I was really confused about this NH suddenly happening just as all of you, so as a script/literature student for almost a year, and learning all about foreshadowing, character development, and plot treatment, I decided I should talk to someone who knew more than me.
I exposed this case (about NH in the last movie) to my professor, who has been a successful screen writer for 27 years, and his answer was.
"Well, if you want to get two characters together, you have to put them through a lot of situations, and make them feel everything, both sides, so you can explain why the bond is so strong. You can’t put two characters together which development is so poor, not even if the 3, or 4 moments they have had together are really meaningful. That’s only valid if you are writing a short film cause you don’t have a lot of time, but if the story is as long as you’re telling me, then you have no excuse. You have had plenty of time to put those character through more moments, and make a successful development. If you really intent to make this two characters end up together, then you should have give them more screen time"
the I asked him about the other character (Sakura) what was her case and he answered.
" It means he really didn’t think it through, and he has wasted years of paper and ink developing this relationship for absolutely nothing. Why would you spend so much time developing a relationship if you really didn’t mean it? As a story maker you have to keep in mind that you have to make things clear for the viewers, because if you don’t, things like this happen. It’s like a new trend in marketing to leave a really open plot so the viewers can make their own conclusions, and watch just cause they want to know if they’re right, and they do this without even consulting the writer. That is called comercial script, and it’s ruining the industry, darling. But if in the end you tell me this girl who has been with the main character all the time, and it’s clearly the main female character, is not ending up with him, you’re telling me the writer of this story hasn’t been able to keep his story in line. He practically took a side character out of nowhere, and created a relationship that through the story was not even foreshadow. It’s bad writing"
I explain about Hinata’s love for Naruto.
"And have the main character acknowledge this love?"
I told him about Pein Arc, and her confession. he asked me to see the pages of the manga, and I showed them to him.
"But then this confession was not mention again. When you write about several characters, you have to give each of them a resolution, or else it will be unfinished. This girls confessions was sudden, and it was not mention again, so in my experience this is just to help the character get its resolution. If to the main character, or to the main plot this confession is supposed to be a game changer, or something important, then it should have been mention again. I can see the main female is there again, and as you can see, or at least what it seems is that the girl is uncomfortable. Sometimes we have to take side characters to do things like this, so main characters can realise their own truth. And it’s use really often. You see a lot of movies about someone who doesn’t realise he or she is in love with their best friend until the best friend is with someone else. So having this confession, and the only person to acknowledge that moment is the other girl, then the confession is only important to those girls. As i told you before, the side character needs its resolution about those feelings, and the main character needs to realise some things that are link to the confession".
I explained that since then, Naruto and Hinata have a couple of moments, and I showed them to him as well.
"Okey, I can see your concern. As stories develop sometimes we create characters that we wish we would have seen more of. But as much as I watched about this character, the conclusion of every interaction they have (naruto and hinata) is the girl thinking the same thing. We never see him thinking about her, or about what she has done. In the case of the other girl (Sakura) we have both of them thinking about each other constantly. In this cases the side character (hinata) will have her own resolution thanks to the impact the main character have had on her, and the other two (sakura and naruto) are more likely to have a resolution together. You can decode this just by who they keep in their thoughts. The main character has been in love with the other girl (sakura) for the whole story, and it is constantly showed. You never get a hint that he is changing his mind, so it would not be logical for him to change his mind in the blink of an eye, and he’s the main character, he gets what he wants. In this kind of stories, he works his ass off, he gets what he wants, and the other characters learn from him"
So I asked him what about the movie and I tell him everything that is going on and he told me.
"Then it means that in the main story the writer couldn’t really find a right way to give this character her resolution, so he created the perfect situation for her to have it. If this story is linked to the main one, then it will has no sense with her ending up with the main character. By the plot of this side story, I can tell that what you will mainly see is the final impact the main character has had on her, and the writer will be able to develop her story successfully, but as I see it, and talking with my own experience, her resolution will not be ending by the side of the main character. She will go through her own personal journey, she will finally give him the scarf as a sign of that chapter of her life ending because she will know new things about herself"
I thanked him, and as I was leaving his office he said to me.
"Remember that stories have to make more sense than real life. So, if you want two people to end up together, you have to constantly show how that bond gets stronger. In stories nothing just happens, so I highly doubt he will love the other girl out of nowhere, not after the writer has spend 15 years invested on the other relationship, it will be kind of crushing. Can you imagine it? Spending so much time with the one you love going through the same things, and suddenly having to forget him because someone else loves you?"
"No, sir"
"Yeah. Keep me updated, you have made me curious"
"Course I will"
So yeah, Im keeping my high hopes, or else I will be pretty disappointed. I don’t want to end up feeling disappointed.