A series of ‘Kingdom Hearts‘ is something that video game fans have been asking for almost two decades, and the truth is that it was something that almost happened at the time.
Whether due to lack of coordination with Square Enixlack of confidence in the project, or whatever reasons, Disney ended up shelving the ‘Kingdom Hearts’ animated series and the project went to a drawer for almost two decades. However, one of the animators who worked on the production confirmed this year that indeed the series almost came into existence, and now he has also shared the animatic of what would have been the first episode.
That’s the power of the Keyblade!
seth kearsley is an animator and director who has worked on ‘Sing!’, ‘Batman: The LEGO Movie’ and ‘Brown and Friends’. And also at the time when the lost pilot of ‘Kingdom Hearts’. During this year she has been sharing some images of the storyboards and designs, but with the animatic we can get a better idea of the tone that the series would have had.
It must be said that this is not a finished animation, but an animatic with illustrations and voice to get an idea of what kind of shot there would be at each moment, where the characters would be, and how long each scene would last. Although we cannot know in what final style the characters would have, we can hear them and it seems that most of the cast would repeat.
Hayden Panitterie and David Gallagher would return to the series as Kairi and Riku, although Bobby Edner would replace Haley Joel Osment as Sora due to scheduling issues.
also this pic.twitter.com/8tGL8aUyLc
— Seth Kearsley (@SethKearsley) September 28, 2022
“I’m very proud of the story we were able to tell in the time we had,” says Kearsley, who also admits the driver’s faults. “Putting the whole premise of the show together and also doing a ‘normal episode’ is a huge undertaking. I think we nailed it, and when we showed it to kids it worked better than anything else they were trying that round.”
The response from fans has been very positive overall, but for now Disney has not officially authorized Kearsley to filter all this material, so perhaps the animatic will no longer be available in the future. Or on the other hand, perhaps they realize that there is a gold mine here and in a few years we will end up having a series of ‘Kingdom Hearts’ really.