Just picked up the U.S. DVD release of Advent Children, and, haters be damned, I like it lots.  The slick CG, pyrotechnic-driven fighting, and crazy-cool cinematography are still what makes this a blast to watch, but I also think the English script does make things a bit clearer than the unofficial fan sub, benefiting those who have no inkling of the original game's plot.  Little nuances like Barrett calling Cloud "Spiky" are amusing, and provides the characters with more depth.

The dub work, for the most part is quite good, with characters like Marlene (Grace Rolek), Loz (Fred Tatasciore) and Rude (Crispin Freeman) hitting high marks.  Key characters like Cloud and Tifa are admirable, and even Mena Suvari does a decent, "unsedated" job here as Aerith.  (I'm hearing way too much Raiden in Flynn's Reno, though. *_*)  My favorite line, Kadaj's "In this happy flock, he's what you'd call a black sheep," was nailed perfectly.  It's just a shame that the lip sync doesn't match up with the English voiceover; that definitely would've gotten an A+ for effort.

The bonus feature disc is generally okay.  "The Distance" featurette is where the crux of the making-of stuff lies, while the rest is largely propaganda for the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII games, and a twenty minute retrospective look at the original FF7, put together by in-game footage and game CG.  There are a few interesting facts to learn in Distance, like Nomura consciously going for a look for the movie that wasn't copied from anywhere else, and creating camera angles that were impossible to achieve in real life film.  And Uematsu finding the melding of an orchestral song turned rock (and vice versa) not necessarily effective, but when fusing both together, as is the case with Advent: A One Winged Angel, seemed to be.  I watched the making-of with a friend, and he's totally fallen for Tifa's Japanese voice actress, Ayumi Ito.  *_*

For myself, I've fallen in love with Fenrir, Cloud's motorcycle, during the credit footage with "Calling."  I'm almost half tempted to get a motorcycle now.  For real.  :)

Sounds good.  I'm a little disappointed that with all the time they had, they didn't re-animate the mouths, but that's not too important.  I'm sure my friends and I will rewatch it dubbed once, and then every subsequent time I watch it will be subbed.  The extras sound pretty nice too.  Thanks for the information!  I look forward to getting mine in the next couple days from Amazon.

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Where do you live?  Amazon US had a pre-order cost of $17, free shipping.  You will never beat that price more than just marginally unless you buy it used.

Well, apparently Best Buy and Wal-Mart here are selling for $15, if you consider $2 to be more than marginal.

I would, and I tried to get it at BBY today, but they were sold out (surprising since they usually get large quantities of major releases), so no Advent Children for me.  If I ever get it, I'll post my thoughts, but I will post someone else's thoughts for now:

A guy I know is seemingly in love with Advent Childen.  He's watched the bootleg tons of times and he has been hyping the official release to me for months.  He picked up a copy yesterday and his impression of the dub was more or less as follows: "Silly Sally Dilly Dally?  WTF is that?"  I think I also recall him describing the dub using words like "atrocious" and "abomination."  As I said before, I'll reserve my own judgment for when I hear it myself.

Hm.... That scene just before Cloud takes on Bahamut?  "Maybe I lost some weight.  All that dilly-dallying."  Personally, I thought that line felt amusingly fresh; that Cloud would refer to all that prior intense fighting as 'dilly-dallying' serves to diffuse an overtly serious scene.

That is a good price.  I'm not a big FF fan, but I do know that gamestop had a preorder for $19, but also sent you a bonus CD (or was it DVD...well bonus anyway)!  So if you like that kind of stuff, a few extra dollars might be worthwhile.

cheers,

-avatar!

I watched the dub and thought it was horrible. Sephiroth sounds like a Dragonball Z character. It's subtitles for me from now on.

It blows my mind how people are complaining about this dub even though it's done very, very well.  Yet more evidence that the "purists" will find something to complain about even when there isn't one.  Granted, Aerith could have been improved (though Mena Suvari isn't nearly as grating on my ears as she was in Kingdom Hearts 2), and Tifa had the occasional awkward delivery, but other than that I thought the dub was stellar.

