Final Fantasy XV Kingsglaive - I don't like it :(

[Vitrealis]

I watched Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, I know the movie is quite bad, but I forget how bad it is and every few years nostalgia and aesthetics draw me back. I cried lol, but at the end I realized that I probably won't watch it again in ages.

I got curious about the other FF movies, so I started watching FFXV Kingsglaive, and it's horrible. The movie is produced by Square Enix and Sony (and you see a bunch of English names in the credits at the beginning). The movie is basically a US war propaganda movie skinwalking FF, and it's not subtle at all. The movie is quite Marvel like. I've only watched 15 minutes, and I'm ready to stop.

Here are some screenshots:



"Show-off, smh u_ u"

And yes, the setting is sort of... I don't even know what this mess of a setting is supposed to be, it's desperately trying to be that iconic FF mix of technology and magic and failing miserably. Instead of seamlessly merging together these two elements, they are like water and oil.
It's magicians in police cars. Just looking at it you're taken out. Suspension of disbelief is very hard when you have people looking like typical US actors, but it's CGI. I found that FFVII Advent Children worked because of the anime-ish style. This is trying really hard to be realistic, but also without any of that anime charm.


Inside the wizard police car.


The way they speak could have been taken word for word from some US police/crime series or war movie. All they really did was replace names like "Kyle" or "Aaron" with more fantasy-sounding names.



Those cars x___x



The magicians have ear-pieces.



And they're fat Americans too.


We also have ugly manly girlbosses.


San Francisco.


And (((bank)))

(Clock the multiple recycled models of people walking, in this work of passion.)






The costume design is shit boring and uninspired.


They have magic, but take drugs for healing. I'm not sure if that's it or if this was supposed to be some kind of viagra-like drug.



We also have Nancy Pelosi and some other generic US senators.





One of the villains, shown in the first few minutes wears a fedora. Whenever he talks his lips move in uncanny manner. (Yes, this is CGI from 2016, but Advent Children came out in 2005 and the CGI was better).

. . .

I watched until the 22 minute mark and here are some more screenshots:


There are obelisks and yellow cabs. Notice that the only splashes of colour in this still are the yellow taxi, and the blue and red grouped together at the right bottom corner.


They have flat screen TVs where the news are broadcast by Stephen Colbert.




Everyone is varying degrees of ugly.

Edit: I've kept hatewatching because I keep finding little cinematographic pearls of pus and I enjoy being a hater sometimes:

Like these totally immersive product placements:

Uniqlo, Japan Airlines, Audi.

Beats.

An actual Audi car.


More Audi product placement on top of the bridge, in case the rest wasn't enough.

- - -

In conclusion: gross, I hate it.
Has anyone played the game? Is it as bad? I assume it must be. I don't know the current state of Square Enix, as I don't play videogames anymore, but this was truly tragic. Does anybosy know whether it went downhill from here, or did it manage to get better?

 

[DragoonSierra]

15s fine but get it on sale. It had troubled development and came out meh

 

[The Connected Nose]

It was fine for a 90 minute Audi ad. Lena Heady, Aron Paul, and Sean Bean all give decent performances for what they had to work with. Unfortunately that wasn't a whole lot.

Mouth movement is uncanny as fuck even after all the years of CGI films being around. But I wonder if its because they synced for the JP cast and didn't bother re-rendering for the EN dub. Or did they do the reverse for this one? Either way, the facial expressions are uncanny and jarring. They look pretty real in various stills, but the second they move it breaks the illusion.

Nice explosions and particle effects though.

 

[Rungle]

dont talk shit about arydn

 

[Großmann]

I watched it ten years ago, so I can’t remember it well, but the action scenes were kind of cool. It doesn’t stand on its own as a movie though and has the typical sensibilities of a modern Japanese live-action movie in that they don’t know how to make a believable, natural world with realistic (acting) characters. Everything Japan does is tainted by anime right now.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

15s fine but get it on sale. It had troubled development and came out meh

I was always angry that they rereleased it later with (supposedly) an actual plot. The original was multiple set pieces that didn't go anywhere.

And a ramen commercial.

 

[The oxymoronic European]

XV is the best final fantasy game I've ever played.

It is also the only final fantasy game I've ever played.

In the end, I just wish the story was actually finished, instead of the final two DLC's being relegated to a book after Square fired the director. Oh, well, it is what it is.

 

[Michael Wade]

@Vitrealis​

I like your autistic analysis even if I disagree with a lot of it. My problem with this movie was that I enjoyed it a lot and thought it was going to line up with the games. Nope, it was completely botched.

See here's what happened. The movie was supposed to be about the crown Prince Noctis and NOT about his bodyguard unit. Nix was completely made up for this and it was originally supposed to directly tie into the game. Frankly it ties so little into it you'd be better served going in raw. The development switch happened when they got rid of the old director Nomura in favor of a new one Taba to shit out a single game instead of a planned trilogy for quick shekels. Part of me thinks the rampant advertising was an effort to recoup costs by the new guy but I digress. Personally I do think it's a decent and very pretty movie on its own, but it was given an impossible task to set up a game that had completely changed in tone and vision from the original product. So you have a shit ton of changed characters and left over design elements that don't fit.


The few characters in here that actually are in the game got the short end of the stick in literally every regard, but I'll try and explain the differences and original planning.

King Regis


(VERSUS)


15/Kingsglaive

They play him as a good king of a dying Kingdom but the original plan was that he was a hard ass magic Yakuza boss. Not really supposed to be a good guy, but more of a loving family man who happened to be Tony Soprano ruling a modern kingdom with magic missiles on the side.


