Tetsuya Nomura: please make KH movie!!

[DarkAngelus23]

He made FF Advent Children. So why can't he make a KH movie just like that? I know Fans would enjoy it. If a Staff Member who runs this website could run the idea by him that would be great. Thx.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

Maybe because Nomura isn't the one to decide such a thing?
There are several people at Square Enix who outrank Nomura in executive decisions, not to mention Disney has a say in this as well.

---

On a side note though I find it funny somewhat that you think that a staff member of a fansite/forum located in the US of A would have personal contact with Tetsuya Nomura. *ggg*.

 

[Taochan]

You can look at HD Days as KH's version of a movie and likely Coded will be made into movie form as well for 2.5. Other than that, I wouldn't hold your breath for one.

Staff members on fansites have no direct contact with Nomura.

 

[Ruran]

KH isn't exactly the easiest thing to adapt into film, not to mention Square doesn't exactly have the best track record with their movies. besides a lot of things would have to happen before a movie could even be considered. As mentioned already there are people above Nomura on the totem pole that he has to go through first who've already declined a KH game or two he's wanted to make. I'm not incredibly familiar with the FFVIII franchise but Advent Children was a direct sequel (?) to the first game so if Nomura wanted to make a KH movie in the same vein it would be after the series ended (disregarding possible prequels), then there's the Disney issue. Ultimately though it would depend on what the movie would be about.

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

I don't think Square Enix is in a position to make a movie. It took Visual Works years and a lot of money to produce Advent Children, and while it was highly successful (4.1 million copies sold worldwide) it was also a pretty huge gamble for the company since their last feature film was a commercial failure (and screwed Squaresoft over financially and with their merger discussions with Enix.) They already spend a lot of money just making the CG visuals you see sparsly in Square Enix games and trailers.

Square Enix is also trying to recover from $138M loss from their recently-ended financial year so a movie wouldn't really be in the cards for them right now.

Also, we're just fans :3 We don't have any connections to Tetsuya Nomura or any other high-ranking staff at Square Enix.

 

[SeekerofLight]

Last I heard too SE was still under contract with Sony for any films made on their properties( although that may be only in the west) so as of now a possible KH movie is a no-go, unless Disney were to give a go-ahead which would never happen.

 

[kupo1121]

I remember awhile back these type of topics went rampant and I was always completely against a full-blown KH movie. I don't mind them making an old game like Days or Re:Coded into a movie that fans will basically understand but making a new movie from scratch is a very bad idea...there is too much in KH to be able to make a satisfying movie all under 2 hours. I don't see how you could make a movie for everyone to enjoy if under 2 hours you have to:

- Introduce your character
- Provide the backstory (at least with Days on 1.5 people played KH1 already so they don't have to recap all of it)
- Introduce the plot
- Have that character visit at least 3 different Disney worlds and develop the stories there
- Have battles in those worlds
- Lead to an epic conclusion
- Have a resolution

All within 2 hours. The Days cutscenes in 1.5 HD Remix are close to 3 hours long and they didn't include really ANY battle scenes. Can you imagine if they had and recapped KH1 for those who don't know what KH is??? Yeah...that's one LONG movie.

 

[DarkAngelus23]

Disney only owns the Disney characters. Yes Nomura would have to get Disney permission to use Disney characters in the movie. SE owns Sora,Heartless, Keyblades.

 

[Sign]

Disney only owns the Disney characters. Yes Nomura would have to get Disney permission to use Disney characters in the movie. SE owns Sora,Heartless, Keyblades.

Disney owns all of the original content as well.

 

[DarkAngelus23]

It turns out Disney does own KH. There would be no KH without SE. SE should of been sole owner of KH. It's so stupid that Disney owns everything bout KH except FF Characters. All the characters except Disney ones were created by Tetsuya Nomura. Disney had no part in creating those characters. In my opinion ownership should be 50-50.

 

[Chaser]

On a side note though I find it funny somewhat that you think that a staff member of a fansite/forum located in the US of A would have personal contact with Tetsuya Nomura. *ggg*.

They did say that Sign's Dream Eaters were going to be taken to Nomura so... ;D

Disney does not own Kingdom Hearts. They only own the Disney characters. Without Square Enix there would be no KH. Tetsuya Nomura created KH so everything besides the Disney characters...Nomura owns. KH was not Disney's idea. Yes without Disney involvement there would be no KH. However to say KH is solely owned by Disney is wrong.

All the characters except for Final Fantasy are owned by Disney.
The game is also copy-righted by Disney, and developed by Square Enix.