And about the GameStop bonus disc, it's about a half hour long, featuring behind the scenes stuff with some of the dub cast.  I'm happy I shelled out the extra five bucks.  The extra content was interesting, and it'll be a nice collector's item to have a few years down the road.

Out of curiosity, is there a Japanese soundtrack with subtitles too?

-Joshua

Yep!  Eight different languages for the subs, even!

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For my part, just FINDING the damn thing took effort...5 stores, almost as many hours, and when I DID secure the last copy at the final store, a riot was starting to foment in my wake. Don't know about anywhere else, but Sony and Square severely shortcasted the potential salability on the Southcoast of Massachusetts. Lordy.

Anyway, the thing itself. Watched the sub first (to marvel at the scenery, mainly, since a low-res version on a PC was all I had seen previously), then the dub (Yes, I watched it twice in 24 hours. You have problem?).

Ahem. Spoiler time.

First, the good. The basic translation (more on that below) is quite good - finally I understand what the hell Vincent's 'phone' line was actually about. There are a number of voices in the English version that sound as good or better than their Japanese counterparts - Tifa, Barret, Reno, Rude, Denzel, Zack and some others I don't feel like listing (as a side note, I find it somewhat ironic that Zack's English voice is almost exactly the mental voice I had for Cloud back while FF7 the first time...creepy, huh?).* The lip-synching was better than expected. And even after seeing a handful of times, it's still a ridiculously fun outing.

Now, the not-so-good. If the original fansub is a cut-and-dried translation of what's actually being said, then there are wild inconsistencies between the dub script and the sub script - not edits for lip-synching's sake, mind you, but full-blown liberties and changes in meaning (The flower girl's 'Boo-hoo' mocking of Cloud as opposed to echoing Tifa's comment, for one). Typically that's the nature of the beast, and doesn't bother me so much, but the maddening part is that a line will be altered in the sub but appear as originally intended in the dub, and vice-versa. So the ACTUAL script is somewhere in between the two, with seeming arbitrary dicking-around-with-the-dialogue-of each going on throughout. And yes, 'dilly dally shilly shally' is completely ridiculous. I like the fansub's 'really, drifting, always drifting' more. It's a bit opaque, but no moreso than the larva analogy.
Also, alas, some of the voices just aren't up to the task. I'm willing to overlook the, ah, UNUSUAL deliveries of Cait Sith and Yazoo, mainly because I don't know enough Japanese to know if the eccentricities were there in the first place. But Kadaj was just disappointing. My favorite voice in the Japanese version (partly because it's MMX's voice, yes, but he also just did a hell of a job), but the English voice was a big ol' goose egg. Sometimes he'd nail a line here and there, but other times he just came off as a sniffling fop when he was supposed to be menacing. Marlene was a bit annoying, or at least moreso than the Japanese voice. Rufus' voice didn't necessarily act poorly, he's just very much the wrong voice for the role - not deep enough (Got into an argument with a friend at work over this, actually). And speaking of deep, what the hell was with Vincent "I'M THE BATMAN" Valentine, huh? Finally, while most of the cast was good in sounding like they were, you know, in COMBAT, occasionally something in a fight scene would be recited rather than acted, and would mildly annoy.

* Since someone's bound to ask, yes, Cloud's voice was solid, but too many times you get the impression that he KNOWS he's a bad-ass when he's supposed to be feeling useless. Not that big a deal, though.

If the above seems overly negative, it shouldn't. It's only nitpicking, most of it isn't devastating. The dub is actually pretty good, despite my fussing. I still love the thing to bits and really, all I needed to be satisfied was the sub on a screen where I could spoil myself, and that's exactly what I got. The rest is just icing, and for the most part, tasty icing. Haven't gone through extras yet, but I will.

Edit: Just fixing typos.

I'm glad I played FF7. If not, this would have been rather confusing.

