Final Fantasy XV Kings Glaive Disucssion

[FinalxxSin]

Kingsglaive Profile Information (July 24, 2016):

Spoiler

 

[The Witch]

first 12 minutes of Kingsglaive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxH4OMFOa7k

SPOILERS AHEAD


so aaron as nyx does great. crowe looks amazing. and im shippin it hard nyx is totally freaking hot, man i loved when he said he was worth the wait.

and i got some major feels seeing diamond weapon in HD i think i heard people say we dont know if the weapons are bad or not but the film called them "demons"

this film looks very promising.

 

[Linnaete]

Currently this sits at 9% on Rotten Tomatoes. Granted, not many people have reviewed this film and it doesn't necessarily mean at all that this is conspicuously worse than say, DC and Warner Bros' latest DCEU blockbuster attempts, because a score aggregate site doesn't afford much nuance in the way of detailed opinions, but ouch.

What does this tell us? Well, film critics, unlike their counterparts in the video games sector who may be very interested in the whole FFXV cross-media project as well as the game itself, are usually looking for the basics such as whether this film effectively stands on its own. I'm willing to bet that it doesn't to the vast majority of them; this is probably more akin to a glorified CG opening cutscene advertising a video game and I question the virtue of SE doing something like this again.

But I would still watch it because if nothing else, the designs and the CG are bang on point. And I rant on about how rubbish Advent Children is, but even I got a kick out of the action sequences.

 

[Lirael]

Well, film critics, unlike their counterparts in the video games sector who may be very interested in the whole FFXV cross-media project as well as the game itself, are usually looking for the basics such as whether this film effectively stands on its own.

In an interview, the team who created the film said that the film COULD be watched as a standalone and had its own story, but one which linked closely to the game and enhanced the game. I hope they were telling the truth!

I have watched the first 12 minutes, which are on Youtube now. Personally, I thought the opening was incredibly slow and confusing... The animation was impressive, but nothing memorable or gripping happened. The trailer makes the film look much better, so I HOPE it just has a slow, disappointing start... I have very mixed feelings at the moment, but I will definitely watch it.

 

[Chibster]

I watched it on Friday and it was AMAZING! Now I really want to see it again. My best friend who isn't a FF fan was kind of confused so I had to explain a bit more about the story and the relation of the movie and the game.

 

[JigoKuu]

I also watched it, and I couldn't agree more! This movie was simply brilliant! I loved the story, the characters (especially Nyx), the graphics was great, too. I love it almost as much as I love Advent Children. It really made want to buy a PS4 and start playing FFXV when it is released X,X

 

[Linnaete]

I want to post a more comprehensive write-up of my thoughts, but my mind has been restless of late and writer's block hasn't helped. I also want to preface this post by saying that I do understand the film critics who have lambasted this film. I really do see their reasons for why this simply is not a competently produced movie, but at the same time I can easily see why a Final Fantasy fan would derive a lot of enjoyment out of this. As a film, it's rather poor. As an elaborate advertisement for a video game, I reckon it accomplishes its job for the most part, though personally I'm still left somewhat apathetic in general.

I also want to thank a dear friend who has agreed to grab this for a tenner, because I sure as heck wasn't prepared to do it myself. It was fun to watch this complete stranger to all things Final Fantasy look perpetually bewildered as she attempted to make sense of what was going on. I may have roped her in when I said Sean Bean, Lena Headey and Aaron Paul are the main voice stars of this film.

- Ray-vus (ugh) Nox Fleuret is an utter disappointment. This is supposed to be that same enigmatic robed man in white from the Versus days of yore? The guy comes across as utterly pathetic and unedifying in his motivation and demeanour. He's sadly a typical JRPG villain and his appearance in this film does absolutely nothing to build up any anticipation for him as a major character in the game's narrative. When even his sister acknowledges that he's a dumbass on screen...

- Some characters are simply wasted. The biggest waste is

Spoiler

Crowe, who barely enjoys any screen time before she too is given the ruthless Jihl Nabaat treatment. Seriously. They abruptly off her and leave her body there to rot in the rubbish pile. The only major difference here is that Crowe's death was cheaply facilitated to serve to motivate the male protagonists, namely Libertus.

This leads to a bigger issue overall with how this story is written. We barely enjoy much in the way of characterisation of the Glaives before all hell fully breaks loose. We know the bare minimum for the contextual groundwork but at no point do I think I have ever got to know these people, their group, their dynamic and how they gel with each other.

