text:
Talk:Hula

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Disambiguation
US General Michael W. Hagee doing t''he hula.

Heh :) - Hephaestos|§ 00:38, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

Hehe. That's funny. Anyhoo.... in cases where there is more than one subject that shares a name, it is Wikipedia policy to give the more recognizable subject the main namespace. That is the case with "Hula." Therefore, this article should be moved to the main namespace "Hula" with a prominent link to the disambiguation page. --Gerald Farinas 01:02, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

New interest in hula article
There seems to be renewed interest in this article, which is good. However, some editors have made some inaccurate statements, which I have removed.

Yeah, I know, this sounds arrogant -- but I've actually done a fair bit of research on the history of hula, for a historical novel I was writing. Frex, I can't let the statement that the hula was born on Molokai'i stand! There's an equally long tradition sourcing it to Kaua'i.

I'm not at all good on contemporary hula, which is where people who are actually studying hula now could really improve things.

I just did a major revision of the article. I didn't finish it -- it still needs lots of work -- but I set up some categories that can be filled in later. We also need references. I have a fair number of hula books; I just need to sit down with a stack of them and transfer the bibliographic info to the end of the article.

It would also be nice to have more hula halaus listed, and perhaps a list of notable hula artists and teachers -- all of whom deserve their own articles.

More pictures! I actually have a bunch of hula pictures, copies of pictures from the Bishop Museum library, but they don't want them used without payment. I don't think this would stand up to a copyright challenge, but ... public domain pictures from other sources needed. Zora 18:53, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Zora, nice structure.
In my latest addition, I re-emphasized the importance of mele to hula. In fact, I'm not sure it's emphatic enough. The entire theme of the 2005 World Hula Conference was the importance of the mele. In the old times, hula and chant were the only means of retaining history. That led to a tradition of the importance of words, and was why it was so severe to make a mistake - a mistake meant altering the past because it altered the retelling of the past.

I'll work on getting some pictures. It's easier to illustrate costumes and implements than it is to describe them. Mike 18:19, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

 * On second thought, I removed a remark I made, that was just a rehash of something already in the article. It sounded snippy. Instead I should be thanking you for your words of praise. It's nice to work with an editor who is willing to cooperate. Zora 20:47, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

 * But Zora, you tend to be a bit snippy anyway as people tend to dispute the articles that you write. I understand your zeal to make something out of yourself with your sub-standard degree and I can't disrespect you on that really, but please don't use that to parade around on the internet, particularly in Wikipedia in order to show the slightest hint of superiority.  You may be well versed in your academics & what you studied, but certainly that doesn't make you an expert on everything Hawaiian.  71.84.248.4 (talk) 20:13, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Added material to hula kahiko
An anon decided to delete the blank sections. I just spend half an hour restoring them and filling them with material. Please check and wikify as necessary. Zora 21:46, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

pre-western hula
I recently discussed the hula with a friend who lived in Hawaii for a time. He said that it used to be forbidden for women to do the hula. If this is correct, shouldn't it be included in the article?

 * The accurate story is that the hula was previously danced by men only, while women danced it later. Although the story with the hula originating with Lailai contradicts that story.  Her moopuna, Olohe along with his sister Laka learned the hula movements to which Olohe turned them into what is now known as lua.  Maybe there is some type of connection there as to why they say the men originally danced hula?  That's just a guess of course. 71.84.248.4 (talk) 20:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

 * We have pictures drawn by explorers showing women doing the hula. No indication that women were forbidden. In fact, hula was said to have been invented by a goddess, either Laka or Hi'iaka. Zora 00:44, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

 * Or your friend could be referring to the way Protestant missionaries forbid all Hawaiians (women included) from performing the hula. RyGuy17 22:07, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

 * I was always told that this came from the fact that only men could be on the temple grounds, so men learned the pahu/religious dances - but for more informal occassions, anyone could dance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.36.107.43 (talk) 02:34, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * When Kamehameha I died in 1819, his favorite wife, Kaahumanu became co-monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii with her stepson, Liholiho (Kamehameha II). The two did not agree on much and Liholiho spent a good time away from the Royal Court to avoid the politics. For this reason, he decided to make a trip to England so that he could avoid the political turmoil that erupted after the death of his father. While in England, the king and queen died from measles. Kaahumanu would reign as the sole soverign with Boki as her limited co-monarch until Kamehameha III would come of age.

 * It was during the reign of Kaahumanu that the Kapu sytem would be abolished (before Liholiho's death) and she would destroy nearly all of the ancient Hawaiian temples when she converted to Christianity. Kaahumanu also placed a kapu (forbidden) on all of the more provocative traditions of the islands. The hula was one of those traditions. It was officially banned in Hawaii, but...that did not stop people from carrying on the traditions in secret. One very well known example was Kapuailohia Wahine Kanuha Kaialiilii Miller and her daughter Isabella Haleʻala Kaʻili Miller. Kanuha taught her daughter Isabella in secret so that she could carry on the traditions. During the first Hawaiian Renaissance, Kalakaua would call for all the kumu hulas to come forth to revive the traditions of the dance. Isablella would be a central figure in the return of the hula to Hawaii as would her daughter, Helen Kapuailohia Desha Beamer. A new form of the hula would be developed from the simplistic style and hand movements that Isabella used to tone down the sexual nature of the dance. This would become known as the "Beamer method" of hula.

 * The article is in horrible shape, littered with decorative illustrations, very few sources and no inline citations to verify content. I will be adopting the article to do a near complete rewrite but welcome anyone's help.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:44, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

History of Hula
The part of Hula History that is not recorded is the fact that Polinesian Men created the dance and yes it was forbidden for women to dance. It was a form of martial arts that the men practiced, few of the ancient steps are still used, but modified. We may never find a book that intails the truth of hula's origin possibly because that's a secret that will continue to be hidden. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.103.253.5 (talk) 22:36, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, there are different traditions depending on the island. In Hawaii, women were not forbidden to dance the hula.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:24, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Hula & Hulaween?
Is this the term where "Hulaween" (=Halloween) derives from? --El Mexicano (talk) 15:15, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * NO. Are you serious? You're on wikipdedia why don't you look op halloween. Halloween, All Hallows Eve, the evening to All Saints Day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.119.241.66 (talk) 16:11, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Wrong example of hula
The video of the The Royal Samoans (1932) is the classical example of what is not hula. The girl at the beginning of the video moves her posterior quickly and does the leg/knee movements that are typical of Tahitian dance. The video should not be on this page because it does not show what hula really looks like. I have seen hula in Honolulu and Lāʻie recently and one musician/teacher specifically pointed out how to spot what is not hula.

ICE77 (talk) 00:36, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Images moved from article
I am moving these images and this single source here to park while the article is cleaned up.--Mark Miller (talk) 22:38, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
 * More than a year the article is without images. Therefore according to Image use policy and Image dos and don'ts I'll move the images back except the one without caption and the one which doesn't exist anymore. The caption of File:Hula Ad on the U.S. Mainland.jpg has been changed in order to comply with WP:NPOV --ThT (talk) 14:44, 9 September 2016 (UTC)
 * More than a year the article is without images. Therefore according to Image use policy and Image dos and don'ts I'll move the images back except the one without caption and the one which doesn't exist anymore. The caption of File:Hula Ad on the U.S. Mainland.jpg has been changed in order to comply with WP:NPOV --ThT (talk) 14:44, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified: Kaʻahele Hawaiʻi
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title: Talk:Hula


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Gottfried van Swieten

Gottfried Freiherr van Swieten (29 October 1733 – 29 March 1803) was a Dutch-born Austrian diplomat, librarian, and government official who served the Holy Roman Empire during the 18th century. He was an enthusiastic amateur musician and is best remembered today as the patron of several great composers of the Classical era, including Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach, Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Life and career
Van Swieten was born Godefridus Bernardus "Godfried" van Swieten in Leiden and grew up in the Dutch Republic to the age of 11. His father, Gerard van Swieten, was a physician who achieved a high reputation for raising standards of scientific research and instruction in the field of medicine. In 1745, the elder Van Swieten agreed to become personal physician to the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and moved with his family to Vienna, where he also became the director of the court library and served in other government posts. The young Van Swieten was educated for national service in an elite Jesuit school, the Theresianum.

As diplomat
According to the musicologist Daniel Heartz, the young Van Swieten had "excelled in his studies" and was fluent in many languages. Thus it was natural that he would pursue (following a brief stint in the civil service) a career as a diplomat. His first posting was to Brussels (1755–1757), then Paris (1760–1763), Warsaw (1763–1764) and ultimately (as ambassador) to the court of Frederick the Great of Prussia in Berlin (1770–77).

The last posting involved serious responsibility. Frederick had previously defeated Austria in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), seizing from her the territory of Silesia; and had successfully defended his conquest in the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). Van Swieten was ambassador during the First Partition of Poland (1772), in which much of the territory of this nation was annexed by the more powerful neighboring empires of Austria, Russia, and Prussia. Austria rather unrealistically wanted Silesia (and other territories) back as part of the terms of the partition. According to Abert, it was Van Swieten's "thankless task" to negotiate on this basis; the 60-year-old Frederick replied to him: "That's the sort of suggestion you could make if I had gout in the brain, but I've only got it in my legs." Van Swieten shifted the negotiations to his backup plan and the Partition went forward with Silesia remaining Prussian.

During this period of his career Van Swieten assiduously cultivated his musical interests. His supervisor in Brussels, Count Cobenzl, reported in 1756 that "music takes up the best part of his time". In Berlin, Van Swieten studied with Johann Philipp Kirnberger, a former pupil of J. S. Bach, and was part of the musical circle of Princess Anna Amalia, where the music of Bach and Handel was played and admired.

