New Rebirth Trailer
- Thread starter Lex
- Start date
ForceStealer
Double Growth
I think my main hangup with the second timeline idea is that I seriously doubt Avalanche would have made it out of Mako Reactor 1, much less the end of the expressway, without Cloud (or Zack's, I guess) help. Unless the incapacitated party are the ones who directly came through the portal from the "main" game, although that doesn't explain why Cloud isn't there. I feel like these issues support Mako's "purely a Sephiroth illusion" idea, but other elements of the 2-timeline fit well enough that I'm not willing to write it off completely yet.
Theozilla
Kaiju Member
What's "purely a Sephiroth illusion"?
Mr. Dolphin
Lv. 25 Adventurer
Not to derail the theories, but I just noticed this. One big question is how it's going to work if there's a group of 3+ party members roaming the world together and only 3 party members in a battle.
At this point in the trailer, Red XII, Cloud, & Barret are actively fighting but you can see Aerith in the background sort of circling the battle area. Wonder if this means you'll be able to swap out characters during fights. I think that would be a great way to incorporate everyone in each fight without having it be overwhelming with 4+ active members at once. Also they wouldn't have to make plot contrivances to explain why only 3 members are fighting at a time (though it does look like Yuffie runs away in fear from the Jenova fight during the trailer, haha)
At this point in the trailer, Red XII, Cloud, & Barret are actively fighting but you can see Aerith in the background sort of circling the battle area. Wonder if this means you'll be able to swap out characters during fights. I think that would be a great way to incorporate everyone in each fight without having it be overwhelming with 4+ active members at once. Also they wouldn't have to make plot contrivances to explain why only 3 members are fighting at a time (though it does look like Yuffie runs away in fear from the Jenova fight during the trailer, haha)
Golden Ear
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- M. Prod
I think it will be a bit of both. Open areas allow for non active party members to chill from a distance while close quarter dungeons might have moments of the party splitting up with how the story goes.
Golden Ear
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- M. Prod
To play devil's advocate, you could say it's possible the tornado went through and damaged the sectors without hitting the Shinra building and thus why the Rufus/Shinra scene after the edge of creation seemed pretty normal and not damaged. Although you would think if a huge devastating tornado hit we would be presented with some kind of evidence/reaction or awareness of it from the Shinra crew.
ForceStealer
Double Growth
Yeah, it looks like Barret and Red fight the rock monster while Cloud and the girls fight the Turks in the Mythril Mines, too.
@Makoeyes987 can describe it better, my eyes started to glaze over in the chat, lol. But it's basically that there isn't more than one timeline, and Sephiroth shows that to Cloud as part of the attempt to make him question his existence, as evidenced by the screen fritz and black feather immediately following the broadcast scene.
And there's something else about the singularity memories of the planet stuff that I didn't follow
Theozilla
Kaiju Member
Oh if those opening trailer scenes are meant to be illusions being shown to Cloud and not actual footage being reported to citizens. If that is indeed the case then yes, I can believe there's a single timeline (that alive!Zack is just an anomaly in it). That's different than the other "single timeline" stuff where people were arguing that the party had literally entered a new timeline where previous existing versions of themselves were defeated and/or killed (i.e. the footage at the beginning of the trailer is not just some illusion).Yeah, it looks like Barret and Red fight the rock monster while Cloud and the girls fight the Turks in the Mythril Mines, too.
@Makoeyes987 can describe it better, my eyes started to glaze over in the chat, lol. But it's basically that there isn't more than one timeline, and Sephiroth shows that to Cloud as part of the attempt to make him question his existence, as evidenced by the screen fritz and black feather immediately following the broadcast scene.
And there's something else about the singularity memories of the planet stuff that I didn't follow
If the being trailer footage is supposed to be real, then I do think it's supposed to be two timelines though.
Makoeyes987
Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
- AKA
- Smooth Criminal
Yeah, I mentioned it a lot on discord before and I think I posted about I posted about it a few times here and here.
But essentially, its the theory that the whole perceived timeline shenanigans are merely reflections of the memories and knowledge of the Planet and its Fate. It's the Planet's destiny, now being changed/corrupted thanks to what has happened in the Singularity.
