Final Fantasy VII Casting Call
Posted by SugarRay on October 05, 2005

Ever sit around with too much time on your hands and make believe that you were something way cooler than even you think you are? I do that a lot. Sometimes I like to pretend that I'm a movie director and fix some of the really crappy movies I've seen. Like The Phantom Menace. I would have changed, well, pretty much everything about that movie. I could probably write an entire book about better ideas than what comprised that piece of garbage. I could even leave out all the Jake Lloyd, Natalie Portman, Jar Jar Binks, and George Lucas death scenes, and the book would still probably top nine hundred pages.

Another movie like that is the very disappointing and supremely boring Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. This film faced the same major problems that The Mario Bros. Movie faced. Besides it being horribly written and directed, it took the name of a property dear to many people's hearts for a number reasons, and then left out every component that distinguished it as that property. FFTSW had no swords, no magic or mages, no moogles, no chocobos, no castles, no frickin' airships, and no spikey haired dudes summoning gigantic mythic creatures out of thin air to unleash death and destruction on the bad guys.

I think I fell asleep more times during that movie than I did during Hidalgo.

So the other day in the message boards there was a challenge to cast a live action version of Final Fantasy VII, arguably the best game in the series, and I was like "YES! Finally an excuse to flesh out all my ideas to make a decent Final Fantasy movie! It's not like I've got anything else goin' on!"

In addition to casting director, I am also going to assume the role of producer and director. I may as well assume the role of executive producer, too, so I can walk onto the set when the film is like halfway done and bother the director with all kinds of bad ideas to pander to a specific market. I, being the director, would listen to all my annoying, pointless ideas that would potentially ruin the film, act interested and say things like "I guess we could work that in," and then when I leave I roll my eyes and get back to actually making a good film.

So, here are my ideas for making the FF7 film.

For those of you who don't know (hang your head in shame!) this is FF7 in a nutshell: Cloud, a blond spikey haired guy with a huge sword, leaves SOLDIER, a military group under control of the evil SHIN-RA corporation and joins AVALANCHE, an enviornmental vigilante group, and eventually ends up stopping a god-like being named Sephiroth from summoning a gigantic meteor to destroy the world. Along the way he picks up several colorful characters and races and breeds chicken horses. Great fun!

Alrighty, on with the cast.

Cloud: Josh Holloway

My original idea was to cast a complete unknown in this role, because talented unknowns are usually the best in leading roles like these. Notice I said talented unknowns. We already discussed The Phantom Menace. But then I remembered being forced by my sisters to watch this show called "Lost." That show has a lot of great actors and characters, and one of the best is the jerk of the island named Sawyer. Josh Holloway does a great job of making you love to hate his character. So I'm like "Hey, Cloud is a jerk, Sawyer is a jerk. It's a perfect match!"

Barrett: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson

The Rock may as well do this film. It's not like he's busy wrestling or anything, so I'm sure he can find the time to do this movie.

I think he's a decent actor, although some of his films left a lot to be desired. For example, in Walking Tall, Rocky knew his character and executed what he wanted to do with it pretty well, but the story and dialogue were pretty mediorce, which wasn't his fault. So instead of Walking Tall being an outstanding movie, which it had the potential to be, it was merely average. In Be Cool, Rocky stole the show. He was the funniest person in that film. The only problem with that movie was that, well, everybody hated it.

I would only give The Rock one directing instruction. "Dwayne, ol' Pal," I'd say to him every morning, putting my arm around him. "When you read your dialogue, I want you to do the weirdest Mr. T immitation you can come up with."

I pity da fool who does weird immitations of da T!

Tifa: Amy Jo Johnson

Ah, Amy Jo. I've had a crush on her since I was 13 years old and she was the Pink Ranger.

I am the CUTEST ninja EVER! Ha ha!
Do I get any pom poms?

Since then, however, her career has taken some weird turns.

Her during her glam rock, creepy eye makeup days

But, like the Rock, when Amy Jo is cast correctly she is a decent actor. She already knows how to pretend to fight from her MMPR days, so she'd have that going on for her in the role of Tifa, the party's monk.

Also, I would use the opportunity to woo her into making out with me, subsequently becoming my wife and having my baby.

Aeris: Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson is a little cutey! She was so frickin' adorable in The Island you couldn't help but really like her. She possesses the wholesome girl next door quality that is needed in the role of Aeris (or Aerith, if you want to go by the Kingdom Hearts script.) Dye her hair brown, slap her in a pink and red dress and hiking boots and she is the embodiment of the flower girl from the slums.

It's a shame she has to die, though. I don't care who you are, if you didn't cry when Cloud laid Aeris in the water after being shishkabobed by Sephiroth, you should get a chest x-ray to see if you have a heart!

I still get teary eyed thinking about this... sniffle...

Voice of Red XIII: Christopher Lloyd

The Talking Dog part would have to be a computer animated, so why not get the most talented character actor in the history of Hollywood to the voice?

I'll tell you what, I would hire Weta, the same people that Peter Jackson hired to animate Gollum to animate Red XIII. I would not go anywhere near Industrial Light and Magic, because in the last two Star Wars movies you could tell that Yoda and other CGIs were, in fact, cartoons. You could tell that they were super imposed into the scenes, whereas in Lord of the Rings, while you knew that Gollum was not real, he looked very real. It was believable. That's an important aspect for any film that uses CGIs, and I wouldn't risk dropping the ball on this important role.

That's pretty much all I have for that one.

Cid: Kiefer Sutherland

If you can think of a better real life stand in for Cid Highwind, the chain smoking, bitter astronaut, than the guy who plays Jack Bauer, I'd like to hear it. Then when I'd heard it, I'd call you lots of belittling names. C'mon now!

Who is the man in Visalia?!
Oh... wait...
Who is the man in Neibelheim?!

Vincent: Jason Isaacs

Jason Isaacs is about the coolest british accent, I mean british actor you will find out there. He's played some pretty colorful characters, including an evil British officer during the Revolutionary War and Captain Hook. He could bring his awesome accent into the mysterious role of the pistol slinging vampire.

Oh yeah! Someone should give me a frickin' degree for all my awesome ideas!

Yuffie: Sung Hi Lee

This role isn't very important, but it's fun to have around. Everybody loves unnecessary eye candy.

Ninjatastic!

Sephirioth: Christopher Lambert

In the video games, Sephiroth looks very womanly, but at the same time he is quite intimidating. To me, I think it would be better if he had more manly qualities. I say just take what Christopher Lambert did as Rayden in Mortal Kombat and make it eeeevil.

For the other important roles, like President Rufus, The Turks, and others I would dish out to those talented unknowns I was talking about before.

An important part of any film is the score. The music in the game is fantastic, but it just wouldn't fit a major motion picture. What I would do is hook up Nobuo Uematsu with the best composer of our time, John Williams. I'm pretty sure if you lock those two in a room I'm pretty sure you'd get some kick butt stuff.

Other details: To properly document and give justice to the entire FF7 story, you couldn't do it in just a couple of hours. This project would either have to be a three hour film, like any of the LOTR films, or a made for TV mini series like Band of Brothers or Masada.

And that's what I would work with. Needless to say the movie would be a big hit, and the tabloids would follow me and Amy Jo for the rest of our lives. Everybody wins!

Kupo!