Soon after Kingdom Hearts came out in 2002 (yes, it’s been that long), Disney considered an animated series based on the franchise. Seth Kearsley worked on the pilot episode, but unfortunately, it was never picked up to series. In the latest episode of Animation Investigation, host Hector Navarro used his Gummi Ship to travel to the past and look at the Kingdom Hearts cartoon that could have been—including a peek at never-before-seen art from the pilot episode’s animatics!
Kearsley has discussed the course the first season would have followed: act one would have been set on Destiny Islands with Sora, Kairi, and Riku, act two would have gone to Traverse Town where Sora meets Donald and Goofy, and act three would have set up the wild journey ahead. Could you imagine seeing Sora’s adventures in sequential story form? It would be so much smoother than, for example, the way I played the game.
And Kearsley worked with a writer on the game to get the tone right, and he worked with Disney to get the look on model. He was even able to access backgrounds from Aladdin to use in the pilot presentation (those would be the aforementioned never-before-seen images). What a treat this could have been.
Would you want to see a Kingdom Hearts cartoon series? Which characters would you want to see at the center of the stories? Tell us in the comments below.
Images: Square Enix
Amy Ratcliffe is the Managing Editor for Nerdist. Follow her on Twitter and keep up with her Disney food adventures on Instagram.
More about Kingdom Hearts!
- Kingdom Hearts 3 has a release date.
- And it’s getting a Frozen world.
- And also a Pirates of the Caribbean world.