In Chapter 18 of the Remake, when Cloud and the others cross the threshold into the realm of the Whispers (i.e. the Singularity) they're met with an identical reflection of reality. And within that space they meet the Whisper Harbinger and its friends. It's where the tornado happens. Now, at that point is when we see another event, and that's Zack's last stand from CC.
I believe that that too, happened within the Singularity and its why its connected to the events that Cloud and the others witnessed in the Singularity version of Midgar. Because the Singularity is a space that is essentially a realm of memories that catalogs the destiny of the Planet. Past, present, and future. It's basically how the Planet matches up things in reality with what it wants to happen, it's Destiny. Like Red XIII said, the flow of the planet's Lifestream is "fixed" to match Destiny, and that knowledge/record it wants to keep is kept in record there by the Whispers.
With each injury that Whisper Harbinger took, memories of the OG FVII get revealed and flowed into the party. And then at the end of the battle with Sephiroth we see the Whispers explode. What happens to all that knowledge? It gets either lost or corrupted, leaving the Singularity, the record of memory for everything that's supposed to be "Fate" for the Planet, to now be in flux and inconsistent.
This is why things get inconsistent and weird. Zack surviving, Stamp's appearance no longer matching reality, and more. The memories that Planet has of "Fate" are now out of whack, which has a bleed-through effect on reality. Because memories are connected and can affect those in the living too. Which is why Cloud now believes Zack may be alive and Sephiroth can use this against him.
There's a few reasons why I think this is the most likely answer instead of direct timeline or time travel. For one, we know what the Singularity is and how it works. The Planet has knowledge of it's past, present and future. This is confirmed by what's stated and shown in the Remake directly.
Second, we have the Aerith we see in Chapter 14's resolution scene. That phantom of Aerith that speaks to Cloud is called an Aerith who has "memories of the future" and is trying to reach Cloud to warn him of what's ahead with her. The fact the Planet is capable of holding memories of the future, and then manifesting a phantom of her which is based on those memories, has... Very huge implications. Then there's the explanation of what Whisper Rubrum, Viridi and Corceo are.
FFVII Remake Revisited said:
The whispers have access to all memories within the flow of time of the Planet. They are essentially, omniscient in regards to all beings. And that means within the Planet, within its Lifestream, is the knowledge and memories of everyone whoever is, was, and ever will be. If there exists memories of the future, and knowledge of its destiny, that means the Planet is essentially a huge Akashic Record of reality and that's how it manages Fate. But thanks to the Whispers within the Singularity being destroyed... What happens to those memories now?
The Singularity space exists but now that knowledge is corrupted, no longer in step with reality, which now leaves reality vulnerable to go places that it shouldn't go. But that of course, leaves it to go places Sephiroth might want it to go (i.e. defy destiny). And that vision of the party being injured and carried off by Shinra could be an illusion based on that incorrect memory of the Planet, since that Whisper tornado happened within the Singularity itself.
I think the mysterious version of Sephiroth that is fought at the end of FFVII Remake is the memory of Sephiroth that existed within the Planet, manifested and carrying a will of his own due to his own will allowing him to seek to free himself from Fate, and that's how he's linked up with reality and is wishing to have Cloud "defy destiny" so that the Planet doesn't meet its end in the far future.
And I think the Zack that we see survive his Last Stand, is the Zack from the Planet's own memories of his fate, surviving beyond what he was supposed to. It's the Singularity's counterpart to the actual Zack who died. Sort of like how there was an Aerith who existed as a phantom in Chapter 14, that was created from the "memories of the future" that existed.
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cold_spirit
he/him
- AKA
- Alex T
Was it Cae who made the observation that you can see castle walls in the background as the party exits the tunnel? Good stuff. The architecture matches Kalm's.
I find it interesting though that in Intermission's ending, Kalm is surrounded by a badland, whereas in Rebirth's trailer the party overlooks a green coast.
Seems they changed the environment, which is fine by me. Rebirth matches the original game better.
