Hey everyone, I'm not sure if this something that has been discussed...but how would you re-write Advent Children/Complete? You have all the same additions to work with ie.,Kadaj and the brothers, Denzel, Sephiroth's return...How would you rearrange them? Just curious to see what some ideas could be.
I would keep Denzel and Moogle girl. I'd make Marlene look less like a mini Aerith as well, scrap mention of oil with Barret, instead having some other, actually renewable energy source to replace mako. Rufus surviving is fine but I'd have to think some more on what I'd do with the whole remnants, Geostigma and Sephiroth coming back from the dead thing. If not much changes about the plot, there'd have to be some way of including the gist of what went on in OTWTAS. My rewrites would probably be more suited to a book than a movie, though.
It would involve a volcano, and Denzel, Loz, Kadaj, Yazoo and Sephiroth falling into it in the first 5 minutes.
It would have been more interesing if it focused on the characters we already know, and what they got up to after the OG ended. The plot could focus on the search for an alternate energy source, and rebuilding Midgar in a less horrible way - no plate for example/or building Edge. Plenty of oppurtinity for character development. No geostigma, so Cloud wouldn't have to go all mopey and crap. Aerith and Zack would only appear in flashback, no ghosts or anything.
Also I'd have hardly any fighting, because it was boring. But I guess there could be a few fights with marauders or something.
Oh and I'd keep Rufus dead. The Turks would still exist but only as for hire assasin/mercenary/spies or something.
It probably wouldn't be feature length either, it would be as long as it needed to be and no longer
I would keep Geostigma and most of the core cast of characters, but would choose to keep Sephiroth dead, his revival, while awesome to watch as fanservice, is pretty dumb and in my opinion undermines the game.
Two, make Loz a million times away from being such a crybaby.
Three, prevent Yazoo from being a meldodramatic, acting-charming ass(Hate him so much).
Four, travel the world a bit more in familiar places like Rocket Town and Wutai to visit other protagonists(more screen time for Yuffie, Nanaki, Cid, Barret and Reeve).
Five, flashbacks of Cloud's adventures with his friends.
Six, show a scene where Tseng and Elena make their escape and are found by Vincent who does his best to tend to their wounds.
Seven, the two said Turks reuighting with Reno and Rude who get Tseng's phone call in Bone Village.
And eight, have one of the voulenteers who helped Reno built the monument cry out to Bahamut-SIN, "Hey, I worked hard on that!" while not having been knocked out.
imho I would cut back on a LOT of what happened in the film itself, and instead devote more time to the On the Way to a Smile content. I feel like the novellas are the real meat of the story, yet they are delegated to short stories that not everyone even knows exist or even has access to. I want to see what each member of the cast goes through during that time period.
Moreover, I want to see the entirety of Cloud's struggle, going from optimistic that his new life would be happy now that the day has been saved all the way to succumbing to his PTSD and how he works to overcome that. I think what we are given of Cloud in Case of Tifa was pretty great. I want a movie that centers around that.
I'm not sure if I would keep Geostigma or not. Maybe, it doesn't really bother me. However, I might make some changes to how it works and what causes it. It never seemed to really jive with me.
I would definitely keep Denzel, though. I actually really appreciated the fact that he was a kid who lived above the plate. The OG put so much emphasis on the slums that Denzel's origins serve as a nice juxtaposition.
Good lord where to begin. Well first of all I would have Barret raise Marlene, for better or for worse, and the plot largely revolve around the WRO and the search for clean energy (aka not OY-ULL FEEEEELDS). We can keep Cloud as a courier, that's actually not a bad fate for him. Tifa would probably go with him, teaching children martial arts around the world (like her master before her). They wouldn't use a pollution-heavy motorcycle, they would ride chocobos. Cloud's would be gold, and Tifa's could be teal, pink, or white. A reference to things we could and could not accomplish in the OG, adding a sense of completion and expansion onto the sequel.
Well that's nice but we don't really have a movie there. The only remnant of the Shinra corporation is Palmer, and I can't see him masterminding a villain's plot. Bringing back Sephiroth or Jenova seems stupid, redundant, and removes the sense of accomplishment from the OG's finale.
