Advent Children: The Hate Mail

So, while I was at E3, my review of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children went up on the main site. Immediately afterwards, I began receiving quite a few emails from concerned readers, each of whom articulated the central point that I am a stupid moron. Here is a typical excerpt.

You are an ignorant and narrow minded idiot with no aspiration or drive to even

want to understand a movie that you are so passionate about trashing.

Of course, I anticipated this. And I also anticipated, in the great tradition of the late, great GIA, getting to post all the mail. Here it is!

Some readers, much like Oblivion fans, were quite sure that I was lying about having actually played the game. I did play it. When it came out. Ten years ago. Of course I don't remember what happened.

Also note that while many readers read the phrase "I don't have a clue what the hell is happening" as "please email me a lengthy explanatory fanfic", all of them wrote something completely different.

I am really confused about your review of Final Fantasy: Advent Children. My

first question was, did you play FF 7? Because a lot of the things you complain

about not making sense in the movie have direct analogues in the game. Number

one: "Apparently Sephiroth is not dead." Yes, Sephiroth is dead, but in fact

Sephiroth died AND came back in a very similar way to the movie about 3/4

through the game (If you played the game it was when they found him in that huge

piece of materia). The thing about Sephiroth is that his life force merged with

Jenova. Jenova is a parasitic alien that is really hard to kill (it can

replicate itself from very few of its cells). Jenova's cells can also act as

independent entities that seek each other out when they are separated (which is

what the whole topic of Reunion is in the game and movie; Jenova's cells

expressing their will through their hosts to reunite). When Sephiroth merged

with Jenova, his consciousness really just became an extension of Jenova. Which

is why at the end of the movie Sephiroth talks about turning the planet into a

vechile to sail the stars i.e. turn the planet into meteor and find another host

for Jenova.

This brings me to the second thing I object to in your review. Geostigma was NOT

being spread by the cronies in the movie. Rather, the children already had the

illness. Geostigma is a result of the planet\'s "backlash" against Jenova.

When Jenova was killed, her cells leaked into the life stream (the force of

energy that flows through every living thing). Children are much closer to the

life stream because they more recently arose from it. Because of this, they too

got infected with Jenova's cells. As such, the planet's "immune response"

was to try and destroy the infection which resulted in the sickness.

Finally, the bad guys in the movie were not clones of Sephiroth, rather they

were failed products of Shinra's JENOVA Project. Sephiroth was the only really

successful product of the project, but this would explain the three's super

strength and speed (the JENOVA project was created to try and use cells from

Jenova to create a super solider). These three were just pawns of Jenova in the

same way Sephiroth was. Their purpose in the movie was to have a reunion with

"mother" aka Jenova and propagate her will to find another host for her (with

the resurrection of Sephiroth).

–Michael

Other readers assumed that my failure to understand what in the hell was going on was due to lack of basic grounding in Latin.

Please, watch the movie again, and listen this time. If you actually watched the

movie you would kno that not only the children had the geostigma. And if you did

watch it you would know what the geostigma is.

A stigma is visible evidence of disease.

It is also a mark of shame or discredit.

And Geo meand from the earth.

So a geostigma is a disease or a mark of shame from the earth, as in Guia.

__This guy says Advent Children "It was mearly made to satisfy actual fans desired to remember

those intense feelings," which is approximately what I said in the piece.__

After reading your Final Fantasy's Glitzy Fight Club article I must say that

that is the biggest crock i have ever heard. So you loved the game, but you

obviously didn't pay much attention to it. I agree that the movie was entirely

too short compared with the hours I spent playing the game. This army you speak

of is none other than people infected with Jenova cells. The human life stream

rejects the Jenova cells destroying the human body "Geostigma". The "army"

is bringing back Sephiroth to gain Jenova cells in order to survive. For your

information only I am not a Final Fantasy buff in anyway. I have only beat the

game once and i know all this. I paid attention to the details in the game so

the extremely complicated plot didn't confuse me. The entire reason I loved the

game so much was because of the complicated plot allowing you to get attached to

the characters. The movie was more about seeing "old friends" and one last

ultimate battle. It was mearly made to satisfy actual fans desired to remember

those intense feelings without having to spend over 50 hours defeating the game.

Hopefully next time you'll study your review material a little more closely.

Otherwise, you just sound like your babbling on about something you know only a

miniscule amount about. Thank you

I can see the points in my review that would make people think I am a jackass, but I'm curious as to where this reader gets the impression that I am a bigot.

I found your review of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children to be very bigoted and

obstinate. By the sound of your criticism, you didn't pay attention very well

to anything BUT the fight scenes. First point: Geostigma was clearly defined in

the film, if you had paid attention. It is a sickness to which children are

especially vulnerable, caused by the presence of Jenova's cells in the

Lifestream, which you might remember engulfed Midgar in an attempt to stop the

Meteor (although the city in which they live in AC is called 'Edge'). Second

point: Kadaj's gang are not "groupies", as you called them, but are the same

"Reunion clones" that wandered around in black cloaks in game muttering

"Sephiroth...Reunion..." etc. They are merely humans injected with Jenova

cells by Hojo, like Cloud, but their experimentation was more severe. Third

point: "Sephiroth" as a human being ceased to exist in Nibelheim when Cloud

threw him into the lifestream. The shell of his body, saturated with the

Lifestream and Jenova's cells, was what Cloud and co. defeated in the game.

Sephiroth's soul continued to live on in the Lifestream, however, and Jenova's

supernatural powers were more than enough to 'revive Sephiroth by means of

using Kadaj as a vessel, being infused with massive amounts of the "Sephiroth

gene".

Case in point, you either didn\'t pay enough attention or had preconceived

notions about the film, because the majority of FF fans who have seen it (and I

know MANY) think it's one of Square's best accomplishments. If this one hurts

the dignity of your fandom so badly, just wait until you get the chance to bad

mouth Before Crisis, Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, On the Way to a Smile, and

any more FFVII compilation sequels that appear.

I don't want to sound like I'm just ragging on these readers, so let me concede them this point: their letters contained many correctly spelled words.

not to sound too fanboyish but if you played the game you should know whats

going on. geostygma is a disease that visably effects anyone who has the gene that shinra

experimentally gave to people. Which includes both soldiers and children who

were just that experiments. As for why they released it...controll they needed

an army so they created a reason for people to come to them for "help".

As for those attacking Cloud. Only 3 of them resembled sephiroth, although not

explained this is presumably because they have mutated more from the jenova

gene(s) than the others...as did sephiroth. I bought the entire story line

except when the guy actually became a sephiroth posessing of sephiroths

memories...they should have just went the route of him becoming a sephiroth like

unit.

Finally, I am assuming that I am in the one percent this reader refers to.

Very bad review. you dont even understand what its all about.. with this you

have offended every single fan of the final fantasy series, or at least a 99%

... i dont know,, but i enjoyed the movie a lot. please be more objective next

time!