Additionally, if they are exiting Kalm through a tunnel, then perhaps they did so to escape Shinra? Midgar's neighbor would be the obvious first place to look after all.
I find it interesting though that in Intermission's ending, Kalm is surrounded by a badland, whereas in Rebirth's trailer the party overlooks a green coast.
Seems they changed the environment, which is fine by me. Rebirth matches the original game better.
Additionally, if they are exiting Kalm through a tunnel, then perhaps they did so to escape Shinra? Midgar's neighbor would be the obvious first place to look after all.
cold_spirit
he/him
- AKA
- Alex T
Some more observations:
It's interesting that from Cloud's point of view, the end of Tifa's sentence trials off into that Jenova static we see so often. This would imply that his mind made an alteration on the fly (the same happened with his memory of Tifa as a child). I wonder what Tifa actually said here.
Also, in both the Nibelheim Incident flashback and in the EC trailer (which takes place around Fort Tamblin), Sephiroth is wearing his intricate belt accessory. This accessory was absent throughout Crisis Core Reunion.
It's interesting that from Cloud's point of view, the end of Tifa's sentence trials off into that Jenova static we see so often. This would imply that his mind made an alteration on the fly (the same happened with his memory of Tifa as a child). I wonder what Tifa actually said here.
Also, in both the Nibelheim Incident flashback and in the EC trailer (which takes place around Fort Tamblin), Sephiroth is wearing his intricate belt accessory. This accessory was absent throughout Crisis Core Reunion.
Misterbadguy
Phantom Lord
- AKA
- METEODRIVE
At 2:29 in the English trailer, just at the beginning of the Yuffie & Red sequence, a voice can be heard saying "on my way". You'd think it'd be either Red or Yuffie, given that they're performing a dual tech and the previous sequence has Aerith calling Tifa's name, establishing that we'll get little quips when successfully pulling one off. It doesn't sound like either of them to my ear, though, it seems too high pitched for Red and not high pitched enough for Yuffie.
The equivalent part in the Japanese trailer is at 2:27, which has Red growling rather than anything resembling "on my way" in Japanese.
The equivalent part in the Japanese trailer is at 2:27, which has Red growling rather than anything resembling "on my way" in Japanese.
Strangelove
AI Researcher
- AKA
- hitoshura
is that at 3 minutes in during the flashback?
on first watch i though i heard that but it's 'yoku (mo)', the same as her dialogue in the original game
Man am I feelin good tonight. I watched the trailer for the first time. In Japan. Over sushi. Then I enjoyed the walk home in a light rain while listening to “Hollow Sky” (rain version) on YouTube. Now im
Enjoying a smoke and thinking of all the possibilities of what is to come.
Enjoying a smoke and thinking of all the possibilities of what is to come.
Golden Ear
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- M. Prod
So just trying to understand the result of you theory:
Is this Zack that we see surviving not actually there in reality? I think you mentioned that Sephiroth will use it to make specifically Cloud believe he is alive. Is it just Cloud who will hallucinate seeing Zack (from the corrupted memories of the planet) or will the entire party and thus everyone in the world also see Zack alive as well?
Basically, does this memory corruption projection of Zack actually exist physically in reality going forward? Or is it just an illusion that Cloud will only see in which Sephiroth will use to specifically mess with Cloud?
Makoeyes987
Listen closely, there is meaning in my words.
- AKA
- Smooth Criminal
No, he isn't real. He's like a phantom, sorta like the Aerith in Chapter 14. He's a thoughtform or phantom created by the Planet's own memory of Zack except now its inaccurate because it has Zack being alive past the point he should be dead according to Destiny.
Sephiroth will be able to show Cloud this Zack however because he exists within the Singularity. The space where memories of the Planet are able to exist as a sort of record.
Suzaku
Pro Adventurer
Don't forget that Remake shows Shinra was using them. Reactor 1 was basically a Shinra false flag that would have failed completely if Shinra hadn't blown it up themselves to classify Avalanche as terrorists.
So, this is my guess for the Terrier Timeline:
- Something stalls Zack and Cloud during their escape from Nibelheim.
