News ► A Kingdom Hearts Disney Plus CGI series is rumored to be in the works

[Launchpad]

Perhaps I did frame it in a bad way, I should clarify that I don't want Nomura dead, but merely stating the fact that his overall reluctance to let Disney be Disney is a bit bad for the series.

Last I'll say on it (because this is completely ridiculous) but the absence of Nomura would be worse for the series than no Sora plushie at Disney World. The assumption that Nomura is not letting Disney be Disney isn't founded on any kind of evidence or fact. Nomura is a bigger Disney head than most of the hardcore fans that buy these games. If he was allowed to, I'm sure he'd have Jack Skellington jumping out of the toilet in Twilight Town to uppercut Xemnas in the jaw.

You did frame it in a bad way, it's creepy to frame the man's death as a possible benefit to the series, and callous as shit to imagine that the series would be in better shape without him because of... merch and tie-ins. He MADE Kingdom Hearts. The closer it sticks to his vision, the better, because without him it's just another nebulous 'idea'.

 

[Soldier]

Alright, I see where I went wrong. Maybe it is good that he holds Disney back a bit. Back on topic though, as for the rumored KH movie, I wonder, would they go down the route of the KH manga (KH 1 has largely all worlds present save for Halloween Town and Deep Jungle) or focus on other aspects of the story.

 

[Zackarix]

Most of the Disney worlds would likely have to limited to glorified cameos while maybe the main characters of each come along with Sora on his quest.

Something that always comes to my mind when it comes to adapting video games to other media is that the general level-to-level pacing of your typical game better suits the episodic structure of TV better than it would to film. Like an example that often comes to my mind was that 1st Tomb Raider, which Lara Croft hunting for McGuffin triangle artifact thingie that's been split into 2 halves in 2 different parts of the world. Like you know darn if the film's plot was an actual game said artifact would instead be split between 5-8 pieces & the player would have to go to that many dungeons ancient temple ruins. But they had to cut that number down to fit the run time.

Or how about FF Spirits Within (my apologies for reminding everyone of that film's existence). Which had 8 Gaia Spirits plot coupons with 5 of them already been found before the film started.

More recently we got the Mario movie, where Mario's journey across the lands that would be 99% of any given game is done in a single montage.

My suggestion of having four Disney worlds was an attempt to find a compromise between "this is supposed to be a long journey where they visit numerous worlds" and "this is a movie adaptation that will at most have a runtime of two hours and some change, there's no room for a long journey." Four worlds would be enough to still feel like a adventure with a bunch of locations, while being few enough that it could still fit in a movie's runtime. Remember, if you cut out the gameplay and the scenes that are set-up for gameplay worlds in KH become a lot shorter.

My world choices weren't random either. Wonderland is the introduction of the Princesses of Heart plotline. Agrabah develops it further. Monstro is about Riku's attempts to save Kairi. Neverland is where all the plotlines up to that point converge. All these worlds could be swapped out for different ones that perform the same function, depending on which properties they want to promote. And you probably could get it down to three Disney worlds if you can figure out which movie could serve the plot functions of both Agrabah and Monstro. (But if they only do three they better fill Traverse Town to the brim with Disney refugee characters, or you risk losing the epic crossover feeling.)

And if you think about it KH1 already has several of the plot token dungeons cut out. There are seven Princesses of Heart, but half of them don't come with world visits. You have Wonderland and Agrabah, and Hollow Bastion is arguably pulling double duty for Kairi and Belle (it's Kairi's homeworld, but Beast is the party member), but Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora lose their worlds offscreen.

Of course, the best way to adapt KH's story structure would be a TV show. But they aren't doing that, so why not try to figure out how it could be compressed into a movie?

 

[Phoenix]

I genuinely don't know how to make a movie out of this. At gunpoint, I'd say make a movie from Destiny Islands until meeting Donald and Goofy and getting on the Gummi Ship. But would that sell? And would Disney approve it?

 

[Squood!]

I genuinely don't know how to make a movie out of this. At gunpoint, I'd say make a movie from Destiny Islands until meeting Donald and Goofy and getting on the Gummi Ship. But would that sell? And would Disney approve it?

That would require a buncha padding too.

Seriously, a cartoon/anime would've been fine since you'd actually have a larger pool to work with depending on how many episodes you get.

 

[Phoenix]

That would require a buncha padding too.

Seriously, a cartoon/anime would've been fine since you'd actually have a larger pool to work with depending on how many episodes you get.

It'd kinda require spending time with the trio and letting the characters grow and breathe. Which would be ideal if you're going to make seven movies, but you'd need to be confident you're going to make more than one.

 

[Squood!]