As librarian
On his return to Vienna in 1777, Van Swieten was appointed as the prefect of the Imperial Library, a post which had been vacant for five years since his father's death. Van Swieten remained imperial librarian for the rest of his life.

As librarian Van Swieten introduced the world's first card catalog (1780). Libraries had had catalogs before, in the form of bound volumes. Van Swieten's innovation of using cards permitted new entries to be freely added in a conveniently searchable order. Card catalogs were soon adopted elsewhere, notably in Revolutionary France.

Van Swieten also expanded the library's collection, notably with books on science, as well as older books from the libraries of monasteries that had been dissolved under the decrees of Emperor Joseph II.

In politics
In 1780, when Joseph II came to the throne, Van Swieten's career reached its peak of success. He was appointed a Councillor of State and Director of the State Education Commission in 1781, then also as Director of a new Censorship Commission in 1782. Van Swieten was strongly sympathetic to the program of reforms which Joseph sought to impose on his empire, and his position in government was a critical one, considered by Volkmar Braunbehrens (1990) to be the equivalent of being minister of culture.

Edward Olleson describes the political situation: "The projected reforms of the educational system ... were the most fundamental of all. Joseph's goal of building up a middle class with a political responsibility towards the State depended on great advances in elementary education, and on the universities. Van Swieten's liberal views fitted him to the task of implementing the Emperor's plans." Olleson adds that, because Joseph's reforms increased the freedom of the press, a "flood of pamphlets" was published critical of the Imperial government—thus increasing Van Swieten's responsibilities in supervising the censorship apparatus of the government. His letters of the time report an extremely heavy workload.

In 1784 Van Swieten proposed that the Holy Roman Empire should have a copyright law; such a law had already been in effect in England since 1709 (see: History of copyright). Van Swieten's suggestion was overruled by the Emperor. The historian Nicholas Till suggests that had Van Swieten's law been implemented, the career of his protégé Mozart as an independent musician might have gone much more successfully. Van Swieten's rise to power eventually met with obstacles and trouble. In 1787, the Emperor launched a "disastrous, futile, and costly" war against the Turks, which put Austrian society in turmoil and undermined his earlier efforts at reform. Till writes: Joseph attempted to pass the blame for events on to ... Van Swieten. As President of the Censorship Commission, [he] had been more liberal than Joseph was willing to countenance. ... As Minister for Education [he] had aimed to strip education of any religious character; he was more concerned about the dangers of religious orthodoxy than heresy, and believed that students should be taught a system of secular values based upon "philosophy". But his reforms, which indicated a far more radical rejection of religious education than Joseph was prepared to accept, had failed. In 1790, Joseph wrote to Chancellor Kolowrat expressing his discontent: "since an essential aspect of the education of young people, namely religion and morality, is treated far too lightly, since ... no feeling for one's true duties is being developed, the state is deprived of the essential advantages of having raised right-thinking and well-behaved citizens."

The Emperor was already terminally ill when he wrote the quoted letter, and died later that year. He was replaced by his more conservative brother Leopold, which further undermined Van Swieten's position. A "bitter" (Olleson) power struggle took place which Van Swieten ultimately lost. He was relieved of his commission post on 5 December 1791, coincidentally the day his protégé Mozart died.

As composer
Van Swieten's strong interest in music extended to the creation of his compositions. While in Paris he staged a comic opera of his own composition. He also composed other operas as well as symphonies. These works are not considered of high quality and are seldom if ever performed today. The Grove Dictionary opines that "the chief characteristics of [his] conservative, three-movement symphonies are tautology and paucity of invention ... As a composer Van Swieten is insignificant."

Known works include three comic operas: Les talents à la mode, Colas, toujours Colas, and the lost La chercheuse d'esprit. He also wrote ten symphonies, of which seven survive.

Other
Van Swieten was well off financially, though by no means as wealthy as the great princes of the Empire. He had inherited money from his father, and he was also well paid for his government posts. Braunbehrens estimates his income as about "ten times Mozart's", which would make it (very roughly) 20,000 florins per year.

Van Swieten never married. Unlike his father, who remained a Protestant after coming to Austria, Gottfried converted to Roman Catholicism, the state religion of the empire.

Van Swieten owned Art of Painting by Vermeer, which he inherited from his father. At the time it was not known that the painting was by Vermeer.

Death
Van Swieten died in 1803 in Vienna.

Relation to classical composers
The evidence suggests that Van Swieten's relationship with the great composers of his day was primarily one of patronage. This means that the composers did not work for Van Swieten on salary or commission, but received payments from him from time to time in the manner of a tip. Thus, Joseph Haydn remarked to his biographer Griesinger that "He patronized me occasionally with several ducats." This was a common way of paying musicians in the age of aristocracy; Haydn had received similar payments from his employer Nikolaus Esterházy, though he also drew a salary. The patronage system also financed the early travels of the Mozart family.

The relationship between patron and artist was not one of social equals. An 1801 letter of Haydn to Van Swieten, by then his longtime collaborator, used no second person pronouns, instead addressing the Baron as "Your Excellency"; presumably this reflected their everyday practice.

Mozart
Van Swieten first met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1768, when he was 35 years old and Mozart a boy of 11. The Mozart family was visiting Vienna, hoping to achieve further fame and income following the earlier completion of their Grand Tour of Europe. According to Mozart's father Leopold, Van Swieten was involved in the early planning of Wolfgang's ill-fated opera La finta semplice (the opera was later blocked by intrigues, and could be performed only in Salzburg).

In 1781, shortly after Mozart had moved to Vienna, Van Swieten met him again: at the salon of Countess Thun, Mozart played extracts from his recent opera Idomeneo, with Van Swieten and other important officials in the audience; this event helped instigate Mozart's commission for the opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail, his first great success as a composer.

Sharing works by Bach and Handel
By 1782, Van Swieten had invited Mozart to visit him regularly, in order to inspect and play his manuscripts of works by J. S. Bach and Handel, which he had collected during his diplomatic service in Berlin. As Mozart wrote to his father Leopold (10 April 1782): I go every Sunday at twelve o'clock to the Baron van Swieten, where nothing is played but Handel and Bach. I am collecting at the moment the fugues of Bach—not only of Sebastian, but also of Emanuel and Friedemann.

Others also attended these gatherings, and Van Swieten gave Mozart the task of transcribing a number of fugues for instrumental ensembles so that they could be performed before the assembled company. Mozart also sat at the keyboard and rendered the orchestral scores of Handel's oratorios in a spontaneous keyboard reduction (while, according to Joseph Weigl, also singing one of the choral parts and correcting errors of the other singers).

It appears that encountering the work of the two great Baroque masters had a very strong effect on Mozart. Olleson suggests that the process took place in two stages. Mozart responded first with rather direct imitations, writing fugues and suites in the style of his models. These works "have the character of studies in contrapuntal technique." Many were left incomplete, and even the completed ones are not often performed today; Olleson suggests they have "a dryness which is absent from most of [Mozart's] music." Later, Mozart assimilated Bach and Handel's music more fully into his style, where it played a role in the creation of some of his most widely admired works. Of these, Olleson mentions the C minor Mass (1784) and the chorale prelude sung by the two armored men in The Magic Flute (1791).

The Society of Associated Cavaliers
The keyboard-accompanied, one-on-a-part performances of Handel oratorios in Van Swieten's rooms whetted the interest of Van Swieten and his colleagues in full-scale performances of these works. To this end, in 1786 Van Swieten organized the Gesellschaft der Associierten ("Society of Associated Cavaliers" or "Society of Noblemen"), an organization of music-loving nobles. With the financial backing of this group, he was able to stage full-scale performances of major works. Generally, these concerts were first given in one of the palaces of the members or in the large hall of the Imperial Library, then in a public performance in the Burgtheater or Jahn's Hall.

Mozart took on the task of conducting these concerts in 1788. He had previously been too busy with other tasks, but with a decline in his career prospects elsewhere he was willing to take up the post. In addition to having him conduct, the Gesellschaft commissioned Mozart to prepare four works by Handel for performance according to contemporary taste:

 * Acis and Galatea, performed in (approximately) November 1788 in Jahn's Hall.
 * the oratorio Der Messias after Messiah, for which Mozart wrote new parts for flutes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, and trombones, as well as more notes for the timpani (1789).
 * the Ode for St Cecilia’s Day (1790)
 * Alexander’s Feast (1790)

Van Swieten was responsible for the translations from English into German of the libretti for these works, a task he would perform later on for Haydn (see below).

The Gesellschaft's concerts were an important source of income for Mozart during this time when he was experiencing severe financial worries. Van Swieten's loyalty to Mozart at this time is also indicated by one of Mozart's letters of 1789, in which he reported that he had solicited subscriptions to a projected concert series (as he had previously done with great success in the mid-1780s) and found that—after two weeks—the Baron was still the only subscriber.

Mozart's death and aftermath
When Mozart died (1:00 am on 5 December 1791), Van Swieten attended his home and made the funeral arrangements. He may have temporarily helped support the surviving Mozarts, as Constanze's correspondence in several places mentions his "generosity". On 2 January 1793, he sponsored a performance of Mozart's Requiem as a benefit concert for Constanze; it yielded a profit of 300 ducats, a substantial sum. He was also reported to have helped arrange for the education of Mozart's son Karl in Prague.

Haydn
In 1776, during a visit home to Vienna from his posting in Berlin, Van Swieten offered encouragement to the 43-year-old Joseph Haydn, who at the time was vexed by the hostile reception his work was receiving from certain Berlin critics. Van Swieten told him that his works were nevertheless in high demand in Berlin. Haydn mentioned this appreciatively in his 1776 autobiographical sketch.

