Aki Ross
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Final Fantasy III |
Dr. Aki Ross is a fictional character in the movie Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, voiced by Chinese actress Ming-Na Wen. She was expected to be the first photorealistic computer-generated "actress" to appear in multiple movies in different roles.[1]
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[edit] Creation and voice-acting
Aki Ross was created by Square Pictures under Square solely for the purpose of use in their debut film The Spirits Within. Square, which had already been known for its work in computer 3D rendering, especially in the sphere of creating lifelike humans and environments (such as in their bestselling Final Fantasy series of games), set about to create their most detailed and realistic human yet.
The model used for Aki is of high detail: each of her 60,000 hairs was separately and fully animated and rendered,[2] at a render farm consisting of 960 Pentium III-933MHz workstations that took 1.5 hours to render each frame. The Aki model is estimated to be made up of around 400,000 polygons, as are the other main characters of the movie.[3]
Actress Ming-Na says she feels like she "has given birth with [her] voice to a character" and that it was a little "eerie".[2] She added that it was difficult to work without the presence and spontaneity of real actors; however, she gradually accustomed herself to this feeling, and noted that the voice-acting work did not take much time, as she would just go into the studio "once or twice a month for about four months" with no need for make-up and costuming sessions. She continued to play in the television series ER during the works on Final Fantasy.[4]
[edit] Characteristics
Dr. Ross is a scientist in the fictional post-apocalyptic mid-21st century who has been infected by a race of aliens called Phantoms, that landed on Earth and are destroying all life. Even though she is dying because of her experience with the aliens, she now has the ability to link herself to their secret of survival, through strange recurring dreams, and how she can use it to help the remnants of humanity fight the xenomorphic parasites who seem to be sucking the souls out of the surviving population.
She has now allied herself with the "Deep Eyes Squad," a specialist troop of soldiers who are determined to eradicate the alien menace once and for all. Aki is charged with finding the eight special spirits which are supposed to help save the planet. She is also falling in love with the Deep Eyes Squad's captain, Gray Edwards. But she must stay true to her convictions and work out the strange ominous dreams that haunt her in her quest that will hopefully liberate Earth and save her own doomed existence.
Ultimately, Gray sacrifices himself when the spirit infecting Aki turns out to be the eighth spirit required to neutralize the alien ghosts.
[edit] Reception
Aki's appearance has been received positively by critics.[5] The rendering of Aki's hair has also been praised by critics as highly realistic.[6]
Aki has been qualified as an It Girl by Entertainment Weekly.[7] Aki was voted to be one of the sexiest women ever by Maxim and its readers, becoming the first fictional woman to ever make the list and appear on the cover.[8] There was also an internally available, anatomically correct nude model of Aki Ross that Square Pictures used to more accurately calculate the behavior of clothes on Aki's body, that has since been leaked.[citation needed]
Action figures of Aki Ross has been produced by Palisades.[9] It was originally intended by Sakaguchi that Aki might reappear in other movies in totally unrelated roles, as a real actress would do.[1] However, the idea was later scrapped and Aki Ross has so far not reappeared in any film or computer game, despite Ming-Na being willing to continuing in the role if she were asked to.[4] Nevertheless, Aki does make an appearance (along with the rest of the film's virtual cast) in a hidden easter egg parody of Michael Jackson's Thriller music video created for the DVD release of the film.[10] On the Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within DVD, a bikini model photo shoot of Aki Ross is also included as one of the special features.
She was used, with a new haircut, in a demonstration video that Square Pictures made to present to the Wachowski Brothers before making Final Flight of the Osiris for The Animatrix. This video is available on the Animatrix DVD in the bonus data section and shows her acrobatically dueling with a Sentinel.
[edit] References
- ^ a b Lori Reese (2001-07-11). 'Fantasy' Female. Entertainment Weekly. Time Inc.. Retrieved on 2008-01-26.
- ^ a b Final Fantasy stirs star nightmares. BBC News. BBC (2001-07-11). Retrieved on 2008-01-26.
- ^ Jon Stokes; Jonathan Ragan-Kelley (2001). Final Fantasy: The Technology Within. Ars Technica p. 2. Retrieved on 2008-01-26.
- ^ a b Tim Ryan (2001-07-10). 'Fantasy' girl's a geek. Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Black Press. Retrieved on 2008-01-26.
- ^ Andrew Gumbel. "Hollywood finds the perfect star: Tall, attractive, and guaranteed", The Independent, London: Independent News & Media, 2001-05-21. Retrieved on 2008-01-26.
- ^ Megan Spencer. Final Fantasy: The Spirit's Within. Triple J. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved on 2008-01-26.
- ^ Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. TNMC (2001-06-24). Retrieved on 2008-01-26.
- ^ Ruth La Ferla (2001-05-06). Perfect Model: Gorgeous, No Complaints, Made of Pixels. The New York Times p. 1. The New York Times Company. Retrieved on 2008-01-26.
- ^ figures (2001-07-10). Final Fantasy: 12 Inch Aki Ross. Action-Figure. Retrieved on 2008-01-26.
- ^ DVD Easter Egg of the Week. Entertainment Weekly. Time Inc. (2001-11-09). Retrieved on 2008-01-26.
