Half-Masked

Shamus’s most recent post features a youtube video performance of Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Whenever I hear this song, I think of two things:

1. Fantasia, which is probably my favourite film ever(which I’m going to watch as soon as I’m done typing this), and:
2. “Dancing Mad”, from Final Fantasy VI(that song is pretty clearly inspired by Toccata and Fugue).

That got me thinking along similar lines that led to my “We Summon Rock” post, about a rhythm-based music game featuring exclusively Square-Enix music. What if Disney did a Fantasia treatment of Square-Enix music, from various series?

It could be called “Final Fantasia”.

And think of the track-list. Both Fantasia films had 7 original animation segments accompanied by classical music(Fantasio 2000 had 8, but only when you count that the “cameo” of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice).

OK. Seven. We can do that. I’m sure there’s 7 worthy tracks like that throughout the Final Fantasy series at least, if not in the entire Square Enix discography. Better yet, it’d be possible to take several tracks from OST’s and combine them so that they represent a particular game or series(like, several tracks from Final Fantasy IV could be played one after the other, re-written a bit to flow into each other better, and that could be the “Final Fantasy IV” segment).

One-Winged Angel is a must. Same with Dancing Mad, and the Opera scene from VI as well. There, that’s 3 already. 4 more to go.

Let’s see… You could splice the Ending Movie theme and Symphonic Poem “Hope” from Final Fantasy XII into a pretty nifty musical segment. That might be a bit short though. If worse came to worse, the credits theme to Final Fantasy Tactics could be put in(depressing it may be, but it’s not like Fantasia was all ponies and cherubs either).

…On second thought, screw Final Fantasy XII. VIII’s “FITHOS LUSEC WECOS VINOSEC” orchestral album would make a much better Fantasia segment. Alright, that’s 4 “tracks”. More than halfway there.

3 left. How about something from Kingdom Hearts? Eh? Might as well, since the idea already plays on the Disney/Squenix relationship. But what track(or tracks)? Well, Yoko Shimomura’s recent “Drammatica” album has 4 Kingdom Hearts selections done by an orchestra. “Destati”, “The Other Promise”, “Twinkle-Twinkle Holiday” and “The Thirteenth Anthology”, all played in a row, with a visual companion piece by Disney would be one of the coolest things in the history of ever. That’s 5.

2 more to go. We’re getting close to the end here. Maybe we should go back to the roots of it all? There’s a soundtrack of orchestrated music from the first two Final Fantasies called “Final Fantasy Symphonic Suite”. Less than half of that CD would amount to one incredibly, ridiculously length-ed Fantasia-ey segment. Hyphen.

They could just combine “Scene V” and “Scene VI” into a complete segment, and maybe include bits and pieces from the other tracks(like the Revivification intro from “Scene IV”).

What about the Intermission? Gotta have an intermission. I figure, what better place for the Prelude? And with an actual harp too. OOH! Or what about the Chocobo/Moogle/Victory themes? OH MAN THAT WOULD BE SO AWESOME NERDGASM

OK, that’s 6 and a half. The above suggestions aren’t listed in any specific order, but what caps off the whole thing? It’d have to be something good too. The original Fantasia concluded with Nightmare on Bald Mountain AND Ave Maria. Hard to top that. I haven’t seen Fantasia 2000, but I hear the last segment of that is fairly brick-crapping as well.

You could go with one or several of the series’ ending themes. FFVI’s alone would be a hell of a send-off. I wouldn’t mind hearing Terra’s theme, but I also don’t believe anyone could do that song better than the remix “Wanderer of Time” in the album “Final Fantasy Pray”, and that’s not really long enough to hold its own animated segment in something like this.

The best suggestion I can come up with is a medley of tracks from the Final Fantasy IX Plus soundtrack, which featured all of the music from the FMV cutscenes and more. Then cap it off with Melodies of Life. In fact, make it the (Silent Mix) version, that’d be a good song to end the production that doesn’t actually exist but let’s pretend it did for sake of conversation.

Why FFIX? Nobuo Uematsu HAS said in two separate occasions(without hesitation) that Final Fantasy IX is his favourite soundtrack. He was only asked to do 20 or so tracks, and the man went on to compose 160! That is a lunatic’s display of devotion that can only come from a deep adoration of their work/art. Besides, “Plus” has just the right amount of balance between “the profane(Bald Mountain) and the sacred(Ave Maria)” to make a terrific ending sequence for a Fantasia project.

And all it would take is years of meticulous planning and the carefully co-ordinated talents of hundreds, if not thousands of people, not to mention millions of dollars. Oh, and enough people inside both companies to be just as crazy as me for thinking this is a good idea. Piece of cake, right?

I’ll file it right underneath “Space-Leprechauns taking over the Earth” and above “Me getting laid” on the scale of Unlikely Things To Ever Happen.

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~A.H.