In 1790, with the death of Nikolaus Esterházy, Haydn became semi-independent of his long-time employers the Esterházy family. He moved to Vienna and thus became more free to accept Van Swieten's patronage. Olleson suggests that Haydn participated in the Handel concerts of the Gesellschaft der Associierten, and notes that already in 1793, Van Swieten was trying to get him to write an oratorio (to a text by Johann Baptist von Alxinger). In 1794, when Haydn set off for London on his second journey there, he rode in a carriage provided to him by Van Swieten.

On his return the following year, Haydn and Van Swieten developed a close working relationship, with Van Swieten serving as his librettist and artistic adviser. The collaboration began in 1795/1796 with the small oratorio version of The Seven Last Words of Christ. This work was composed by Haydn as an orchestral piece in 1785. In the course of his second London journey, in Passau, he had heard a revised version amplified to include a chorus, prepared by the Passau Kapellmeister Joseph Friebert. Liking the idea, Haydn then prepared his own choral version, with Van Swieten revising the lyrics used by Friebert.

Haydn and Van Swieten then moved on to larger projects: the full-scale oratorios The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1801). Van Swieten translated (from English to German) and adapted the source material, which came from John Milton's poem Paradise Lost and James Thomson's poem The Seasons, respectively. He also translated in the reverse direction, putting the German back into English in a way that would fit the rhythm of Haydn's music. This reverse translation, though often awkward, enabled the first published editions of these oratorios to serve both German- and English-speaking audiences.

In the margins of his libretti, Van Swieten made many specific artistic suggestions to Haydn about how various passages should be musically set, suggestions which in general Haydn "observed closely" (Olleson). One example is the moving episode in The Creation in which God tells the newly created beasts to be fruitful and multiply. Van Swieten's paraphrase of Genesis reads:  Seid fruchtbar alle, Mehret euch! Bewohner der Luft, vermehret euch, und singt auf jedem Aste! Mehret euch, ihr Flutenbewohner Und füllet jede Tiefe! Seid fruchtbar, wachset, und mehret euch! Erfreuet euch in eurem Gott!  Be fruitful all And multiply. Dwellers of the air, multiply and sing on every branch. Multiply, ye dwellers of the tides, And fill every deep. Be fruitful, grow, multiply, And rejoice in your God!

Haydn's musical setting stems from a suggestion of Van Swieten's that the words should be sung by the bass soloist over an unadorned bass line. However, he only partly followed this suggestion, and after pondering, added to his bass line a rich layer of four-part harmony for divided cellos and violas, crucial to the final result.

The premieres of the three oratorios The Seven Last Words, The Creation and The Seasons all took place under the auspices of the Gesellschaft der Associierten, who also provided financial guarantees needed for Haydn to undertake long-term projects.

Beethoven
Van Swieten was a patron and supporter of Ludwig van Beethoven during his early years in Vienna. Beethoven's experience with Van Swieten was in some ways parallel to Mozart's about 12 years earlier. He visited the Baron in his home, where there were still regular gatherings centred around the music of Bach and Handel. Beethoven's early biographer Anton Schindler wrote: The evening gatherings at Swieten's home had a marked effect on Beethoven, for it was here that he first became acquainted with the music of Handel and Bach. He generally had to stay long after the other guests had departed, for his elderly host was musically insatiable and would not let the young pianist go until he had 'blessed the evening' with several Bach fugues.

Schindler's testimony is not generally trusted by modern musicologists. Indeed, Swieten's soirées were not Beethoven's first encounter with Bach's fugues. Beethoven's teacher, Christian Gottlob Neefe wrote in a letter promoting Beethoven's abilities: "a boy of eleven years ... plays chiefly The Well-Tempered Clavier of Sebastian Bach, which Herr Neefe put into his hands. Whoever knows this collection of preludes and fugues in all the keys – which might almost be called the non plus ultra of our art – will know what this means." However, in the case of Swieten's invitation there is concrete evidence preserved in the form of a letter from Swieten to Beethoven. The letter dates from 1794, when Beethoven was 23 years old:  Monday, 15 December Herr Beethoven Alstergasse No. 15 c/o Prince Lichnowsky If you are not hindered this coming Wednesday, I wish to see you at my home at 8:30 in the evening with your nightcap in your bag. Give me your immediate answer. Swieten

Albrecht explains "nightcap" as follows: "This aspect of Swieten's invitation was as much practical and considerate as it was hospitable: if Beethoven had returned home after the citywide 9 p.m. curfew, he would have had to pay Lichnowsky's turnkey a fee to let him in the locked house doors."

Exposure to Bach and Handel's music seems to have been important to Beethoven just as it had been to Mozart. Ferdinand Ries later wrote, "Of all composers, Beethoven valued Mozart and Handel most highly, then [J.] S. Bach. ... Whenever I found him with music in his hands, or saw some lying on his desk, it was certain to be a composition by one of these idols."

In 1801, Beethoven dedicated his First Symphony to Van Swieten.

Other associations
Earlier in his career, while in Berlin, Van Swieten had also supported the career of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Bach wrote the six Symphonies for String Orchestra (1773; H. 657–662) on commission from Van Swieten; according to Goodwin and Clark, the commission specified that "the composer's creative imagination might have free rein, unfettered by any regard for technical difficulties". The third set of Bach's Sonaten für Kenner und Liebhaber (1781) is dedicated to Van Swieten.

Johann Nikolaus Forkel, the first biographer of Bach, dedicated his book to Van Swieten.

Van Swieten and the social customs of music
Van Swieten is thought to have played a role in changing the social customs of music. As William Weber points out, in Van Swieten's time, it was still the normal practice for performers to play mostly newly composed music; often music that had been written by the performers themselves. The practice of cultivating the music of previous decades and centuries only gradually increased. By about 1870, older works had come to dominate the scene.

This shift began in Van Swieten's century. Some of the early cases of performers playing older music are pointed out by Weber: "In France the tragedies lyriques of Jean-Baptiste Lully and his successors were performed regularly up through the 1770s. In England music of the sixteenth century was revived in the Academy of Ancient Music, and many of the works of George Frideric Handel remained in performance after his death in 1759." As Weber notes, Van Swieten was one of the pioneers of this trend, particularly in his work reviving the music of Bach and Handel, and in his encouragement of contemporary composers to learn from the old masters and create new work that would be inspired by them.

Van Swieten expressed some of his views about the value of earlier music in the pages of the first volume of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung: I belong, as far as music is concerned, to a generation that considered it necessary to study an art form thoroughly and systematically before attempting to practice it. I find in such a conviction food for the spirit and for the heart, and I return to it for strength every time I am oppressed by new evidence of decadence in the arts. My principal comforters at such times are Handel and the Bachs and those few great men of our own day who, taking these as their masters, follow resolutely in the same quest for greatness and truth.

DeNora describes the devotion to earlier masters as a "fringe" view during the 1780s, but eventually others were following Swieten's lead, particularly with the success of The Creation and The Seasons. The music publisher Johann Ferdinand von Schönfeld wrote in 1796: [Van Swieten is], as it were, looked upon as a patriarch of music. He has taste only for the great and exalted. ... When he attends a concert our semi-connoisseurs never take their eyes off him, seeking to read in his features, not always intelligible to everyone, what ought to be their opinion of the music.

A corollary of a "taste for the great and exalted" is the idea that concert audiences should maintain silence, so that each note can be heard by all. This was not the received view in the 18th century, but was clearly Van Swieten's opinion. In his 1856 Mozart biography, Otto Jahn reported the following anecdote from Sigismund Neukomm: [He] exerted all his influence in the cause of music, even for so subordinate an end as to enforce silence and attention during musical performances. Whenever a whispered conversation arose among the audience, his excellence would rise from his seat in the first row, draw himself up to his full majestic height, measure the offenders with a long, serious look and then very slowly resume his seat. The proceeding never failed of its effect.

Assessment
Van Swieten has not fared well in assessments of his personal demeanor. In a frequently reprinted remark, Haydn remarked to Georg August Griesinger that Van Swieten's symphonies were "as stiff as the man himself." He maintained a firm social distance between himself and the composers he patronized, a distance rooted in the system of aristocracy still in force in Austria in his day. Sigismund Neukomm wrote that he was "not so much a friend as a very self-opinionated patron of Haydn and Mozart". Olleson suggests that "in his own time Van Swieten won little affection" (adding: "but almost universal respect."). He also was not close to his fellow aristocrats; although his public roles in music and government were prominent, he avoided salon society, and after 1795 expressed content that he lived in "complete retirement".

Concerning Van Swieten's contributions to music, posthumous judgment seems most critical of his role as librettist. Olleson observes that in the three successive oratorio libretti that Van Swieten prepared for Haydn, his own involvement in the writing was greater for each than in the previous one. According to Olleson, "many critics would say that this progressive originality was disastrous".

Even Van Swieten's musical taste has been harshly criticized, but here the consensus is perhaps more positive. Van Swieten seems to have singled out for his favor—from among many composers whose reputation is now obscure—the composers that posterity has judged very highly. As Olleson notes, "One could scarcely quarrel with his choice of composers of the past, Sebastian Bach and Handel; and of those of his own time, Gluck, Emanuel Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven."

