JFC you guys, it hasn't even been a week since I last logged in and this post exploded.
And it's not even much about Maiden anymore.
My 2 cents:
Though, this does remind me, CC needed to have a scene of Zack trying to call Aerith on escaping, only to find his phone didn't work, or her number had changed or something.
I get a kick out of imagining that after the fiftieth failed phone call, Aerith got mad at her phone and chucked it in the magical waterfall behind her house.
Maybe he could leave a message like she did in Advent Children.
I found Aerith and Zack's reunion and conversation awkward and indifferent.
While I think their interaction could have used tweaking (especially her not knowing he'd died, which as already said was a wallbanger even with just original game canon to work from), I actually think it makes a
ton of sense for their first reunion to be awkward and indifferent. Once Zack explained what happened to him it'd be different, but it's still a lot to take in all at once. Aerith is hardly perfect, she's not 100% sweetness all the time. I could see her brushing off Zack, not because she's trying to get back at him or doesn't love him, but because she's just afraid of getting her feelings hurt and is keeping them in reserve until she's figured things out and ends up temporarily going back to the "oh Zack was just a fling" act she had during most of her screentime.
It's not so much as shoehorning the relationship in retroactively, it's why they even bothered to add it into the storyline in the first place. Zack/Aeris has no narrative relevancy if it wasn't to cause suspect to Cloud/Aeris. You could make the arguement that it was foreshadowing to Cloud's identity crisis, but this could be done without the Zack/Aeris relationship. It's quite apparent that aspect of the story was included to cause suspect to the whole Cloud/Aeris red herring romance.
I think it would have narrative relevancy besides that. One of the reasons Aerith's death is so tragic is that she's such a positive, hopeful character in the game, even though she's been just as affected as
everyone else with a messed-up past. So it makes it really bittersweet that she's messed up over her dead boyfriend and moves past that toward being attracted to someone she has an actual chance with (even if Cloud would have shot her down--which is pretty likely--she at least had the chance to
ask) and it's right after she makes the separation between the two that she gets killed. It adds more impact I think.
...also, what is with this forum repeatedly logging me out while I'm browsing it/responding to topics?