 

[Sephiroth0812]

Disney does own everything except the Final Fantasy cameos and any FF music that is used:

"Copyright Disney Interactive Studios. Developed by Square Enix"

This is the usual text on any box of any KH game and during the ending credits of every title.
Square only gets credit for developing the games, as does Nomura for creating the original elements.
The rights what to do with these though lie with Disney, not Square nor Nomura.

---

Edit:

They did say that Sign's Dream Eaters were going to be taken to Nomura so... ;D

Yeah, that means Nomura has contact with the work of one of our staff members, lolz.
But I doubt that Sign will gain Nomura's EMail-address. *ggg*

 

[kupo1121]

It turns out Disney does own KH. There would be no KH without SE. SE should of been sole owner of KH. It's so stupid that Disney owns everything bout KH except FF Characters. All the characters except Disney ones were created by Tetsuya Nomura. Disney had no part in creating those characters. In my opinion ownership should be 50-50.

Having SE be the sole owner wouldn't really work because Disney would still have the rights over the Disney characters themselves and Disney DID have input on how they wanted the game to turn out. If Disney had no part in Sora's creation, Sora would still be that chainsaw-wielding, tail-having, half lion, half human concept haha They may have even had input on all the characters for all we know, probably not as much as they did Sora, but still some so I can definitely see where Disney owning at least part of the characters comes from.

 

[Sign]

Edit:


Yeah, that means Nomura has contact with the work of one of our staff members, lolz.
But I doubt that Sign will gain Nomura's EMail-address. *ggg*

Assuming they weren't removed, he might have mine, Ethy's and Sham's business cards 8D

I threw them into the box with a quick thank you note before I gave it away.

It turns out Disney does own KH. There would be no KH without SE. SE should of been sole owner of KH. It's so stupid that Disney owns everything bout KH except FF Characters. All the characters except Disney ones were created by Tetsuya Nomura. Disney had no part in creating those characters. In my opinion ownership should be 50-50.

We can understand why it may appear to be unfair, but that's how things work.

Not only that, but when the project first began, it was really just because of Disney that Kin-chan had the success it did. They were heavily reliant on Disney's properties and the opportunities it gave them.

Tetsuya Nomura in Iwata Asks! - News - Kingdom Hearts Insider

Iwata: One thing about Disney is that they have the strictest control over their characters in the world, but they let us throw our own creations into those same worlds. See, long ago, I had a similar experience when I made Smash Bros (※5), so I know it must have been terrible. First of all, how did it begin, how did you climb over the obstacles, I'm really interested.※5 Smash Bros = 'Super Smash Bros'. It was a fighting action rpg, the first title releasing Jan 1999 on the Nintendo 64.

Nomura: Firstly, we were in the same building... I've told this story many times, but it originally began from making a game together with Disney. One time, Mr (Shinji) Hashimoto (※6) and Mr (Hironobu) Sakaguchi (※7) were talking together, and I was there too for some reason.

※6 Mr Shinji Hashimoto = Square Enix Holdings Corporate Executive. In the days of the old company Square, he was first the producer of Final Fantasy VII and worked on many titles. ※7 Mr Hironobu Sakaguchi = The creator of the Final Fantasy series. He became independent in 2001, and established the game development company Mist Walker.

Iwata: Were the three of you just together by chance?

Nomura: Yes. I had been called over there for a completely different matter, but at that moment Mr Hashimoto and Mr Sakaguchi were talking back and forth about Disney, something like, 'Mickey would be great but we can't use him'. And then, I put up my hand and said, 'Ah, I want to do that,' and that's how it began. However, at the time I had absolutely no motivation to make a Mickey game...

Both: (laughs)

Nomura: So then it went sort of like, 'Okay, we'll let Tetsu have a go'.

Iwata: What was the background behind raising your hand? What part interested you?

Nomura: From the start, when I was working on FFVII (※8), that was right about the time that Mario 64 got famous, and the way you could run around freely in a full 3D world impacted hugely on me. When I talked with other staff about how I wanted to make a game like that, they told me, 'No, Mario is already a world-famous character, you can't do it now with a new character.'

※8 FFVII = Final Fantasy VII. It went on sale Jan 1997, as the seventh title in the series. ※9 Mario 64 = Super Mario 64. An action game for the Nintendo 64 that went on sale June 1996.

Iwata: Like, 'We can't go up against Mario,' sort of thing?

Nomura: Yes. The colleagues I talked with at the time said, 'It would be impossible to do without Disney-level star power characters'. But, it stayed in my head. So, when I heard them talking about doing something with Disney, I knew I wanted to do it...