- Avalanche successfully carries out the Reactor 1 bombing without Cloud, unaware Shinra ensured its destruction.
- Reactor 5 bombing would probably end with Tifa and Barret defeated by the Airbuster and falling from the Reactor down into Aerith's church, which is likely how they would meet up with her in this timeline. They help her flee the Turks.
- If Tifa is with Aerith, the entire Wall Market diversion probably never happens, and so the party never winds up in the sewers or train graveyard.
- That means they presumably get to the Sector 7 pillar in time to help fight. While they probably can't stop the plate from falling they might be able to save the lives of Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge.
- Aerith still gets captured when she goes to Seventh Heaven to save Marlene. Barret and Tifa still want to mount a rescue operation.
- After freeing Aerith and Red XIII they probably use the appearance of the Sephiroth copy as a diversion to escape, since Cloud isn't there to try and confront him.
- During the escape on the expressway they're killed or seriously wounded inside the singularity and their bodies are discovered amongst the rubble.
- Zack reaches the outskirts of Midgar with Cloud in tow. He perhaps defeats the Shinra military forces because their numbers were thinned during the conflict with Avalanche and the rescue efforts after the plate fell.
- Biggs awakens in the Leaf House. Jessie's gear is left on a table nearby.
- Zack and Cloud make their way to Midgar as rain begins to fall.
- Zack leaves Cloud in someone's care as he heads to Aerith's church, only to find the community in tears.
- In a news report, Zack sees that Aerith was among the victims killed or wounded during the "tornado" on the expressway.
- Cloud succumbs to the Reunion instinct and joins the other hooded men.
This is assuming some of the things we've seen in the trailer are happening in the Terrier Timeline and not the main timeline.
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cold_spirit
he/him
- AKA
- Alex T
Even more observations. I came to a pretty weird endpoint this time.
The news overlay states that the first bit of disaster footage is of Sector 2:
And in case there's any doubt, this can be confirmed by matching the kanji for "two" on the mako reactor:
When showing footage of Barret, Tifa, Red XIII, and Aerith, the overlay changes to "Expressway".
In Remake, the party encounters Sephiroth at the end of the Midgar Expressway in Sector 5. This can be confirmed by checking the wireframe model of Midgar in Chapter 18. It's a bit difficult to make out, but you can see that Sector 6, which lacks an outer plate, is right next door. Additionally, the in-game orientation of the Shinra Building is a close match.
A purple tornado can be seen for a few frames within the first three seconds of the Rebirth trailer. Another one can be seen in Chapter 18 of Remake. Note the incomplete expressway featured in both shots. Perhaps this is the same tornado?
A curious observation made by players a few years ago is that in Remake, anything the purple tornado touches is duplicated. This can be seen with the crane below.
Now for the million dollar question: If cranes and roads can be duplicated, does the same apply to people? Discovered amongst the rubble of the Expressway were the bodies of Barret, Tifa, Red XIII, and Aerith. Are they the Terrier universe versions of our heroes? Or are they duplicates that were created when the purple tornado swept up the party? Or maybe, if we want to get really wild, we're playing as the duplicates in Rebirth.
I wish we understood more about the Singularity. We have our real world definition of one, which is that it's the point of no return within a black hole, but we don't know what part of that definition applies to Singularities in FF7. Perhaps the party stepped into the memory of Midgar in the past, or perhaps it functions as a wormhole to another world.
I genuinely don't know anymore. Maybe it's nothing, but it has given me a lot to think about.
The news overlay states that the first bit of disaster footage is of Sector 2:
And in case there's any doubt, this can be confirmed by matching the kanji for "two" on the mako reactor:
When showing footage of Barret, Tifa, Red XIII, and Aerith, the overlay changes to "Expressway".
In Remake, the party encounters Sephiroth at the end of the Midgar Expressway in Sector 5. This can be confirmed by checking the wireframe model of Midgar in Chapter 18. It's a bit difficult to make out, but you can see that Sector 6, which lacks an outer plate, is right next door. Additionally, the in-game orientation of the Shinra Building is a close match.
