Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
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With the Screen Actors Guild threatening to strike, a British newspaper introduced cinema's newest leading lady as "tall, attractive, and guaranteed not to strike."
Four hundred thousand polygons. Sixty thousand individually animated hairs. Her name was Aki Ross and she was the star of FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN (2001).
Square Pictures built her to be hired out to other studios for other roles, her appearance adjustable per job, including her age.
Director Hironobu Sakaguchi wanted you to look at her and be convinced she was a person. Maxim put her on its cover in a purple bikini and ranked her 87th on its Hot 100 of 2001, the first fictional woman ever to make the list.
She was never truly synthetic. Her voice was Ming-Na Wen's. Her movement was motion-captured from the actress Tori Eldridge. Her face was keyframed by animator Roy Sato, working from Ming-Na's recorded expressions and from his own reflection in a mirror he kept beside his monitor. She was three performers and a man at a mirror, and none of their names were on the poster.
The film cost $137 million and took in about $85 million. Square Pictures was shut within months. Aki Ross never worked again.
In September 2025, an AI actress named Tilly Norwood was unveiled at a film festival, her creator promising that agencies were circling. Nearly a year later, she still has no agent.
About the Film
Unleash a new reality
- Directed By
- Hironobu Sakaguchi
- Runtime
- 106 minutes
- Released
- July 2, 2001
- Certification
- PG-13
- Country
- Japan, United States of America
- Starring
- Ming-Na Wen, Donald Sutherland, Alec Baldwin, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi
More Credits
- Genres
- Action, Adventure, Animation, Fantasy, Science Fiction
- Language
- English
- Origin
- US
- Studios
- Chris Lee Productions, Square Pictures, Square USA, Columbia Pictures
- Written By
- Al Reinert, Jeff Vintar, Hironobu Sakaguchi
- Produced By
- Chris Lee, Jun Aida
- Cinematography
- Motonori Sakakibara
- Music
- Elliot Goldenthal, Joel Iwataki, Dirk Brossé
- Also Starring
- Peri Gilpin, James Woods, Keith David, Jean Simmons, Matt McKenzie
- Budget
- $137,000,000
- Box Office
- $85,131,830
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I see opportunity…
I still LOVE that movie (probably because I have no connection to any of the Final Fantasy games) Thought the Bright Eyes team was super cool back then.
Lo Wan Bing unfortunately, getting access to the full version of final fantasy seven, with the cut content, is getting difficult.
Fans have created a restoration patch.
Luckily, there should be ways to experience final fantasy.The games and I think you’ll like it.I really hope you do because it’s a cultural phenomenon for a reason.
Also chrono trigger is the best game.
Lo Wan Bing the Deep Eyes.
That was a solid movie, but man-baby audiences were expecting literally FF7.
Phuc Nguyen And all they got was a rip off of Aliens. The action scenes are beat for beat ripoffs of Aliens.
It was empty and boring. Definition of all style and no substance. In addition to not resembling any of the FF games at all.
Aki had more soul than anything AI. It irritatates me to no end that animation.
Is not valued. This bulk also compares that human animation with a computer and then mentions AI.
So this post is just doubly wrong
Not sure why you think I don’t value animation. I was an animation teacher and I used to work for Disney. I have friends who are professional animators – one of whom (sadly no longer with us) worked on The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. I agree that Aki had more soul than anything AI could produce. (Note the line: “She was three performers and a man at a mirror, and none of their names were on the poster.”)
Maybe it could have been clearer, but my point is that these companies have tried before to replace human actors with corporate-owned digital creations. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now – certainly not with AI. (Of course I could be wrong – hope not.)
It was kinda goofy and maybe a little too far out there to associate with the Final Fantasy name. OK on its own I guess
That’s bc no one wants this shit lol no one wants fake code pretending to be a person
Until the AI reaches true sentience the performances are going to be novelties with minimal depth, once they’re able to provide deeper portrayals they’ll likely be too busy taking over the world.
While it was supposedly shut down it’s important to note that the computers and models would go on to be used for the Animatrix short Flight of the Osiris
Kyle Minnehan That’s a great detail. Thanks!
Most videogame companies close out their golden age by releasing bad or underwhelming games to break their winning streak and weaken consumer confidence. Square went down in flames from a goddamn movie. The irony in that the CGI scenes from FF7 helped propel them from an already big and respected company to a household name and yet that path would see them only able to survive by merging with their rival and diluting both companies from then on no matter how much money they could make.
Still love the movie
Tilly Pornhub
Alita: Battle Angel 👀
Imagine being ranked below a bunch of polygons in that year’s hot 100. I’d be so mad.
I’d completely forgotten that Ming Na voiced her.
FF elitists cried and complained that Spirits Within wasn’t FF enough, but now decades later the FF series had some crazy shit happen in their games that makes Spirits Within’s plot seem mild. Anyways, still a fun and good movie.
Only Final Fantasy in name was the issue.
You all subtly report these things as though you’re critical, but you keep using words like “actress” and “she”, which are legitimizing.
I suppose, but it’s just awkward to keep referring to a female character as “it.” I could add quotes around every instance of “she” or “her” or “actress” but that’s a bit heavy handed. In the end, context is the important thing.
Anywhere But Hollywood Heard. It’s a wacky position to be put it, isn’t it?
Because a character in, say, a novel…isn’t pretending to be real. We KNOW it’s just ink on a page, so we can actually feel MORE comfortable using gendered pronouns for it.
…whereas these digital creations are being pitched and presented AS REAL PEOPLE somehow, even though we know they’re not. And that makes it oddly weirder to give them gender and occupation.
Nobody’s having to jump through these social or mental hoops with Woody from Toy Story. 😆
It’s an impressive looking movie but it’s really boring and the characters and story are lame and seemingly unrelated to the game series
People want real people to be in their films because real people age real people have outside conflicts ect. Life stories cant beat some ai with no real backstory and no real life.
I thought that movie was cool.
Frank DeCaro’s review of final fantasy was hilarious on daily show