115: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)

The Nextlander Watchcast

We close out our November the only way we know how: with a bad movie. A bad Final Fantasy movie no less, in Spirits Within. Join us as we pick apart this troubled and expensive production, our own histories with Final Fantasy, and just what it is that happens to your soul when one of those phantom things eats it.
CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) - The Nextlander Watchcast Episode 115: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
(00:00:51) - Intro.
(00:03:46) - The brief, expensive, and unremarkable life of Square Pictures.
(00:05:43) - There's SOMETHING here. It's not enough of something, but there's SOMETHING.
(00:13:50) - The cartoon villainy of James Woods. And also the cartoon villainy of James Woods' character.
(00:18:32) - Getting into the production history.
(00:35:44) - The first digital actress (and Maxim model), Aki Ross.
(00:40:16) - The aftermath of the movie's failure.
(00:42:53) - Our star-studded cast.
(00:53:20) - Briefly touching on the decidedly not-Final-Fantasy-sounding soundtrack.
(00:55:35) - Break!
(00:55:55) - We're back, let's get into Aki's dreams!
(01:02:26) - What Aki's getting up to.
(01:09:11) - A good old fashioned spirtual science argument.
(01:13:49) - Epic prank, Neil.
(01:17:59) - Hein's mandate, and realizing what's going on with the dream.
(01:20:48) - Finding the seventh spirit.
(01:26:38) - Fascist idiot does a whoopsie and wipes out New York.
(01:35:24) - This last act is ROUGH.
(01:48:56) - Final (Fantasy) thoughts.
(01:54:49) - Outro.