(Yes we were robbed why do you ask?)

He's barely in the game via the opening and various flashbacks. Not a bad character, but you've seen this kind of guy before and there's not much depth beyond his love for his son. Sean Bean did give a pretty great performance movie wise though and I was disappointed he wasn't in the game. (I suspect the lip sync isn't good because of writing changes, the mo cap was done by the English actors)




Luna/Stella

(Versus)



(Kingsglaive)

15



Luna: she had the most extreme change character wise. With a completely different character design and name. (Stella) The original intent was to have a whole Romeo and Juliet vibe with Noctis and a later twist according to some alleged leaks was that

Spoiler

She was dead the whole time and appeared to Noctis as a spirit, causing him to do crazy shit.

In 15 she exists to be a damsel in distress and die in that order. She barely has any screen time let alone chemistry with Noctis. She was so butchered and half assed in the game that I think she's actually a better character in the movie. Kingsglaive Luna has a spark and passion to move forward. She's completely defenseless and has nothing going for her but spunk, but its better then nothing and lena headey sells the performance (again she's not in the game either)

Ardyn


Ardyn is an interesting case in that design and personality wise I dont think he was changed too much, but he clearly was promoted above his station. There's nothing in the movie to indicate this guy is going to be THE MAJOR bad guy in 15. Hell you'd get the impression he's a simple sophisticated asshole second in command. This guy wasn't supposed to be the final boss and he was a more sly side piece kind of character. I remember I absolutely HATED him in 15 for hogging the spotlight, but his standalone DLC made me like him a lot more and gave him legit depth. It's short, but it did a better job of capturing the spirit of what Versus was supposed to be then the entirety of 15, which is why I suspect it wasn't cancelled outright. Also it has him beating the absolute fuck out of the kingsglaive the whole way though GTA Style, so that explains why they are in such bad shape by the movie.



The Niflheim empire/emperor







COMPETELY NON EXISTANT IN THE GAMES. they have barely a min's worth of screen time before they all die offscreen to Ardyn. Yeah.... Most of the game your fighting robots until that little "revelation" at the end. It was a massive disappointment to say the least. Glauca was one of the best parts of the movie, but he's not in the games and feels like he was planned for a later game that was never to be.


Miscellaneous: I'm glad you mentioned the drugs, that was supposed to play a bigger role in the story and be for Noctis. He had some kind of drug addiction and they cut that shit out. I believe they also half assed the magic and cut out how it works without removing certain effects. Basically magic was always a deal with the devil sort of thing that sapped your lifespan, and the teleportation was no different, but they cut that out in addition to explaining how it was more like traversing a different dimension slower in time. They did kept that in for the ring and the really cool knights of the round scene but the game completely fucked it up and made the experience of wearing the ring anticlimactic. The movie makes it seem like you're beefed up magic Superman while the game has you stand around like an idiot while the ring slowly kills things.

XV is the best final fantasy game I've ever played.

It is also the only final fantasy game I've ever played.

In the end, I just wish the story was actually finished, instead of the final two DLC's being relegated to a book after Square fired the director. Oh, well, it is what it is.

It's not at all bad for beginners, but personally I think 6 did a better job with the villains and concept of a ruined world overrun with evil. 7 and 13 also had a lot more spectacle and depth. I think you'd definitely appreciate 7-2 rebirth. That incorporated a lot of gameplay design and elements Nomura wanted to do with the original 15 Versus. Remake is very cutscene heavy by contrast but id put it on easy, skip most of the side quests and enjoy the ride.

 

[DragoonSierra]

I hate how they turned the robed dude with the cool magic in Versus to Lunas brother in 15.

 

[Michael Wade]

I hate how they turned the robed dude with the cool magic in Versus to Lunas brother in 15.

Oh yeah they screwed him over. I don't even remember if he was supposed to be her brother back then. He was definitely an opposite number to Noctis. But here's the cool thing, as I understand it, he was supposed to be the hero and Noctis was the villain. The whole Yakuza crime boss thing wasn't just a surface level change. There was a lot of other stuff with the core gang changed


PROMTO man.... He was originally a murderous fucking psychopath.












I enjoy that Nomura is going to literally backdoor parts of this into KH4 with the realm of the dead.

 

[Vitrealis]

(Versus)

Those character designs I actually enjoy. All images from Versus that you shared are great character/environment conceptualizations, unlike Kingsglaive's, where every character looks like it came out of an US action/superhero movie. I prefer the FF aesthetic with all my heart. That first concept of King Regis is chef's kiss. I haven't played the game, but that idea is so much more interesting than the (very ugly) king of Kingsglaive.

Spoiler: edit

I don't mean ugly in a literal way, I don't mind ugly characters when they're well done, I just think his design was very uninspired and creatively bankrupt. An example of ugliness that I think is beautiful:

 

[Michael Wade]

Those character designs I actually enjoy. All images from Versus that you shared are great character/environment conceptualizations, unlike Kingsglaive's, where every character looks like it came out of an US action/superhero movie. I prefer the FF aesthetic with all my heart. That first concept of King Regis is chef's kiss. I haven't played the game, but that idea is so much more interesting than the (very ugly) king of Kingsglaive.

Yeah the original concept is showcased in these trailers. the reason it all was derailed was a combo of a shitty engine that looked very pretty (Crystal tools) and Nomura's team being poached to save other games.

The changes were late enough in development the first demo had radically different gameplay before they simplified it to one button.






There's even a full blown documentary if you've got time.