One of our forum members who lives in France attended the Tokyo Zone Film Festival held in Paris. She also got the chance to meet Nobuo Uematsu, who spoke to the audience at the Film Festival. This is a summary of Coral's impressions of the preview shown in Paris:

I saw Nobuo Uematsu TWICE, and I watched the trailer TWICE. Nobuo is very nice and all, I really admire him now. His favorite character in the whole FF series is Aerith! She moved him. He said to the whole audience that Aerith was his favorite character. Nubuo is sweet. I had two autographs from him, and I even asked him to draw me Earisu! But of course he couldn't lol. It was just for fun, so he laughed with me lol. There was no concert this day. He showed us a retrospective from FFI to XI, and he commented on it. He's a very nice guy, very humble and very talented. His favorite composition is "To Zanarkand".

The Advent Children trailer works like a series of flashbacks, and a 25 min trailer is long. To remember everything exactly is difficult - not only for me, but for the others reporting on the screenings! The translation was in French, too, so my interpretation may be different.

The flower field scene is pretty, but strange. The music is kinda surreal. Cloud's first in a white place, then he saw flowers and we saw a pink ribbon behind his head. It was fun to see this famous picture now moving! Aeris giggles so she has a spontaneous start. Aerith talks a lot, too, but you already know what she says. At the first showing, the audience chuckled at the flower field scene: it's so strange! But then they listened and liked it. At the second showing everyone was staring in silence. It was a rare moment.

I saw the pink ribbon on Cloud's arm [in a later scene]. He looks at it, but he doesn't touch it and he looks awfully sad. It's a very quick moment. I saw it better at the second projection. I don't think that it's a flashback. I think that Aerith can talk to Cloud, and only to Cloud - well, directly at least. When Aerith says, "....let's go... Cloud...", we see a white screen. Each time Aerith talks we see the white screen. Nothing on the screen, only her voice whispering to Cloud. It's the same white screen when Cloud was suddenly in the flower field with Aerith.

The scene [with Cloud wearing the pink] ribbon is so quick! He looks at the ribbon, and his hand's not far from it at all. Where is he? I can only describe: grey place, with columns maybe (stone architecture) and there's water as we see a drop falling, maybe into a puddle. Maybe the ribbon scene is near Aerith's church, as I saw the same fallen columns behind Tifa and Marlene's brand new screenshot. I don't know. The important thing is that Cloud pays a lot of (sad) attention to this ribbon, maybe more than anyone else who wears it. The falling rain emphasizes the fact that he's sad, like he's crying.

Aerith speaks three times in the trailer:
*Flower Field* You know what she says. Aerith touches his arm, and Cloud wants to look at her, but everything disappears.
*White Screen* Aerith says something like: "I never blamed you for anything. You saved me. Only this matters to me".
*White screen, after the drop of water* "...Let's go... Cloud..."

What I loved the most about Cloud was his sadness. He really feels PAIN. On the other hand, Tifa wants to fight. Cloud is much more desperate. At one moment, Tifa said something like, "Always the same words!!!" to Cloud, and she's right.

Cloud might have lived at Tifa's house before - I don't know. He doesn't seem in love with Tifa. But now he lives at Aeris's church. Marlene and Tifa discovered it when they found the bandages there. I think that Cloud's grieving since the end of the game. Cloud has a delivery service and he travels everywhere. Tifa gives him the missions by phone. He mostly doesn't answer Tifa's calls. He only has messages, which may be why Tifa asks him, "How are you?" So to me, Cloud and Tifa are in contact, but not very often. To me, they're close friends. Tifa knows Cloud better than anyone else. She cares for him. He cares about Tifa too, but not in a romantic way. Tifa is his friend and ally.

To me, Cloud truly speaks his mind to Aerith, not to Tifa. Cause he says to Aerith in the flower field, "I want to be forgiven. Yes, I want to be forgiven". This sentence is what Cloud really feels. He never said this to Tifa. Tifa guessed he wanted to die, she guessed he wants to go to Aerith, but he didn't tell Tifa that. So ALL of his pain must be directly related to Aerith's death.

You know that Cloud's ill, and there's no remedy. Cloud WANTS to die because he can't "protect his family nor his friends." He thinks he's useless, that he can't save the children either (Denzel, Marlene, and the orphans...). Cloud's mind is somewhere else, lost in his (depressed) thoughts.

And yes, I saw Sephiroth. We saw him twice in the whole trailer. Once at the beginning during a flashback, once at the very end...and maybe he's not a flashback anymore...? ^^""" It's a great moment! Sephiroth looks DEFINITELY more real than Aerith. He's attacking Cloud lol

what do you think?? :cleris:

This information is already posted, Daga15. In fact, the information came from our forum.

That's a report from Coral about the Tokyo Zone Film Festival in Paris, France. You can find Coral's full report on the Film Festival in this thread: Tokyo Zone Film Festival.

*closes this thread*