Fantasy role-playing video games owe a huge debt to Hironobu Sakaguchi’s “Final Fantasy” franchise. Since 1987, Sakaguchi’s games have shaped the core tenets of the genre with their emphatic focus on character dynamics and cinematic narrative style. “Influential” does not begin to describe “Final Fantasy” and the way it has wired our expectations of combat-heavy role-playing titles; everything from “The Witcher 3” to “Mass Effect” has been influenced by this franchise in some form. This firmly cemented legacy is still going strong, as a few hours into the recent, critically acclaimed “Final Fantasy XVI” will make it amply clear that these sweeping, high-stakes stories are only going to get better. However, a creative misstep in 2001 almost destabilized the franchise’s credibility, leading to Square Pictures — the production company that was poised to kick off a string of “Final Fantasy” films — being shut down.

This expensive, one-of-a-kind animated film was 2001’s “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within,” whose animation was rendered with some of the most cutting-edge processing capabilities available at the time. The high-risk gamble was helmed by Sakaguchi himself, who has tirelessly pushed the definition of what “Final Fantasy” represents since the late ’80s. Having introduced 3D and online play over the years, Sakaguchi wanted to venture into the land of video game-inspired films, which prompted the making of “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.”

At the time, Sakaguchi worked for Square, the video game developer and publisher responsible for bringing the “Final Fantasy” franchise to life. When “The Spirits Within” bombed at the box office, Square found itself in grave financial trouble, and this hampered its merger with another publisher, Enix. Two years later, this merger finally happened (thanks to the overwhelming success of Square’s “Final Fantasy X” and “Kingdom Hearts”) and Square Enix was formed. But the wound left behind by the failure of “The Spirits Within” still haunted those involved with the project. So, what went wrong?

Making a “Final Fantasy” animated film is not cheap. Bringing fantasy locales to life is labor-intensive, and nobody knew that better than Sakaguchi, who consciously incorporated elements of the groundbreaking “Final Fantasy VII” (FF7) into the movie. As the graphical resources for the “FF7” cutscenes were not inexpensive to begin with, the budget started bloating once these enhanced technologies were applied to the making of this cel-animated film. By the end of production, the costs reached close to $137 million, but the film bombed at the box office, grossing an abysmal $85 million. The Honolulu-based production company, Square Pictures, eventually shut down after “The Spirits Within” caused the abovementioned financial troubles for the parent company, Square.

Polygon’s oral history of “FF7” examined the behind-the-scenes aspects of this production, with several Square Enix creatives weighing in on the failure of “The Spirits Within.” Hiroshi Kawai, character programmer for “FF7” (who also served as the main programmer for “Final Fantasy IX”) had this to say about the film’s potential pitfalls:

“The checks and balances weren’t there. I think, in terms of producing a game, Sakaguchi-san was probably pretty reliable in terms of his beat, in terms of what worked and what didn’t work. But when it came to working in a different medium, I think […] the fact that there wasn’t really anybody there to provide objective and constructive criticism was a detriment.”

Kawai isn’t the only one who thinks that the film’s ambitious vision was marred by a lack of concrete direction. Alexander O. Smith, the localization specialist for “The Spirits Within,” called the project “an unmitigated disaster.” Smith also highlighted “many missed opportunities” for ensuring that the production company would not lose money.

It seems that a combination of financial mismanagement and creative misdirection contributed to “Spirits Within” flopping commercially — but let’s talk more about the story and graphics, and why they were ill-received.

Every “Final Fantasy” title promises a tale of epic proportions, and Sakaguchi’s original intention to echo the narrative elements of “FF7” wasn’t a bad idea. After all, “FF7” introduced Cloud and Sephiroth — two of the most iconic legacy characters — and presented their dynamic in deliciously complex shades. However, the story inspirations for “The Spirits Within” eventually morphed into a post-apocalyptic drama set in 2065, in which an irradiated Earth is overrun by an alien species known as the Phantoms. These aliens feed on the Gaia spirit (a life force bound to the Earth), and scientist Dr. Aki Ross (Ming-Na Wen) and her mentor, Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland) are looking for a way to defeat the invading Phantoms. Eight spirits need to be gathered to dispel the enemy forces, but Captain Gray Edwards (Alec Baldwin) and his squad want to use a cannon to exterminate them. After some conflict, everyone agrees that the spirit-gathering plan is better for an already-collapsing Earth, as it is a living organism that embodies the Gaia spirit.

You might be thinking: this sci-fi adjacent story sounds pretty standard for the genre, right? Well, this is where “The Spirits Within” fumbles, as none of the hallmarks of a “Final Fantasy” story make it into this rather generic alien invasion flick. Moreover, the film was marketed as an action extravaganza for Western audiences, leading to a fundamental disconnect between hardcore “Final Fantasy” fans and those who did not know what to expect from a video game movie. The only visible thread tying the games to the movie is the basic premise of a band of heroes averting a global catastrophe, but “The Spirits Within” fails to forge the visceral bonds that make these in-game friendships unforgettable. Moreover, the fantastical Gaia spirit aspects of the story do not mesh well with the somber, grounded tone of a world on the brink of collapse.

That said, the technical feats achieved by Sakaguchi and his team deserve to be highlighted. It took a render farm of 960 workstations over four years to render each of the film’s 141,964 frames, and the character of Aki Ross was distinguished with photorealistic computer animation. I think “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” still looks stunning if you’re willing to overlook the uncanny valley of certain character expressions and lean toward the fleeting sense of awe induced by its convoluted history.