This is the blu-ray version of my favorite movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. I much prefer this version though, the difference being that there's an extra 29 minutes of additional scenes and over 1000 updates were made, with improved graphics and sound quality. Also, yes it is based off of the game Final Fantasy VII for the Playstation 1, but you don't have to play the game before watching it. Trust me, I watched it without having a clue about FFVII. Only afterwards did this make me want to play the games. All you have to know is that it takes plays 2 years after the original game ended.

I still highly suggest playing FFVII first though. You miss out on a lot of the nostalgia moments and in-references if you don't, and that's more than half the reason I liked this movie.

The other less than half was that it was still a great movie in general. My only complaint is that they made Cloud very brooding, which in turn led to most of the current FFVII spinoff fanbase think he's an emo jerk that nobody likes.
I like Cloud, damnit, he was a cool guy! ; ~;

Cloud did a fair share of brooding canonically, but yes - In general Clouds' character was changed from a laid back and easy going guy to "I must spend my life with a melancholy background music as everything around me torments me by reminding me of the past..."

This is the same guy who backflips into a moving train because he felt like it'd be a fun way to make an entrance. Anyway, lets mosey.

The movie itself was disappointing for me because of that characterization. However, fight scenes were top notch and... Well, it had Reno and Rude in it. Everyone loves Reno and Rude.

I agree with both of you. I honestly do wish I played the game before watching the movie, but unfortunatly I did it the other way around. But after I beat it I of course watched it again and now understood much more, a lot of which did make me smile. So I think either way, watching the movie at some point after playing the game is awsome. If you have the choice though, play the game first. But yeah, I'm not one of the fans that think Cloud is an emo-jerk, I just didn't like it when he used Omnislash again because, well because I love Sephirth lol

fffffffffffffffffffffffffffff dangit, they make cloudy and zackie look so freaking cute in this movie.. when i imagine this, i kind of think that this is sort of an alternate world, a parallel world, cause cloud is so different xD

Oh right, the second reason I have disdain towards the FFVII spinoffs was Zack. I like Cloud much better, and it makes me mad when people tell me Cloud sucks in comparison.

He had good reasons for brooding in the first place, damnit - his girlfriend died, he had a literal identity crisis and the world was probably going to end.

But yeah, Reno and Rude. Fucking awesome.

And I think my favorite scene of the movie was the bahamut fight with everybody. That was so awesome.

I watched the un-complete version around 6 or 7 years ago.. o.O I never played the game before so I was like "wth is going on?" when I watched the movie. I didn't get it AT ALL. The graphics were awesome though so I kinda liked it for that. Though I'm more of a story person so I didn't like the movie that much since I couldn't understand the whole picture. I was like who’s Tseng or that Elena person… o.o And isn’t Tifa Cloud’s girlfriend or something? Who’s that other lady then?(Aerith) xDD And at the end.. I was like, who’s that girl and that guy?? (Aerith and Zack) Ghosts? xD And all those questions…. Just seriously couldn’t understand it… The fight scenes were nice though.

A couple years later I played Crisis Core on the PSP and thought that was an awesome game. I cried. I think it made me understand the story a little bit more. There were a lot of parts that I went "OOOOOHHH that's why!" or “OH so that’s who Tseng is!”.. But it's kinda surprising... o.o Sephiroth was such a good guy. Genesis just looks and sounds really twisted and Angeal's like a father to Zack or something. Sephy just snapped after finding out about the experiments. And Cloud was like Zack's cheerful sidekick when they met. They sounded best friends already when they first talked.

THEN, I watched the complete version after I played CC and with all the added cutscenes, I understood the story a bit more this time. The added scenes really helped. So now I’ve seen the past and the future of FF7… What happened in between? xD Like I want to play FF7 though. It's out on the PSN so might buy it just for the sake of experiencing the story a bit more. :D

The only part I still don't get (Which I'm sure lies in the FF7 game) is how Cloud became this quiet, mysterious and I-don't-wanna-be-around-anyone guy... o.o idk he was cheerful in Crisis Core and maybe FF7 too… He sounds really different in Advent Children. But anyway, FF7 I think has a reeeaaallly decent and captivating storyline. :DD

>>7 ...But you can't really say that without having experienced the original story in the first place!

Advent children was made with FFVII in mind, and Crisis Core was made with Advent children in mind. Playing FFVII before either of those is pretty essential - but as long as you've played it at any point you should see why.

It's like you watched Return of the King and then the Fellowship of the Ring without ever seeing Two Towers. You're missing a huuuge chunk of the plot.

^I knoooow. Like FF7 has the main storyline and everything.... :(

This is the worst FF to date.

best movie ever best movie ever i love the dramatic music when sephiroth is fighting cloud

>>10 I beg to differ.

Spirits Within kind of sucked.

I really can't see Cloud as interesting after Zack showed up. I mean, the guy got Aerith first, pretty much beat the crap out of Sephiroth single handedly, and he only had about 1ml of emo in his entire body.

Having said that, Advent Children was decent...it's like a Michael Bay movie, you know?

I quite liked this movie, despite the fact that I'm not huge into the Final Fantasy series, and I hadn't (and still haven'y) played FFVII prior to watching it.
Fortunately, I have enough friends who've played it to fill me in on any storyline questions I may have had.

>>13 This is exactly what I mean. They were like "hey, let's create a character that one-ups the MAIN GODDAMNED CHARACTER in just about every way, and make an entire game about him! If we're lucky, we can develop a split fanbase between this new character and the one who preceded him by well over a decade!"

There's a term for that.

It's called Mary Sue.

And Zack is a pussy little bitch who thought he could take the spotlight from Cloud because they managed to make him suck in AC.
Sorry for the inflammatory remark - I'm just so mad about it.