What would be interesting would be to see the PCs turn against each other, for instance if the WRO quickly proved to be no better than Shinra, and suddenly Cloud is forced to take a position against Reeve -- to kill him if he must. Or if in the power vacuum left by Shinra's decline, Wutai threatens to conquer the world, aided by the party's mastered materia (stolen by Yuffie, as she promised in the OG).
Or if the remaining Weapons (make some new ones sure, Onyx Weapon and Peridot Weapon, but make them actual Weapons not super-omega-space-Weapon) continued to hunt and destroy all humankind for their past actions against the Planet, and in two years all the locations are ghost towns (we get to see a couple of them! Abandoned Kalm, abandoned Wutai). People now live in small bands between cities or in hidden strongholds. It's up to the WRO to create a way to communicate with the Weapons and come to a peaceful resolution, or else have a bombastic climax where people in Proud Clods fight weapons Evangelion style. Or the party could just go to town on it like they did the unusually autonomous Summon Monster from AC.
^I am liking this thought experiment. The heroes are in a proactive position, and nobody needs to rehash the drama from their previous character arcs. They're just dealing with the few loose ends. Some conflict could arise when a peaceful resolution with Weapon seems too difficult (Nanaki would want to protect both Weapon and humanity) or if the WRO's rival was very pro violent. It's a theme that works with FFVII's world (it's actually starting to sound a bit like The Spirits Within so maybe I should quit now..)
Edit: but
Act I: We're introduced to a small community of cave dwelling people, and we learn that they used to live in a town called Kalm, but that it wasn't safe to live on the surface any more. Cloud and Tifa arrive, brave heroes who live on the surface! Cloud delivers some packages and supplies, and Tifa trains the children. One of them, an orphan named Denzel, asks if Tifa has ever defeated a Weapon. Tifa says yes. The kid, emboldened, leaves in the night to reclaim his home from the Weapon. Cloud and Tifa rush out to find him, and have to deal with a Weapon we've never seen before. They're ill-equipped and the fight goes south, until the old gang comes to their rescue. A few of them, let's say Barret, Cid, Vincent, and Yuffie. This will be maybe a minute-long version of the fight with Bahamut-SIN, but bigger monster, and in Kalm Town, not... some new location.
Act II: Cloud, Tifa, and Denzel are brought to Junon on Cid's new ship. Junon is the only city still liveable, because of its defenses. The WRO council is in turmoil. Barret is leading the "let's kick its ass!" side of things, while Reeve and Nanaki, Barret's former allies against Shinra, are campaigning for a more peaceful solution. The party is reunited, but more apart than ever. Cloud refuses to take a side, which doesn't do him any favours. Then, he has some sort of revelation while thinking about Aeris: The secret to communicating with the Planet lies in the white materia! He manages to wrangle the old crew and they go north to the forgotten capital. Barret leaves Marlene with Denzel in Junon.
Act III: The party heads to the bottom of the lake to claim the white materia. It's a race against the clock, because Weapon is attacking Junon and the city's defenses can't hold forever. Once they claim the white materia, they have to somehow use it. Cloud speaks to the Planet in a very trippy sequence that gives him a scene with Aeris in a field of endless flowers, a scene that has more than two lines and shows more than their chins. He succeeds and Weapon returns to the Planet's core, knowing that humanity is no longer a threat. Celebrations, and credits.
You know the On The Way To A Smile novellas? I would make it that instead of The Animatrix presents Dragonball Z VII: Curse of the Naruto Kenshin Rangers.
But do they even know that fossil fuels are bad? Maybe AC/C could be about Barrett inadvertently becoming the new Shinra threatening to kill the planet by choking it to death instead of burning up its soul. Then everyone could fall into despair as they realise there's no such thing as clean, cheap, easy energy, and they go back to living by candlelight and ploughing the soil with chocobo-power. And Tifa becomes a professional monster-hunter instead of a professional mother and long-suffering quasi-girlfriend.
Ignoring the compilation content (my apologies, Phantom), I really like Mr. Ite's ideas . Except, I'd rather have a combination of elements from both the Wutai take-over and Weapons apocalypse concepts.