Ohh, *that* part.... I guess I took it as the wrong context on my above post.  But then again, it does make for a decent resolution for when Cloud says his line.

All I have to say is: Bouncing Tifa. And I'm not talking about her chest, either. It's the serious marring in what would otherwise have been a decent movie that no sub will be able to fix. Oh, yeah, and "Cloud boosting." If you don't know what I mean, I'll explain it later.

I picked up and watched Advent Children today.  I watched the sub, so I still can't comment on the dub quality, but I can finally remark on the film itself.

Basically, I thought it was fair; "C+" kind of territory.  My biggest complaint is that it's pretty boring, particularly the action scenes which lack any sort of impact.  The problem with doing ridiculous, over-the-top, everyone's invincible stuff is that the audience knows that everyone is invincible and any potential consequences to the characters are completely negated -- ironic considering that the original FF7 game made waves for actually killing a major character.

Visually and aurally, however, the film succeeds as it is gorgeous in both regards, despite some notably stiff animation.

I was also troubled by the fact that the only part of the film that held any emotional poignancy for me was the arrangement of the FF Main Theme during the end credits.

So, all in all: Good effort, and much better than the Spirits Within disaster, but try harder next time guys.

The whole "boost Cloud" scene was pretty ridiculous.

Finally got around to watching it this morning. Those fight scenes were absolutely ridiculous. I don't think there was a single aspect of the movie that I really enjoyed (aside from seeing Aeris one final time).

Man, that movie seemed so much like nothing more than gratuitous fan-service. The plot was really non-existant, the enemies were cut and dry, pasted. Nothing felt right within the context of FFVII.

Let it be known right here and now that I am an ardent fan of FFVII, but it felt like Nomura was just playing around with the fans the entire movie.

Did I mention the ridiculous fight scenes?

I agree 100%.

I'm going with Angela on this one. I enjoyed the movie. I knew I would, I knew what to expect and the movie delivered on those expectations.

I am not sure what some of you were looking for? Did Square give you any indication this movie wasn't going to have ridiculas fight scenes or other insane situations? Their bio's for the villians were exact, Square told you want you were gonna get way before the movie came out in Japan.

You fight giant walls in FFVII, you fight Giant Houses for christ sake. Those were unbelievably ridiculas. So there's no room for that in the movie? Like a lot of anime movies I've seen, a whole bunch of unrealistic things happened. Flow with it, it's the norm. Charactors flying and appearing immortal, isn't that exactly how it is in every superhero cartoon and most anime films? I do not see anyone complaining when BatMan and Spiderman go around flying through cities and doing absolutely insane things. That's exactly what the FFVII chars were/are, superhero's. Taking on and defeating 5000 stories tall weapons that the planet creates in the game, with swords and machine guns attached to your arm. That's pretty insane, and it's pretty damn cool.

I'm sure there's a flaw or two in my arguement, however I'm sure most of you understand the point I'm trying to make.

"My biggest complaint is that it's pretty boring, particularly the action scenes which lack any sort of impact.  The problem with doing ridiculous, over-the-top, everyone's invincible stuff is that the audience knows that everyone is invincible and any potential consequences to the characters are completely negated -- ironic considering that the original FF7 game made waves for actually killing a major character."

I agree to an extent. I never had the feeling this movie was going to try to throw more emotional rollar coasters at us with some powerful scenes (eg major charactor dying). I did, however, enjoy the fighting scenes and believe they offered some decent impact.

I wish those that didn't enjoy the movie had enjoyed it. The movie was a long time coming and I'm sure everyone eagerly anticipated it. It truly does suck that some were let down by the movie. Maybe next time.

I suspect that most of those who enjoyed the movie were those eagerly anticipating it, and most of those who didn't were pessimistic about the project from the start. I doubt that many people approached the film with a neutral or objective slant--which is understandable to a point, but I think it colored people's opinions more than it would have for a standalone movie. Perhaps that was unavoidable, though.