- Luna gets the mysterious Nolan Ray and regularly clamours about destiny in some bizarre situations. She's wooden and bereft of humanity for much of her time on screen. When that's not happening she reminds me of an NPC character you have to protect in a video game escort mission. It does begin to make a mockery of the FFXV team's constant assertions that Luna is totally not a damsel at all unlike (allegedly) Stella, especially when at one point she has to make it clear to Nyx that her life is in his hands. At the very least she acknowledges that

Spoiler

Ravus is a dumbass and in a rather suicidal manoeuvre she manages to trick a traitor Glaive into self-immolation.

- Wow. Sakaguchi, a film fan with no actual film directing experience himself, managed to put out a competently produced movie in the form of Spirits Within. It wasn't bad at all for a first-timer. So what happened here? How has Kingsglaive turned out this badly in this department? It's like the director for this flick has no idea how to properly transition between scenes, so copious use of fade to black is splayed across nearly the entirety of this film, while nigh-incomprehensible battle scenes with short and juttery camera shots just bombard the screen with exhausting intensity. The editing work is so shoddily done that it brings down the cinematography and the enjoyment factor in general. We both had to pause regularly in action scenes just so our brains could catch up and comprehend what we were seeing. It beggars belief.

- There are a handful of very Versus-esque scenes. One particular scene is of the treaty with Somnus in the background and that famous portrait of Etro hanging around at the back. I dunno. It just resonated with me strangely because I was reminded of the old Versus scenes and I'm utterly convinced that what they eventually turned that into hasn't been for the better. It really makes me pine for what Nomura originally envisioned.

- They...really like showing off Nyx's arse. O_O

- The visuals are top-notch for the most part, but uneven in places. You can tell when you gaze at background figures of no importance, because they look conspicuously worse than the characters of importance in the foreground. Ardyn has a particular case of uncanny valley going on when announcing himself in front of King Regis. The voice acting is...mixed. It's evident that ADR was done which also baffles me a little, especially when motion performance capture was of such significance. The talents of Sean Bean, Lena Headey and Aaron Paul weren't lost here as their characters sound decent to good from start to end. Other voices come across as dreadful, such as Libertus and Crowe.

- The script leaves a lot to be desired in how half-baked it is. Character motivations are inadequately conveyed and some characters are robbed of aspects that could have made them interesting. I've already harped on about Luna, but I think she's a good prime example here of what happens when you have a poor script. In fact, I have a particular bone to pick here.

Spoiler

Why are female figures in this universe so commonly used as convenient tools to motivate the male characters? Crowe's death does that. Luna has her soliloquys that do a similar job. Ravus is too preoccupied with his dead mother that its among the primary events that drive him. Nyx has his episode regarding a dead sister.

It leaves me with little hope that FFXV itself will do female characters justice, especially when it will also have kawaii teenage girl Iris and...Cindy.

Overall I still got my kick out of this film. The references to elements that FF fans will recognise are fun, albeit a little incongruent in the case of one not-so-friendly octopus. Despite my gripes with the script and how it treats certain characters, the lore of the world is still interesting enough that it leaves me still invested enough to continuing exploring if I ever get round to playing the game. Nyx is a fine protagonist and I genuinely feel a Final Fantasy game could benefit greatly from having someone like him as the leading man.

But as a film? Eeek. You would not hire this director. Kingsglaive is a decent enough advertisement and opener to FFXV, but a poor film on its own. I think it's better than that trash Advent Children, but as a package Spirits Within remains the best Final Fantasy film overall to me.

4/10

 

[Sunowo]

I will say roughly what I already said in Metacritic: The best Final Fantasy movie so far.

The graphic part shines throughout most of the movie, and "shines" literally through the unprecedented in 3D movies light effects. Impressive are also the great expressiveness of the characters, showing even the smallest (and very carefully made) facial gestures. The quality drops in very isolated moments, yes, but overall the graphical work is superb.

The music does its work, but it honestly could be better, especially since Final Fantasy sagas are so full of beautiful and memorable soundtracks, which are kind of missing in the film, but surely that will be heard in the game. The voice acting is fantastic, and it surely is an invitation to play the future game in english and not japanese like we are so commonly forced to. There are two exceptions to this: Lena Headey (Lunafreya) and Liam Mulvey (Libertus), do a rather poor job if compared to their non-english counterparts (japanese and spanish). Spanish Lunafreya is warm and expressive, the exact opposite of the cold robot-like english Lunafreya.

