Priest: The Love Letter of an Old FFVII-2 Rumor

TheLifestream.net isn’t typically the place you’ll see film reviews (aside from Advent Children), but this was something that needed to be mentioned, and I’m sure that Final Fantasy VII fans will greatly appreciate it.

The film Priest isn’t a perfect movie, but it happens to be a type that I enjoy, not to mention it’s got something extra for fans of Final Fantasy VII. It’s a small story about some very unique Vampires set in the scope of a larger harsh world. The film has little references and homages to other films throughout. The opening shot of the city with small glowing billboards is very reminiscent of the movie Blade Runner, and there’s a ‘good cop’ character named Hicks, and there’s some time spent in the Hive of the eyeless Vampires that are rather obvious reference to the film Aliens. Brad Dourif even shows up for a bit with a little bit of a feel of his Alien Resurrection role.

But more so than anything, this film seems to be an almost shameless love letter to Final Fantasy VII. Please keep in mind that I haven’t read the Priest graphic novel, so this is purely based on the content of the film that was released on May 13th, 2011. Please be warned that there are a number of film spoilers abound here, because this details many parallel plot points. Click the link below to check it out.

Way back on March 31st, 2003 http://ffwa.org/ decided to put up an early April Fool’s joke about FFVII-2. This was just after FFX-2 was announced, and right before the time that Advent Children news started, so the rumor caught like wild fire. It even managed to make IGN’s June article of the List of 10 biggest rumors on the PS2. The second image appeared to be depicting Tifa and possible a shaved-headed Cloud (or new character) kissing in the rain. In fact, this was a very clever photoshop of Luis Royo’s image “Dark Labyrinth” (Warning: the original image is rather NSFW).

It’s this image that seems to have inspired Priest the most. The grey/brown tone of the image matches the color palette in much of the film. The male ‘Cloud’ character with the short, shaved hair seems to be a dead ringer for the Priest, while the female ‘Tifa’ with the long black hair resembles the Priestess. Combining the fact that none of the Priest characters have given names in the film, they are just begging to fill those roles, so I’ll use their FFVII-correlating names in the summary. Taking the faux FFVII elements from here, with some other influences from Advent Children, we’ll take a look at the film Priest itself, and see where the correlations REALLY take off.

Priests were an elite group of warriors, created by the church to fend off the Vampires. They possessed abilities that bordered upon the supernatural, very much like Final Fantasy VII’s most elite SOLDIERs. Prospective candidates even seem to have been chosen by the church, not unlike how the Turks scouted for SOLDIER candidates. After the great Vampire war, they were no longer needed. Because the church feared the prospect of being turned against the Priests were disbanded. This is where the story begins, with our main character, (who I’ll be referring to as Cloud) as an ex-PRIEST.

The city is an absolute dystopian society. Technology, skyscrapers, and electrical billboards everywhere, but the people seem to live in relatively basic homes, not unlike the Midgar slums looking up at the plate. To complete the comparison, the entire city is centered in a circular fashion around the Church’s large central tower, like the ShinRa HQ, and is surrounded on all sides by a single giant wall with large door, just like Midgar’s wall. Cloud is doing anything he can to get by in the society, marked to all the common folk by the cross on his face, just like the Mako Eyes mark the SOLDIER. He has flashbacks in the form of a dream, filling him with regret. He was unable to save his close comrade, also a Priest, who fell in battle saving them from the Vampire Hive. This makes his lost companion much like Zack (and eventually like Sephiroth), and filling him with the same regret at not being able to save his close friend / fellow warrior.

Elsewhere, there is a Vampire attack on a small farm occupied by 18-year old Lucy Pace, and her parents Owen & Shannon, relatives of the Priest. When the Vampires attack, her parents hide her away. They are killed, and she is taken captive by a dark silhouette. The town Sherriff (and Lucy’s lover), Hicks goes to find Cloud for help. Cloud ventures to the Church HQ, asking to be officially reinstated. The church’s head Monsignor denies him, stating that if he leaves, he’ll be an exile. Our Priest Cloud decides to defy the orders of the church, and escapes the city on a very Fenrir-like Motorcycle. Upon exiting the city walls into the desiccated desert landscape, it is shown that there is a perpetual clouded haze over the city. Upon completing the last of the Midgar-analogies, this solidifies the idea that this film unquestionably and unabashedly a Final Fantasy VII sequel hiding in the guise of a Vampire movie.