In popular culture
Unlike his protégés Mozart and Beethoven, Van Swieten is seldom portrayed in works of modern popular culture. He does appear as a supporting character in Peter Shaffer's 1979 play Amadeus and in Miloš Forman's 1984 film based on it. He is seen in the play as helping Mozart to be inducted into Masonry, only to be somewhat concerned when it seems that some of Mozart's work is referencing their organisation's practices, as well as the fact that he is beginning to beg fellow members for money. In the film, he is one of the few attendees at Mozart's funeral.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Gottfried van Swieten


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Star height

In theoretical computer science, more precisely in the theory of formal languages, the star height is a measure for the structural complexity of regular expressions and regular languages. The star height of a regular expression equals the maximum nesting depth of stars appearing in that expression. The star height of a regular language is the least star height of any regular expression for that language. The concept of star height was first defined and studied by Eggan (1963).

Formal definition
More formally, the star height of a regular expression E over a finite alphabet A is inductively defined as follows:

 * $$\textstyle h\left(\emptyset\right)\,=\,0$$, $$\textstyle h\left(\varepsilon\right)\,=\,0$$, and $$\textstyle h\left(a\right)\,=\,0$$ for all alphabet symbols a in A.
 * $$\textstyle h\left(E F\right)\,=\, h\left(E\, \mid\, F\right)\,=\,\max \left(\, h(E), h(F)\,\right)$$
 * $$\textstyle h\left(E^*\right)\,=\,h(E)+1.$$

Here, $$\scriptstyle \emptyset$$ is the special regular expression denoting the empty set and ε the special one denoting the empty word; E and F are arbitrary regular expressions.

The star height h(L) of a regular language L is defined as the minimum star height among all regular expressions representing L. The intuition is here that if the language L has large star height, then it is in some sense inherently complex, since it cannot be described by means of an "easy" regular expression, of low star height.

Examples
While computing the star height of a regular expression is easy, determining the star height of a language can be sometimes tricky. For illustration, the regular expression

 * $$\textstyle \left(b\, \mid\, a a^*b\right)^*a a^* $$

over the alphabet A = {a,b} has star height 2. However, the described language is just the set of all words ending in an a: thus the language can also be described by the expression

 * $$\textstyle (a\, \mid\, b)^*a$$

which is only of star height 1. To prove that this language indeed has star height 1, one still needs to rule out that it could be described by a regular expression of lower star height. For our example, this can be done by an indirect proof: One proves that a language of star height 0 contains only finitely many words. Since the language under consideration is infinite, it cannot be of star height 0.

The star height of a group language is computable: for example, the star height of the language over {a,b} in which the number of occurrences of a and b are congruent modulo 2n is n.

Eggan's theorem
In his seminal study of the star height of regular languages, established a relation between the theories of regular expressions, finite automata, and of directed graphs. In subsequent years, this relation became known as Eggan's theorem, cf. . We recall a few concepts from graph theory and automata theory. In graph theory, the cycle rank r(G) of a directed graph (digraph) $a^{*}b^{*}ba ((a|b)b^{*}a|ε)^{*} (a|b)b^{*} | a^{*}b^{*}b$ is inductively defined as follows:
 * If G is acyclic, then $a^{*}b(b|a(a|b))^{*}$. This applies in particular if G is empty.
 * If G is strongly connected and E is nonempty, then
 * $$r(G) = 1 + \min_{v\in V} r(G-v),\,$$where $G - v$ is the digraph resulting from deletion of vertex $v$ and all edges beginning or ending at $v$.

 * If G is not strongly connected, then r(G) is equal to the maximum cycle rank among all strongly connected components of G.

In automata theory, a nondeterministic finite automaton with ε-transitions (ε-NFA) is defined as a 5-tuple, (Q, Σ, δ, q0, F), consisting of A word w ∈ Σ* is accepted by the ε-NFA if there exists a directed path from the initial state q0 to some final state in F using edges from δ, such that the concatenation of all labels visited along the path yields the word w. The set of all words over Σ* accepted by the automaton is the language accepted by the automaton A.
 * a finite set of states Q
 * a finite set of input symbols Σ
 * a set of labeled edges δ, referred to as transition relation: Q × (Σ ∪{ε}) × Q. Here ε denotes the empty word.
 * an initial state q0 ∈ Q
 * a set of states F distinguished as accepting states F ⊆ Q.

When speaking of digraph properties of a nondeterministic finite automaton A with state set Q, we naturally address the digraph with vertex set Q induced by its transition relation. Now the theorem is stated as follows.
 * Eggan's Theorem: The star height of a regular language L equals the minimum cycle rank among all nondeterministic finite automata with ε-transitions accepting L.

Proofs of this theorem are given by, and more recently by.

Generalized star height
The above definition assumes that regular expressions are built from the elements of the alphabet A using only the standard operators set union, concatenation, and Kleene star. Generalized regular expressions are defined just as regular expressions, but here also the set complement operator is allowed (the complement is always taken with respect to the set of all words over A). If we alter the definition such that taking complements does not increase the star height, that is,

 * $$\textstyle h\left(E^c\right)\,=\,h(E)$$

we can define the generalized star height of a regular language L as the minimum star height among all generalized regular expressions representing L. It is an open problem whether some languages can only be expressed with a generalized star height greater than one: this is the generalized star-height problem.

Note that, whereas it is immediate that a language of (ordinary) star height 0 can contain only finitely many words, there exist infinite languages having generalized star height 0. For instance, the regular expression
 * $$\textstyle (a\, \mid\, b)^*a,$$

which we saw in the example above, can be equivalently described by the generalized regular expression
 * $$\textstyle \emptyset^c a$$,

since the complement of the empty set is precisely the set of all words over A. Thus the set of all words over the alphabet A ending in the letter a has star height one, while its generalized star height equals zero.

Languages of generalized star height zero are also called star-free languages. It can be shown that a language L is star-free if and only if its syntactic monoid is aperiodic.

title: Star height


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Aperiodic semigroup

In mathematics, an aperiodic semigroup is a semigroup S such that every element is aperiodic, that is, for each x in S there exists a positive integer n such that xn = xn+1. An aperiodic monoid is an aperiodic semigroup which is a monoid.

Finite aperiodic semigroups
A finite semigroup is aperiodic if and only if it contains no nontrivial subgroups, so a synonym used (only?) in such contexts is group-free semigroup. In terms of Green's relations, a finite semigroup is aperiodic if and only if its H-relation is trivial. These two characterizations extend to group-bound semigroups.

A celebrated result of algebraic automata theory due to Marcel-Paul Schützenberger asserts that a language is star-free if and only if its syntactic monoid is finite and aperiodic.

A consequence of the Krohn–Rhodes theorem is that every finite aperiodic monoid divides a wreath product of copies of the three-element flip-flop monoid, consisting of an identity element and two right zeros. The two-sided Krohn–Rhodes theorem alternatively characterizes finite aperiodic monoids as divisors of iterated block products of copies of the two-element semilattice.

title: Aperiodic semigroup


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Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Avala

Hitler
As a note, my objection to the picture in the Hitler article was primarily irrelevence to the topic of Hitler - it was not a very clear picture of Hitler, and thus did not add to that article - I support its applicability to other articles. Snowspinner 15:37, 21 May 2004 (UTC)


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Talk:Operation Clambake

Orphaned references in Operation Clambake
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Operation Clambake's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "NYT": From Scientology controversies:  From Scientology and marriage:  From Scientology in France:  From Lorne L. Dawson: Mosteller, Rachel (2007-02-17). "Taking the Debate About God Online, and Battling It Out With Videos", New York Times. Retrieved 2010-06-17. From Notice and take down:  From A Piece of Blue Sky: "Publisher Victorious on Hubbard Biography", The New York Times, May 27, 1990.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 01:29, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Operation Clambake


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User:Cerebral

hi, I'm Cerebral. I will be posting things here shortly. Cerebral 15:40, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

title: User:Cerebral


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Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

Fitzgerald Marine Reserve is a marine reserve in California on the Pacific Ocean, located just north of Pillar Point Harbor and Mavericks in the San Mateo County community of Moss Beach. Moss Beach is located approximately 20 mi south of San Francisco and 50 mi north of Santa Cruz. The reserve is a 32 acre holding which extends from Montara light station at the north to Pillar Point on the south. The reserve consists of a three-mile stretch of beach, tidepool habitat, marsh, erosive bluffs, clifftop trail and cypress and eucalyptus forests. The property is owned by the State of California and managed by San Mateo County as a county park and nature preserve. The reserve is administratively assigned to be part of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Adjacent to and possibly within the reserve is an endangered species of butterfly, the San Bruno elfin butterfly.

Montara State Marine Reserve & Pillar Point State Marine Conservation Area extend offshore from Montara, just north of Pillar Point. Like underwater parks, these marine protected areas help conserve ocean wildlife and marine ecosystems. Fitzgerald Marine Reserve lies within Montara State Marine Reserve.

History
The site of the current Fitzgerald Marine Reserve was originally settled by Native Americans approximately 5,800 years ago. In 1908, the Ocean Shore Railroad extended through the town of Moss Beach, effectively creating this location as a tourist destination. Remains of the foundation and some original landscape features from the Smith-Doelger homesite from the early-1900s may be found on the bluffs overlooking the Reserve.

The site has long been a source of research and materials for marine biologists and collectors, so much so that, in 1969, San Mateo County urged the State of California to designate the site as a state reserve to protect the remaining flora and fauna. On August 5, 1969, the site was officially designated as a state reserve and was named after James V. Fitzgerald, former mayor of San Bruno and a longtime member of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors.

Natural features

The tidepool habitat has long been prized as one of the best such habitats in northern California. It has been identified by the State of California as one of 34 such coastal habitats having "Special Biological Significance". Sea urchins, anemone, hermit crabs and many other intertidal species are prominent.

