First, I will say there are certain "action touches" where we
are only really supposed to notice the action, where the thoughts and feelings of the person being saved/doing the saving aren't particularly important. These moments are usually quite brief (a few seconds, literally you could blink and miss it), and quite basic in terms of shot composition. You only need 3 shots to establish the save.
1) Character A noticing the danger
2) Character A saving Character(s) B from the danger (i.e., the action part)
3) The aftermath of said save to show that it was successful.
These two moments illustrate it perfectly.
1) Cloud notices the danger. 2) Cloud carries the girls to safety. 3) We see where they land
1) Barret notices the danger. 2) Barret carries Aerith to safety. 3) We see where they land
These moments really do just serve as action moments. They don't tell us anything about the relationships between the characters. I would say that few of Cloud and Tifa's action moments fall into this category.
There are a couple of these action saves that follow that same basic structure, but are a bit more elaborate. These "extra" shots tell us what the game wants us to pay attention to.
Here we have Cloud catching Aerith from the roof:
I would call
(2) +
(3) the "noticing the danger";
(4) the "action save"; and
(5) the "aftermath"
Cloud saving Aerith from Eligor/the shipping container Eligor has possessed:
(1) is the "danger";
(3) is "the save";
(4) "the aftermath"
And Cloud saving Tifa from a stray shipping container (what is with these containers!) outside of what's left of Seventh Heaven:
(3)+
(4) is "the danger";
(5a) is the "save";
(5b) is the "aftermath"
In both Aerith scenes, the "extra" shots in her scenes draw our attention to Aerith and her reaction to being saved. When Cloud is the main focus of a shot, he is literally in "action" i.e., running. Even with the Bridal catch,
(5) zooms out from a close-up of Aerith's face, so our focus is still on her.
In the Eligor scene,
(2) focuses on Aerith's face as she realizes she's being saved, but we never get a reaction shot of Cloud. Instead, after they land, it's back to business as usual and they both focus on Eligor, before Tifa comes in and has her moment with Aerith.
In Tifa's scene,
(4) is just a shot of Cloud's face reacting to the falling container. He's not doing anything just yet.
(5a) starts with a close-up of Tifa('s chest) but Cloud quickly moves into the frame, and he is the character in motion, so I would say our focus is split between the two characters, if not a bit more towards Cloud since he was the subject of the previous shot. Instead of cutting to a new shot, it's one continuous action, with
(5b) showing the "aftermath" of the save.
In short, for Aerith's scenes, we're supposed notice Aerith's reaction to being saved (which makes sense, in Ch. 8, Cloud is finally fulfilling his duty as a bodyguard, in the Train Graveyard, she's lost and is finally found); whereas in Tifa's scene, we're supposed to notice Cloud's desire to save Tifa (I assume this point is self-explanatory in this club, lol)
In general though, many of Cloud and Tifa's "action" moments aren't particularly illuminating of the action. As in they seem to showcase their emotional connection/physical intimacy
at the expense of telling us what is actually going on in that scene.
There are many a moment where one character helps another off of the ground.
Cloud helping Jessie up during the first mission:
Rude lifting Reno up on the pillar:
Cloud helping Tifa on the pillar:
No, that's it. It's literally just one shot.
In the other scenes, the first two shots establish where each individual character is, and the third shows where they are after they've been helped up. The Cloud and Tifa shot....literally tells us nothing about how Cloud helps Tifa up. In fact, a bit later on (after Rude and Reno leave on the helicopter) we finally see Tifa getting up and Cloud taking his hands off her shoulders, so I guess we're supposed to assume the entire time they've just been looking into each others' eyes while trying to reenact the Pieta or something?
But in all seriousness, the Cloud and Tifa shot serves no plot purpose other than to show the two of them being so intimate. It's especially telling, because the Rude-Reno shots come right after. They have a nice moment too -- it tells us something about what's going on action-wise while
also revealing the relationship between the two.
Since we're on the pillar, here we have Cloud running into cover:
Now this is a real capital A Action shot. We see Cloud running, we see the helicopter shooting at him, we see Barret shooting back at the helicopter, all in one shot!
Here is Tifa running into cover (from more or less the same position as Cloud):
Umm...in lieu of any action, we have Cloud beckoning Tifa over and the two of them getting real up close and personal and staring into each others' eyes. Was the chopper still shooting at Tifa? Did Tifa also heroically dodge some bullets? Err....maybe? Again, the game is focusing on Cloud and Tifa's relationship
at the expense of the action.
This is more of a minor example. Our characters are always almost falling to their deaths. Here's a few moments where it's a team effort to get them back up to safety.
Cloud falling in the sewers:
Barret falling as they climb up the plate:
Cloud falling yet again when fighting the Whispers:
They're all shot fairly similarly, except in the two cases where Cloud is falling, the last shot is wide shot where we can see the geography of all three characters at once. When Cloud and Tifa are saving Barret, we instead have a medium shot where we can clearly see Cloud's hand resting on Tifa's back. That then requires an additional shot to show us where Barret landed. What an inch resting choice.
Finally, in the second Abzu battle, we have so many action saves!
Leslie saving Tifa:
Cloud saving Tifa:
Barret saving Cloud and Tifa:
These are all quick action-y moments, but Cloud saving Tifa is the only one where a character's face is in focus. She thinks she's gonna bite it until Cloud saves the day (err or the moment, I guess). That's to say nothing of
how these saves were performed. Grabbing someone by the wrist and running with them is arguably slower and more dangerous than just pushing them to safety, and yet...
This was kind of hard to even put this together, because so many of Cloud and Tifa's "action touches" are unique and there wasn't anything I could find to compare and contrast them to. This leads me to my final point, which is that the devs
deliberately chose to animate all of Cloud/Tifa's "action touches." Cloud and Aerith go through a lot of danger together, and yet, I'm pretty sure the two scenes I broke down above are the only times in the game where Cloud saves her. There is nothing inherently more dangerous about the battles Cloud and Tifa face together that would
require Cloud to save Tifa. I would say Hell House was easily the hardest boss in the game, and that fight had multiple phase shifts (not to mention it throws a bunch of projectiles), so there were plenty of opportunities for the devs to have Cloud saving Aerith, but they didn't.
Same with the final battle with the Whispers. Every character is in danger during the fight, but the game chooses to show Cloud saving Tifa. I wonder why?
Here are some really nice Cloud X Tifa fanarts!