It'd kinda require spending time with the trio and letting the characters grow and breathe. Which would be ideal if you're going to make seven movies, but you'd need to be confident you're going to make more than one.

I mean more like it'd require paddin out Traverse Town for the bulk of the movie

 

[Zackarix]

Destiny Islands though Traverse Town has, at most, two episodes worth of content. Even assuming that this is only a 75 minute movie you'd have to pad it out to high heaven to make it into a full film.

In fact, if we go by this cutscene compilation Sora, Donald, and Goofy enter Wonderland at around 33 and a half minutes. The Academy defines a short film as having a runtime of 40 minutes or less. Destiny Islands through Traverse Town doesn't even have enough material to qualify as a full length film instead of a short.

Trying to stretch the source material out as far as possible in anticipation of turning it into a long-running series is a recipe for disaster. Audiences can tell when media has barely any substance, especially in a movie, which is an artform where you need to know how to get to the point and provide a full experience in one sitting. They'll be bored after sitting through one very padded movie, it'll get bad reviews, and you won't get a second movie, let alone a seventh.

I know Kingdom Hearts should be a series, but trying to solve the problem of choosing to make it into a movie instead with "turn it into a series of movies," won't work.

And according to that cutscene compilation KH1 only has a bit over three and a half hours of cutscenes, which is less than I expected. So it's not surprising that some aspiring filmmaker thinks they can trim it down to the length of a theatrical film, it's not a wise choice.

 

[Phoenix]

I don't think you can use the cutscene length as a guideline for how long a movie would be. A compilation of scenes makes for a pretty bad movie.

It's not padding or filler to let the characters breathe, grow and interact with one another. It's a different medium. Just... write good dialogue, have good direction, and tell the story slowly.

 

[Chie]

Yeah again I don't think there's any point in predicting the content of a movie from the starting place of editing the content of the game(s). That's simply not how professionals and executives are looking at it. They're going to rethink it from the ground up to work as a film, whether the result is good or bad.

It's not going to "keep" or "cut out" any given part. It's going to be a movie. If you're not thinking like that then any speculation is pointless.

 

[HakaishinChampa]

I could see there just being a montage scene playing with like Take on Me (lol), SDG going through a few different Disney Worlds.

Certain worlds should have longer segments though, I think Agrabah and Neverland are the most important

 

[PikaPal]

If he was allowed to, I'm sure he'd have Jack Skellington jumping out of the toilet in Twilight Town to uppercut Xemnas in the jaw.

Xemnas: "Ow, my Kingdom Hearts!"

 

[Zackarix]

I don't think you can use the cutscene length as a guideline for how long a movie would be. A compilation of scenes makes for a pretty bad movie.

It's not padding or filler to let the characters breathe, grow and interact with one another. It's a different medium. Just... write good dialogue, have good direction, and tell the story slowly.

Have you heard of the Netflix show Jupiter's Legacy? It's an adaptation of a comic book. Or rather, it's an adaptation of the first three issues of a comic book. Netflix wanted it to be their big mature superhero show, but at the time it was being produced it only had ten issues in the main series and six in the prequel spin-off. How do you get multiple seasons out of that? They tried to do pretty much what you're suggesting, fleshing out the characters, developing their relationships, expanding on the flashbacks, and turning what was pretty much the inciting incident of the comics into a season finale twist. Jupiter's Legacy did not get a second season. Turns out that when you decide to hold back on the meat of your source material in order to stretch things out you might never get to it, because the fat you used as a substitute didn't hook audiences.

Yes, theatrical films are a different medium from video game cutscenes. But do you know what's also a different medium from movies? TV shows. In TV you can spend two hours setting the stage in your pilot and as long as audiences continue to tune in for the rest of the season you have a decent chance of getting renewed. In movies you can't do that. You need to tell a complete story. When you get down to it movies are short form storytelling.

Think of the successful long-running film series, like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the MCU. All of them had first entries that hit the ground running, and were complete stories. They got sequels that were more ambitious and expanded on their stories, but when you watch the first ones they don't feel like the set-up part got padded out to make the series longer. And even when they got to two-part movies it was only after building up a ton of good will and brand loyalty.

They only way I could imagine a KH movie that only covers Destiny Islands through Traverse Town being even remotely engaging is if you inserted an entirely new subplot about the drama of living in a crossover refugee camp. Which could be interesting (I've thought about fanfic ideas along those lines) but it's basically an entirely different type of story from what KH usually is. To the point where Disney could probably turn it into a new brand and get out of Square Enix having any involvement.

