I don't like Hojo but his character is interesting, but what's more interesting is that he was inspired by a real person or people who did messed up experiments regarding humans and animals.
This is somewhat of a silly post, but I kinda want to talk about the nostalgia aspect of FF7 and FF7 Remake for me.
Mainly with the stuff they say in FF7 Remake.
There’s some sayings and lines that remind me of shit my mom and dad said when I was young. My dad passed away almost four years ago now, so when folks would say those lines, it would make me think of a conversation with him and get that bittersweet feeling.
So here’s some quotes that make me feel bittersweet:
“Keep on truckin’.” - Aerith (My dad said this a lot when I was feeling like I couldn’t finish something)
“Let’s roll.” - Cloud (This is such a dad saying. Whenever we needed to get somewhere - usually as early as possible, you know - he’d say that. He also just said it when he was ready to go.)
“Dilly dally shilly shally.” - Tifa and Aerith in AC (The shilly shally part was new, but in AC when she said this, I was like huh? My mom says dilly dally ALL THE TIME. Always has. So I guess I was surprised because I’d NEVER heard anybody else except her and my grandfather say it.)
“Hoo boy.” - Cloud, Dio, and the Shinra Manager in OG/Cloud in Remake (LOL who didn’t say this in the 90s? I mean, I thought it was hilarious that they kept it in Remake.)
“You good?” - Cloud and everybody else (You good is a staple phrase that covers a variety of situations, and I laugh every time they say it, because they say it just like I’d expect.)
All of Wall Market reminded me SO MUCH of Atlantic City, NJ. If you’ve ever been there, you know what I mean. I can smell Wall Market through the TV.
But what REALLY killed me and makes me replay Chocobo Sam’s quest chain for no reason, is the EN voice actors SOUND like they’re from Northern NJ/NY, and that’s the bulk of the people who travel down to Atlantic City.
I also had my brother-in-law watch some of this scene and he said “Did somebody from NJ or NY do the localization for this? It sounds like they picked a bunch of people from here to do the voice acting. They have the accent down too well...”
Now I’m not from North Jersey, so I don’t have that same accent, but most of my college friends were and do have it.
Atlantic City for locals was just a place you went when you turned 21 and legally could gamble and drink. There’s also this time my parents and grandparents took us there when we were 10, and we all got separated for hours. So I remember walking around with my dad and sister trying to find my mom and grandparents.. and apparently we passed each other multiple times.
Then there was the time in college I got separated from the rest of the group in AC and when they finally found me, cuz my phone was dead, and I used a pay phone to have my dad stalk my FB for my friend’s phone number, I was sun burnt, tired, and they said it was my version of The Hangover...
My face always hurts after playing that quest chain from smiling too much.
Okay enough of my stupid ACNJ antics...
I played FF7 20 years ago, and even though I was starting my angsty teen years, my life WAS good. It’s funny how you look back and realize all you had at that point. So any game from that time period - FF7, Xenogears, FF8, etc, brings me back. Maybe that’s why it took me so long to replay those (I wish I could replay Xenogears, but it’s not anywhere at this point without me hoping my old PS3 works). It also may explain why I was scared to play FF7 Remake.
I was scared it would change too much. I saw the trailers, and I would fight excitement. I think my husband was confused. He knew I was a huge FF fan. I used to play a game in college where somebody would play a FF song and I could name it within the first 5-10 seconds. So he couldn’t figure out why I didn’t want to play it, and I couldn’t explain it. Watching him play a bit piqued my interest, though, and then I stole it from him... and became obsessed.
No, I wasn’t a shipper back then. I enjoyed the romance in FF8, and I enjoyed the tragic romance of Vincent and Lucretcia in FF7, but I was never a heavy shipper. I liked the story at face value. There was much more to it than romance, and I still feel that way. Remake DID make me a shipper - but it was hard not to turn in to one. They absolutely gave us some great scenes to ship with. Heavy sexual tension and watching this gap close between Tifa and Cloud was symbolic for many reasons. It also feels somewhat tragic since we know Cloud isn’t Cloud until much, much later on...
Anyway, thanks for reading my nostalgic post of craziness and randomness. Hopefully FF7 Remake gave you some warm and fuzzy feelings as well if you were a fan of the OG!
idk bout you but my heart still bleeds coz of Furious 7, i mean, it's been 2 days since i saw it. it's just so different because i've watched the whole franchise until paul walker died. gaahhh my heart my heart 💔
The opening when Marlene is recapping the events of the first game and there is a montage of scenes you can recongize from the game. Its beautifully done and I cry a little bit every time but then the movie starts and I cry for completely different reasons. Why wasnt the whole movie like that?
