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petroniaRufus is alive. Okay? Happy? And Aeris is voiced by Maaya Sakamoto.
Full story behind spoiler cut after I finish reading this Neal Stephenson article on Slashdot.
***
Yes, it really was a twenty-minute trailer, a good five of which were taken up by Marlene's lisping voiceover recap of the events of the game. The Squeenix peons at the beginning said that the finished product should be around 80 minutes, which seems right for the story's scope. As for the story itself, it's essentially very good fanfiction. XD Them at Square have had, what, seven years or so to listen to the fanboys/fangirls bitch and whine and request clarification? You get the impression they condensed it into an internal memo titled Saabisu To Keep The Little Buggers Quiet and just went down the checklist.
It turns out that the Lifestream had two major effects: 1) it improved the Midgar skyline from 50% dump to 100% dump, upon which the slumfolk shrugged and carried on with their lives; and 2) it causes radiation sickness. There's a word for it, geo-something in English and kanji string I can't catch in Japanese, but essentially it's a poetically disfiguring leprosy. Their flawless CG limbs mildew, they become feverish, collapse and eventually die. The primarily afflicted are children and - I think - the highly exposed, latter of whom include Cloud and Rufus. The film begins with Marlene's discovery that her friend Denzel - one of what seems to be a number of orphan wards looked after by Tifa and Cloud - is also ill.
Tifa and Cloud are running what is nominally a delivery service (pizza? Fed-Ex for these troubled times?); rather, Tifa runs the business from her bar and Cloud goes on angsty AWOL jaunts, cruising on his bike and moping in Aeris's church and whatnot. He's hiding his illness from his friends and essentially waiting to die, being wracked with survivor guilt bla de bla de bla. He also seems to talk to Aeris a lot, because she lives in a field of asphodels in that nice place with the white light inside his head, you know the one? >_> I can't decide if it's a good or a bad sign that Aeris-in-his-head keeps telling him not to be a fucking idiot. ...Anyway, at the start Tifa takes a call from Reno who had a job for Cloud (they've come to some sort of working accommodation with the remnants of Shinra), and plays PHS tag with Mr. Spikyhair Has A Nicer Phone Than You who got ambushed by a gang of Sephiroth clones and is in the midst of a pitched motorcycle-and-big-sword battle. Apparently Shinra lab escapees just sort of wander around terrorizing the countryside. They also tend to call Cloud "Niisan" - as in "Niisan, you're a traitor to the family cause! ;_;" - which can't do much for Mr. Spikyhair's self-esteem. Somehow he hauls his ass back to Midgar to meet Rufus, who's gone into full-blown Scary Rich Eccentric With Secret Disease mode and goes about (well, is pushed about by Rude) in a wheelchair with a blanket over his head. He feeds Cloud information regarding said gang of clones (looking for Mom so they can pwnz the Planet again and/or resurrect actual Sephiroth, natch), and tells him to Do Something About It. Cloud disclaims all responsibility. But in the meantime the clones attack Tifa and Marlene, who've gone to Aeris's church looking for Cloud, and kidnap a bunch of geowhatsit kids including Denzel.
By Nomura's Second Law of Villainy the gang is led by the youngest, prettiest, gheiest and craziest of the clones, who (rather than Sephiroth per se) resembles a cross between a more insane Sydney Losstarot and a more soberly-dressed Kuja: a charismatic prophet who preaches the apocalyptic cult of Jenova to the kidnapped kids. His name is Kadaj, and he's voiced by - wait for it - Morikubo Shoutarou. The children who accept Jenova cells into their body - I mean, I think that's what's happening, it's a twenty-minute trailer and thus all the scenes are cut short and vital information is completely missing - are cured of their disease and become Kadaj's soldiers.
Cloud arrives in time to find Tifa unconscious and Marlene missing. He takes Tifa back to the bar, gets the story from her, and they have the following conversation:
Cloud: *angst angst angstycakes*
Tifa: Turn around and face the other way, Cloud.
Cloud: ... *thinks she means this metaphorically*
Reno (from behind Cloud): Dude, I think she's trying to tell you something.
Reno explains more crap about the clones, or appears to. I think he informs Cloud that Kadaj's gang is holed up in (where @#$% else?) the City of the Ancients... From what I can tell, Kadaj is in the habit of storming into Shinra and beating up the Turks in order to rant insanely at Rufus. I can't tell if Rufus is actually secretly in cahoots with him, or if he just stays and listens because he's got no one to push his wheelchair; it seems to me vaguely as if Kadaj needs something the Shinra has, possibly Jenova bits, or maybe it's the other way around (he can cure Rufus). In any case, Cloud goes after the kidnapped children, but the only one still in her right mind is Marlene. Kadaj-tachi are about to julienne him with their... gunblades? XD it didn't occur to me until after the film that gunblades weren't common apparatus in the FF7 gameverse - when the cavalry appears in the form of one Vincent Valentine.