A purple tornado can be seen for a few frames within the first three seconds of the Rebirth trailer. Another one can be seen in Chapter 18 of Remake. Note the incomplete expressway featured in both shots. Perhaps this is the same tornado?
A curious observation made by players a few years ago is that in Remake, anything the purple tornado touches is duplicated. This can be seen with the crane below.
Now for the million dollar question: If cranes and roads can be duplicated, does the same apply to people? Discovered amongst the rubble of the Expressway were the bodies of Barret, Tifa, Red XIII, and Aerith. Are they the Terrier universe versions of our heroes? Or are they duplicates that were created when the purple tornado swept up the party? Or maybe, if we want to get really wild, we're playing as the duplicates in Rebirth.
I wish we understood more about the Singularity. We have our real world definition of one, which is that it's the point of no return within a black hole, but we don't know what part of that definition applies to Singularities in FF7. Perhaps the party stepped into the memory of Midgar in the past, or perhaps it functions as a wormhole to another world.
I genuinely don't know anymore. Maybe it's nothing, but it has given me a lot to think about.
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ForceStealer
Double Growth
And of course we can be confident that the dev team would never screw up the location of each plate
But yes I remember everything duplicating in the start to Chapter 18, and it making as little sense to me as everything else going on
But yes I remember everything duplicating in the start to Chapter 18, and it making as little sense to me as everything else going on
Rose_of_Night
Pro Adventurer
Your post made me legitimately LOL. I remember back when I was just a lurker y'all were arguing over the incorrect placement of the sectors respective to ther reactors over some Midgar renders from that G-bike game I think?
X-SOLDIER
Harbinger O Great Justice
- AKA
- X
The purple digital static effect that appears in the Rebirth trailer during the cuts to the tornado from the end of Remake as well as in the cut to the falling black feather during the Shinra News Network broadcast is the exact same visual effect that gets used in Remake when Cloud, Barret, & Tifa are in the Cosmos Theater holographic projector and the presentation is over and then it suddenly starts up and Cloud sees a false digital recreation of them being killed by Sephiroth, and Midgar being obliterated by Meteor and tornados the same way it was in the ending of the original game:
Remake literally demonstrates that Shinra's technology has the capability to digitally recreate people in realistically convincing footage, though how much of that is the result of something directly connected to Jenova given the particulars of the glitch in that moment isn't ever clear, since Jenova Dreamweaver's abilities are extending into altering the visual appearance of Marco the #2 test subject to visually evoke the appearance of Sephiroth. Additionally, we know that Barret, Tifa, Red XIII, & Aerith have all been inside one of those, been into the Shinra combat simulators that use that same technology, or otherwise held in Shinra custody where faking them wouldn't be out of the question. Even Yuffie & Sonon being pushed into the older Combat Simulator Prototype was a key plot point in InterMISSION, connected to her own trauma and why she's shown screaming and bumping into Cloud while running away from Jenova Birth in this trailer.
On top of that, one of the other key moments in this Rebirth trailer was showing Bugenhagen's observatory creating the projections of the solar system, and his device seems to be related to that same underlying technology. Also, as with the curated broadcast on the attack on the Sector 5 Reactor, footage of Cloud is scrubbed out from any Shinra-based news. That's a critical part of everything that I'll come back to in a moment.
The reason that the tornado is reported as causing damage across Sectors 0, 1, & 2 is simple – those are regions that were either damaged in the singularity event with the tornados OR were damaged in AVALANCHE's attack on Shinra HQ during which Cloud & Co. made their escape. So long as they paint a public broadcast that explains all of that damage as being tied to a single event, they don't need to acknowledge that the President's death was an assassination or even that anyone related to the narrative that the constructed with Wutai managed to cause damage to Shinra at all.
Whether the footage of Barret, Tifa, Red XIII, & Aerith is real is questionable as there are plausible explanations that it's a duplication via the singularity as well as just being Shinra propaganda... but given the nature of the entire trailer being about Jenova covertly replacing real people with false duplicates I think it falls more in line with this being something intentionally connected to the continuing narrative of Shinra's use of media propaganda, rather than being relegated to the tiny fragment of alternate timeline events that have only ever been shown in ending cinematics thus far.