When the team gets together to fight Bahamut - THIS was what I came for, to see the characters I fought together with and love all together using teamwork to support each other and defeat a big baddie. This is the spirit from the original game I needed, teamwork, friendship, working together to be bad ass, characters coming in to help the last minute and everyone being happy together. Why wasn't the whole movie like that?
The ending when you see Aerith and Zack walk off together - Because I ship it.
Runners up:
Tifa's fight scene because it showed actual moves from the game in a fast paced non-turn based battle where her full abilities could be shown off and she kicks ass. Didn't make the list because she GETS DEFEATED ANYWAYS?????
Cloud and Sephiroth's fight because it was beautifully done and the tension they are actually able to get between Cloud and the Sephiroth copy is totally legitimate and reminiscent of the original game and they DESTROY THE SHINRA BUILDING WITH SWORDS. Didn't make the list because ITS TOTAL BULLSHIT AND EVERYTHING SURROUNDING THIS WAS BULLSHIT AND RUINED MY ENJOYMENT OF LIFE.
Because I love hearing you talk about Advent Children and everything wrong with it, please elaborate on everything wrong with it (IF YOU FEEL LIKE IT, OF COURSE).
"EVERYTHING WRONG WITH IT"???? are you nuts we would be here for like a week. But I will give you some choice things I hated about it that they did wrong. Yanno, from what I remember since I havent seen the movie in a million years.
The biggest problem with the film that will come up in other points is the fact that the entire film takes everything YOU DID AS A PLAYER in FF7 and tells you it didn’t matter. The entire point of an epic-length JRPG is to get emotionally invested, to get you to feel a part of this team and story and to make you get emotionally involved while you save the fucking world. The movie’s story undoes everything you accomplished in the original game. Defeated Jenova? Retconned! Reunion? RETCONNED. Rufus ShinRa dead and ShinRA taken down? RETCONNED!!! Character’s having an arc that shows the changes they went through and how their journey helped them grow? NAH NOT ANYMORE. Literally everything you gained over the course of the story and game, everything you achieved and worked hard for is just smacked out of your hands.
The film also has a constant problem of changing or misunderstanding their own original canon. Characters act completely different, facts get confused, new characters don’t make sense in the canon of the original story (even when they shoe horned it in with the games, that just made it worse) and the spirit and feel is completely changed.
I’ve heard from people who saw the film before playing the games and they were confused the entire time and thought that maybe it would make sense after they played the game. I’m pretty sure its more frustrating seeing it after playing the game, if not just as confusing. The film itself isnt paced properly, doesn’t build the right sort of tension, doesn’t give you characters or causes to root for, and it all seems like anime filler between action scenes. As a film on its own it fails utterly, if new viewers can’t follow a basic story and if fans get confused then who did you make it for?
So those are my big talking points but if you wanna get to the gritty details….
Here are the specific things that I hate about this movie and/or don’t make any fucking sense.
Jenova coming back - You defeated Jenova in the end of FF7 right? You had that big boss battle and defeated the thing that was fucking up the entire planet and fucked up Cloud and caused most of the hardship in FF7 right? Oh wait GUESS NOT. The thing that frustrates me about this is that realistically I can understand why you might find some Jenova-goo at the crater. I can understand that. The problem is that the ENTIRE FUCKING GAME led up to killing it and all of that just… didn’t mean anything I guess. You’d think the planet protecting itself from Meteor and doing that shiney purifying thing might have scorched out the last little Jenova cells wiggling around but nah, the planet is a piece of rock that cant manage to do anything.
Kadaj and his assholes - I can’t… these characters. Like, as characters by themsleves they have zero going for them, they are less than two dimensional and even though Kadaj gets a cool death scene they just should not have been in the movie in the first place. They make ZERO sense. They have Jenova cells in them that has altered them to try and make them into Spehiroths, I guess? This isnt explained this is me applying knowledge I have from the canon to try and understand wtf these characters are. Jenova cells are able to corrupt and change biological matter and in the original game it made a ‘Sephiroth’ out of the information it had about him so it had a powerful hand puppet to throw around and manipulate people (yes thats ACTUALLY what was happening in FF7 Sephiroth was dead the entire time). So I GUESS Kadaj and his lackies are??? Attempts at this??? Anyways its not explained. The other thing that is not explained is… if Kadaj and his boy band ARE full of Jenova cells why the fuck did they not go to the reunion in the first game? EVERYONE that had Jenova cells showed up at the reunion, that was the point, Jenova was manipulating the cells in living test subjects to make them all come to the crater (or die trying, which is fine as jenova cells move through the life stream) so that Jenova could be COMPLETE and powerful. If Kadaj was kicking around then he would have been there, no exemption, unless he died. The first time I watched the movie I ASSUMED they were LYING because it made no sense.