(A digression on the CG. It's state-of-the-art game quality, basically. Gives one a real turn to see certain environments in sudden textured glory, and/or plain bigger. But it's like the HP movies, so much of it looks exactly like what it should look like - and does, in one's head - that the dissonance comes more from familiarity than strangeness. Vincent moves in a way that you never see in the game; he flickers and flows in the corner of the camera's "eye", like what's under that tattered red cloak is troublingly insubstantial.)
Vincent rescues Cloud, and they sit in the crystal trees growing around Aeris's lake and have one of those angsty-animanga-bishounen conversations about sin and forgiveness and whatnot. Marlene is impatient with the level of gothwank this involves andmolests Vincent hides under Vincent's cloak until Cloud agrees to pull his head out of his ass and go after Kadaj, who's left to begin his takeover of Midgar. Monsters, fleeing crowds, airbombing by way of Bahamut, the works. All the characters who've been missing up to this point (Barret, Yuffie, Cid, Red XIII...) show up to join Tifa in righteous asskicking. Kadaj gets the sealed container he was going after but somehow messes up, and he throws a crazy-fit. After that things get confused, because 3/4 of this movie are missing. There's at least one flashback of Zack from Cloud's POV. Sororial unit says she saw Sephiroth being resurrected, but frankly I couldn't tell what was going on at the nominal end. XD
You can tell exactly which generation had this game burnt into their fragile impressionable brains, because the entire crowd was comprised of people my age and their teenaged siblings. ^^; It was probably the youngest average crowd the Ex-Centris has ever seen, short of when they show children's films. The atmosphere during the actual film could best be described as reverent, electric silence. Then the credits rolled, and as I was occupied in memorizing seiyuu names some guy in the back screamed "YES!!!" orgasmically, and then there was laughter and applause and gleeful whistling.
Full story behind spoiler cut after I finish reading this Neal Stephenson article on Slashdot.
***
Yes, it really was a twenty-minute trailer, a good five of which were taken up by Marlene's lisping voiceover recap of the events of the game. The Squeenix peons at the beginning said that the finished product should be around 80 minutes, which seems right for the story's scope. As for the story itself, it's essentially very good fanfiction. XD Them at Square have had, what, seven years or so to listen to the fanboys/fangirls bitch and whine and request clarification? You get the impression they condensed it into an internal memo titled Saabisu To Keep The Little Buggers Quiet and just went down the checklist.
It turns out that the Lifestream had two major effects: 1) it improved the Midgar skyline from 50% dump to 100% dump, upon which the slumfolk shrugged and carried on with their lives; and 2) it causes radiation sickness. There's a word for it, geo-something in English and kanji string I can't catch in Japanese, but essentially it's a poetically disfiguring leprosy. Their flawless CG limbs mildew, they become feverish, collapse and eventually die. The primarily afflicted are children and - I think - the highly exposed, latter of whom include Cloud and Rufus. The film begins with Marlene's discovery that her friend Denzel - one of what seems to be a number of orphan wards looked after by Tifa and Cloud - is also ill.
Tifa and Cloud are running what is nominally a delivery service (pizza? Fed-Ex for these troubled times?); rather, Tifa runs the business from her bar and Cloud goes on angsty AWOL jaunts, cruising on his bike and moping in Aeris's church and whatnot. He's hiding his illness from his friends and essentially waiting to die, being wracked with survivor guilt bla de bla de bla. He also seems to talk to Aeris a lot, because she lives in a field of asphodels in that nice place with the white light inside his head, you know the one? >_> I can't decide if it's a good or a bad sign that Aeris-in-his-head keeps telling him not to be a fucking idiot. ...Anyway, at the start Tifa takes a call from Reno who had a job for Cloud (they've come to some sort of working accommodation with the remnants of Shinra), and plays PHS tag with Mr. Spikyhair Has A Nicer Phone Than You who got ambushed by a gang of Sephiroth clones and is in the midst of a pitched motorcycle-and-big-sword battle. Apparently Shinra lab escapees just sort of wander around terrorizing the countryside. They also tend to call Cloud "Niisan" - as in "Niisan, you're a traitor to the family cause! ;_;" - which can't do much for Mr. Spikyhair's self-esteem. Somehow he hauls his ass back to Midgar to meet Rufus, who's gone into full-blown Scary Rich Eccentric With Secret Disease mode and goes about (well, is pushed about by Rude) in a wheelchair with a blanket over his head. He feeds Cloud information regarding said gang of clones (looking for Mom so they can pwnz the Planet again and/or resurrect actual Sephiroth, natch), and tells him to Do Something About It. Cloud disclaims all responsibility. But in the meantime the clones attack Tifa and Marlene, who've gone to Aeris's church looking for Cloud, and kidnap a bunch of geowhatsit kids including Denzel.
