I think what we are seeing, is a reckoning with the reality of what the retrilogy is able to properly convey and show, something the original wasn’t able to do.
The original had some incredible cinematic direction, tremendous art and visual design given the limitations to a reliance on the pre-rendered backgrounds of the era, and all the presentation style of (and I hate to say this in a way that may sound critical but I mean it to be endearing) a high school diorama project.
The characters are these funny, polygonal blocks of expressionless digital LEGO. They move around in highly exaggerated movements, because that’s one of the very few ways they are able to appropriately send a message to the audience as to what a certain character is feeling in any given moment. And we of course have the dialogue boxes.
But they only tell us so much.
As much as any written down piece of text can be misread and misinterpreted any which way to suit an agenda, or fit a pre established reading, so too can very limited movement of expression be taken to be read in any way that comes to suit a preexisting idea of what we want to interpret it as.
So when Kazushige Nojima, at the very advent of this remake project, expressed his fears, that due to the nature of the progression of technology, and what they are now able to show with the incredibly realistic character models and graphics, that things would no longer be open to interpretation, it was essentially the warning bell.
That what could be argued as subtext in the original, would become the text. Because that was always the intention, it was just lost, either in translation, or misinterpretation due to the limitations of the presentation of the original.
Nearly everything they’ve done thus far in this remake project, from the games themselves to the expanded materials, not only honours and follows through on what was in the original text all along, but it also does exactly what Nojima says it would.
It’s presented in a way where it simply isn’t open to interpretation anymore. Despite what some of the very loud corners of the internet and fandom may want others to be gaslit into believing, things have been so heavily telegraphed at this point I am honestly surprised not only at the continued ignorance of some who refuse to see the way the wind has been blowing since 1997, but also at those who still are doubtful at them following through, when we have mountains of evidence even before the Ultimania, of the writers and developers absolutely doubling down on where things are going, have always been going.
This is nothing to say of the many ways the stories in the games and novellas have in greater depth explored just why it is that Cloud would find himself never ceasing in his devotion to Tifa, nor his desire to be someone special to her. Why Tifa too would find herself falling for Cloud, who she once saw as something so remote and unreachable, but exhibits in her actions and emotions just how much she has always and will always be the one person who is able to find him, reach out to him, and bring him back.
Why Zack will never, no matter the crisis, no matter the dimension, cease in his unwavering determination and will to reunite with Aerith, the woman he loved so much he originally died in his quest to reunite with her.
And why Aerith, who has come to forge new bonds and friendships, experience love in so many ways on her journey, will always find herself drawn back to the man who inspired in her, and gave her the confidence to love herself first and always choose to be a force for kindness in a world that seeks to tear us apart from those we love.
All of this is so blatant and heavily entrenched in the games, the novellas, illuminated further by developer interviews and now the Ultimania… it really does just all fit so neatly together, that there shouldn’t be any doubt as to which direction this train that we are on will take us.
