Final Fantasy in Television: A Retrospective

Interesting timeline idea! A TV adaptation of a JRPG would probably be most feasible at this time, though the prospect of live-action definitely strikes me as quite the reach. Square seems far too protective of their creative "style" to allow so many foreign hands on their baby. An anime strikes me as far more likely, one that inevitably becomes one of the big crossover hits of the late 1990s. There's a certain artifice to the Final Fantasy world that just doesn't lend itself to live-action. Even anime (as opposed to CGI) seems too organic. But this is very fun thought experiment, and I definitely applaud your tying it in to other pop-culture developments happening at the time (the BBC attempting to get a science-fiction franchise off the ground) and your recognition of practical limitations hampering such grand ambitions.

One serious criticism: the cast roster. It leans too heavily on Young Future Famous People. Virtually everyone is a name, right down to the bit players. A little creative licence to cast some original characters would have been acceptable. But overall, this was a really neat effort! Thanks for sharing it with us :)
 
Interesting timeline idea! A TV adaptation of a JRPG would probably be most feasible at this time, though the prospect of live-action definitely strikes me as quite the reach. Square seems far too protective of their creative "style" to allow so many foreign hands on their baby. An anime strikes me as far more likely, one that inevitably becomes one of the big crossover hits of the late 1990s. There's a certain artifice to the Final Fantasy world that just doesn't lend itself to live-action. Even anime (as opposed to CGI) seems too organic. But this is very fun thought experiment, and I definitely applaud your tying it in to other pop-culture developments happening at the time (the BBC attempting to get a science-fiction franchise off the ground) and your recognition of practical limitations hampering such grand ambitions.

One serious criticism: the cast roster. It leans too heavily on Young Future Famous People. Virtually everyone is a name, right down to the bit players. A little creative licence to cast some original characters would have been acceptable. But overall, this was a really neat effort! Thanks for sharing it with us :)

Actually, that was the point as far as cast went. Pretty much all the actors listed were established TV actors that would have been recognisable to various people in their home countries or a certain knowledge abroad who would have come relatively cheap. Perhaps the biggest and most expensive names would have actually come from the Japanese side of things. I went with an OTL cast to keep it grounded and I doubt I could have brought in original characters for the series, a hack and slash job was needed just to bring it down to its current size.

Granted, it would have been unlikely to things have gone this route but like I said, was mainly just a thought experiment. I doubt that there would have been much mass appeal as far as anime goes, still very much a sub-genre in western minds back then and it would have been difficult to have gotten backing from anyone outside of Japan for it. Thanks for your input.
 
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