Summer 2001 was an interesting time for me. I had moved out of my home state to the East Coast and was trying something new in the work arena. Previous jobs had come and gone, and nothing really stuck, so rather than continue to flounder, I thought I would change my course. I quickly found out that my newly chosen path was a huge mistake, and within just a few short months, I would move back to my home state and get back on the career path I started on, albeit in a different direction. But for a few months in the middle of 2001, I lived about 45 minutes from the ocean, and had a fairly eye-opening experience learning about the differences between small town midwestern life and what life was like in the south.
During my stint on the coast, I spent a fair amount of time on my off days looking for entertainment. Whether it was browsing music shops, used video game stores, pawn shops, etc., I found ways to occupy my time when I wasn't working. And of course, there were also movie theaters. One of the more highly anticipated releases the summer of 2001 was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which was to be the debut film from Square Pictures. Having played and enjoyed Final Fantasy VII just a year or so prior, I was looking forward to the movie. I thought the idea of using full computer animation for everything was novel at the time and assumed the storytellers at Square had a good chance of coming up with a good story.