The Stigma - What the fuck is it though? I mean, the movie does a shit job at explaining what the fuck it is. The closest I can understand is that its a physical mark and/or illness that is caused by Jenova cells. Ok, fine. I wonder if they took this from the canon about how the Cetra were wiped out by an illness caused by Jenova. If so neat, but, even if thats true…. first see my point about how Jenova is DEAD, and secondly lets talk about how this illness works in the movie….. its explained that its spread through the lifestream and caused by Jenova cells. This explains why it affects Cloud as he’s the last person with Jenova cells (if you even believe that, I personally took his battle with ‘Sephiroth’ in the end as a symbolic fight of him overcoming the jenova cells that were fucking him up and defeating them but since thats my -speculation- I’ll ignore it for this point) and maybe it explains why Rufus has it since he’s hugging that Jenova goo box. I mean, Rufus is heavily affected and we are led to believe they havent had that box for very long so like, how fast did it spread? Maybe he should… I dunno… DESTROY THE BOX ONCE HE REALIZES ITS KILLING HIM? But whatever ok, sure, but then how are the children getting it? None of the children shown were young enough to have been born after jenova was ‘defeated’, so, how the hell are they catching this when literally no one else is? Are they just huffing mako somewhere? And dont tell me its targetted to them, if Jenova was targetting organic life to infect and use as hand puppets I think maybe it would want something stronger and more useful than a handful of 8 year olds.
Kadaj’s ‘Reunion’ - Kadaj constantly references the Reunion like he’s a Spehiroth groupie and its super annoying because CLEARLY he doesnt understand what it means. Whenever he references it he’s usually talking about how he wants that Jenova goo that Rufus has (which is funny cause Rufus totally calls out the plothole of the script by saying he’s not a very good ‘son’ if he couldnt figure out the box was in his fucking lap, but I will talk about that later) so he can be with his ‘mother’. Ugh. But uh, if those kids who have the stigma are full of Jenova cells or whatever, why are they never included in those plans? How come he’s not mowing down children so their Jenova cells go to him? How come he hasn’t killed his brothers yet? Do you remember the Sephiroth character fucking chopping up the hooded figures everywhere he went as they rawled towards him like “REUNION”?? YEAH THATS HOW THAT WORKS. But Kadaj just fucks with Cloud and Rufus’ box of goo. Also he calls it a reunion and is transformed into a Sephiroth copy when he gets the box, uhm, BULLSHIT? Thats… thats not… what that is…
Rufus and his stupid box of goo - First of all, fuck this movie bringing him back to life. Anyways lets talk about the goo since I keep bringing it up in other points. The first scene of the movie has Tseng and Eleana in the crater looking for the goo, which is weird cause I was pretty sure the crater was destroyed/closedup/fucked up at the end of the game but w/e, and after they find something they get attacked SECONDS after by Kadaj. So how did they spatula up that goo and get it out safely if THEY WERE ATTACKED AND ALMOST KILLED THERE? I guess no one wanted to animate them beyond two scene. Anyways Rufus sent them down to get the goo, the only purpose given is some vague explaination about how they want to cure the stigma or destroy it or??? ?? ? ?? ? I have no idea what the plan was. I mean, ShinRa doesnt even have resources like what were you gonna do? It still doesnt make sense that Rufus would just hang out and suffer with stigma for no reason and makes no sense that he wouldn’t have had that dumb box set on fire. Also WHY DOESNT KADAJ FEEL THE JENOVA CELLS when they are literally right in front of him? Jenova cells are like the ring of power ok, they WANT to be found and liberated by their lackies, what the fuck. Also why the hell did Rufus THROW THE FUCKING BOX THINKING THAT WOULD STOP KADAJ??? Like Rufus please I know you are a huge asshole but you MUST know better than that.
