I feel so bad I haven't seen Coco yet. I've heard so many great things about it, I really want to see it. Especially if it can be a potential KH world. Yes, I have that mindset in the back of my mind everytime I watch a Disney/Pixar movie. Could it be in the next Kingdom Hearts game, lol.
And I didn't know that about Pixar wanting original stuff for their worlds in KH. That explains Toy Box and Monstropolis. I'd still want a Bug's Life world not sure if Hopper would be in it now, though.
To be fair though, Pixar is know for their stories hence why the majority of their films received Critical acclaim which is the reason why they requested to Nomura and his team to do Original stories on the Pixar worlds based on their films, because if they "retell the plot" of the film with SDG and KH elements involved, it would take away the important lessons and values that made the original films great but drastically change certain characters personalities and act out of character compared to the movie. As in my thoughts with Pixar only allowing original stories based on their movies, I'm alright with this change cause it mostly give positive's and few negatives (to a few people who are upset with this):
Positives:
- Allows Sora, Donald and Goofy to be involved in the movie's world, rather than retell the plot of the movie with them sticking out like a sore thumb in some instances, and having the KH antagonists be "shoehorned" in the plot.
- Takes existing Pixar characters in a new story exclusive to the KH series, while keeping the same behavior and personalities from the film.
- Protects the timeline and canon of each Pixar film without changing important events from their films, hence the Toy Story world taking place between Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3 and the Monster's Inc. world set after the events of the movie.
Negatives:
- Not exploring the plot of the film (A few people just wanted to explore the locations from the movie, hence their disappointment on the Toy Story world)
- Pixar villains (Frankly, I've seen a lot of comments mainly on YouTube with some users expressing on wanting to fight that specific Pixar villain only to be disappointed they aren't in the game or not as a boss (e.g. Waternoose, Syndrome, etc.)
In fact, in an interview from Nomura at D23 2017 following the reveal of the Toy Story world in KH3, he originally wanted to have the Toy Story world to follow the events of the First or Second film, but Pixar requested Nomura to "do something that is original and unrelated to the films" hence the original storyline for the Toy Story world in KH3 being an interquel to the 2nd and 3rd film.
Regarding
Coco as I several posts based on this on this thread, I can envision the story could take place after the events of the film (before or after the epilogue) where Sora (and perhaps Donald and Goofy) ending up in the land of the dead but at the same time he encounters and helps Miguel's great-great relatives (Hector, Mother Imelda, Coco, Papa Julio, etc..) and Miguel on a new threat that is threatening the Land of the Dead and Santa Cecilia (e.g. one of the antagonists or Heartless and/or Dream Eaters is causing havoc on the civilians preventing them from reaching the ofrendas and seeing their living relatives. Or a possible route and the first for and Pixar-based world it could be a prequel to the original movie where Sora ends up in the land of the dead trying to find his way back and he encounters Hector who also wants to cross the bridge to reach Coco, which can also tie into Sora's character development.
Besides the connection of Family (la Familia), Remembrance and memory which were the themes of the original movie and could connect with Sora's character development and the KH plot, the alebrijes could be another important story plot connection for the world cause in the original film they are meant to be spirit guides to their owners and their families such as Dante and Pepita. What if there were alebrijes that became corrupted and turns itself into a Heartless or Nightmare Dream Eater and actually do the opposite? I could so imagine the world culminated with either a Heartless or Dream Eater boss based on the Mexican deity, Quetzalcoatl with Sora riding on Pepita and battling the boss in the vein of Sora riding on Baymax and the Magic Carpet.
But hey, I'm very excited on how Pixar and Square Enix will come up with the new story for a world based on Coco. Another interesting thing to note is that apparently Jason Katz who worked on the
Toy Story movies and was one of the consultants with the
Toy Story world in
Kingdom Hearts III also worked on
Coco, plus Jason, Adrian Molina and some of the people who worked on the movie could serve as consultants giving notes to the Nomura and his team regarding on the Coco level. Coco definitely screams Kingdom Hearts level from both the environment, the story, the alebrijes and potential boss, so I'm very excited to see Square recreate it as a level.