The Kingdom Hearts TV series pilot finally sees the light of day thanks to the original director
An interesting insight into what could have been.
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Did you know that a Kingdom Hearts TV series was in development back in the day? Well it was, and the original director shared the pilot earlier this week.
The Kingdom Hearts TV series was an American developed take on the original game, but it never got off the ground. While bits and pieces of the show have appeared online over the years, like storyboards and various pieces of art, a full pilot has been the holy grail that fans have been after for years. Now, director of the project Seth Kearsley has shared the full animatic pilot online, and it honestly isn't the worst thing in the world.
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The animatic is narrated by Pinocchio's Jiminy Cricket, a companion of protagonist Sora in the original game, and fits very well as such considering he keeps a journal of the games events canonically. It's definitely rough around the edges, as it's an animatic rather than fully animated.
Interestingly enough, pretty much all of the voice cast returned, the only one missing being Haley Joel Osment as Sora himself, apparently due to scheduling conflicts, making this one of the rare times he hasn't actually voiced the character.
Kingdom Hearts can sometimes struggle to capture the characteristics of characters like Donald and Goofy, moreso having its own take on them, but the pilot is much more like how they are in other appearances.
The pilot is also very condensed, telling you just about what you need to know, most of it being set on Agrabah from Aladdin.
In a separate video, Kearsley explained that he decided to share the pilot due to a serious car crash he experienced in January of this year that almost took his life, so he wanted to share work that he hadn't before to "put out in the world."
Unfortunately, Kearsley has since taken down his upload, as someone at Disney "was politely asked to politely ask me to take it down," as he explained. Though obviously, someone else has reuploaded it, so you still have time to check it out.
Overall it's an interesting look into an alternate world, one that would have featured a very 2000s Disney show take on Kingdom Hearts. Whether that's a better world or not, we'll never know.