Wait why is Rufus alive? Why are the Turks back? - Explanation? Apparently none because when Rufus goes to explain Cloud is like ‘lol I don’t care’ so I guess FUCK THE AUDIENCE CLOUD NEEDS TO BE APATHETIC NOW (don’t worry I will get to him). But those of you who remember the game will remember that one of the Weapons DESTROYED the top of the ShinRa tower (in fact you see how FUCKED the tower is in this movie???) and you’re telling me that a disc 1 medicore boss fucking surived? Also they play it like ‘oh no wheelchair he really got fucked up’ but later he gets up like ‘NAH ACTUALLY I DONT REALLY NEED IT I GUESS’ so fuck that too. But after this happened in the game there was chaos cause there was no one to organize ShinRa and it is eventually accepted as dead, the Turks ACTUALLY DISBAND like they are like ‘whatever I guess we dont have a job now see ya later’. So…. why did the Turks get back together? Reason? Are they getting paid? What is ShinRa doing now if NO ONE KNOWS THEY EXIST? Reminder that ShinRa is a power company first and foremost, if you have no reactors and no infastructure and everythign you had fell appart how are you paying the Turks to go and risk their life for you? Why would they? They never had a shred of loyalty besides the fact it was their job.
Mischaracterization and reducing complex characters to single dimensional ones - I could go on forever, and I will about a few examples but just in GENERAL this happens so much its painful. Reno and Rude are my FAVES to bring up because their personalities are SO DRAMASTICALLY CHANGED? Reno was always the reserved cool character, like actually, he was flippant and threatening, a rude asshole. Suddenly he’s the slapstick humor? Why? Its not even CLOSE to who he was, you might as well have made a new character. Other main characters are stripped of any development or nuance the game gave them, Barret is ONLY a yelling black guy, Cid only shows up so they can use his airship, Yuffie holds a pile of materia so you laugh and go ‘OH YUFFIE’, Cait Sith is useless probably because Reeve isnt a ShinRa spy anymore (why not have REEVE show up? Whatever.). The characters are all watered down to a single trait or visual gag that ends up being an ‘average’ of who they were in the game, instead of showing us cahracters who are bonded by SAVING THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD. In the end of teh game every cahracter has introspective moments about why they are doing what they are doing, who they are saving the world for, how its changed them, all of this is thrown out to make cardboard cut outs.
Cloud - I can’t……….. -sigh-…………. I can barely talk about this. So much of the game was about Cloud rediscovering who he is and having to seperate his false memories and Jenova’s influence from who he actually is. And you know who he actually is? A big dork. He says “Lets mosey” to the team and GETS MADE FUN OF FOR IT. He’s encouraging to his friends, he’s a reluctant leader but makes up for it with heart and determination. He pokes fun at characters and is unsure of himself but tries his best. The movie decided likability wasn’t important and that all Cloud had to his character was ANGST. I have no idea why, Cloud should be recovering from everything???? He constantly whines about how things are his fault, even after in the game he came to terms with the thigns that happened and knew why he had acted wrongly. He withdraws from the friendships and relationships that STRENGTHENED HIM and just becomes a Batman-like character who cant do anything except feel sorry for himself. Which makes zero sense for a character who FOUGHT AND WON while saving the fucking world. The thing that bothers me the most about this is that it has FOREVER changed how people see his character.
Cloud and Tifa’s relationship - The end of the game shows them as CLOSE AS POSSIBLE to being involved without having them say it and make out. But like two-three years later they just… they just havent… done anything… ok. I mean, whatever, have Cloud be an emotionally vacant jerk to the only person he fucking loves what a doofus. Also Tifa has always been quiet and reserved and shielding of how she feels but in this film after all thats happened it makes her a shallow as fuck character with nothing to offer the film besides a cool fight scene.
Denzel - who is this Roxas looking fuck and why should I care about him? Why is the movie making new characters and demanding I feel a thing for them when they give me no reason?
Vincent shows up to promote his new game - I mean, literally why else does he have so many lines? Why does he have magical knowledge about whats happening in the life stream? What the fuck has he been doing since the end of the game? There is no explaination for why he knows anything he comes in to explain and they make a big deal about him getting a fucking cell phone BECAUSE HE HAS A CELL P[HONE IN THE GAME THEY WERE DEVELOPING LIKE WHAT THE HELL ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY AND DOESNT LEND TO ANYTHING. If you wanted to promote Dirge of Cerberus (and I could make a whole other post about that game) why not show Reeve leading the WRO? Why not elude to the fUCKING UDNERGROUND CITY OF GLOWY MUTANTS? Nah, cell phone, good marketing. Also why is he a black cloud? Why not have him transform into one of his monster forms? It’d be WAY COOLER???