Wutai have the best infrastructure to kill the remaining Weapons (popping up everywhere like Evangelion angels ), but Wutai becomes power mad themselves, wanting to dominate the world at the same time; a world quickly turning to ruin due to the raging Weapons. Yuffie becomes a tragic villain, siding with her nation, but might come good in the end... or is this movie's Aerith
ie: she dies
.
The rest of the OG characters are a part of a resistance force (WRO or whatever, name not important), and Barret leads efforts to seek out an environmentally friendly power source. At this point, their secret base is discovered by Wutai, who send all their military at them. The planet recognises the WRO as a force for good at a dramatic moment when all hope seems lost (of course), and has the Weapons obliterate Wutai's military. The OG protagonists finish the job (with up-and-comers, Marlene and Denzel), taking out Wutai's powerful leaders, who might have been working on some sinister shit foreshadowed throughout the movie, becoming god-like or whatever.
Nothing said so far makes for a good antagonist though, so how about... make Denzel protagonist, and he maybe develops strong feelings for Yuffie, and so seeing her slide into evilness before going on to die gives him reason to attack the antagonist of this movie: Godo Kisaragi... in "Safer" form! (or not). I think it'd be good to explore the mythology of Godo's transformation powers (I don't recall the explanation in the OG), which might expand the FFVII universe's mythology itself.
Fossil fuels couldn't kill the planet, though. At least not in the literal sense that mako would -- i.e. killing the inhabitable sphere itself, and leaving it to crumble to dust in space.
At most, overuse might render the sphere uninhabitable for humans after many generations, but there would probably still be flora and fauna that would live on even then, as would be the case on our world. Even if they were all undersea lifeforms, the planet itself would be able to prosper.
I'm not even sure the planet would necessarily have to become uninhabitable for humans, though. The lack of polar ice caps makes for a huge variation in variables in the first place, and materia of some kind could likely solve some habitation concerns without creating new ones, provided it wasn't overused in turn.
I do think there is some potential in the idea of Barret (or whoever) determining that fossil fuels aren't humanity's salvation either, but it may also be too much to pull oil into the spotlight to the same degree as the concept that was an allegory for oil (mako).
The thing is that mako energy is discovered around the time coal is the major power source. Going by the way real-world energy was developed, fossil fuels are next on the list. There's not good reason for it not to be what everyone turns to for power once the entire electrical infrastructure become unusable practically overnight. It's almost like a 1st world country has gone back to being a 3rd world country as far as infrastructure goes; who cares what the next power source is as long as there is a power source. They can figure out "what's best for the Planet" later.
Also, the FFVII world's ecology is so different from our own, I wouldn't automatically discount fossil fuels as being inherently "bad" for The Planet. I'm still wondering how oil could even develop on a world where all living things are supposed to eventually go back to being mako.
As it is, the oil/energy business automatically being bad is so boring. It's literally done everywhere. We don't need a re-hash of the "energy companies are evil" plot as that's exactly what we got in the original FFVII.
Act I: We're introduced to a small community of cave dwelling people, and we learn that they used to live in a town called Kalm, but that it wasn't safe to live on the surface any more. Cloud and Tifa arrive, brave heroes who live on the surface! Cloud delivers some packages and supplies, and Tifa trains the children. One of them, an orphan named Denzel, asks if Tifa has ever defeated a Weapon. Tifa says yes. The kid, emboldened, leaves in the night to reclaim his home from the Weapon. Cloud and Tifa rush out to find him, and have to deal with a Weapon we've never seen before. They're ill-equipped and the fight goes south, until the old gang comes to their rescue. A few of them, let's say Barret, Cid, Vincent, and Yuffie. This will be maybe a minute-long version of the fight with Bahamut-SIN, but bigger monster, and in Kalm Town, not... some new location.
Act II: Cloud, Tifa, and Denzel are brought to Junon on Cid's new ship. Junon is the only city still liveable, because of its defenses. The WRO council is in turmoil. Barret is leading the "let's kick its ass!" side of things, while Reeve and Nanaki, Barret's former allies against Shinra, are campaigning for a more peaceful solution. The party is reunited, but more apart than ever. Cloud refuses to take a side, which doesn't do him any favours. Then, he has some sort of revelation while thinking about Aeris: The secret to communicating with the Planet lies in the white materia! He manages to wrangle the old crew and they go north to the forgotten capital. Barret leaves Marlene with Denzel in Junon.
