Dr. Aki Ross and the Deep Eyes are mankind's only hope in FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WIHTIN
© 2001Square Pictures

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FINAL FANTASY DVD already in the works

With Square Pictures' FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN poised to set the world of CG animation ablaze on July 11, 2001, the gaming company turned movie studio has already shifted its focus toward the feature's eventual DVD release. So much so, in fact, that it has spent the past five months working on the disc's rather unique offerings.

One-of-a-kind in its use of virtual actors, sets, props, etc. in a near photo-realistic style (or as Square likes to refer to it, "hyper-real"), the film's distinctive digital format allows for DVD extras the likes of which are impossible to achieve with a more traditionally shot film. Don't expect to see these extras right away, however. A staggered release schedule will see two DVDs in stores, each with its own set of offerings.

"For the first release, it will be a straight DVD with a lot of added value stuff," says FINAL FANTASY: THE SPIRITS WITHIN co-producer Jun Aida. "[However, the material will] only be a viewable [version], so it [won't] have the interactive features. But by spring of next year, we're going to have a PlayStation 2 version it's only playable on a PlayStation 2. It will have interactive capabilities where you can change the camera angles and the lighting to make your own director's cut of the movie."

While this "ultimate" edition DVD pays homage to the game system that made the franchise such a huge success (the FINAL FANTASY video game series has sold over 38 million units worldwide since its partnership with Sony PlayStation), co-producer Chris Lee argues the decision to go with PlayStation 2 only is purely one of logistics.

"[It will just be on the PlayStation 2] mainly because your regular DVD doesn't have all the controls for the camera angles and stuff like that," says Lee.