The "professional" critique bashing the plot only makes these critics seem, well, unprofessional. The purpose of the movie is to serve as an introduction to Final Fantasy XV story, and it honestly does a great job both in serving it's purpose and in keeping us hooked throughout the whole movie with something that, even if we already knew roughly how it all would end, was not predictable at all in the development of events. Nyx is a fantastic protagonist, Regis is awesome, and man these villains know how to keep things insteresting. And the Ultros easter egg...

I would give it an 8/10.

 

[Dionysos]

Okay. After reading some of the comments on here and elsewhere on the internet, this movie was a lot better than I expected it would be. In fact, I rather enjoyed it. It’s by no means perfect, but I think that I’ve seen this movie through a different lens to some viewers. I expected it to be crap and was ready to cringe, but I found myself pleasantly surprised and wrapped up in the intrigue.

I expected it to be action-based (and it was), but it was also rather dark. At times it was almost film noir (albeit without narration), with the murder ‘mystery’ of Crowe and the scenes in the apartment of Nyx, etc.

Although we didn’t spend long with the Kingsglaive, I did feel that it was enough time to learn that they are a band of refugees from outlying regions who are serving King Regis (and granted Lucis’ unusual weapon-teleportation magic). There were some interesting early scenes where local Insomniacs (if that’s what we’ll call the inhabitants of Insomnia!) let known their views of the refugees. I also liked the scene where members of the Kingsglaive were relaxing and eating food that was supposed to be representative of the culture of some of their homes, and yet they were complaining because it was nothing like how it is at home.

From these scenes I did get a sense of who they were, and when the bad things went down I do completely understand the motivations of some of the Kingsglaive for betraying King Regis. What I don’t understand so much is why the Kingsglaive were able to kill each other so easily. Maybe they mentally prepared themselves for the cost of rebelling, but I’d have thought it shouldn’t have been so easy for them to turn on their own.

Maybe the film might have benefited by showing us a scene of one of these outlying regions where the Kingsglaive came from? Maybe they thought that that box was ticked with the scene with young Luna and Noctis, but perhaps it would help flesh out the Kingsglaive themselves if something was seen of their homes too. Noctis and Luna maybe could have waited until FFXV.

I quite like that there are a number of little FF Easter eggs in this movie. I’ll have to watch it again to pick out more, but I noticed a kids cartoon shown for a few seconds on Nyx’s television showing a malboro being locked into a police van. The world of FFXV does seem to be packed with this kind of detail (the game itself looks promising in this regard).

However…. Ultros?! I love Ultros the octopus in general, but their decision to use him in this movie was a bit unusual! Normally he’s a comedic, talking octopus and a semi-villain, but not usually a huge threat; he's just a bit of a goof. In Kingsglaive? His first tentacle slap kills a character we’re supposed to care about. By the shade of purple and by the muffled laughing I could hear at the time, I knew immediately that it was him (and because he’d been spotted in a trailer). Ultros then goes on to kill many Kingsglaive, good and ‘bad’, laughing all the while (but never speaking this time). It just weirded-up a scene which was supposed to be taken seriously as the moment when the Kingsglaive imploded with treachery. Very odd, though not unenjoyable in its own way.

Why did Niflheim even keep Ultros in the ship where they were keeping Luna? From what I know about the character in FFVI, I dread to think!

Overall, maybe I enjoyed the film more because I went into it thinking it was going to be awful. I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t. I enjoyed it a lot more than Advent Children. It’s been ages since I saw Spirits Within so I can’t fairly compare it to that, but since Spirits Within (though good) didn’t share much in common with Final Fantasy as a franchise, I think that Kingsglaive is now my favourite film set in a Final Fantasy world (although that isn’t saying much!).

- Luna gets the mysterious Nolan Ray and regularly clamours about destiny in some bizarre situations. She's wooden and bereft of humanity for much of her time on screen. When that's not happening she reminds me of an NPC character you have to protect in a video game escort mission. It does begin to make a mockery of the FFXV team's constant assertions that Luna is totally not a damsel at all unlike (allegedly) Stella, especially when at one point she has to make it clear to Nyx that her life is in his hands. At the very least she acknowledges that

Spoiler

Ravus is a dumbass and in a rather suicidal manoeuvre she manages to trick a traitor Glaive into self-immolation.