By Nomura's Second Law of Villainy the gang is led by the youngest, prettiest, gheiest and craziest of the clones, who (rather than Sephiroth per se) resembles a cross between a more insane Sydney Losstarot and a more soberly-dressed Kuja: a charismatic prophet who preaches the apocalyptic cult of Jenova to the kidnapped kids. His name is Kadaj, and he's voiced by - wait for it - Morikubo Shoutarou. The children who accept Jenova cells into their body - I mean, I think that's what's happening, it's a twenty-minute trailer and thus all the scenes are cut short and vital information is completely missing - are cured of their disease and become Kadaj's soldiers.
Cloud arrives in time to find Tifa unconscious and Marlene missing. He takes Tifa back to the bar, gets the story from her, and they have the following conversation:
Cloud: *angst angst angstycakes*
Tifa: Turn around and face the other way, Cloud.
Cloud: ... *thinks she means this metaphorically*
Reno (from behind Cloud): Dude, I think she's trying to tell you something.
Reno explains more crap about the clones, or appears to. I think he informs Cloud that Kadaj's gang is holed up in (where @#$% else?) the City of the Ancients... From what I can tell, Kadaj is in the habit of storming into Shinra and beating up the Turks in order to rant insanely at Rufus. I can't tell if Rufus is actually secretly in cahoots with him, or if he just stays and listens because he's got no one to push his wheelchair; it seems to me vaguely as if Kadaj needs something the Shinra has, possibly Jenova bits, or maybe it's the other way around (he can cure Rufus). In any case, Cloud goes after the kidnapped children, but the only one still in her right mind is Marlene. Kadaj-tachi are about to julienne him with their... gunblades? XD it didn't occur to me until after the film that gunblades weren't common apparatus in the FF7 gameverse - when the cavalry appears in the form of one Vincent Valentine.
(A digression on the CG. It's state-of-the-art game quality, basically. Gives one a real turn to see certain environments in sudden textured glory, and/or plain bigger. But it's like the HP movies, so much of it looks exactly like what it should look like - and does, in one's head - that the dissonance comes more from familiarity than strangeness. Vincent moves in a way that you never see in the game; he flickers and flows in the corner of the camera's "eye", like what's under that tattered red cloak is troublingly insubstantial.)
Vincent rescues Cloud, and they sit in the crystal trees growing around Aeris's lake and have one of those angsty-animanga-bishounen conversations about sin and forgiveness and whatnot. Marlene is impatient with the level of gothwank this involves and
You can tell exactly which generation had this game burnt into their fragile impressionable brains, because the entire crowd was comprised of people my age and their teenaged siblings. ^^; It was probably the youngest average crowd the Ex-Centris has ever seen, short of when they show children's films. The atmosphere during the actual film could best be described as reverent, electric silence. Then the credits rolled, and as I was occupied in memorizing seiyuu names some guy in the back screamed "YES!!!" orgasmically, and then there was laughter and applause and gleeful whistling.
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Neal?
Date: 2004-10-21 08:23 pm (UTC)-Ced
Re: Neal?
Date: 2004-10-21 08:23 pm (UTC)Was that Bahamut in the skies?
-Ced
Re: Neal?
Date: 2004-10-21 10:53 pm (UTC)Re: Neal?
Date: 2004-10-22 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 11:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 11:20 am (UTC)Not that this doesn't happen on a daily basis. -_-;;;
no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 11:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 03:17 pm (UTC)When I first read this, I thought you meant Mom from Futurama and had a bit of a brain fart -- and then I realised you hadn't seen that ep yet XD
no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 08:58 pm (UTC)(Your place, my place, or T-chan's? ... This sounds like we're organising a swingers party.)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 04:01 pm (UTC)*screams in horror for 5 minutes, trembles, dies*
no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 04:04 pm (UTC)@___________________@
;___________________;
?___________________?
XD;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 06:37 pm (UTC)1) Dorky/genki and sweet/innocent (Ginji, Narugami-kun)
2) Super-ghei and sweet/innocent (those random BL doramas)
3) Dorky/genki and evil (Kirihara in Prince of Tennis)
So obviously, 4) super-ghei and evil was only a matter of time.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 05:03 pm (UTC)I don't want to have my hope up high but now I can't help it because as you said this is like a piece of good fanfiction. Reno, omg Reno. I don't know what to say except I feel like I'm going to burst with happiness.
Eveyone will be there, Aerith is giving Cloud a piece of her mind and Tifa sounds to kick arse, oh, happiness.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-22 06:56 pm (UTC)I don't remember seeing Cait Sith or Elena. Hmm.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-23 09:00 pm (UTC)... I think it says quite a bit about how much of my brain I dedicate to anime/manga/fandom that the first thing to pop into my head on reading the sentence was 'Schuldg!'.... continued by 'They are both red-heads... does that make Tseng Crawford?'
The brain. Oh, the poor brain.
I can see why Cait Sith would not be present, with Reeve off to do whatever one does having been involved in Shinra, but the lack of Elena surprises me. Maybe they still ahvne't finished animatin her yet. *crosses fingers*