We know that a number of the ground-level Shinra troops encountered Cloud & Co. and were directly involved in their pursuit.
Media that shows those individuals as being defeated and recovered by Shinra serves a dual purpose in spinning a narrative victory for Shinra's troops while also showing Shinra being the same benevolent rescue team that all the propaganda footage they created throughout Remake always focused on. What happens to them after that doesn't matter whether they're alive or dead, because it provides a narrative that matches Shinra's agenda and they can shift that to match whatever happens afterwards.
Coming back to Cloud, I find it interesting that he is always intentionally left out of all public broadcasts. Not only is showcasing an ex-SOLDIER going rogue is something that Shinra goes to great lengths to cover up, but that lends itself to reinforcing other things as well. After all, Rebirth is not only going to cover Sephiroth making Cloud question Tifa's authenticity, but they're also the company that literally rebuilt all of Nibelheim and filled it with people who pretended that they'd always lived there in order to cover up that anything ever happened after Sephiroth went insane. This is EXACTLY the type of propaganda that they're not only known for and even more strongly using in Remake, but that also composes the central thematic element in Rebirth.
The only place that we DO see Cloud is when his physical form is replacing that of the cloaked individual in the Whirlwind Maze that Cloud also saw in the Flashback when he encountered Marco in Chapter 3 of Remake. This is keeping with the overall theme of Cloud always being inappropriately missing from events where he SHOULD be seen and missing from ones where it seems like he's supposed to have been. Those are things that help to reinforce the doubt about Cloud's own identity as being a real person rather than just a Sephiroth copy that's being projected over someone else entirely. The closer those things get to Zack and the pieces not fitting together correctly, the more credibility that starts to lend to the other narratives that Shinra & Sephiroth are presenting.
That is the other critical point of the storyline during this section of the game, especially leading up to the emergence of Meteor in the sky and (likely) where Rebirth is going to end, with Sephiroth being reborn in North Crater and Meteor appearing. That sets up for the final game to start out with Shinra broadcasting the public execution of AVALANCHE from Junon building upon all of the propaganda that they're continuing to set up in this game, since they still have to control that narrative of authoritarian control even as Sephiroth is bringing about the apocalypse, so all of the groundwork of how that gets established is a critical component of this game as much as anything else with Sephiroth & Cloud's identity.
Related to that: Rufus refers to the Cloaked individuals as, "Shadows of the man" for how Hojo just uses the term to describe them. The Japanese dialogue doesn't mention Hojo and it just uses the term "bunshin" (分身) which is a clone. It seems like they're trying to build into an existing association that helps to differentiate the idea of illusory duplicates that are overwritten by Jenova from genetically grown duplicates. Naruto utilizes artificial psuedo-physical copies with the "kage bunshin" (影分身) literally Shadow Clones, and so by starting out calling them "Shadows of the man" in English is seems like that can help to bridge the parallels to where a Jenova copy of someone is different from a scientifically cloned test subject in ways that likely won't track as clearly in English or other languages. It's interesting to see how localization can benefit from those themes in Japanese media existing in other places to help bridge the gap where the language doesn't inherently communicate the same ideas as clearly without a bit of differentiation. (This is a lot of what I've spent my time studying the last few years).
Speaking of copying other individuals, another moment that stands out is that in the JP trailer Rude's line is, なめるなよと which is a sort of phrase, "Don't mess with me/us." but it's also using Reno's unique speech pattern affectation. This is the same way that way in Advent Children the audience of the Japanese version knows that Tifa's talking to Reno on the phone without showing him or hearing his dialogue when she says, "I remember you." 覚えてるぞと which has no real way of translating it into English directly.
WAY back in the olden days when I was doing fan subs for Advent Children, I modified Reno's dialogue to use "man" or "yo" at the end of all of his sentences in English in order to allow for insertion of those mimicking dialogue hints to drop when other characters intentionally copy his speech patterns, since unless you give his speech a something like that that stands out, you'll run into issues the same way that the Naruto series had to make up the phrase, "Believe it!" into the stand in for "-dattebayo" which is how he conjugates his verbs that other characters occasionally mimic to evoke him in conversation where he's absent.