 

[Phoenix]

Have you heard of the Netflix show Jupiter's Legacy? It's an adaptation of a comic book. Or rather, it's an adaptation of the first three issues of a comic book. Netflix wanted it to be their big mature superhero show, but at the time it was being produced it only had ten issues in the main series and six in the prequel spin-off. How do you get multiple seasons out of that? They tried to do pretty much what you're suggesting, fleshing out the characters, developing their relationships, expanding on the flashbacks, and turning what was pretty much the inciting incident of the comics into a season finale twist. Jupiter's Legacy did not get a second season. Turns out that when you decide to hold back on the meat of your source material in order to stretch things out you might never get to it, because the fat you used as a substitute didn't hook audiences.

Yes, theatrical films are a different medium from video game cutscenes. But do you know what's also a different medium from movies? TV shows. In TV you can spend two hours setting the stage in your pilot and as long as audiences continue to tune in for the rest of the season you have a decent chance of getting renewed. In movies you can't do that. You need to tell a complete story. When you get down to it movies are short form storytelling.

Think of the successful long-running film series, like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and the MCU. All of them had first entries that hit the ground running, and were complete stories. They got sequels that were more ambitious and expanded on their stories, but when you watch the first ones they don't feel like the set-up part got padded out to make the series longer. And even when they got to two-part movies it was only after building up a ton of good will and brand loyalty.

They only way I could imagine a KH movie that only covers Destiny Islands through Traverse Town being even remotely engaging is if you inserted an entirely new subplot about the drama of living in a crossover refugee camp. Which could be interesting (I've thought about fanfic ideas along those lines) but it's basically an entirely different type of story from what KH usually is. To the point where Disney could probably turn it into a new brand and get out of Square Enix having any involvement.

I think that's my point. I don't think Aladin and Hercules being in the same frame is the meat of the series. Sure, KH got people into the game by seeing, what if Cloud and Tarzan together. But not a single one of us stayed for that. We stayed for "one who knows nothing can understand nothing". We stayed because of Another Side Another Story and Deep Dive. Because while you were fighting Jafar, you were reading about a man performing human experimentation to see what exactly be needed to do to create darkness.

You could certainly have a movie about some Disney characters together. I daresay it might even be financially successful. But I don't think it'd be hugely so, there's been other attempts at that, and they've been... fine. You can't just make Avengers, you do have to properly set that up, or you end up with the failure of DC.

I think maybe I'm explaining myself badly. I don't think you should adapt the cutscenes into the movie. I think you should take the overall beats (from station of awakening to boarding the Gummi Ship) and make a good, exciting, quality movie around that. Add whatever subplots you need to make that happen.

But I maintain that the whole reason KH works as a story is the underlying melancholy and dread, and if your adaptation is happy happy Disney happy, then that's just a new IP wearing KH's face as a mask.

 

[Chie]

For a movie that actually captures the mysteriousness of KH, though, to me that could only be Nomura doing another movie in the story. Which this almost definitely won't end up becoming, so I don't think that exists as a hypothetical.

 

[KudoTsurugi]

I can’t remember if I've said this before here or on other parts of the forum, but I can only see a KH movie project working in one way:



Multi-film project. No idea if Disney would actually commit to this, probably not, but if they're dead set on making KH a movie project, this would be the best option in my opinion. For the examples above, Persona 3 had a quadrilogy of movies for each act, with each movie’s title making reference to each season in the year-long story.

And while Ufotable had previously done a full 26-episode series for their adaptation of Fate/Stay Night’s Unlimited Blade Works route, they made the Heaven’s Feel route into a movie trilogy, which I think worked rather well.

With at least 3-4 movies worth of screen time(5 at maximum), you could probably tell the whole KH1 story and then some. Though personally, I think Birth by Sleep would work better for a multi-movie project. Mainly as a trilogy

 

[HakaishinChampa]

Movie 1: Destiny Islands, Traverse Town, Wonderland, Deep Jungle

Deep Jungle could actually happen now (he shown up in a Simpsons disney short) and it'd be perfect for the end drama where Sora has a falling out with Donald but then they get back together

When it comes to Olympus Coliseum, it should be used in a future film where they fight Hades (so late game)

It's stupid if it ends up being multiple movies, I don't know why we couldn't have just gotten an anime/cartoon series that adapts each game. 2-3 episodes per disney world but in a movie format it seems like it'll be cramped.

Like will they really tell KH1 in one movie? What worlds will get axed and will they have newer disney IPs because modern audiences might not care about older movies? (specifically kids, I'm sure most kids haven't seen Hercules or Tarzan nowadays)

 

[Dandelion]

This is getting more and more painful to watch and proves why this isn't a good idea. No one can decide on what they want from a KH movie and so even if Disney took any post in here and used it as a blueprint, it would likely piss countless other people off.