At the north of the reserve San Vicente Creek empties into the Pacific Ocean and has a diverse habitat supporting Red Willow and other riparian species. From a footbridge across San Vicente Creek, one climbs atop the bluff trail, which rises about 30 m above the beach. From there one has rewarding views down upon Frenchmans Reef, a rich marine ecological area. Seaward the reserve extends to a depth of over 300 m downward into the Pacific Ocean. The reef is composed of the rock granodiorite.

An occurrence of the rare plant Hickman's potentilla, Potentilla hickmanii, was observed by E.C. Suttliffe in 1933 in the vicinity of the mouth of San Vicente Creek within Moss Beach. This colony was not further documented for decades, but another colony was discovered toward the end of the 20th century north of Moss Beach. The plant was listed as an endangered species by the United States government in 1998, and had previously been listed as California endangered in 1973.

Sightings of the San Bruno elfin butterfly have been made adjacent to the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve in Montara. This endangered species has very limited range and habitat.

The active Seal Cove Fault (first mapped and named by William Glen in a 1959 publication of the University of California series in the geological sciences) forms much of the eastern boundary of the site. Glen first suggested that the Seal Cove fault was a northward extension of the San Gregorio fault. Submarine surveys later found that the fault extends northward under the Pacific Ocean and presumably joins the San Andreas Fault near Bolinas. The fault's trace was formerly clearly exposed in a sea cliff at the northern portion of the reserve, but is now obscured by cultural changes.

Details of habitats
The coastal strand habitat lies between the Pacific Ocean and the upper edge of the beach or coastal marsh. Species enjoying this niche are the California sea lion, harbor seal, Snowy egret, Great blue heron, cormorant and a variety of terns, murres, gulls and other shorebirds. Within the tidepool area there are also sea urchins, anemone, hermit crabs and numerous other mollusks.

The flanks of San Vicente Creek and another unnamed drainage further south in the preserve are coastal salt marsh habitat. This niche is an important nesting and feeding area for many bird species including rails. Since this marsh lacks cordgrass, it is a poor nesting site of ducks. Dense pickleweed provides good habitat for a variety of rodents, reptiles and rabbits.

North of the salt marsh of Vicente Creek lies the freshwater marsh and seepage, which hosts a number of trees supporting bird-life and mammals. The arroyo willow here is important to migrating warblers and other passerines.

Nearby features of interest
At the southern edge of the reserve lies the Moss Beach Distillery, a California Point of Historical Interest, that has served as a clifftop restaurant since 1927. To the east of the reserve is the Seal Cove Inn, a luxury destination country inn operated by noted travel author Karen Brown.

The opening sequence of the movie Memoirs of a Geisha was filmed on the bluffs overlooking the Reserve.

Other bibliographic sources used

 * Fitzgerald Marine Reserve Concept Plan, San Mateo County Department of Parks and Recreation, April 1974
 * Fitzgerald Marine Reserve Final Environmental Impact Report, San Mateo County Department of Parks and Recreation, March 1976
 * U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 (as updated 50CFR 17.11 and 17.12, January, 1982)
 * Fitzgerald Marine Reserve facebook page
 * Friends of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve
 * Friends of Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

title: Fitzgerald Marine Reserve


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Don Haskins

Donald Lee Haskins (March 14, 1930 – September 7, 2008), nicknamed "The Bear", was an American basketball player and coach. He played college basketball for three years under coach Henry Iba at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University). He was the head coach at the University of Texas at El Paso from 1961 to 1999 (the school was known as Texas Western College until 1967). In 1966 his team won the NCAA tournament over the Wildcats of the University of Kentucky, coached by Adolph Rupp. The watershed game highlighted the end of racial segregation in college basketball.

In his time at Texas Western/UTEP, he compiled a 719–353 record, suffering only five losing seasons. His Miners won 14 Western Athletic Conference championships and four WAC tournament titles, had fourteen NCAA tournament berths and made seven trips to the NIT. Haskins led UTEP to 17 20-plus-win seasons and served as an assistant Olympic team coach in 1972. He was admitted to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997 as a basketball coach. His 1966 team was inducted in its entirety by the same Hall of Fame on September 7, 2007.

Early coaching career
After college and a stint with the Amateur Athletic Union's Artesia Travelers, Haskins began coaching small-town Texas high schools (Benjamin, Hedley and Dumas) from 1955 to 1961. He took a pay cut for a chance to be a college coach, accepting a job offer at Texas Western College—now known as the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) in 1961.

In the 1950s, prior to Haskins' arrival, Texas Western recruited and played African American players in a time when it was still common to find all-white college sports teams, particularly in the South. When Haskins arrived in El Paso, he inherited three black players from his coaching predecessor. One of those players, El Paso native Nolan Richardson, later won the 1994 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament national championship as the head coach at Arkansas.

In 1961–62, Haskins' first season as head coach, the Miners had an 18–6 record. The next year they posted a 19–7 mark and made the first of 14 NCAA tournament appearances under Haskins. They again reached the NCAA Tournament in 1964 and played in the NIT in 1965. On numerous occasions, Haskins stated that he believed his 1964 team could have won the NCAA Tournament had All-American Jim Barnes not fouled out after playing only eight minutes in a 64–60 loss to Kansas State in the tournament.

1966 NCAA Championship team
The Texas Western Miners finished the 1965–66 regular season with a 23–1 record, entering the NCAA Tournament ranked third in the nation in the final regular season AP college basketball poll.

In the first round of the tournament, the Miners defeated Oklahoma City 89–74. In the next round, they defeated Cincinnati 78–76 in overtime. They went on to defeat Kansas in double overtime in the Midwest Regional Finals, 81–80, and to defeat Utah in the national semifinals, 85–78.

Facing the top-ranked University of Kentucky in the championship game, Haskins made history by starting five African American players for the first time in a championship game against Kentucky's all-white squad, coached by Adolph Rupp. The Miners took the lead midway in the first half and never relinquished it — though Kentucky closed to within a point early in the second half. The Miners finished with 72 points to Kentucky's 65, winning the tournament and finishing the year with a 28–1 record.

Later asked about his decision to start five African American players, Haskins downplayed the significance of his decision. "I really didn't think about starting five black guys. I just wanted to put my five best guys on the court," Haskins was later quoted as saying. "I just wanted to win that game."

Though credited with advancing the desegregation of college basketball teams in the South, he wrote in his book, Glory Road, "I certainly did not expect to be some racial pioneer or to change the world."

Post-championship career
Haskins was never able to duplicate his 1966 success. After winning the 1966 title, his Miners would only win seven more NCAA Tournament games and only survived the tournament's first weekend twice, in 1967 and 1992.

Nonetheless, he is regarded as an important figure in basketball history. Among the players he coached at UTEP over the years were future NBA all-stars Nate Archibald, Tim Hardaway, and Antonio Davis. Other UTEP alums moving to the NBA included Marlon Maxey and Greg Foster. He was also a mentor for several future coaches, including Nolan Richardson and Tim Floyd. He served as an assistant coach under Hank Iba in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

A street is named after him in El Paso's East side. In 1977, UTEP moved from Memorial Gym, home of the 1966 champions, to the larger Special Events Center. In 1998, before what would be Haskins' last season, it was renamed the Don Haskins Center in his honor.

Bob Knight was Haskins' fishing partner and one of his best friends. Another good friend, Norm Ellenberger, was former coach of the New Mexico Lobos.

In 1997, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Sports hall of Fame.

Glory Road
Glory Road, a Walt Disney Pictures film about the then-Texas Western 1966 championship season, was released on January 13, 2006. Haskins is portrayed in the film by actor Josh Lucas. On November 29, 2005, the City of El Paso renamed the street between its two basketball arenas "Glory Road." Adolph Rupp Jr. pointed out that his father had previously used the term "Glory Road" in his farewell speech to his fans and worried that his father would be villainized in the film. However, director Jim Gartner stated that Rupp Sr. would not be negatively portrayed in the film, claiming that Jon Voight, who played Rupp, was careful in his role, seeking not to mischaracterize Rupp as a racist.

Haskins stated his disappointment at the cutting of the movie scenes of his one-on-one games with his boyhood friend Herman Carr, who is African-American. Carr was present in El Paso as a guest for the premiere screening, November 28, 2005. These scenes would have depicted a formative influence on Haskins' game of basketball. Haskins appeared in the movie as an extra by playing a gas station attendant.

Glory Road was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and was based upon Haskins' official same-titled autobiography, written with Dan Wetzel and released by Hyperion Books in 2005. A national best seller, it was reprinted five times in its first four months of release and was selected as an "Editor's Choice" by the New York Times Book Review.

Death
Haskins died at his home on September 7, 2008. He was survived by his wife Mary, sons Brent, Steve, and David, and grandsons John Paul, Cameron, and Dominick. A fourth son, Mark, died in 1994. His son Steve is a professional golfer who began play on the Champions Tour after reaching the age of 50 and won two events on the Nationwide Tour during his regular career years. Haskins is buried at the Memory Gardens of the Valley in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

title: Don Haskins


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User talk:Cerebral

hi. Talk about whatever you want here.

title: User talk:Cerebral


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Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children (ファイナルファンタジーVII アドベントチルドレン) is a 2005 Japanese computer-animated film directed by Tetsuya Nomura, written by Kazushige Nojima, and produced by Yoshinori Kitase and Shinji Hashimoto. Developed by Visual Works and Square Enix, Advent Children is part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series of media, which is based in the world and continuity of the 1997 role-playing video game Final Fantasy VII. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children was released on DVD and Universal Media Disc with Japanese voice acting in Japan on September 14, 2005, and on April 25, 2006 with English voice acting in North America and the UK.

