEAH BABY

-Xenogear1, the essence of Neo, Trinity, and Morphieus

Hey Drew,

Been a faithful reader of your little column here, have a few comments. About the Final Fantasy Movie: I think that it'll do pretty well here, cuz the FF brand name has a lot of clout behind it (mainly for RPG gamers, but oh well). Really, why do people complain about 3D RPGs? I like the 3d aspect of it, except that the PS (or the N64) doesn't exactly have the best 3d graphics in the world. I mean, if FF8 was on the PS2 (or whatever it'll be called), it would look REALLY nice. I've seen screenshots on the PC, and it looks great; the PS2 has like multiple times the power of the PC. That brings us to another of my little comments: the PC versus consoles. The next gen of consoles, i believe, have a MUCH better performance/price than any PC, even with proccessor prices dropping. However, PC video cards go through drastic changes every year, with more and more polygon crunching power. Just look at the previews of Nvidia's upcoming part, as well as 3dfx's part (both unannounced). Verrrry powerful. Money is a huge consideration though, since you have to upgrade every six months just to keep up. Each part being $200 or so, you could buy a DC and several games instead in a year. About the 'Smirnov' thing: I've never known anyone to say it like "Smurf-noff." The last of my comments is directed to Pesky Chigger's comments about the 'upcoming suckfest Iron Giant.' Read the reviews and the comments on it before commenting, especially when you've only seen those sucky little trailors or commercials. It's probably one of the best and touching stories of the year; just go to www.aint-it-cool-news.com (who LOVE it immensely) and read some of the reviews. None of those crappy-assed songs that American animation always has, as well as a great message behind it. You'll love it. Well, thats about it. I took a bit (actually only like a few minutes) of time to write this, so PLEASE post it !!!

-Clarence "You will find happiness with a new love"

Hey Drew

Have you ever considered spending every waking second of every day repeatedly clicking on those infernal banners? I bet if everyone at the GIA did that you guys'd make a buttload of money. Of course then you'd have enough money to start that gay porn site you know you want to run, leaving us in the dust. But then again, what could be more fun then clicking on women's underwear and stock advice all day long?

-Justin Freeman-catcher of that damn sliding monkey

Hey, Dreweykins!

Don't you like the Private Action in Star Ocean: TSS where Celine begins dating Ernest, then Claude gets all jealous, whips it out, and says "SIT ON IT FATTY!"?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

-Cedric "Lobstaboy" Henry

Jesus, what is it with you guys having to print a letter from this idiot Ian P. EVERY GODDAMNED DAY??? I have sent in so many letters with actual questions that I would like to have answered, and instead you print this morons' letter that talks about his friggin brand name! Every time you print his worthless letters, that have NO content whatsoever, you leave out the letter of someone who actually has something meaningful to say! I'm not saying you always have to print my letters, I don't care if you never do, just stop posting the garbage that he sends in. What, is he a personal friend of yours? Is this a favor for him? Well stop this crap, I can't stand it!

-dAvEmAn

Though anime has been around for a long time, the post-apocalyptic thing started shortly after WWII. It sounds kind of sick, but the atomic bombs we dropped in Japan left a big impact in Japan's mind. The sheer destruction deeply influenced a lot of what we see in anime today. You won't see many animes without a HUGE destructive explosion in it, or a post apocalyptic alternate universe. The Japanese resorted to animes and mangas after the destruction of their cities. It sounds weird, but this is all the stuff my AP History teacher taught us in class. Pretty cool to have a teacher in touch with cool stuff like anime, eh?

-Alexander3025