In the English version we instead get, "She may be new, but she's still a Turk!" which carries a different attitude, but that's part of the complication with i18n & l10n is that a lot of the time you have to shift the burden of some lines to be carried in different places by changing translations to something that works. While this still communicates the tight bond that the Turks have to one another, Rude's close bond to Reno will likely end up placed in different pieces of dialogue that help to communicate that in other ways.
End-to-end, this trailer links up perfectly with all the teases we didn't have any context for in the First Look trailer to really help sell the sense of uncertainty about what's going on with everyone and how everyone's actions change things so that the new players and returning players all have the same sense of wild speculation around what's real and what isn't that's SUPPOSED to define this section of the game and leave everyone full of conflicting answers, unreliable narrators, and intentionally obscured truths. Pair that with all of the dual-tech gameplay and the ways that the world is being opened up and I couldn't be more excited to see what those two discs have in store.
X
Remake literally demonstrates that Shinra's technology has the capability to digitally recreate people in realistically convincing footage, though how much of that is the result of something directly connected to Jenova given the particulars of the glitch in that moment isn't ever clear, since Jenova Dreamweaver's abilities are extending into altering the visual appearance of Marco the #2 test subject to visually evoke the appearance of Sephiroth. Additionally, we know that Barret, Tifa, Red XIII, & Aerith have all been inside one of those, been into the Shinra combat simulators that use that same technology, or otherwise held in Shinra custody where faking them wouldn't be out of the question. Even Yuffie & Sonon being pushed into the older Combat Simulator Prototype was a key plot point in InterMISSION, connected to her own trauma and why she's shown screaming and bumping into Cloud while running away from Jenova Birth in this trailer.
On top of that, one of the other key moments in this Rebirth trailer was showing Bugenhagen's observatory creating the projections of the solar system, and his device seems to be related to that same underlying technology. Also, as with the curated broadcast on the attack on the Sector 5 Reactor, footage of Cloud is scrubbed out from any Shinra-based news. That's a critical part of everything that I'll come back to in a moment.
The reason that the tornado is reported as causing damage across Sectors 0, 1, & 2 is simple – those are regions that were either damaged in the singularity event with the tornados OR were damaged in AVALANCHE's attack on Shinra HQ during which Cloud & Co. made their escape. So long as they paint a public broadcast that explains all of that damage as being tied to a single event, they don't need to acknowledge that the President's death was an assassination or even that anyone related to the narrative that the constructed with Wutai managed to cause damage to Shinra at all.
Whether the footage of Barret, Tifa, Red XIII, & Aerith is real is questionable as there are plausible explanations that it's a duplication via the singularity as well as just being Shinra propaganda... but given the nature of the entire trailer being about Jenova covertly replacing real people with false duplicates I think it falls more in line with this being something intentionally connected to the continuing narrative of Shinra's use of media propaganda, rather than being relegated to the tiny fragment of alternate timeline events that have only ever been shown in ending cinematics thus far.
We know that a number of the ground-level Shinra troops encountered Cloud & Co. and were directly involved in their pursuit.
Media that shows those individuals as being defeated and recovered by Shinra serves a dual purpose in spinning a narrative victory for Shinra's troops while also showing Shinra being the same benevolent rescue team that all the propaganda footage they created throughout Remake always focused on. What happens to them after that doesn't matter whether they're alive or dead, because it provides a narrative that matches Shinra's agenda and they can shift that to match whatever happens afterwards.
Coming back to Cloud, I find it interesting that he is always intentionally left out of all public broadcasts. Not only is showcasing an ex-SOLDIER going rogue is something that Shinra goes to great lengths to cover up, but that lends itself to reinforcing other things as well. After all, Rebirth is not only going to cover Sephiroth making Cloud question Tifa's authenticity, but they're also the company that literally rebuilt all of Nibelheim and filled it with people who pretended that they'd always lived there in order to cover up that anything ever happened after Sephiroth went insane. This is EXACTLY the type of propaganda that they're not only known for and even more strongly using in Remake, but that also composes the central thematic element in Rebirth.