Advent Children takes place two years after the events of Final Fantasy VII and focuses on the appearance of a trio that kidnaps children infected with an unexplained disease called Geostigma. Final Fantasy VII hero Cloud Strife, suffering from the same disease, goes to rescue the children. He discovers that the trio plan to resurrect Sephiroth using the remains of the extraterrestrial villain Jenova, and he and his compatriots from the game fight to stop them. The film's voice acting cast includes Takahiro Sakurai, Ayumi Ito, and Toshiyuki Morikawa in Japanese, and Steve Burton, Rachael Leigh Cook, and George Newbern in English.

Advent Children has been released in multiple versions; Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete, released on Blu-ray Disc in 2009, adds 26 minutes of new and expanded scenes to the 101-minute original. It has received mixed reviews; critics praised its animation and CGI, but criticized the plot as being incomprehensible to viewers who did not play Final Fantasy VII and having a thin connection between action scenes. The film received the "Maria Award" at the Sitges Film Festival in 2005 and the "Best Anime Feature" at the 2007 American Anime Awards. The original release was one of the best-selling animated films in Japan and the United States in its release year. The Complete release was noted as driving a large increase in sales of the PlayStation 3 console in its release week. By May 2009, the DVD and Universal Media Disc releases had sold over 4.1 million copies worldwide. Advent Children (the Complete version) returned to Japanese theaters from January 19, 2024 to February 1, 2024, and returned to stateside theaters on February 21, 2024, to promote the launch of the video game Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

Setting
Advent Children takes place two years following the events of the 1997 role-playing video game Final Fantasy VII, during which the antagonist Sephiroth attempted to absorb the Lifestream, the lifeblood and soul of the Planet, and be reborn as a god. He was defeated by Cloud Strife and his companions, but his final spell, Meteor, destroyed the city of Midgar. Since the end of the game, the survivors of Midgar founded the new city of Edge, where Cloud and his childhood friend Tifa Lockhart now run a courier service and are the caretakers of an orphan Denzel and the adopted daughter of Barret Wallace, Marlene. Out of guilt for failing to save Aerith Gainsborough, Cloud has recently moved out and isolated himself from his friends. The story also portrays that many people, including Cloud and Denzel, are infected with a mysterious and incurable disease known as "Geostigma".

Story
Cloud is contacted through Tifa and summoned to a meeting with the Shinra Company's former president Rufus Shinra, who was presumed dead in Final Fantasy VII. Rufus asks for Cloud's help to stop Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo, who are the physical manifestation of Sephiroth's surviving spirit and seek to resurrect him using the remains of the extraterrestrial villain Jenova. Cloud refuses to help and leaves.

Meanwhile, Kadaj and his colleagues are recruiting children infected with Geostigma, and Denzel falls in with the group after being attracted by their promises of a cure. Loz follows Tifa and Marlene to Aerith's church, where they are searching for Cloud, and attacks them. Tifa is knocked unconscious in the fight, and Loz kidnaps Marlene. The abducted children are taken to the ruins of the Forgotten City, where Kadaj embraces them as brethren and announces his intention for them to be reunited with Jenova. When Cloud arrives to rescue them, Kadaj's gang overpowers him, but he is saved by the arrival of his old comrade Vincent Valentine. Cloud then returns to the city, where Kadaj has summoned Bahamut SIN and other monsters to terrorize the population. With the help of his companions, Cloud engages and defeats the monsters.

Kadaj confronts Rufus Shinra, who reveals he possesses Jenova's remains. He attempts to destroy it, but Kadaj saves it and flees the city with his companions, with Yazoo and Loz being caught in a blast by an explosive planted by Reno and Rude. Cloud chases Kadaj down and engages him in battle, ultimately subduing him. Outmatched, Kadaj opens Jenova's box and fuses with its contents, transforming into Sephiroth. He tells Cloud he will use the souls of Geostigma's deceased victims to dominate the Planet. He and Cloud then fight; throughout the encounter, Sephiroth appears to have the upper hand and ultimately impales him through the shoulder. He asks Cloud to tell him what he most cherishes so that he can have the pleasure of taking it away. Cloud replies that he cherishes everything and then uses his Limit Break, Omnislash Ver. 5, to defeat Sephiroth. Sephiroth's spirit departs, leaving behind the mortally wounded Kadaj. As he lies dying in Cloud's arms, a healing rain starts falling across the land, curing the people of their Geostigma. Yazoo and Loz appear and confront Cloud; setting off a massive explosion that engulfs the three.

Cloud has visions of his deceased friends Aerith and Zack Fair, who say that his time to join them has not yet come. He then awakens in the church, healed of his injuries and surrounded by his friends. Behind them, he sees the spirits of Aerith and Zack, smiling at him before departing to the afterlife. Aerith says to Cloud, "You see, everything's all right". He agrees: "I know. I'm not alone... not anymore". Cloud and the sick children celebrate by bathing in the rainwater.

During the credits, Cloud is seen driving his motorcycle to parts unknown. Advent Children Complete adds a new post-credit scene where Zack's Buster Sword is seen in Aerith's church while flowers from the church are seen blooming at the location of Zack's last stand, having been placed there by Cloud.

Voice cast
Advent Children was released with a Japanese voice track in Japan, and an English voice track elsewhere.
 * Takahiro Sakurai/Steve Burton as Cloud Strife. Sakurai and Burton had voiced the character in Kingdom Hearts.
 * Ayumi Ito/Rachael Leigh Cook as Tifa Lockhart. Nomura felt that Ito's "husky" voice would offer a good contrast with Maaya Sakamoto, Cook had voiced Tifa in Kingdom Hearts II.
 * Maaya Sakamoto/Mena Suvari as Aerith Gainsborough. Sakamoto had voiced the character in Kingdom Hearts, Suvari had voiced Aerith in Kingdom Hearts II.
 * Shōgo Suzuki/Steve Blum as Vincent Valentine. Nomura wanted Cloud and Vincent to have noticeably different voices because they were otherwise quite similar. Since Vincent was older and more mature than Cloud, his role was given to Suzuki, who has a very low voice.
 * Showtaro Morikubo/Steve Staley as Kadaj. Morikubo had difficulties voicing him because of the character's unstable personality and needed time to adjust to the role.
 * Kenji Nomura/Fred Tatasciore as Loz. Nomura was told by the staff to voice Loz as an "idiot" character.
 * Yūji Kishi/Dave Wittenberg as Yazoo.
 * Toshiyuki Morikawa/George Newbern as Sephiroth. Morikawa was instructed to pronounce Sephiroth's lines in such a way that his words would convey his feelings of superiority. In tandem with this, the voice director and Morikawa agreed to make Sephiroth's voice sound always calm, as if he never fears the slightest possibility of defeat.
 * Yumi Kakazu/Christy Carlson Romano as Yuffie Kisaragi.
 * Masahiro Kobayashi/Beau Billingslea as Barret Wallace.
 * Keiji Fujiwara/Quinton Flynn as Reno.
 * Taiten Kusunoki/Crispin Freeman as Rude.
 * Tōru Ōkawa/Wally Wingert as Rufus Shinra.
 * Kenichi Suzumura/Rick Gomez as Zack Fair.
 * Hideo Ishikawa/Greg Ellis as Cait Sith.
 * Masachika Ichimura/Liam O'Brien as Red XIII / Nanaki.
 * Kazuhiro Yamaji/Chris Edgerly as Cid Highwind.

Production
Advent Children began as a short film by Visual Works, a company used by Square to develop CGI scenes for their video games, based on Final Fantasy VII. Kazushige Nojima, who had written the script for the game, was brought on to write a 20-minute script. He decided to write "a story about Cloud and Tifa and the kids". The film was developed as a part of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, a set of different media content intended to expand upon the world of Final Fantasy VII. Square's research and development department worked with Visual Works on the piece, and Tetsuya Nomura joined the crew after VII's director Yoshinori Kitase called him. Early in pre-production, the team thought about making Advent Children into a game. Still, Nomura decided against it, partially because Visual Works had no experience making a full game. The creators had no prior experience working on films, so they fell back on their knowledge of in-game movies.

The film was planned to focus on the characters of Cloud and Tifa in a similar way to how other titles from Compilation of Final Fantasy VII centered on certain characters; for example, Before Crisis focuses on the Turks, Crisis Core on Zack Fair, and Dirge of Cerberus on Vincent. Nomura says the film was, in its first manifestation, only going to be 20 minutes long. The original story featured someone requesting a message to be sent to Cloud; the message is relayed to Cloud through several children. When the message finally reaches Cloud, it is revealed who the messenger is. Nomura very much liked the original script, and it became the foundation of the final version. He decided to make the project longer and grander in scope when the early word of the film generated great interest among Final Fantasy VII fans, most of whom wanted something feature-length. The film's length was expanded to 100 minutes.

Takeshi Nozue and Nomura, who had first worked together on the video game Kingdom Hearts, split the role of directing, as Nomura felt this would add depth to the film. In designing the battle scenes, they first discussed the setting and layout. They then went to the staff with their ideas, deciding which were the best and developing them further. The battle between Cloud's group and Bahamut was the most difficult to design due to the size of the area and the number of objects the staff had to add to the scene to keep it realistic. The alternating positions of the characters, including Bahamut itself, took the staff a long time to complete to give the scene a sense of flow. Nomura said that the team decided not to worry about making the fight sequences realistic, as they felt this would restrict their ability to give the film a "cool look". Therefore, they worked by creating their "own rules". Motion capture was used for many of the film's battle scenes; maneuvers that were not physically possible for live actors to perform were constructed digitally.

