Independant Study: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

This 3D animated film follows the story of the main character form the final fantasy 7 series, Cloud Strife, this character was a member on the company ‘Shinra’ and is now fighting the company with a band of rebels that fight for the health of the planet as the ‘Shinra’ company use the plants greatest energy resource ‘Life Stream’ to power huge machines that create monsters that will create an army to take over the planet. Clouds main objective is to stop three young boys that are trying to destroy the planet by resurrecting there brother Sephiroth and wanting him to carry out his plan to use his mother Jenova’s power to bring huge creatures to life and bring a huge meteor to earth.

I found it interesting to study this film because I thought it would be an interesting way to link the research between this film and the current events and major issues that it represents in a different way and puts a fictional cover on top of a real issues in the world today. For example, a current event hat is top priority in the news would be the global concerns of the energy crisis and I have found that this film has a similar issue buried in the plot.

The film has a focus on a company harnessing the energy resource ‘life stream’ and it is slowly killing the planet leaving the rest of the world as baron desert land. This relates to one of the issues I have chosen to compare in my independent study because it is interesting how the issue is put across in a fictional way with a fantasy story.

This film has a huge fan base all over the world as this film is the sequel to a game that was created in Japan in 1997 and released world wide due to its huge success. It found fans in all sorts of age groups such as older gamers, children, but its main target audience was found in the youth culture in Japan that has a popular interest in Japanese animation.

I found the subject of the fan base an interesting point to research for my independent study because this is a very unique series as the game series spans through thirteen different game with more then eight different spin off games and even more remakes and digitally enhanced versions of older eight bit graphic games. This is the main reason for the fan base being a subject of my independent study as the fan base has had a huge time to grow since 1987. The name of the series ‘Final Fantasy‘ has become more of a brand then the company that created it, square enix own the brand and is the main reason for there success in the video game market and in the success in attracting a wide range of different cultures.

To sum up I think that my choice of text is an interesting one as I find it a fun text to research and study and also I think it will be an interesting text to try and recognise current event in.