I think Luna has a very different sort of strength, and that there may be more in her during the game itself. She is certainly strong willed. She knows her own mind and defied people throughout the film (she was making secret plans to escape the Niflheim empire already). She was also willing to leap from the ship when Nyx told her not to, even if that might potentially lead to her falling to her death. Luna is determined to do what she thinks she needs to do. She even refused to be escorted by Libertus at the end of the movie, and has set off on her own.

She didn’t show the strengths of the other characters in the movie because of the nature of her situation. How could she fight at this point in a physical sense? She has no weapon. She has essentially been in captivity for 12 years. Unlike her brother who must have sworn fealty to the Niflheim emperor early on and been allowed to serve them and rise in their ranks, Lunafreya has essentially been kept as a hostage for all of her adult life, just waiting for the time when Niflheim want to use her as a bargaining chip.

Now that she’s freed of that and has escaped, maybe we’ll see more of that inner strength of Lunafreya shining through.

Although I agree with you that what we’ve seen so far of FFXV doesn’t show any evidence of this… In fact I don't know much about what we might see in FFXV outside of the bro trip... There's still hope! I'm not saying I have much hope, but there's still some!

I didn't see Luna as a completely helpless damsel anyway. She was an active participant, just not with weapons.

 

[Linnaete]

I didn't see Luna as a completely helpless damsel anyway. She was an active participant, just not with weapons.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Luna's failures to me are all the more pronounced when she's the only female character in the film that matters, considering the other potential candidate was fridged so easily and abruptly with no opportunity to even establish her let alone flesh her out.

I don't see Luna as a character with any agency of her own. I see a character written in a way as to be flat and bereft of any genuine personality or interesting traits of her own, rampant with insipid dialogue due to a weak script. I see a character who is essentially a glorified tool thrown around and instrumental as part of other characters' agendas, be it as a diversion or an ace up Regis's sleeve as an excuse to get his son out of town. She clamours on about destiny and a sense of duty, but it's not even that of her own; it is an obligation for Noctis and her dedication to the duty is namely for his sake to be king.

Luna as a character doesn't advance the plot. The plot throws her around, almost to the point of being literal with how many times she has to be saved from a feat that a normal human being would deem to be suicidal. You expect at some point for the writing to finally put her in the plot driver's seat...then you see her literally forced out of the driver's seat of a vehicle by a male character who may as well have yelled at her "to get out of the way, woman!" I find it problematic that this is the FFXV writing department's concept of a Strong Female Character™. In fact, it was pitifully superficial anyway when they were constantly touting her as a strong female character.

The game has a mammoth task ahead to give her a personality and some agency of her own. I don't have much hope for its writing though...

 

[Dionysos]

We'll have to agree to disagree. Luna's failures to me are all the more pronounced when she's the only female character in the film that matters, considering the other potential candidate was fridged so easily and abruptly with no opportunity to even establish her let alone flesh her out.

I don't see Luna as a character with any agency of her own. I see a character written in a way as to be flat and bereft of any genuine personality or interesting traits of her own, rampant with insipid dialogue due to a weak script. I see a character who is essentially a glorified tool thrown around and instrumental as part of other characters' agendas, be it as a diversion or an ace up Regis's sleeve as an excuse to get his son out of town. She clamours on about destiny and a sense of duty, but it's not even that of her own; it is an obligation for Noctis and her dedication to the duty is namely for his sake to be king.

Luna as a character doesn't advance the plot. The plot throws her around, almost to the point of being literal with how many times she has to be saved from a feat that a normal human being would deem to be suicidal. You expect at some point for the writing to finally put her in the plot driver's seat...then you see her literally forced out of the driver's seat of a vehicle by a male character who may as well have yelled at her "to get out of the way, woman!" I find it problematic that this is the FFXV writing department's concept of a Strong Female Character™. In fact, it was pitifully superficial anyway when they were constantly touting her as a strong female character.

The game has a mammoth task ahead to give her a personality and some agency of her own. I don't have much hope for its writing though...

There’s no crime in disagreeing while we still possess sensible minds!

I see what you are saying and can understand how you arrived at that interpretation. I saw it differently, but that doesn’t mean that my interpretation is correct. I’m possibly being too kind to the movie.