The only place that we DO see Cloud is when his physical form is replacing that of the cloaked individual in the Whirlwind Maze that Cloud also saw in the Flashback when he encountered Marco in Chapter 3 of Remake. This is keeping with the overall theme of Cloud always being inappropriately missing from events where he SHOULD be seen and missing from ones where it seems like he's supposed to have been. Those are things that help to reinforce the doubt about Cloud's own identity as being a real person rather than just a Sephiroth copy that's being projected over someone else entirely. The closer those things get to Zack and the pieces not fitting together correctly, the more credibility that starts to lend to the other narratives that Shinra & Sephiroth are presenting.
That is the other critical point of the storyline during this section of the game, especially leading up to the emergence of Meteor in the sky and (likely) where Rebirth is going to end, with Sephiroth being reborn in North Crater and Meteor appearing. That sets up for the final game to start out with Shinra broadcasting the public execution of AVALANCHE from Junon building upon all of the propaganda that they're continuing to set up in this game, since they still have to control that narrative of authoritarian control even as Sephiroth is bringing about the apocalypse, so all of the groundwork of how that gets established is a critical component of this game as much as anything else with Sephiroth & Cloud's identity.
Related to that: Rufus refers to the Cloaked individuals as, "Shadows of the man" for how Hojo just uses the term to describe them. The Japanese dialogue doesn't mention Hojo and it just uses the term "bunshin" (分身) which is a clone. It seems like they're trying to build into an existing association that helps to differentiate the idea of illusory duplicates that are overwritten by Jenova from genetically grown duplicates. Naruto utilizes artificial psuedo-physical copies with the "kage bunshin" (影分身) literally Shadow Clones, and so by starting out calling them "Shadows of the man" in English is seems like that can help to bridge the parallels to where a Jenova copy of someone is different from a scientifically cloned test subject in ways that likely won't track as clearly in English or other languages. It's interesting to see how localization can benefit from those themes in Japanese media existing in other places to help bridge the gap where the language doesn't inherently communicate the same ideas as clearly without a bit of differentiation. (This is a lot of what I've spent my time studying the last few years).
Speaking of copying other individuals, another moment that stands out is that in the JP trailer Rude's line is, なめるなよと which is a sort of phrase, "Don't mess with me/us." but it's also using Reno's unique speech pattern affectation. This is the same way that way in Advent Children the audience of the Japanese version knows that Tifa's talking to Reno on the phone without showing him or hearing his dialogue when she says, "I remember you." 覚えてるぞと which has no real way of translating it into English directly.
WAY back in the olden days when I was doing fan subs for Advent Children, I modified Reno's dialogue to use "man" or "yo" at the end of all of his sentences in English in order to allow for insertion of those mimicking dialogue hints to drop when other characters intentionally copy his speech patterns, since unless you give his speech a something like that that stands out, you'll run into issues the same way that the Naruto series had to make up the phrase, "Believe it!" into the stand in for "-dattebayo" which is how he conjugates his verbs that other characters occasionally mimic to evoke him in conversation where he's absent.
In the English version we instead get, "She may be new, but she's still a Turk!" which carries a different attitude, but that's part of the complication with i18n & l10n is that a lot of the time you have to shift the burden of some lines to be carried in different places by changing translations to something that works. While this still communicates the tight bond that the Turks have to one another, Rude's close bond to Reno will likely end up placed in different pieces of dialogue that help to communicate that in other ways.
End-to-end, this trailer links up perfectly with all the teases we didn't have any context for in the First Look trailer to really help sell the sense of uncertainty about what's going on with everyone and how everyone's actions change things so that the new players and returning players all have the same sense of wild speculation around what's real and what isn't that's SUPPOSED to define this section of the game and leave everyone full of conflicting answers, unreliable narrators, and intentionally obscured truths. Pair that with all of the dual-tech gameplay and the ways that the world is being opened up and I couldn't be more excited to see what those two discs have in store.
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