The church gathers the additional Priests, and sends them after our hero. Upon travelling for days, he arrives at the farm and buries Owen & Shannon, and meets up with the gun slinging sheriff. The sheriff Hicks becomes like a protégé to him, somewhat like an older Denzel, and they set off together. It becomes apparent that the Vampires have captured Lucy for some unknown purpose, so they set off in pursuit of the Vampires. Here we meet our fallen Priest. With glowing yellow eyes, he’s fallen to the Vampires, and the complete embodiment of this film’s Sephiroth (as well as having the Zack connection of being an unsavable comrade). Much like Sephiroth’s Remnants kidnapping kids in Advent Children, Lucy is a child captured for the purpose of drawing out Cloud.

In the “Aliens” catacomb-like hive of the Vampires, Cloud has his first encounter with another one of the Priests sent to kill him. The Priestess, who we’ll be referring to as Tifa. She speaks about how life after the Church disbanded them was difficult. As a warrior, she had no practical skills, and she only managed to find work in Sector 7. (No, I am not making that up). She sees the evil that the church refuses to acknowledge. She wants to join with him, and even admits that she has feeling for him. It is here that we discover, while Tifa was recruited at a young age and had never been with intimate anyone before taking her vow of celibacy, Cloud was recruited when he was much older. It turns out that Lucy is his daughter, much like Marlene, and her mother Shannon, Cloud’s previous love was killed in the Vampire attack killed by Sephiroth, and he wasn’t able to stop it. Shannon’s death creates this film’s Aerith character creates the exact feelings of guilt over loss and love-awkwardness that Advent Children Cloud has.

In the meantime, Sephiroth destroys a town during the night, completely overrunning it with Vampires, and murdering everyone. He easily kills the three Priests who find him while looking for Cloud, and hangs them up as a warning, much like the Midgar Zolom was impaled on a tree. Then they re-board the train, and depart for the main city, entirely covered by clouds that they’ll be able to destroy with ease.

Tifa, Cloud, & Hicks chase down the train on Motorcycles. Cloud & Hicks board the train, and Tifa goes ahead to blow up the train before it reaches the city. On board the train, they encounter Sephiroth who hurls Hicks off the train, leaving Cloud, Sephiroth, & Lucy alone. Sephiroth explains how the Vampires took him into the Hive, and the Vampire queen turned him into one of their own, the first Human Vampire. The ‘only true child of Jenova’ reference now complete, he asks Cloud to join him. Cloud refuses, and attempts to fight him. Sephiroth is superior in every aspect, and easily bests Cloud, Impales him through the left shoulder, (Advent Children style), and sets the train car on fire with him left inside. Cloud pulls his resolve together, and escapes the Nibelheim-like situation, finally managing to injure Sephiroth for long enough to grab Lucy, and dive off the train before it’s destroyed in a massive explosion by Tifa. In the wreckage, only the charred hat remains, and Sephiroth’s fate remains ambiguous, much like his fall into the Mako Reactor.

Hicks & Lucy meet up safely together, like an interesting and older Marlene/Denzel pair, while Cloud & Tifa share an awkward moment of almost affection. Cloud then brings evidence of the Vampire’s return to church, and making the people aware of the threat just outside their city, and that their own church has been lying. He doesn’t seem to be emotionally alright with confronting his daughter directly and becoming a real father figure, but his guilt seems to have faded for now. He then meets back up with Tifa to go recruit more friends to try and discover the bigger plot at stake in the underlying menace of the returned Vampires.

Overall, while Priest isn’t a perfect movie, I enjoyed it, and perhaps other fans will also find an extra layer of appreciation for the film as an unofficial Final Fantasy VII spinoff sequel, that bring to life the crazy rumors that filled many of our minds in the days before Advent Children.