QuickNavigation - FF Odyssey Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (Last updated on 11/25/2008)

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By: wsim

Introduction

     Two years after the end of FFVII, we return to the world of Midgar which has been in the process of rebuilding after its previous destruction. However, in light of the recovery effort, some children of Midgar suffer from a lifestream disease known as geostigma. Three new enemies make their presence and are after Jenova’s cells to start what is known as their “reunion”. Geostigma spreads across the planet and becomes a serious threat to many children. The remnants of Shinra vow to make up for the terrible things that they have done to the people of Midgar in the past and are working hard to rebuild the planet. Within everything, familiar faces return.

     With Cloud having to deal with his dark past and emotional issues, can he be convinced to have a strong enough will to save the planet once again from these new foes and stopping their reunion? Can he also cure the children of geostigma and help restore Midgar on the road to hope and happiness?

     Ultimately, can the lifestream be put together and restore the planet’s very soul and energy?

Full Story (Spoilers)

     Set two years after the end of FFVII, the city of Midgar is in the process of rebuilding what was lost when the lifestream protected the planet from certain destruction at the hands of meteor. Not all is going well as there have been outbreaks of the lifestream disease known as geostigma and some people have been infected. While not contagious, it is quite a concern to many people. Apparently, even Cloud has the disease but he doesn’t tell anybody about it. Three clones of Hojo with Jenova DNA search the planet for their “mother” in hopes of achieving their “reunion”. They are searching for cells of Jenova in order to possibly revive Sephiroth and bring chaos and destruction to the planet once again. The remaining members of Shinra make a pledge to rebuild Midgar as a debt and payback for the terrible things that they have done earlier. Cloud and Tifa have been taking care of some orphans and are operating a simple delivery service. Denzel, who lost his mother in the sector 7 plate crash, has geostigma. He is under the care of Tifa and Marlene as well as Cloud.

     At the beginning of the film, we see the three Sephiroth clones ambush Cloud while on his way to meeting up with Reno and Rude and the Shinra company. They summon Cloud for some kind of commission regarding some of the recent events that have occurred. Kadaj is the leader of the clones and the other ones are Yazoo, who uses a gun and Loz who is skilled in close hand-to-hand combat. The clones refer to Cloud as their “brother”, as Cloud also has Jenova DNA but was a failed Sephiroth clone created by Hojo. When everything is taken care of, Cloud meets up with Reno and Rude and we see a mysterious white-cloaked figure that is wheelchair bound. The figure reveals himself as Rufus Shinra. Much to Cloud’s surprise, Rufus actually did survive the explosion and it’s aftermath two years ago. Rufus tries to convince Cloud to become a bodyguard and defeat the clones. Cloud declines and wanders away again. Loz enters the old church in search of “mother” but encounters Tifa and Marlene. After a battle sequence, Tifa is knocked out temporarily and Marlene throws a piece of material to try and stop Loz. Not amused, Loz approaches Marlene and the clones take her captive as well as a trunk full of materia. Cloud enters the church and checks up on what has happened to Tifa. He finds out that Marlene is missing and through the information of the Turks, he heads to the forgotten capital to find Kadaj and company. Being manipulated and convinced by the clones, some of the children of Midgar follow them as they have promised to be able to cure their geostigma. Denzel also follows suit. Kadaj approaches Rufus and outlines some of his motives for the reunion and about Jenova.

     Cloud heads to the forgotten capital to find Marlene. Meanwhile, Kadaj tries and turn the children against the planet by trying to convince them that the planet is interfering with their power and growth which is the cause for them having geostigma. He claims that he can cure their illness and demonstrates by dousing himself with holy water. Cloud then approaches with his motorcycle and gets surrounded by the children and the clones. Kadaj calls Cloud a traitor for not going against the planet, even though he shares a similar genetic makeup. Marlene calls out to Cloud and shortly afterwards, a battle sequence takes place. Vincent Valentine suddenly appears the helps out Cloud. Marlene is safe but she isn’t happy to see Cloud. She then accuses Cloud of avoiding things too often and not caring about others. Vincent mentions that to simply fight is not a good reason to save the planet and there is something more behind it. He explains about what Kadaj is after and how by obtaining Jenova’s cells, Sephiroth could be revived once again. Vincent agrees to take Marlene back safely while he meets up with Tifa. Cloud hasn’t been thinking straight and appears to lose the will to fight. Tifa believes that Cloud has been running away from the burden of things once again, just like before. Cloud thinks deeply about what has been going on. Back in Midgar, the clones gather again in search of “mother” and the people are wondering why they have been causing so much trouble. To disperse the large crowd, the clones summon a bunch of demonic creatures to chase them away. The clones find a Shinra monument and feel that “mother” is around there. They are then interrupted by Reno and Rude and they do battle. Rufus asks Kadaj a question clarifying the aspect of returning to normal once he obtains Jenova’s cells. Kadaj mentions that “he” will return….. which Rufus understands as Sephiroth. Kadaj doesn’t know Sephiroth but can feel him throughout his body and soul. Kadaj believes his destiny and purpose in life is to carry about what Sephiroth had done before him and do whatever mother commands him to do. To wipe out the planet and all it’s people. It is revealed that as long as Kadaj and the clones are alive, the same thing will keep occurring. Kadaj feels great power from the materia that he had taken previously and summons the great Bahamut to terrorize the city.