Nanaki should have just stayed in Cosmo Canyon - Oh, Im sorry, Red XIII. Whatever. He has a single line in the movie. One. I doubled checked the official movie script. His line is “there are still children with ths stigma” at the end. Other than that he bites things and LETS A ROBOT RIDE HIM LIKE A HORSE????? NANAKI SON OF WARRIOR SETO WITH A PROUD HISTORY AND CRAZY KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE PLANET AND THE LIFESTREAM AND YOU HAVE HIM CARRYING THE ROBOT CAT AROUND? What a fucking waste. Why wasn’t HE the one who showed up to talk to Cloud about the stigma and the planet and shit?
What is Barret wearing - and why this.
I keep saying this but - Honestly why COULDNT Reeve have been included? Why is his only role making ait Sith say stupid shit? I mean, Cait Shit doesnt even help with the fight, he doesnt even have his megaphone. Like I agree the idea of a robotic cat with a megaphone riding a giant moogle is REALLY STUPID but its YOUR STUPID IDEA and either fucking own it and give me Cait Sith or have Reeve show up in his suit with a WRO army and be like “yeah I cant believe I controlled a cat robot and thats the way we hung out I mean this is akward isnt it”
Kadaj and his boy band drive the kids to the Forgotten City - ??? They put the kids in a truck and then next we see they are in the Forgotten City. The Forgotten City is on a different continent, did they ahve to get a boat? An airship? How do you drive a truck into the Forgotten City anyways? You need a fucking fancy harp to get through the forest, its not like there is a fucking highway with an exit to it. Also how did Cloud drive there on his motorcyle? What the fuck? The movie has no idea where its locations are.
Midgar and the Forgotten City are the only locations - I mean this is a nitpick for sure, if the movie was decent this would not matter. But when your game world has AMAZING locations why would yoi set 80% of it in the ugliest location? Why couldn’t we see Wutai? Cosmo Canyon? Why not significant places like Niebelheim, or Junon, or Mideel? These fuckers have an AIRSHIP and everyone travelled from different places in the world but we werent allowed to see -anything- else? BS man.
Im sorry I wasnt done talking about Tifa - You know what? Tifa is important. Cloud is only upright and walking around because of the ammount of time shes saved his ass. Cloud only understands who he is and what his memories are BECAUSE SHE WAS IN TEH LIFESTREAM WITH HIM AND FORCED AND HELPED HIM FIGURE IT OUT. Its COMPLETE bullshit that her character is watered down to being submissive and mildly concerned and giving a lecture once but never DOING anything. Even when she has a fight and KICKS FUCKING ASS she gets knocked out anyways so Cloud has to try and save her. She adds nothing to the ending, she does nothing to help Cloud or affect the story, they took a solid strong female character and pushed her back to take a seat and affect NOTHING. Great.
Why is Cloud hallucinating all the fucking time - what is up with that. In the game Cloud had hallucinations when the Jenova cells were fucking with him, which does happen a little bit in the movie, and the only times he saw Aerith was when she was directly sending him a message that she FORGAVE HIM FOR THE SHIT HE DID and to not follow her. During the course of this movie he is CONSTANTLY lamenting over the fact Aerith is dead, even though he uh, got over his hang ups about it in the game. Also in case you forgot, he was upset over the fact that HE ALMOST KILLED HER and once he understood he was being controlled and it wasnt her fault got over his involvement. The only other times he brought her up after that was when he was referencing her as part of the reason to go after Sephiroth/save the world, or just remembering her as a friend who died. This movie seems focused on him feeling bad he didnt protect her, yanno, when he got over that already and he HAS SAVED THE ENTIRE PLANET BY NOW. The visions of her are super fan servicey (which is ok on a level) but the importance weighed upon them and the supernatural elements are pointless when???? Cloud had already gotten over this thing??????
Zack is also just here to remind everyone he exists for when his game is released - I mean really, besides angst bait there is no reason to bring him up either. I wish they made a legitimate reason to bring him up because I LOVE Zack but ????
The movie is dumb and I could keep going forever but I think you get my fucking point
Now that I realize it, I kinda admire on how Cloud and Tifa's whole fiasco of a relationship of "I cannot live without you" kind of thing makes sense considering that.....oh.....they are the only ones actually surviving Nibelheim, and they are basically each other's last rope to before being completely alone.
