Sounds like it could be true. I did scratch my head when I saw those skyscrapers, thinking where it could possibly be. I haven't done any theory crafting on it, just assumed a stylistic change. But, then again, those skyscrapers, as I see it, have to be in proximity to Shinra HQ (if not a new city?). They're clearly not there in the night time shots. What else to believe than post-meteor Midgard?
To be fair, there are at least two common criticisms of this theory, both found in the trailer analysis article on thelifestream.net
I don't find either of them particularly convincing though.
The first one tries to make the argument that because the daytime shots clearly show Mako pipelines it can't be set in the future, because
the reactors were no longer active after the events of the original.
This is nonsensical though, since even after the fall of the meteor, it would still require less job and be more sensible to work around the original
architecture, rather than dismantle everything that no longer worked after that event. The pipelines are huge, as are the reactors, so it would take a very long time before all traces of the original infrastructure would be entirely gone. And this doesn't even go into the possibility of the pipe-lines being used for other types of energy, like gass, oil, or as a protective structure covering electrical cables.
The second criticism is about the train and the reference to Edge. It rightfully points out that the first train-station of the original game was named "North Edge Station", but the sign with the name wasn't readable due to low resolutions in the original PSX version.
I still think this is a stretch because
A.) it conflicts with the narrative, and where the art and the narrative conflicts, I think the narrative takes precedence - besides it's perfectly
possible that this detail was a remnant of a design choice that was made before the plot of the game was entirely finalized, but simply
not edited or removed because nobody could make it out in the original anyway.
B.) Since the trailer is entirely pre-rendered, everything about it is carefully planned. No scene in this trailer is there by accident.
While a discrepancy like the station name in the original and it's conflict with Jessie's (or was it Barret's?) statement about the towns
no longer having names (and all the other stations being referred to simply by reference to their specific place and sector) in the game is
understandable because games are made by large teams in often very organic ways, a completely pre-rendered cinematic trailer for a grand
reveal at a conference is not.
If the trailer dwells purposefully on the name "South Edge", that is to give the viewer a specific hint - not just some inconsequential piece of
random information referring to some random Reactor train-station.
The train criticism makes even less sense when you consider that in the original, the train that went to "North Edge"(and therefore also presumably "South Edge") was the train you see later in the trailer passing the park, not the modern one you see in the beginning of the trailer.
Regarding post-meteor Midgard: Given the FF7 ending, I always assumed humanity did not survive (returned to the planet if you will). Now AC clearly debunked that. Still, I kinda think that was one of the possible interpretations the original authors wanted.
I always took the ending to mean, not necessarily that humanity didn't survive, but that they abandoned Midgard - which would make perfect sense.
Midgard was a huge metropolis built and designed specifically to function through the use of the Mako reactors. The entire infrastructure of
the city is founded on, and dependent on the Mako Reactors.
Once Mako stops flowing the entire city breaks down, and when you consider the infrastructure and the building density of Midgard, there simply is no feasible way to power the city anymore (unless you could replace each Mako Reactor with a Nuclear Reactor or something to that effect).
This literally means that after the fall of the meteor, Midgard would be a huge, immobile, powerless and lifeless piece of metal.
The logical thing to do for everyone at that point, would be to migrate back to the country-side, to towns such as Calm or Nibelheim etc. not waste time trying to live in a place where nothing grows at the moment, in houses in a city covered by pollution that has no electricity, and by extension, probably no running water.
AC/DoC shat all over the logic of the ending of FF7. That's one of the big reason I hated the movie and that game. No, people did not stick around in Midgard. It doesn't make sense, and it completely ruins the sense of the scene with Nanaki and his kids.
I mean, how many hundred years in the future would that have to be, if the events of AC/DoC are to be canon?
Although I'm pretty much out of hope for the remake now, I just wished they'd sink the compilation material to the bottom of the sea, ignore it
and remake the game by sticking as close to the original story as possible. I just don't see that happening anymore.
