Thoughts on Denzel After rewatching ACC

[wayfarer]

This is more of a complaint than anything, but the way they introduced Denzel in Advent Children is just so silly and unnecessary. I went into Advent Children however many years ago a Final Fantasy virgin, having no familiarity with it at all, save for a subconscious image in my head of FFVII that was just inherent in my 90s upbringing-- anyway, introducing Denzel as a character that's already a part of Cloud and Tifa's family is so fucking convoluted and undermines the real impact of the character. It doesn't make him special, he's already been living there for however long. We don't get to meet him, we take his presence for granted-- me especially! Because I had just assumed he had ALREADY been established in some way in the FFVII universe. Then Complete tried to rectify it by throwing in the new scene where it explains how Denzel came into the care of Cloud and Tifa in the first place, but really, why instead of having his guardianship under Cloud and Tifa being ambiguous back story, introduce him in the present tense of the story? It just seems so strange and overly confusing. It just all seemed very pointless to me rewatching it. I would've traded in meaningful scenes of Denzel exhibition for a lot of the other stuff in that movie.

 

[Sprites]

Have you read On the way to a smile: Case of Denzel? Because it pretty much covered everything about him leading up to Cloud and Tifa taking him in by the time they released ACC.

 

[Octo]

Basically SE think its totally fine to make a film and then have pertinent plot points that make things make sense (kind of!) detailed in Japanese only novellas. Because they are shitheads.

I think its because if they concentrated on the plot too hard, they wouldn't be able to fill it full of pretty scenes of awesome fights and various other stupid set pieces.

Yeah, you picked a scab there

 

[Makoeyes987]

Case of Denzel was released in english and bundled with the DVD movie when first released.

And ACC had his Case of Denzel OVA bundled with the Blu-Ray movie too. It's on the same disc. If you'd have watched it, you'd have seen the story of Denzel and its lead up to ACC.

 

[Sprites]

That's true actually, I didn't know wtf was going on with Denzel either when he first came on the scene with the original AC because Case of Denzel hadn't been released yet and there was no back story for him, he was just there and you were to assume he was some random orphan they took off the streets.

Only thing is, which is what I was getting at in my first post is that by the time they released ACC they'd also released a lot of the On the way to a Smile Novellas so we got a lot more backstory into characters like Denzel and what everyone had been doing in the past two years, so we didn't need to question how they came into it, heck we even got one on how Rufus survived and the crap he went through too.

So once ACC was released those stories where there so you still weren't questioning it and that scene in ACC with Cloud finding Denzel made so much more sense then than if they'd slotted it in AC.

Edit: Just remembered that Case of Denzel WAS released with ACC thanks to Mako so yeah there really is no excuse not to know how Denzel became integrated in ACC

 

[Makoeyes987]

Actually, if I remember correctly, the first copies of AC were just standalone DVD movies that were like 15-20 bucks. OTWTAS only got official translations after that because in Japan, they were released concurrently on the web and the US market just wanted to get the movie out ASAP after KH2. Then they released the complete collection of it that had all the OTWTAS novellas, and other goodies which was like 25-30 dollars.

But by the time ACC was released Denzel's backstory and history were pretty known and even made into an anime for easy understanding. So it's actually pretty connected.

 

[Sprites]

If anything I'd say Denzel was focused on pretty heavily once the novellas came out, if anything he's got more screentime and focus time than some of the other characters have.

 

[Octo]

^which is a travesty in itself :p

The only point of Denzel that I can think of is to connect Cloud and Tifa (or Aerith if you swing that way) in a mother/father relationship. Marlene couldn't perform that function because of Barret.

Anyway I retract my earlier statement...partially. They still haven't officially translated all of the novellas have they? So they're still shitheads, and they're also shitheads because they knew they could make more money through Complete...instead of just releasing a finished film in the first place.

 

[Tetsujin]

They still haven't officially translated all of the novellas have they?

Not in English, at least.

 

[Octo]

Not in English, at least.

Reite nicht so darauf herum!

did that make sense?

 

[Tetsujin]

A+

 

[Octo]

Hooray for Google translate.....hey if its that fucking good why are we waiting for official translations?!

 

[Max Payne]

Denzel is just a wholly unnecessary and annoying addition to the cast.

 

[Edley]

I honestly think Dacon would kick Denzel in front of a bus if he had the chance. But yeah I kinda got that douchey feeling with Denzel similar to when they introduced Rick and Evy's towheaded little bastard in The Mummy Returns. I'd be fine if he was moved to the far background for any future titles.

 

[wayfarer]

I am well aware of the existence of Case of Denzel. I have actually read nearly every OTWTS novella, either translated or not, I actually own the booklet containing Case of Barrett and Tifa in English as well, I own Advent Children Complete, I've seen Case of Denzel. What I'm saying is, the storytellers drop you down in the middle of the action with no clue as to who in the hell this mopey kid is, despite his relevance to plot, character motivation, and symbolism.

Sure, they squeezed in an expository scene in ACC, but wouldn't it have been so much easier if it started off from the beginning:
"who's this boy?"
"Oh he's Denzel, he's an orphan."
"Nice to meet you, wait-- why do I care?"
"because he has geostigma too!"
"Aww shucks. I can't fix my own problems, but maybe I can help this kid. Stay with my girlfriend (even though i ain't bangin) while I go out and have some ridiculous swordfights. Hey Denzel have you ever seen anyone get shot directly in the face and survive cuz youre about to!"

All I'm saying is that they made things more convoluted than they need to be. All the flashbacks and flashforwards in ACC really fuck with the pace. Seriously, all a fresh viewer gets in the first 20 minutes is rooftop scene with two people we don't know (even if you've played FFVII because Rufus is still cloaked), what seems like an hoursworth of static helicopter footage, and a good 5 minutes of exposition that we're already familiar with, which remains my favorite section of the movie. Then I'm dropped into sympathize with a kid who I'm stuck with the rest of the movie who I have NO idea who he is or how he got there, yet I'm supposed to believe he's important and Cloud and Tifa actually care about him.

I know this can go nowhere, but as long as other people share my pain I'll be satisfied.

 

[Tetsujin]

I actually agree.

AC makes it pretty clear that these guys are simply not movie makers. They have no idea how to squeeze a decent plot into 90 - 120 minutes, or about pacing etc.

They throw shit at you that just makes you wonder "who are these guys, what's going on" and basically expect you to read all the other supplemental material to make sense out of anything.

 

[looneymoon]

If my thanks didn't get the message across - I agree with every word you have uttered.

 

[Unlucky]

I can't really say that I like the addition of Denzel to the cast but it was Episode Denzel which made me like him a teeny-weeny bit, not ACC.

 

[Xebiahan]

Really wanna say something but my English is also very shitty
Just Denzel is someone who bears a lot but meet the one(actually the three people LOL) in right time.
So he is actually a lucky boy...... compared with Shelke(why here's Shelke here)

 

[Roger]

Really wanna say something but my English is also very shitty
Just Denzel is someone who bears a lot but meet the one(actually the three people LOL) in right time.
So he is actually a lucky boy...... compared with Shelke(why here's Shelke here)

The right time would have been about 5 dead parental figures ago. Episode of Denzel is daark.

 

[Shimi]

Call me crazy, but I liked watching Denzel swing that stupid pipe round in circles in ACC. The kid also gives Marine someone to love and care for thats about the same age. And when you think about it, half of the struggle is about cloud's fear of failing to save the ones he loves. Namely his fear of failing to save denzel just as he failed to save aerith before.