While designing the characters, the staff discovered that it was impossible to translate the Final Fantasy VII designs into the film. Thus some identifying characteristics had to be discarded. Cloud's redesign was a combination of eight different designs, from his super deformed appearance in the game to his more realistic appearance in the film. The difficulties in making Sephiroth led the staff to reduce his appearances in the film. It took them two years to develop and refine his look. Nozue also had difficulty developing a framework for Tifa's body that was "balanced, yet showed off her feminine qualities". Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo were designed to be a manifestations of Sephiroth's spirit—his cruelty, strength, and allure respectively. In contrast to Sephiroth, the trio was meant to be younger than Cloud, to focus on the "next generation" theme. By October 2003, the film was 10% complete; while the script was written, not all the characters were designed.

Nomura felt that Advent Children differed from Hollywood films, where the meaning of most scenes tends to be explained. However, with Advent Children, the staff wanted viewers to interpret the scenes individually, allowing them to come to different conclusions. Nojima described the theme of the film as "survival". Other themes Nomura and Nojima were concerned to include Cloud's feelings of guilt and regret for failing to save his friends Zack and Aerith. These feelings are symbolized by a grey wolf that appears whenever Cloud thinks about them. The wolf disappears at the end of the film as Cloud comes to terms with his feelings. The word "children" was used in the title to refer to the film's children, as they represent the "next generation".

Music
The music of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, Keiji Kawamori, Kenichiro Fukui, and Tsuyoshi Sekito, and arranged by Fukui, Sekito, Kawamori, Shirō Hamaguchi, and Kazuhiko Toyama. Nomura would make some changes and have the composers re-record the piece upon hearing each track. The end theme, "Calling", was written and performed by former Boøwy vocalist Kyosuke Himuro. The soundtrack includes both pieces original to the film and arrangements of works from Final Fantasy VII, originally composed by Uematsu. Some of the arrangements, including "Advent: One-Winged Angel", are performed by The Black Mages, a rock band formed by Uematsu, Fukui, and Sekito. Both the pieces are original to the film, and the film arrangements cover a variety of musical styles, including orchestral, choral, classical piano, and rock music; Variety noted that the styles vary between "sparse piano noodlings, pop-metal thrashings, and cloying power ballads". The 2005 soundtrack album Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Original Soundtrack collects 26 tracks of music from the film on two discs. Square Enix published it on September 28, 2005. In addition to the regular release, a limited edition was produced containing alternative cover art and a booklet of credits and lyrics. The soundtrack album reached position #15 on the Japanese Oricon music charts and stayed on the charts for ten weeks.

A mini-album entitled Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete Mini Album was released on April 10, 2009, to coincide with the release of the Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete version of the film. This version of the film included a new ending theme, "Safe and Sound", by Kyosuke Himuro and My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way. "Water" was replaced with a new song—"Anxious Heart". Tracks on the album included new versions of "The Chase of Highway", "Those Who Fight Further", "Sign", "Advent: One-Winged Angel", and "On the Way to a Smile". A larger album, Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete: Reunion Tracks, was released with 21 tracks on September 16 the same year. This album contains the tracks from the mini-album and several lengthened pieces for the Complete film version but not rearranged. Reunion Tracks appeared on the Oricon charts for a single week at position #108.

Promotion and release
Advent Children and the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII series were first announced at the 2003 Tokyo Game Show in September, the former as a direct-to-DVD film. The first trailer for the film was featured in the international version of the video game Final Fantasy X-2, released in February 2004. The trailer used a motion capture that was altered in the final film. Advent Children was initially scheduled for a September 13, 2005 release in North America and a September 14 in Japan, but the North American release date was pushed back several times. It was first moved to November, then to January 2006, and finally scheduled for April 25 for release on DVD and Universal Media Discs for the PlayStation Portable.

In 2004, Panasonic produced the Japanese exclusive FOMA P900iV cell phone identical to the one Cloud uses in the movie; the phone contained several features related to Advent Children such as wallpapers and ringtones. Before the film's release, Square Enix serialized the web novel "On the Way to a Smile" written by Kazushige Nojima on the Japanese Advent Children website on September 5, 2005, which was later released with "Episode: Tifa" by Shueisha in a 118-page book about the film's story titled Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Prologue Book on September 14, 2005. On September 8, 2005, Square Enix premiered the movie in Japan at Virgin Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills in Tokyo. Following the premiere, from September 10 to September 16, Square Enix screened the movie at Virgin Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills in Tokyo, Toho Cinemas Nagoya Bay City in Nagoya, and Toho Cinemas Nijou in Kyoto. The movie screened once per day at 6:30 p.m.. In order to view the movie, fans had to receive an invite from Square Enix by already being registered to the official "Shinra Company" online fan club on Square Enix's website. In 2006, SoftBank Creative published a guidebook entitled Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Reunion Files, which contains interviews with the film's staff and information regarding the development of the film.

A limited edition of the film titled Final Fantasy VII Advent Pieces was released in Japan simultaneously as Advent Children; only 77,777 sets were produced. The edition contains various pieces of merchandise, a copy of the script, the original Final Fantasy VII game, a strategy guidebook for the game, and a disc containing the original video animation (OVA) Last Order: Final Fantasy VII. Nomura stated that meaning of the name Advent Pieces was that "advent" means "the recognition and commemoration of something", while "pieces" was added to bring special meaning to the release. A special one-time-only theatrical screening of the English version of the film took place on April 3, 2006, at the Arclight Theatre in Los Angeles. The event was promoted via email to those who subscribed to the Square Enix mailing list. The screening included trailers of the video games Kingdom Hearts II and Dirge of Cerberus, and featured appearances from the English language cast and the Japanese developers.

The film's DVD release is a 2-disc set that contains several bonus features, including Last Order. Final Fantasy VII Advent Children (Limited Edition Collector's Set) was released in North America on February 20, 2007. The set included more bonus material than the previous DVD releases, including a copy of the script, several postcards with imagery from the film, and the first three stories from the On the Way to a Smile short story series.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete
A director's cut of the film, entitled Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete was released on the Blu-ray format. The new edition of the film was released in Japan on April 16, 2009. A separate version was sold that included a demo of Final Fantasy XIII. Both editions included the first HD trailers of Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII, though the third edition without the extra videos or demos was also released. On April 11 and 12, days before Advent Children Complete's release, Square Enix held four special screenings of Advent Children Complete at the Ginza Sony Building in Tokyo. There were 800 seats available to those who reserved the Blu-ray or the PlayStation 3 bundle at the Square Enix e-store and were Square Enix's online website members.

Advent Children Complete has a higher visual quality than the original release, is 26 minutes longer than the film's original cut, and contains roughly one thousand revised scenes. Themes expanded in Advent Children Complete include Cloud's development, Denzel's background, and a more in-depth view of the Turks and Rufus Shinra. The film's staff wanted to add links to the other titles in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII released since the original film. This version has more violence, specifically blood during the fights, as the staff wanted to bring a "dirtier" look to the film, with characters' faces and clothes getting darker and dirtier throughout the battles. Additionally, the fight between Cloud and Sephiroth was expanded by several minutes and included a scene in which Sephiroth impales Cloud on his sword and holds him in the air, mirroring the scene in the game where he performs the same action.

Advent Children Complete was released in North America on June 2, and in the UK on July 27 the same year. The North American and European versions come with a new trailer for Final Fantasy XIII rather than a demo. The releases in all regions also feature an animated piece entitled "On the Way to a Smile - Episode: Denzel", as well as the story digests "Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII" and "Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII Compilation". The Japanese and English voice actors returned to record additional dialogues for the new and expanded scenes. Nomura said that they had no major problems with this process, noting that Sakurai and Morikawa were already used to their characters from voicing them in other media. However, some child characters, most notably Denzel and Marlene, had to be recast and have all their lines re-recorded. The original performers' voices now sounded more mature in both languages. Nomura has stated that while Advent Children Complete did not represent the end of Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, as the staff still had more ideas, it marked "the end of the Advent Children saga" as there would be no more re-releases or extended versions. Later, Advent Children Complete was released in Ultra HD Blu-ray on June 8, 2021 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Last Order: Final Fantasy VII
Last Order: Final Fantasy VII is an original video animation directed by Morio Asaka, written by Kazuhiko Inukai, and animated by Madhouse. It depicts an alternate rendition of two flashbacks found within Final Fantasy VII. It was originally released in Japan on the Advent Pieces DVD, on September 14, 2005. It was released in North America in the Limited Edition Collector's Set on February 20, 2007 and in Europe on November 6, 2008. There is currently no English dub for the film, and the North America and Europe versions are subtitled.

On the Way to a Smile
On the Way to a Smile is a series of short stories between Final Fantasy VII and Advent Children. Written by Kazushige Nojima, the first story, "Case of Denzel", was released in a serialized form on the official Japanese Advent Children website. "Case of Denzel" is told indirectly from the perspective of Denzel, who has requested an interview with Reeve Tuesti in the hopes that he may become part of Reeve's newly formed World Regenesis Organization, an army devoted to rebuilding the Planet. Denzel tells his life story, including how he became an orphan, the events leading up to his becoming afflicted with Geostigma, and how he came under the care of Tifa and Cloud. "Case of Denzel" was adapted into On the Way to a Smile - Episode: Denzel, a short OVA animated by A-1 Pictures and directed by Shinji Ishihara, that was released with Advent Children Complete.

The second short story, "Case of Tifa", is Tifa's account of the events following Meteor's destruction and her life with Cloud, overlapping in part with Denzel's story. A third On the Way to a Smile story, "Case of Barrett", involves Barret and his struggles to find a new energy source for the world's people. To coincide with the release of Advent Children Complete in 2009, four more stories were written: "Case of Red XIII", "Case of Yuffie", "Case of Shinra", and "Case of Lifestream - Black & White". All the stories were released together as a book titled On the Way to a Smile at the same time that Advent Children Complete was released.

