This afternoon I sat down. That in itself should be thrilling beyond comprehension to you. I’m hoping that that, combined with the mere fact that I’m updating you with something that isn’t a quick Youtube video that I found at work, shan’t mean that your cerebral cortex will need any scraping. Now, it you’ll let me continue my story; As I was sitting, I was watching Final Fantasy Advent Children Complete. Complete you ask? COMPLETE I respond. Advent Children was a… watchable sequel to the Final Fantasy VII video game. It was… difficult to follow. Even having played the game… I didn’t really “get it”. It was fun though because it contained characters that I liked, and had some nice visual effects. I watched the fan translated pirated version when it was still only in Japanese, I bought the DVD and watched it more than once, and when the Blu-Ray version came out… I said gawl-dernit… I’m getting rid of this and getting the shiny new thing that has a new cartoon with it.
I am glad that I did.
The short, by itself was reason enough for me to check out the new release. The artwork is great, and it was interesting to learn some more about this character that I was supposed to just take for granted as being important. The original release of the film sure didn’t motivate me to give a rat’s ass about Denzel. The short was nice though. I definitely give it my sigil of awesomeness. Which is to say, see it if you get a chance. It won’t make your eyes bleed, and you may just enjoy it. As usual, be aware that Blu-Ray releases suck big time on SD televisions. I’ll actually have to correct myself here. If you try to read the subtitles on a SD tv… it will make your eyes bleed.
Now, as for the feature film itself? They made it enjoyable. All The vast majority of plot holes that were present in the first film have now been filled in. There are additional scenes, different dialog tracks, and scenes that have been replaced with better versions. I actually feel bad having watched this. I feel bad because this is the version that everyone should see. People that saw the original release are right to complain about it. It shouldn’t have been released in the state that it was in. I wish that this could have been the original release because it drew me in, made me care about the characters, and actually had me make exclamations out loud. For those who have not watched this film, I heavily recommend that this is the version you see. For those of you who have seen the original release… I implore thee to see this version too!
And just for the heck of it… here’s a bit of fan art I did back in 2006. Enjoy!