The interviews do not leave much to interpretation, nor are they ambiguous with their intentions. What else is Toriyama speaking of when he says they intend to preserve "major characters and
plot revelations?" There's specifically 1 significant plot revelation ahead, and we know what that is. What's the ambiguity/cheek in this?
She calls it "Freedom". Freedom from what? From the story we know.
No, she says "
boundless terrifying freedom. Like a great neverending sky." She compares the freedom to the sky, something dangerous and unknown. And it's not a positive, liberating context. Because..
Nomura from FFVII Ultimania said:
For Aerith, the sky symbolizes sadness. The people who were dear to her, such as Zack and her mother Ifalna, had all returned to the sky, and the sky that she sees above her in the slums was covered by Shinra too. The calamity that destroyed the Ancients, Jenova, also fell from the sky. All of these incidents remind Aerith of the sky, which is why she says she hates it.
Their hope for changing the future is to defeat Sephiroth who they know, thanks to Aerith, is a dangerous threat to the planet and they think has damned the planet to a catastrophic future, locked in forever. That's literally what they said was their intentions for fighting him. The risk to this might change them or the planet forever. However they are ignorant of the fact, that's not true. Anyone knowing FFVII's conclusion knows this, and then they fail to kill him.
Then you have thee party getting visions of the events of the OG as they battle the whispers, and Red XIII flat out calls them "visions of tomorrow if we fail here today" (this is what I refer to when I say the original plot was willingly discarded)
Toriyama addresses this in the Ultimania Plus. Red XIII's long lifespan and limited present knowledge leaves him unable to fully understand, comprehend and realize the context of the information he gets about the future. He's not some reliable, all-knowing narrator and he wrongly assumes that him running in the wasteland is some sort of bad future because he doesn't realize the context of 500 years later. That's not the meaning of that scene with the Harbinger at all.
And if Zack were alive, it would frankly not be a story of Aerith's "first" love. Aerith wouldn't have felt the sadness regarding the sky leaving Midgar. There would be no context of conclusion in her words. Her love of Zack wouldn't be related to being just the "first," like a closed chapter of her life. Their love would be current. That's
not how someone would speak, having discovered someone they loved who was thought to be
dead, was alive again.
Honestly, I'm just confused with the whole thing. The game itself slaps you over the head with 'everything is changing, terrifying freedom, zack is alive somewhere, the unknown journey is coming' and the dev interviews are like 'oh don't worry everything will be the same bro, lol'.
Because that's literally not what was said or happening in Ch18. Implied guard rails of "destiny" being removed, doesn't solidify destiny has been fundamentally changed. The party members did
not defeat Sephiroth, which was the crux of them upending destiny in the first place.
They didn't go into the Singularity with the intention of murdering the Whispers or "fate", they went there to stop Sephiroth. And they did not, meaning quite literally, the future hasn't changed. And surprisingly, Sephiroth revealed to Cloud he
isn't trying to necessarily "destroy" the planet; he's trying to save it from an end many, many years in the future.
You're taking a tagline as literal gospel, ignoring the vast reams of context associated to the scenery, and then what the writers have stated was the context of everything else. Folks seemingly going Death of the Author here, while ignoring the reality that the work is still in progress, and the writers are stating quite consistently and emphatically, the direction they're going with it. Repeatedly for 2 years. From FFVII-R Intermission to Trace of Two Pasts, the direction they're going is kinda staring us in the face. It's not indecipherable or incomprehensible.