Act III: The party heads to the bottom of the lake to claim the white materia. It's a race against the clock, because Weapon is attacking Junon and the city's defenses can't hold forever. Once they claim the white materia, they have to somehow use it. Cloud speaks to the Planet in a very trippy sequence that gives him a scene with Aeris in a field of endless flowers, a scene that has more than two lines and shows more than their chins. He succeeds and Weapon returns to the Planet's core, knowing that humanity is no longer a threat. Celebrations, and credits.
This is a cool sounding story, I will agree, and it would be a heck of a thing to see happen. But to be honest... it feels very different still from the original game in some way. Maybe it's because there's no Shinra Corp. remnants and nothing to do with Sephiroth and all that (and my vision could also be 'discolored' by the rest of the Compilation by now). Not saying different is bad, but for all it's odd and corny moments, I still rather liked AC/C's plot. I think there's several things that could be done to it to make it better, but I wouldn't want to change every single thing about it.
Things I would keep is the setting, I think Edge is a very plausible city to pop up for those who lived in Midgar after Midgar became so damaged by Meteor. I mean think about it, Midgar is the largest city in the world, thousands (possibly millions) of people living there when everything goes to hell. Where are they going to go? Travel in droves to Junon and the other much smaller cities and towns, when there's monsters and whatnot roaming the wilds and there's no airships and stuff to use? I mean Shinra had only 3 helicopters survive the events, right? How're they going to bypass the Midgar Zolom, eh? Breed chocobos for the next few years?
So what's the best thing to do? Well they can start a new life right there, without traveling, they just have to use some hard labor to build a new city. And hey, look at all that material right there in Midgar.
I might write more of my ideas down in a little bit, I dunno.
Fossil fuels couldn't kill the planet, though. At least not in the literal sense that mako would -- i.e. killing the inhabitable sphere itself, and leaving it to crumble to dust in space.
At most, overuse might render the sphere uninhabitable for humans after many generations, but there would probably still be flora and fauna that would live on even then, as would be the case on our world. Even if they were all undersea lifeforms, the planet itself would be able to prosper.
I'm not even sure the planet would necessarily have to become uninhabitable for humans, though. The lack of polar ice caps makes for a huge variation in variables in the first place, and materia of some kind could likely solve some habitation concerns without creating new ones, provided it wasn't overused in turn.
I do think there is some potential in the idea of Barret (or whoever) determining that fossil fuels aren't humanity's salvation either, but it may also be too much to pull oil into the spotlight to the same degree as the concept that was an allegory for oil (mako).
The thing is that mako energy is discovered around the time coal is the major power source. Going by the way real-world energy was developed, fossil fuels are next on the list. There's not good reason for it not to be what everyone turns to for power once the entire electrical infrastructure become unusable practically overnight. It's almost like a 1st world country has gone back to being a 3rd world country as far as infrastructure goes; who cares what the next power source is as long as there is a power source. They can figure out "what's best for the Planet" later.
Also, the FFVII world's ecology is so different from our own, I wouldn't automatically discount fossil fuels as being inherently "bad" for The Planet. I'm still wondering how oil could even develop on a world where all living things are supposed to eventually go back to being mako.
As it is, the oil/energy business automatically being bad is so boring. It's literally done everywhere. We don't need a re-hash of the "energy companies are evil" plot as that's exactly what we got in the original FFVII.
Thank you both so much for saying this about the 'they should develop clean energy, hello, not oil!' comments. I was going to say something along these very lines.
Tired trope is tired because people in the real world still haven't learned our lesson about fossil fuel. So, no, I will never find that story element "boring."
The only rewrite that immediately comes to mind is changing the way Tifa reacts to picking up the phone and hearing Reno's voice. Don't have her smile. Choose from a variety of expressions, but nothing happy. Reno pushed the button that caused the fall of the Sector 7 plate. People she knew died as a direct result of this action. A place she called "home" was destroyed. I'm not saying for Tifa to react with hate and disgust, not at all. There is merit in Tifa moving on from her "I hate Shinra" attitude seen in the original game, but Tifa's reaction to Reno's voice still feels off. More off to me than any other part of the movie. Not kidding.