     Shortly afterwards, while Reno and Rude do battle with Yazoo and Loz, old friends return to try and save Midgar in its hour of need. We see Barret, Yuffie, Cid, Red XIII, Vincent and Cait Sith appear to try and stop Bahamut. Meanwhile, Tifa is trying to protect Denzel and tells him to run to safety. Cloud returns on his motorcycle and begins to realize that he was wrong to keep dragging on the burdens of life for too long. He feels much better and Tifa is glad to see him back. The others do a pretty good number on Bahamut but they help propel Cloud to the sky and thanks to the spiritual guidance and power of the Lifestream, Cloud was able to overcome Bahamuts’ megaflare blast and defeat the great summon. Rufus then gets out of his wheelchair and uncloaks himself. Kadaj is shocked as Rufus has a case containing Jenovas’ cells. He tosses the case out the window and Kadaj knocks Rufus off the building. Kadaj frantically gives chase to the case which contains Jenova’s cells, avoiding Rufus’ bullets as well. He manages to grab the case and the other Turks, Elena and Tseng save Rufus by using a net to break his fall. The clones make their getaway and Cloud is in fast pursuit. After some fighting within a tunnel, Cloud speeds ahead to try and close the gap on Kadaj from making his escape. Reno and Rude plant an explosive outside of the tunnel and that takes care of Yazoo and Loz. Kadaj heads into the church and sees “mother” for the first time. Cloud interrupts him and Kadaj fires off a few energy blasts to distract him and this enables Kadaj to buy some time and make his escape. Some activity flows within the church and the lifestream responds to Cloud’s geostigma. At least it seems that way. The voice of Aeris urges Cloud to go on and give chase to Kadaj. Cloud manages to catch up to Kadaj and they do battle. Tifa and friends are on-board Cid’s new airship, which is named after Shera. They offer to help but then Tifa believes that Cloud can handle this himself and senses a new will for him to fight. Something that she has not felt since the final battle against Sephiroth two years ago. She firmly believes that Cloud is “brought” back to them once again. Kadaj is then hanging on a cliff, after Cloud battles him there. It appears that Cloud is in a perfect position to finish off Kadaj once and for all. But he then throws the case past Cloud’s face and quickly jumps in the air and use Jenovas’ cells for the “reunion”. As he continues to fall down the pit, Cloud gives chase and then Kadaj lands on a platform safely. He then suddenly transforms into what Cloud may have always feared again…… none other than Sephiroth. It appears the Cloud has lost his geostigma previously. Sephiroth tells him that the spirits of the deceased who carried the geostigma, along with the lifestream guides the flow of the world. It infringes on the planet and Sephiroth hopes to use the world as a ship to sail the darkness and despair of space itself. As if destroying the planet wasn’t enough for him. Sephiroth casts a dark cloud over the planet and duels with Cloud. The battle goes on, but Cloud isn’t able to land a hit on Sephiroth. Cloud then gets stabbed in the shoulder and Sephiroth asks Cloud about what is most important to him? He vows to attempt to steal away Cloud’s happiness in life.

     Cloud’s mind then shows memories and images of everyone that cares about him. Denzel, Marlene, Tifa, Zack, Aeris and the list goes on and on. Cloud realizes that everything in life is important to him and strikes down Sephiroth with what seems to be a multi-angle Omnislash technique. Sephiroth turns into the one-winged angel stances but then turns back into Kadaj. In his weakened state, Kadaj charges at Cloud but drops to the ground. He hears a voice that believes that is “mother”. Actually, it appears to be of Aeris. Kadaj is then absorbed into the lifestream and disappears. Afterwards, rain drops across Midgar and it cures geostigma for some people, including Rufus. It is clear that the rain dropping down on the city is the work of the lifestream. Just when it seems that all is well, Yazoo shoots Cloud from behind as Loz watches on. They are about to get absorbed into the lifestream as well. They both try and take Cloud along with them but then Cloud sees images of Zack and Aeris. Their voices tell him that it isn’t time for him to go yet and his place is not in the promised land, but on the planet. Cloud is then brought back to the church, where the children gather. An eternal and holy springs arises and the rest of Cloud’s old friends also gather. He urges Denzel to enter the spring and that he would be cured. Cloud uses the water to cure the geostigma from Denzel and it works. All the children jump into the water and everyone is in a celebrating mood. Cloud looks around and sees Aeris walk out of the church. He also sees Zack and then realizes that he is not alone after all. As long as the spirit of Aeris and Zack protect him throughout life, it is worth living. With that, the movie ends.