Iwata: You must have had it quite firmly stuck in there...! So basically, the impact of Mario 64, hearing it would be 'impossible without Disney-level characters', and then talk about a Mickey game spawned something inside your head and you raised your hand, right?

Nomura: Yes (laughs).

 

[Shogo-Kun]

Back on the topic of creating a Kingdom Hearts movie, ignoring all the legal and economical aspects of such an endeavor, this is a near impossible feat. Kingdom Hearts has way too many characters and too much plot to squeeze into a two-hour movie. Hell, I don't think a three-hour movie would be enough since the cast is so diverse and the environments and settings are just as vast. And that's just thinking about plot, characters, and locations. Add in the mythology of the franchise and the connections all of the characters have with each other, not to mention making the Disney worlds actually make sense in terms of the narrative, then you have a Herculean task on your hands. In fact, I played around with the idea of a Kingdom Hearts movie myself and I can tell you that if I was given the chance to direct it, I would have to spend A YEAR in pre-production just to get a vague idea of the script!

To give you an idea of what I mean, let's compare Kingdom Hearts with a simpler video game: Sonic the Hedgehog. In Sonic the Hedgehog, you have the basic story of a blue hedgehog racing against a mad scientist, Dr. Eggman, to retrieve the Chaos Emeralds and save the world. Very straightforward, right? That in and of itself can be a workable movie angle and all you would need to do is add in a couple of characters to flesh out the narrative, put them in some plot relevant locations which can be easy to do since the world of Sonic the Hedgehog is so vast, limit yourself to only the basic needs, and BAM! Instant 90-minute story right there.

Now let's look at Kingdom Hearts: A young boy named Sora has his home world get attacked by Heartless and ends up in another world and meets Donald Duck and Goofy, who are on a mission to find the keybearer and their missing King, and together they travel to numerous Disney themed worlds to save the universe and find their loved ones. Already, we have a story that is epic in scale since we need to establish who the characters are, what makes them tick, and a rather large character cast. In fact, if you limit it down to just Destiny Islands, Traverse Town, Hollow Bastion, and End of the World, you have more than enough material to make a 2-3 hour movie. But the novelty of Kingdom Hearts is visiting other Disney worlds and interacting with hundreds of Disney characters. On top of that, the more complex characters like Xehanort, TAV, Ansem, Xemnas, Axel, Roxas, and others may have to be cut out due to time which can muck up the narrative. And that's nothing to say of the Disney/Final Fantasy cameos that have to be removed due to time. On top of that, even if you could make the narrative leaner in terms of content, how can you properly set up all of your information and backstory without doing an Evangelion-esque infodump and/or keeping the audience's attention. A video game is very different from a movie. In a movie, you have two hours max to tell your story and if it goes beyond that, then they're gonna get annoyed. Whereas in a video game, you play for a couple hours, get bored, take a break, then jump back in, lather-rinse-repeat.

On the whole, Kingdom Hearts is just not meant to be a movie and if it was made into one, it wouldn't have the same novelty and magic as the games would due to having to adapt into that format.

 

[ajmrowland]

I dunno. If this were to be a set up for the next saga, I don't think there'd be too much to handle on the order of characters. There'd be a lot of them to follow and we'd have to practically ignore the Disney world residents(ie anyone aside from mickey minnie, etc)unless they so happen to be needed for a single scene cameo or something, but it'd be a challenge still. But if a lotr sequel can juggle ten characters I. 3 hours, a kh sequel that's not kh3, operating on the assumption that you're familiar with the series like advent children did, could do the same.

 

[Meilin]

If you ASSUME that they're familiar with the series though, you limit your audience, which isn't something Disney goes for. In fact, I can't think of a time they did what i might refer to as a 'niche' title.
I've been refering to the HD358/2 cutscenes as KH: The Movie for a while now anyways XD

 

[ajmrowland]

It is niche, but I was being rather hypothetical anyway. Even if Disney did allow it, they'd have a visual challenge tantamount to kh3 hd graphics.

 

[Meilin]

It is niche, but I was being rather hypothetical anyway. Even if Disney did allow it, they'd have a visual challenge tantamount to kh3 hd graphics.

Or if you think of a TRULY scary thought, live action/cartoon hybrid.

 

[ajmrowland]

Yeah, I've actually thought of that and it's scary on a practical level, though if the mediums were to be separated by worlds, some interesting things came up creatively.


But yeah it would work out horribly.