Relation of opening and closing movies

Forgive me, I'm not at all an FF 'geek', I've only ever played FFXI and now FFXIV, so I know nothing more of the general 'lore' than those games.

I can't figure out how the end movie relates to the opening one. Maybe it's because I never played the end-game events in XIV, but I have no idea how the events in Mor Dhona shown in the opening movie .. I assume that IS Mor Dhona where the action takes place .. relate to what happens at the end.

I watched the opening a couple of times last night, and see in there towards the end some 'demon like' creatures in those blue 'globes' that rush past the falling human.

Also, what about the meteorites, or whatever they are, that are raining down in the new character tutorial (at the point where you hear that small snippet of Answers), how do they relate.

Is there somewhere that explains how these parts of the story combine into a 'whole', or is there no real connection due to Yoshi fundamentally changing the base story from that which Tanaka worked on?

Those "globes" are the primals, ifrit, titan, etc. I think the only real connection between the videos is the location and that Bahamut is also a primal, at least we think he is. Think of it as just showing us 2 major battles that have happend in Mor Dhonna with the primals being involved each time. The Garlean empire also feature in both. It is never made clear exactly what is happening in the opening video, remember that was made a long time ago and their plans for the game have changed drastically since,

The directed connection between the two movies are the characters shown, which are the same. Lore-wise, opening is taking place 15 year since now, at the battle of silvertiers skyes (it's lore in-game, you can read it here http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...entry?e=341575) and the birth of mor dhona like we know. This ending wasn't obliusly planned, but somehow we'll know more in ARR, why dragons kill people, why bahamuth was sealed in the sky etc

I'll give you an explanation in lee man's words:

The opening cutscene is a premonition of the catastrophe.
The catastrophe being the empire's plans to summon this huge meteorite to crush against the planet and purge everything.
We destroy the device they use to attract it, but its too late. So we have a back up plan to pray to the 12 gods to stop the armaggedon.
There's a final battle between the empire and the alliance of nations in mor dohna (to where the meteorite is headed).

We find out then that the meteorite is in fact a cage. Holding the god dragon, bahamut.
The empire has been feeding it aether energy so its stronger than before.

Thus the twelve are unable to seal him once again, and our plan fails.

So the reincarnation of the god of space and time sends us beyond the reach of time. Thus saving us from dying.

This plot wasn't the original one. It was shifted and molded by Yoshi when he took over.
There are some unfinished plotlines left by tanaka which might resume on 2.0.

I would take the first movie with a grain of salt because a lot of what was shown just doesn't apply very well. The armoury system for one. This is how I see it, the midlander guy had an echo vision when selecting the card, witnessed the battle in Mor Dhona 15 years earlier, then came back to reality. Didn't realize what had just happened but just went with it.

In the last movie looks like he's made friends with those same adventurers from his echo trip (Possible?) plus the Mi'qote, and it's the last stand.

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Originally Posted by Majidah

We destroy the device they use to attract it, but its too late. So we have a back up plan to pray to the 12 gods to stop the armaggedon.

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Yup, it was part of our cunning master plan all along. It wasn't out of desperation or anything. Nope.

*cough*

There was a theory around that the dragon dying at the start summons Dalamud (awekening bahamut) with that light of aether, and as an added result the primals are also freed.

Then Bahamut mind controls Nael and shit happens.

Honesty, I dont think garleans knew that bahamut was in there, except maybe the van darnus guy since he had made a connection to it, in some part of the storyline it was even made known that he was hiding information from the emperor of the garleans.

What is weird is why send all those garleans and machines to attack us at the end if they knew Bahamut was in there. What I think is that it wasn't time for dalamund to hit the ground because it was still too high in the sky when it broke open. My guess is that they were gonna kick our asses, then leave the coninent of eorzea and then sit back and watch dalamund hit us, but things got crazy and a huge chunk of their military was taken out along with the rest of us, which was never their intention, which would explain why in ARR we aren't overrun with garleans.

There is no guarantee that Bahamut is a primal, but he most likely is, but the dragon in the intro mostly likely isnt a primal simply because isgard is fighting dragons nonstop and that dragon destroyed the garlean mothership before the primals fell from the sky.

Also I dont believe dalamund had anything to do with the intro, that was back when they were just gonna invades us, the dalamund plan came into play because of the failure of their invasion.

I read that ARR takes place 5 years later, I hope that isn't true at all because its extremely silly to have such a huge chunk of people die and then have entire villages rebuilt in just 5 years, that time span is way too short, even 10 years would be hard to swallow.

Also, big fail on Square's end for having people from his echo appear as his party members, I guess they should have kept some of the original story writers on the new team to avoid such obvious mistakes.

The gods of space and time sent us to the future? What are you talking about? lol Louisiox sent us to the future as his failsafe plan which Cid mentions after you win the To Kill A Raven battle in the instance that happens right as you win.

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Originally Posted by Cegiana

Also, big fail on Square's end for having people from his echo appear as his party members, I guess they should have kept some of the original story writers on the new team to avoid such obvious mistakes.

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Why is this a bad thing? Where does it imply that the echo party (fighting the Malboro) left the planet entirely? The entire purpose of the ending cinematic was that all adventurers of Eorzea were in Mor Dhona fighting off the Garleans. Yes, it's incredibly convenient that the same people showed up to help him, but they'd be there anyway.

Yeah except those fighting the malboro were fighting it 15-20 years ago, what are the odds that he would come across some of that party so far into the future and that they would become his party during the end, let alone that the Galka looks like he hasn't aged a minute? lol Takes you out of the story when it's such bad story writing (which says a lot cause I love FFXIV lore, much more than FFXI lore.) It's my ONLY complain about the ending, cause that damn FMV brought tears to my eyes and it rivaled the opening FMV of FFVIII when it comes to emotional impact (especially if you watch the FF8 intro AFTER you know the entire storyline, man, I'm about to pop in my FF8 now.) lol

And KiriA500, I can't stop watching your signature over and over again, it's hypnotic for some reason. lol