FF 7 Connections (Spoilers)

     You may begin to read some of the spoilers and can’t help but become confused. Keep an eye out on familiar limit break techniques that are found in Advent Children. The following are in AC as far as I know, there might be others that I had missed: Braver, Blade Beam, Climhazzard, Landscaper, Somersault kick and a few other Tifa techniques. Cid also used High Jump in the movie and Barret used heavy shot. Another common thing that appears in FFVII: Advent Children is the wolf. What does that exactly symbolize? I’m guessing that it could probably be Zack. If you remember what Bugenhagen said in FFVII, that when someone or something dies, their life force is absorbed back into the lifestream and could be reborn again as another entity or form. As Zack passes on, he could take the form of another living thing. The wolf is probably a good guess. Sephiroth is dead, true but he cannot be gone forever. But he can’t be reborn again in a physical entity without controlling and manipulating someone with Jenova DNA. His dark will prevents him from being completely absorbed into the lifestream.

     At the beginning of the film, we overhear Elena and the other Turks searching around the Northern Crater for the Sephiroth clones. From there, you can see how Yazoo, Kadaj and Loz came from. You might have wondered about the significance of some characters wearing pink ribbons. I think they are a symbol of Aeris in some form.

     What is the connection between Aeris and Zack? A theory that comes up is that they are first loves. They both guide Cloud in times of need throughout the film. I think Crisis Core and some of the other spinoff projects will shed some more light on Zack’s past as it is fairly confusing at times. There are probably some that I have missed but this clears up some of the more pressing questions.

Video Impressions

     As hyped up as FFVII: Advent Children may be, it proved to be a solid film that completes the story of FFVII.  This is definitely not like The Spirits within and I was pretty impressed with the final product of AC.  However, I would strongly suggest that you finish off FFVII first, prior to watching Advent Children as there are plenty of connections and references between the two.  It also doesn’t make much sense to just watch AC without playing FFVII and knowing what is really going on.  Advent Children is made for FFVII fans and I probably won’t have it any other way.  There were many people that were really angry and disappointed with the original FFVII ending and had hoped for Square to extend the story and answer questions.  They have achieved that with FFVII and while the film doesn’t exactly fill in all of the holes, the main plotlines and such have been successfully answered.  The plotline seems simple on the surface but it has a deeper sense of meaning behind certain parts of it.  The other returning FFVII characters do not figure in that prominently in the storyline of AC but they are a nice nostalgic touch for many FF fans.

     I’m pretty confident that most FFVII fans will really like this movie.  Besides a few things, it satisfies their need to have a complete ending to the storyline of FFVII.  It is great to hear some remixed versions of classic FFVII themes and the music in this film is very solid to say the least.  FFVII:AC isn’t perfect and suffers from a few minor issues such as pacing but overall, I can say that it generally lives up to the hype.  The fight scenes are certainly breathtaking.  The visuals are impressive enough to the point of it being enjoyed by everyone.  While the movie may be confusing to some, if you know your FFVII, you will probably come up with a lot of theories and interesting perceptions behind some events in the film.

     Does 4.5 out of 5 stars sound good here?  I’d say it is.

Ratings (Compare w/ others)

