Next February will be an eventful time for Fans of Final Fantasy 7 both old and new — the middle game in Square’s remake trilogy, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, will be released at the end of the month. But before that happens, Square’s decided to revisit the original FF7 remake…
People begged Square for years to remake FF7 before the company finally caved, and Tetsuya Nomura’s original response was to produce a feature film instead, believing the world of Gaia was just too large to properly recreate in 3D. FF7 Advent Children is set two years after the conclusion of the original game, incorporating the entire surviving cast and introducing the “realistic” models of Cloud and company for the first time, which would be reused in the PS4/PS5 versions.
As the film opens Cloud and Tifa are living together, taking care of Marlene while Barret is away, and running a new bar. Midgar is in ruins, but Sephiroth has been defeated (or has he?) and though the world is in relative peace by comparison to a giant meteor, there are still problems. A plague called “Geo-Stigma” is infecting citizens. Cloud has a mild case but the disease is especially bad among children. While searching for a cure, Cloud runs into three silver-haired figures that claim to know him, yet he doesn’t remember at all — and the story goes from there. Nomura says Advent Children is still canon and that elements from the film will be weaved into the world of the game trilogy gradually.
Advent Children did not show up here until nine months after its Japanese release. I saw it in Japanese before the English version was done. There was once scene where Cloud expressed doubt about acting on something, and Tifa in response made a noise like “Lululululululu,” which is a Japanese way to say to someone that they’re wasting their time. There is no English equivalent for this, so when the movie was dubbed, Tifa instead told Cloud “Dilly dally shilly shally!” Which is a weird thing for Tifa to say, or anyone else for that matter.
The movie was eventually “patched” with more scenes and edits to create a Director’s Cut called Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children Complete. It’s this version that will play in Japanese theaters on January 19, and in the US on February 21. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth will be released a few days later on February 29.