Not I... I really didn't know what to expect.  When I started watching it I actually got a bit excited at the prospect of watching what might be a cool movie   Then, after watching it, I decided this movie was absolutely CRAPtacular!! 

The *only* good thing about the movie in my opinion was the animation -very well done.  However, animation and special effects do not in my book a movie make!

I like movies with intelligent and well thought out plots.  This movie had neither.  In fact, the "plot" was almost non-existent!!

The character development...well there was none.  I've seen string cheese with more life than almost every single character in that horrendous movie! 

The fight scenes were OK.  I didn't mind them, although they seemed rather out of place and a bit like playing a FF game, which I suppose was the intention.  There was absolutely NO excitement however during the fight scenes, because it was obvious that no matter how much beating a character took, he or she would never die nor seriously get hurt.  Oh! and as for Cloud and his disease...yeah well that was about as dramatic as watching an ant crawl across the yard. 

The music -it was rather bland.  First, I've heard it all before (if there was any original music in that movie, I sure didn't notice it), and secondly I've heard it done better! 

Any notion of Square producing a good game like they used to during their golden SNES days, was most certainly dispelled by this "movie".   I totally understand why Square didn't release it in the theatres!  All the FF fanboys and fangirls would have said "oh, it's so awesome..."  and the 99.99999999999999999% of the rest of humanity would have said "gar-bage"! 

OK, that's my honest opinion!  For those who disagree with it, that's fine.  I bear no ill tidings to any of you who liked it, and I respect your opinion, I simply cannot see why anyone liked it (unless you're a fanboy) !

Take care

-avatar!

The rest of the movie aside... this is some sort of joke, right?

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the music from FFVII.  I enjoy the music from other FF games too, but I thought the music in the movie was not particularly well done nor timed.  That's all there is to it!  It came out bland...in my opinion.  No joke!

-avatar!

Same here. Although I didn't much care for FF7 the game, I gave this movie a chance. (I mean, hey, if I TRULY despised FF7, I wouldn't have touched Advent Children with a 10-foot pole.) I was very amazed at the CGI and how far it had come from the "okay, we're trying way too hard to make Aki look NOT perfect" miss in Spirits Within. The people looked and moved much more naturally in AC.

I loved the characterization and got a real kick out of hearing voices that I thought were very good fits for the characters (I've listened to only the Japanese voices so far). Otherwise, I thought the movie was rather "meh."

HAHAHAHAHA!! You know, this comment reminds me of when we went to see the live-action Cutey Honey movie. (For those who don't know, Cutey Honey is an anime. But I haven't watched it so I have no idea what the premise is.) I came out of the movie feeling supremely dissatisfied with the lack of substance. To which my b/f said, "Oh, what, you actually went into that movie expecting a PLOT?"

Yeah, the plot of AC was rather fuzzy, now that I think about it. Too many plot holes, I think. Or maybe I just need to watch the movie again with better subtitling.

I thought the fight scenes were exciting because they were packed with action. But your comment about characters not dying brought to mind the fight between Neo and the innumerable Agent Smiths in the Matrix: Whichever Sequel It Was. I remember reading somewhere (might have been Entertainment magazine) that asked something like, why doesn't Neo just fly away rather than staying to fight all those Smiths? And the answer was basically: Because then there wouldn't be a dramatic fight scene.

**** POSSIBLE SPOILERS! ****

The entire battle against that huge creature was pretty silly, to me. I mean, expending all this energy to fight something when whatever-bad-guy's-name-is could easily just summon up another one of those things -- it made the fight seem pointless and useless, rather than giving the feeling that they were in a serious fight that could very well change the course of history.

**** END SPOILER SECTION ****

But hey, the CG was really nice.

I'd like to disagree about something. I believe that fighting giant houses with faces and feral rage with swords is totally feasible in the real world. I also believe that large birds that are used as mounts can climb entire mountain ranges... but ONLY if the very best of them are bred together.

As for Cait Sith, I... yikes. I won't even <b>try</b> to justify that one.