I don't envy whoever's working on this. I hope they never have to deal with the hate that's hovering over their heads. And I hope most of you never make it to film and TV development.

 

[Zackarix]

I think that's my point. I don't think Aladin and Hercules being in the same frame is the meat of the series. Sure, KH got people into the game by seeing, what if Cloud and Tarzan together. But not a single one of us stayed for that. We stayed for "one who knows nothing can understand nothing". We stayed because of Another Side Another Story and Deep Dive. Because while you were fighting Jafar, you were reading about a man performing human experimentation to see what exactly be needed to do to create darkness.

You could certainly have a movie about some Disney characters together. I daresay it might even be financially successful. But I don't think it'd be hugely so, there's been other attempts at that, and they've been... fine. You can't just make Avengers, you do have to properly set that up, or you end up with the failure of DC.

I think maybe I'm explaining myself badly. I don't think you should adapt the cutscenes into the movie. I think you should take the overall beats (from station of awakening to boarding the Gummi Ship) and make a good, exciting, quality movie around that. Add whatever subplots you need to make that happen.

But I maintain that the whole reason KH works as a story is the underlying melancholy and dread, and if your adaptation is happy happy Disney happy, then that's just a new IP wearing KH's face as a mask.

If what you're trying to say is that the original material is what should be focused on Destiny Islands through Traverse Town is still a pretty poor choice. Because the only Ansem that sequence contains is the potato sack one. Sure, you could move finding his reports forward into the story, but that messes up the pacing of how his character is revealed. (Also, the report you get after fighting Jafar is the first one, and it makes no mention of the human experimentation. Ansem being a bad guy was originally a late game twist.)

Saying that the crossover elements aren't part of the meat is a bit weird when we're discussing an adaptation of KH1, which had the Disney parts integrated pretty well into the story. But you know what, sure, just as I can imagine the world choices being swapped out for other movies, I could also imagine them being swapped out for original material that fulfills the same plot functions. And hey, maybe that would make it easier to adapt the story into movie form.

And I can just imagine some writer taking this proposal to a Disney executive for approval. Then the executive stares at the writer and asks why they're trying to take the crossover parts out of the crossover property. Especially when they were already planning to make the Council of Disney Villains into the cornerstone of the movie's advertising. What devoted KH fans consider to be the soul of the series is not going to be the only consideration when making this movie. Like it or not Disney is still a core part of the series identity. Which is why we continue to have Disney worlds even when the plot of the games has nothing to do with them. The best we can ask for is that the worlds are integrated into the plot.

(And just to make it clear, when I suggested three or four Disney worlds I wasn't suggesting only Disney worlds. I assumed that all the original worlds being included went without saying.)

Imagine if when adapting Harry Potter they decided that first book had too much detail to fit into a movie, so they decided to expand the story up to the point of Platform 9 3/4 into a full film. I guess it could be interesting if they got the right writer, maybe a bit Roald Dahl-esque. But anyone remotely familiar with the books would be asking why they decided to hold off on the much more interesting hook of going to magic school.

Destiny Islands through Traverse Town is a good start to a story, but it's just that, a START. Even if you somehow manage to make a watchable full-length film out of it by inserting lots of filler full of melancholy and dread it's not going to be as enticing as the journey and adventure of saving a bunch of Disney worlds.

For the examples above, Persona 3 had a quadrilogy of movies for each act, with each movie’s title making reference to each season in the year-long story.

Persona 3 was an 80-hour game compressed into four movies. So if we keep the same ratio for a 20-hour game, well...

But I gotta admit, I would be willing to forgive a great number of flaws if the KH movie had beautiful 2D animation like the P3 movies. But unfortunately that's not the medium the rumors are saying it's in

 

[Phoenix]

This is getting more and more painful to watch and proves why this isn't a good idea. No one can decide on what they want from a KH movie and so even if Disney took any post in here and used it as a blueprint, it would likely piss countless other people off.

I don't envy whoever's working on this. I hope they never have to deal with the hate that's hovering over their heads. And I hope most of you never make it to film and TV development.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I think a KH movie is an awful idea, period. I can think of few IPs that would lend themselves worse to a feature length film.

The uniqueness of KH is the juxtaposition of the crossover with the mystery and melancholy of the original story. KH1 does this job particularly well. Unless you capture both these concepts, you've failed as an adaptation.

Which doesn't necessarily mean it'd be a commercial failure. I just don't think it'd be a particularly good use of the different properties. It'd be another run of the mill kids movie, and probably make run of the mill kids movie money.

I'm seeing this sentiment that crossovers print money automatically, but not really. Crossovers that are properly set up print money. Crossovers that are just cashing in don't.