Sales
The DVD releases of Advent Children sold over 410,000 copies in Japan during their first week on sale, with roughly half of the sales coming from the limited edition. The DVD and UMD releases combined sold over 700,000 units in Japan in the first three weeks and over one million copies by January 2006. In a 2005 Oricon Japanese sales report, the regular edition of the DVD ranked twelfth on the bestseller list in Japan for the entire year after one week of sales, and the limited edition ranked fifteenth. The two editions ranked third and fourth on the animated feature sublist. The English language DVD sold over 960,000 units, which translated to almost US$15 million in revenue by the fifth week of release. In the United States, it sold over 832,000 copies by May 2006, and eventually grossed over US$58 million in DVD sales in the country. The DVD ranked a "surprise" #2 during its first week on the American Nielsen VideoScan sales charts after being released in North America. Nielsen's "Top Selling Anime Releases of 2006" report had Advent Children ranked first, and the 2006 report by the Japan External Trade Organization also ranked the film as the best-selling Japanese anime DVD in the United States. In the 2007 list, the DVD was at the tenth spot. As of June 2006, the DVD and UMD releases combined sold over 2.4 million units worldwide, with 1 million units sold in Japan, 1.3 million in North America, and 100,000 in Europe. By May 2009, just before the release of Advent Children Complete, the film had sold over 4.1 million copies across all versions.

On its first day of release, over 100,000 Blu-ray copies of Advent Children Complete were sold in Japan across all three versions. During its initial week, the Blu-ray was #2 on the American Nielsen VideoScan Blu-ray bestseller list, with 274,774 units sold. During 2009, the regular version of Advent Children Complete sold 49,000 units in Japan according to Oricon, ranking second in their category "Animation/Special Effects Blu-ray Discs". It ranked eighth in the category "Overall Blu-ray Discs, by Yen" with 310 million yen (US$3.4 million) sold in 2009. Gaming sites Gamasutra and Kotaku cited Advent Children Complete as one of the main reasons why sales of the PlayStation 3 video game console radically increased during the film's first week of release.

Critical response
Advent Children has received mixed reviews. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an approval rating of 50% based on 8 reviews, with an average rating of 5.7/10. The computer-animated graphics were generally praised; 1UP.com's James Mielke, who awarded the film an "A−", said the quality and clarity of the CG visuals were "genuinely amazing". Anime News Network writer Carlo Santos praised the animation while awarding the film a "B", calling it "outstanding". About.com's Roger Altizer, while giving the film overall 2 and a half stars out of 5, cited the visuals as one of its few positive points. The film's plot was generally criticized as confusing; Leslie Felperin of Variety, in a sharply negative review, described the plot as "soulless" and "utterly impenetrable" to anyone who had not played the game, and Anime News Network's Santos agreed that people who had not played Final Fantasy VII would not understand the story. Mania Entertainment's John Eriani also found the plot confusing to non-players, though he liked how the characters were further explored in the film. Todd Douglass Jr. from DVD Talk, while "highly recommending" the film, praised Cloud's character development in particular. About.com's Altizer summarized the plot and dialogue as "weak", and IGN's Chris Carle, in their 9 out of 10 reviews, felt that the plot was just an excuse to get to the next action sequence. The story digest "Reminiscence of Final Fantasy VII", included with the DVD to explain the plot of Final Fantasy VII, was described by Anime News Network's Santos as "just as confusing as the movie" and of no help in explaining the plot to anyone who had not already played the game, though Carle of IGN felt it was helpful to those who had not played the game in a while.

The action scenes were generally praised. RPGamer's Michael Beckett, while giving the film a 4 out of 5, lauded the film's fighting scenes, calling them "mesmerizing" and the primary focus of the film. Anime News Network's Santos also heavily praised the action sequences, and Felperin of Variety felt they were the only point to the film, which they felt focused entirely on the technical aspects of the action. The music received mixed reviews; Eriani of Mania Entertainment heavily praised it, as did Santos of Anime News Network, but 1UP.com's Mielke called it "a bit sappy". Douglass Jr. from DVD Talk concluded that Advent Children "is pretty much the film that fans all over the world have been waiting for"; RPGamer's Beckett said that "the film feels very much like a love letter to the fans of Final Fantasy VII"; and IGN's Carle summed up the film as "glorious, beautiful, well-executed fan service".

Destructoid noted there was a message within the writing of the film regarding the characters' lives in Midgar, leading them to move on with their lives in a similar fashion to Final Fantasy VII gamers since the story ended with Cloud saving Midgar from Sephiroth's resurrection which would threaten it again especially when the spirit of Zack Fair reminds him that he has already defeated him already. Kotaku saw the focus on the Midgar's ruins as a parallelism with psychological trauma due to how all of its survivors suffer a disease that cannot be fought with Cloud's striking weaponry on its own.

The director's cut, Advent Children Complete, was generally praised over the original version. Joystiq's Andrew Yoon found Advent Children Complete a better film, feeling it was more accessible to people who had not played Final Fantasy VII. Blu-ray.com's Dustin Somner called it "a nice improvement on an entertaining film", and DVD Talk's Todd Douglass Jr. said it was "the best version of the film" due to its audio quality, the new scenes, and the expansion of Cloud's battle against Sephiroth. Douglass also found the addition of On the Way to a Smile - Episode: Denzel to be a welcome edition, though he felt that the bonus features as a whole were underwhelming, belying the "Complete" title. Yoon of Joystiq thought that the new scenes helped give more depth to Cloud's development, to the point of "humanizing" him, though he felt the change in pacing for some scenes made the plot hard to follow. Kotaku writer AJ Glasser, however, summed up the director's cut as "26 extra minutes and it still doesn't make any sense", saying that the new scenes did little to improve the plot of the film itself.

Legacy
Advent Children received the Honorary Maria Award at the Sitges Film Festival on October 15, 2005. The film was also awarded "best anime feature" at the 2007 American Anime Awards. IGN placed it second in their "Top 10 Straight-to-DVD Animated Movies" list.

In 2007, the music video for the song "Sonata of Temptation" by Korean singer Ivy recreated the fight between Tifa and Loz. The director of the video, Hong Jung-ho, stated that it was just a parody of the film but could not get Square Enix's official permission. That December, Square Enix launched a lawsuit against Fantom Entertainment (Ivy's agency) and Hong, asking for 160,000,000 KRW total. In April 2008, the Seoul District Court ruled that the video was considered plagiarism and ordered Fantom Entertainment and Hong to pay the fine. The video was subsequently banned from airing on Korean television.

OverClocked ReMix's four-disc Final Fantasy VII unofficial tribute album, Voices of the Lifestream, contains one disc remixing music from the film.

Final Fantasy XIII director Motomu Toriyama has stated that he felt the film showed "battles that have not been achievable in FF so far", and so tried to design the battle system for Final Fantasy XIII to create cinematic battles like the film.

Cloud's design from the film is available as an alternate costume for Cloud in the crossover fighting games Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The reveal trailer for Sephiroth as downloadable content in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate recreates the final battle between him and Cloud from the film, and several songs from the film appear as part of the Sephiroth DLC pack. As part of the update, the Final Smash of Cloud's Advent Children costume was changed to Omnislash Ver. 5.

The film's storyline was recreated as part of the 2023 mobile game Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis.

Nia DaCosta, director of The Marvels (2023), said that she cited Advent Children in her pitch for her film.

title: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children


text:
Salem River

The Salem River is a 34.7 mi tributary of the Delaware River in southwestern New Jersey in the United States.

The course and watershed of the Salem River are entirely within Salem County. Tributaries of the Salem include Game Creek, Mannington Creek, and Fenwick Creek. The river rises in Upper Pittsgrove Township and flows initially westwardly, through Pilesgrove Township and the borough of Woodstown and along the boundaries of Carneys Point and Mannington Townships. Near Deepwater it approaches to within 2 mi of the Delaware River, a distance breached by the Salem (Deepwater) Canal, which connects the two rivers. From there the Salem River turns to the south, flowing along the boundary of Mannington and Pennsville Townships, where it widens into a meandering shallow estuary, Kates Creek Meadow, and passes the city of Salem, its head of navigability. It flows into the Delaware River from the east near the head of Delaware Bay, on the boundary of Pennsville and Elsinboro townships, approximately 2 mi west of Salem and approximately 5 mi southeast of Finns Point.

The Delaware and the Salem are tidal. The Delaware River Main Channel is maintained at a depth of 40 ft and expected to be 45 ft in 2017 Reach D, which includes the entrance to Port of Salem, was completed in 2010. The shipping channel of the Salem River is much shallower, making the city a low draft port, which prohibits use by Handymax class ships. The river is entered though Salem Cove about 50 mi from the entrance of the Delaware Bay. The channel travels along the southeast side of the cove for 2 mi and continues another 3 mi upstream of the first vehicular bridge crossing it. The Salem River and Cut-Off was first channelized in 1925 to a depth of 16 ft.

According to the Geographic Names Information System, the river has also been known historically as Firkins Creek, Varkens Kill, and Varkins Kill (Hogg Creek). The Board on Geographic Names settled on "Salem River" as the stream's name in 1940. The estuary was inhabited by Lenape at the time of European colonization. In 1641, emigrants from the New Haven Colony settled along the Varkens Kill. Fort Elfsborg, a settlement of the New Sweden colony was constructed along the eastern bank of the Delaware near the mouth of the Salem in 1642–1643. The fort was later abandoned because of the prevalence of mosquitoes and the construction of Fort Casimir by the New Netherland Dutch across the river. In 1675, the village of Salem was founded near the mouth of the Salem river as part of the Fenwick Colony.

title: Salem River