I guess my point is that she is a stronger person than someone like her brother. Her brother might possess physical strength (or not, since I don’t think we saw any in the end…) but he was weak willed and sucked up to the Niflheim empire (like the revolutionaries and a lot of the Kingsglaive did too). Lunafreya, it seems, has never given in to the pressures of the empire and has consequently been kept as a hostage. She might have gotten herself out of that situation by openly pledging fealty to the empire, but she’s not done that (as far as I interpreted). Unlike her brother, Lunafreya has never forgotten who her true enemies are and who her true friends are. Luna has remained suspicious about the empire, and the empire remained suspicious about her.

Yes, she’s allowed herself to get escorted and pushed about in the movie, but in a way she may just have been playing it smart to survive considering that everything was going to hell. For example, if she’d defied Glauca when he forced her into the ship with Ultros in it, would she have survived long? Lunafreya had no weapons because she was a captive. I guess she was also twelve years out of practice where fighting is concerned too.

Luna was hoping that King Regis’ plan would work, and she trusted the Kingsglaive to help her get free. This is because the Kingsglaive are supposed to be trained professionals who know best about how to handle bad situations. I see that what Luna aims for does seem to be the will of Lucis, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t to an extent also in line with her own wishes. Although the marriage was to seal a treaty, it seems that Lunafreya quite likes the idea of marrying Noctis. Or, at least, she cherishes sweet memories of their time as children and can’t wait to see him again and hope for a day when the conflict is over. Lunafreya also understands (more than the audience at this point) how important Noctis is in being perhaps the only person who can restore Lucis. Lucis is important to Luna because it is/was (I think?) the only other kingdom powerful enough to resist the Niflheim empire.

Now that Lunafreya is free, perhaps it’ll be now that we see her pick up a staff/trident (or whatever) and become the ‘Oracle Lunafreya’ that we’ve been told about. Maybe then we’ll see the physical/magical strength that Square-Enix are proud of finally blossom.

I guess my feeling is that we caught her on a bad day in Kingsglaive, and that bad day was the end of a nightmare of 12 years for her. It’s not because she’s a woman that she was physically weak and inevitably a bit passive; it's because she was a hostage, and if she was a man she may not have been fighting her way out like this either, especially considering that professionals were already on that. The latter half of the movie was in part a hostage extraction movie, and in most hostage extraction movies the hostage him/herself is not Rambo. Take the Olympus Has Fallen series, for example, where the president is a hostage being escorted to safety by Gerald Butler and a team of professionals. The latter half of Kingsglaive seems to draw on tropes from this sort of film.

Now that Lunafreya is free she can recover from this experience and can regain her strength and compose her thoughts.

Hopefully... Of course, FFXV can still disappoint.

-

I do agree that it would have been nicer to have seen more females on the Kingsglaive team, in the Niflheim empire, and in general. However, the prominent women that we did see were all heroines, and two of them were martyrs. Perhaps they’ve painted all of their female characters with a coating of Aerith in the hopes of replicating FFVII's success. Not counting Cindy in the game itself, of course...

 

[Ryatta]

I woke up to find emails that I could now get Kingsglaive on digital download.. my question is; can you get the film anywhere in 4K yet? (once I've seen it I can read the above posts as I'm fearful of spoilers)

 

[Michealscofielad]

I love it! Graphic looks amazing! And I love the gang! I don't know why everyone says it's a downgrade. Looks the same to me.

 

[Galadín]

I love it! Graphic looks amazing! And I love the gang! I don't know why everyone says it's a downgrade. Looks the same to me.

Really? A downgrade from what? I wasn't aware of any feedback on the film yet to be honest so glad to see that someone at least saw it!

What impressed me most was the fact that the whole story was cohesive. Square Enix to date have been a little allergic to the concept of a cohesive storyline that makes sense after the first viewing. Kingsglaive for the most part was well paced and made for a good yarn. Introducing and entire new world, society and all the trimmings and trappings therein is cumbersome and daunting at the best of times, and despite the nightmare the whole project must have been for the developers, I think they did a heck of a job! They gave a decent outline of everything with out taking away from the flow of the movie or action and paid a good attention to their characters, particularly King Regis and Lunafreya. Admittedly I've been sold on the idea of Lunafreya and think that so far they have made her an interesting character with hidden depths.

 

[Michealscofielad]

Hahaha Everything is amazing. Only, I wish it was full 1080p instead of dynamic resolution...

 

[Michealscofielad]

to answer the question about the why the king count beat the general.


if you watch the anime it says that the shield was powered by the power of the king, the longer he sustain that shield the more power it drags from him the weaker he becomes, he's been holding that shield for 150 years and now he's old and his power weakened.