 Director Sakaguchi named the main character after his mother , Aki , who died in an accident several years prior to the production of the film . Her death led Sakaguchi to reflect on what happened to the spirit after death , and these thoughts resurfaced while he was planning the film , eventually taking the form of the Gaia hypothesis . He later explained that the theme he wanted to convey was " more of a complex idea of life and death and spirit " , believing that the best way to portray this would be to set the film on Earth . By comparison , Final Fantasy video games are set in fictional worlds . Dan Mayers from Sight & Sound stated the film followed the same theme typically found in Final Fantasy video games : " A party of heroes averts impending global holocaust by drawing on their individual skills , gaining knowledge through challenges and emerging victorious with new @-@ found love and respect for themselves and their companions . " Writing in the book Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams , Livia Monnet stated the film remediated " the notion of life in the <unk> , evolutionary biology of Lynn Margulis and in contemporary theories on artificial life " , going on to state that the film 's exploration of the Gaia hypothesis raised interesting questions regarding the life and death process of both cinema and digital media , as well as contemporary life sciences , cybernetics , philosophy and science fiction . The concept of artificial life and resurrection was also discussed , and compared to similar themes in the 1914 book Locus Solus ; the Phantoms in The Spirits Within were considered to be brought to life by various forces : by the alien planet 's red Gaia and then by human spiritual energy . 
