DMO: A lot of talk has been circulating about Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Have you seen it? What are your thoughts?

Mark: I think that in 5 years we will see young animators that are in the business as a direct result of being inspired by this film. It resets the bar on what we thought could be done with Computer Graphics. Fully articulated, dimensional, lifelike humans are now possible. Sure, it takes a ton of people, a bunch of awesome plug-ins, a well-oiled pipeline, and a devotion to reinvention - but it is all worth it. Even if the movie makes no money - Square has set a new milestone for our industry, and I am personally proud to have been a part of it.

Joe: I've only seen trailers, I'll be seeing it this week sometime. Some really talented young guys worked on it, Andy Jones, for instance, is a guy I worked with at Centropolis on Godzilla. The guy was animating final shots faster than you could sneeze and held the 'Animation Supervisor' title just a few years out of school. I think he wore out several mice before the show was done, so I'm sure there'll be some very cool stuff to see.

Dave: Awesome graphics, a shame about the story. On a general level, I believe that Hollywood's run of graphics-intensive films with no plot will have to end at some point - the audience out there loves a good story and are getting desensitized to CG - to the point where the audience's attention is really on what is happening, not just how cool it looks. Again, it was a beautiful looking film. But, I think that the lip sync and facial expressions in Final Fantasy were what let them down from attaining that ultimate goal.

Rowsby: Final Fantasy was essentially, a 3D anime flick. From script to lip-sync. I found those elements pretty disappointing, but visually, it was quite nice.

Daryl: I think it's getting a worse rap than it deserves, but it definitely had problems. It's typical of Square's other stuff, technically brilliant, unsurpassed visuals, but low-key or even goofy writing/story.

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