Re-release Advent Children Complete with the edit suggested above and I'd happily buy that copy of the movie even though I already own the one released in 2009.
EDIT: Oh, technically not a rewrite but please put some dirt on Tifa's shoes.
Tired trope is tired because people in the real world still haven't learned our lesson about fossil fuel. So, no, I will never find that story element "boring."
I still think there's something to be said for it being ill-fitting to retread the same story beats with the literal real-world topic that previously was explored via allegory.
I agree that oil shouldn't be part of the story. If it *were* to be included, however, (and it IS) it should be treated as the same level of threat as its allegorical cousin (mako) or else there would be no point for the cautionary tale of FFVII's energy crisis in the first place.
The applause of Fossil Fuels in AC is maybe the most unforgivable oversight for me, for that reason.
As Obsidian/Engineer said though, there is no plausible reason for them to go for anything other than oil. People are usually at the Compilation's throat for doing implausible things for the sake of some other purpose - coolness, angst, whatever. How is that different from being implausible for the sake of a message?
And oil is not an equal threat. Using all the Lifestream, we're shown, literally causes the planet to crumble. Overusing oil will make it less hospitable after awhile.
Still, I get your point, but I don't see how Advent Children praised it anyway. Barret mentioned it once. On the Way to Smile had Cid working on an oil-powered airship, but by Dirge of Cerberus the Shera's running on the ol' "mysterious ancient power source" trope, which is kinda what you're looking for, right?
Cosmo Canyon already has wind power and would likely also have solar power. Cue sudden increase in research to make those more effective for widespread use. Heck, they could probably figure out a way to get renewable energy out of materia without draining the Planet like mako does. We haven't even seen them so much as try hydroelectricity.
There's a big difference size-wise between powering a small settlement with wind/solar power verses trying to power a city the size of New York with wind power. Nevermind trying to power a country only with wind/solar power without coal/oil to back it up. Even today we still aren't capable of doing that. Going from no energy infrastructure in a modern society to only wind/solar would take a really, really long time.
Given what the state of the world is after Metorfall, social stability is way more important then scientific research which means going back to something everyone knows works, not something that might work. And everyone in the FFVII world knows coal/oil works.
And again, who knows what role oil plays in the FFVII ecology. Given what The Planet does when it's actually being threatened, I'd expect it to be readily apparent if it was bad for the The Planet.
If anything, Barret going out of his way to provide another working energy source for people is his ultimate "penance" giving that he got the ball rolling that destroyed their previous energy source and actually knows about how energy was produced at a large scale before mako was an energy source.
I'd just like to point out that Jenova was a "mysterious ancient thing" when it was found. Given the FFVII's world's track record of "mysterious ancient things" being the cause of a lot of problems, I'm really questioning the wisdom of using "black box" technology without figuring out what it is first. That's exactly the sort of thing that led to Jenova after all...
Agree on the Tifa reaction. Honestly, I think that was just bad direction, the actress saw a laugh in the script and assumed it was an 'old friend' laugh, where it was written as a bitter one.
Y'know, I don't think Mako was actually an allegory for fossil fuels. They are Mako reactors, not Mako refineries, and I don't think that's a coincidence. Exposure causes mutations, in wildlife, and people. It was originally produced for military purposes, and can create super destructive weapons. Giant monsters attacking due to nuclear weapons is a trope, and it's a Japanese game, the country that has most borne the brunt of nuclear weapons.
Wind/solar power etc involves a huge commitment of time and resources to build the infrastructure, which the post Meteor world is in no shape to do. Oil and coal really is the best next step, short of letting people die because you can't keep the hospitals etc running, especially. And the established supernatural power sources hurt the Planet. Maybe if AC was set twenty or thirty years later.