PLOT:		There isn’t too much more that you could ask for. Considering that it has the time constraints of a feature film, Advent Children still manages to get the job done. It was really meant to tie up the few loose ends that occurred at the end of FFVII. The ending in Advent Children is complete and provides a good sense of closure on the storyline. While there are a few minor events that remain sort of unclear, as long as you really know your FFVII stuff, things should make reasonable sense. Obviously, those that haven’t played FFVII yet will be pretty much left in the dark on this one. I have to say that the ending is quite good. The pacing is generally decent but not perfect. The presence of some important characters in various instances was necessary to present some of the material in the right manner. Overall, I’ve felt that the plot was decent enough.
ACTING:		It is true that there are a lot of characters that don’t get many spoken lines of dialogue so this isn’t easy to judge.  But basing this off the voice acting, the characters’ personality fits in reasonably well with what they were supposed to be in FFVII.  There aren’t too many memorable lines but the dialogue is certainly decent as well.  The facial expressions could use some slight work at times but I’ve found them to be more than good enough for the appropriate situation.  The voice acting and dialogue for all the major characters is pretty good, in my opinion.
VISUALS:		Maybe not as visually stunning as The Spirits Within but this is still great to watch.  The character designs were all extremely well-done and the detail on some of the familiar FFVII locations is pretty impressive in its own right.  Some of the city scenes of Midgar are beautiful and the fight sequences look awesome.  I could say that almost every FFVII character had a great CG look to them.  There wasn’t anything that I could really complain or be picky about in terms of the actual movie visuals.
MUSIC:		This is probably the strongest point of FFVII: Advent Children.  If you are a really big fan of FFVII, nothing beats hearing all the memorable tunes and musical pieces once again.  The remixed versions of some themes and some of the guitar riffs throughout the movie are a nice touch.  Overall, the movie boasts a solid musical score that should satisfy almost everyone and fits the mood accordingly.
DRAMA/SUSPENSE:		The pacing is decent but there are a few problems in some areas.  Nothing too major as most are minor issues that don’t really take anything away from FFVII:AC from a quality standpoint.  Sometimes, maybe there is too much action at once?  This movie certainly shouldn’t bore you out of your mind.  There are plenty of action sequences and drama to keep you interested throughout the whole film.
OVERALL:		Despite all of the hype, I did come in with moderate expectations and there were some parts of Advent Children that left me quite satisfied. Not every single issue was cleared up from FFVII but the events that occurred in AC did bridge the gap quite well. The ending in FFVII:AC was very good and should be good enough for almost everyone. I have to say that the CG was excellent and the character designs are top-notch. The voice acting is superb and every characters’ voice fit their personality and style completely. I love the remixed versions of some classic FFVII themes, especially JENOVA. Kadaj made for a pretty decent villain and the other clones were decent characters. Even if there is very little development behind them, their roles in the movie should not be diminished. It is quite a thrill to see some familiar faces return. That is generally expected but there is also the sense of nostalgia, seeing all of your favourite FFVII characters come to life in beautiful CG animation. The guitar riffs on “one-winged angel” were awesome. The action sequences, music, drama and the storyline were all really good. If you are an FFVII fan, I would strongly recommend that you give this a shot. This completes FFVII almost perfectly and the movie itself is much better than The Spirits Within.

Japanese voice actors/actresses (as appears in order of ending credits):

Kadaj: This is Cloud’s main enemy in FFVII:AC. He is probably one of the several clones of Sephiroth that Hojo made in the past. With the other two clones, he seeks to find Jenova’s head and use those cells for their “reunion” project. He may look similar to Sephiroth but he uses a different sword than him. As Cloud was also a clone of a different kind, Kadaj and gang refer to Cloud as “brother” throughout the movie. Like the other clones, Kadaj has mako eyes and silver hair.

Loz: Another one of the Sephiroth clones that makes his appearance in FFVII: Advent Children. However, he does not use a sword and appears to be skilled in more close-range and hand combat.

Yazoo: The third Sephiroth clone that appears in FFVII: Advent Children. Like the others, they share similar characteristics from a physical standpoint and seek to find Jenova’s head for reunion.

Denzel: One of the children that is affected with geostigma in the film. He is an orphan that is under the care of Cloud and Tifa. Denzel’s real mother died in the sector 7 plate crash. He plays a minor role in Advent Children but appears back and forth numerous times.



Last Order (Japan OVA) (Spoilers)

     This is an animated version of certain events in Final Fantasy VII. It doesn’t offer anything new in terms of material and provides some insight on the events surrounding Zack, Cloud and Sephiroth in Nibelheim. However, if you have already played FFVII, the OVA fails to offer anything new and is not worth watching. I would think Last Order is a bit more useful for those that haven’t played FFVII before but it presents things in a disorganized manner and would probably confuse people even more.

     As for the animation, it isn’t spectacular or impressive by any means and the truth is that it is pretty poor. The musical score is average, it has a few familiar FFVII tunes but the entire OVA is quite fragmented and looks like that Square-Enix has put very little effort behind it. Most people probably won’t really enjoy Last Order too much. I’ve thought it was quite crappy to be honest. But that is my own opinion.

Limited Edition Box Set (Japan)

     First off, the limited edition DVD includes a special bonus DVD which shows footage of the original Final Fantasy VII, the Advent Children trailer and the trailer for the compilation of Final Fantasy VII. The regular and limited editions both retail in Japan for 4,500 Yen. However, the ultimate box set includes the following:

-Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children DVD (limited edition)
-Cloud and Fenrir motorcycle figure
-Final Fantasy VII scriptbook
-Individually numbered keychain
-Special cap and t-shirt
-Re-release of Final Fantasy VII International (PSOne)
-Bonus DVD including trailers, making of footage, and the Japanese OVA titled “Last Order”

     This ultimate box set retails for about $340 CDN dollars or 29,500 Yen in Japan. The odds are probably very slim that Square will release any special editions or box sets in the North American version of FFVII: AC as of now.

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Movie Clips

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