Rewrites: Geostigma really is the Planet trying to purge the world of threats. Kadaj is the leader of a faction of a growing group of people of the view 'What has the Planet ever done for us? Its solution was unleashing a bunch of giant monsters that killed lots of people but did absolutely nothing to eliminate the real threat, we saved it's life and now it's still trying to kill us!' Sephiroth is appearing to him the same way Aerith is to Cloud until the endgame, pushing a 'Screw this planet! Let's find a new home! viewpoint. Aerith convinces or threatens the planet into rescinding Geostigma, while Cloud and the rest deal with Sephiroth.
Personally, I've not really been fond of the re-appearance of Sephiroth (or his remnants) in AC/C: the OG's ending should have been the definite end of him, so in my opinion AC/C should have been about something else. But: it's always difficult to build an interesting story if there's no conflict, or main antagonist. The world has been saved, you can't top that!
Regarding the struggle to find new energy sources, I would agree with what the Engineer mentioned. Although, if I think carefully, given that the population of the entire Planet seems fairly small (or at least, much less densely populated than Earth), you could probably meet the worldwide energy demand by making huge hydro-electric dams on the crater caused by the Weapons' awakening. Hydro-electricity is almost as old as coal power generation, it doesn't really take hugely advanced technology to do that beyond a large-scale construction.
Y'know, I don't think Mako was actually an allegory for fossil fuels. They are Mako reactors, not Mako refineries, and I don't think that's a coincidence. Exposure causes mutations, in wildlife, and people. It was originally produced for military purposes, and can create super destructive weapons. Giant monsters attacking due to nuclear weapons is a trope, and it's a Japanese game, the country that has most borne the brunt of nuclear weapons.
Wind/solar power etc involves a huge commitment of time and resources to build the infrastructure, which the post Meteor world is in no shape to do. Oil and coal really is the best next step, short of letting people die because you can't keep the hospitals etc running, especially. And the established supernatural power sources hurt the Planet. Maybe if AC was set twenty or thirty years later.
Rewrites: Geostigma really is the Planet trying to purge the world of threats. Kadaj is the leader of a faction of a growing group of people of the view 'What has the Planet ever done for us? Its solution was unleashing a bunch of giant monsters that killed lots of people but did absolutely nothing to eliminate the real threat, we saved it's life and now it's still trying to kill us!' Sephiroth is appearing to him the same way Aerith is to Cloud until the endgame, pushing a 'Screw this planet! Let's find a new home! viewpoint. Aerith convinces or threatens the planet into rescinding Geostigma, while Cloud and the rest deal with Sephiroth.
They could always build Wind/Water reactors and have them flow like fountains and waterfalls without sucking up the water supply at the same time, if you know what I mean.
As for your version of a re-write, well...don't think I agree on that one, unfortunately. Maybe they shoud've kept Kilimister from the Case of ShinRa alive, have him escape after the dude Rufus saved tried to kill him(via Rufus's permission, because I understand why he wanted to hide Jenova from the world to prevent history from repeating itself) and then form a group of other surviving scientests to begin a new project as well as tricking gullible people into fighting to gain Jenova as well as kidnap people with Geostigma for experiments, which include Denzel and forcing Cloud and his friends into the mess all over again.
Then again, that sounds like another version of Dirge of Cerberus, right? But at least it wouldn't involve Sephiroth.
Personally, I've not really been fond of the re-appearance of Sephiroth (or his remnants) in AC/C: the OG's ending should have been the definite end of him, so in my opinion AC/C should have been about something else. But: it's always difficult to build an interesting story if there's no conflict, or main antagonist. The world has been saved, you can't top that!
Regarding the struggle to find new energy sources, I would agree with what the Engineer mentioned. Although, if I think carefully, given that the population of the entire Planet seems fairly small (or at least, much less densely populated than Earth), you could probably meet the worldwide energy demand by making huge hydro-electric dams on the crater caused by the Weapons' awakening. Hydro-electricity is almost as old as coal power generation, it doesn't really take hugely advanced technology to do that beyond a large-scale construction.
), but Wutai becomes power mad themselves, wanting to dominate the world at the same time; a world quickly turning to ruin due to the raging Weapons. Yuffie becomes a tragic villain, siding with her nation, but might come good in the end... or is this movie's Aerith
How're they going to bypass the Midgar Zolom, eh? Breed chocobos for the next few years? 
