Re: Exclusive: KHInsider Interview with Seth Kearsley
For those wanting to get to the nitty gritty, Kingdom Hearts talk starts at 34:21
Highlights!
Seth wanted to do an American anime, his original artistic influences were classic Mickey cartoons (one of which - clock cleaners, had a clear reference in the pilot) and anime/Japanese animation - he himself is a black belt in karate.
Seth was directed to Disney through his agent where they'd been working on getting a KH cartoon off the ground. When he came over, the head of animation had commissioned a script based on a concept that Seth didn't agree with. So they started from the ground up.
Seth wasn't interested in anything that strayed from the concept of the game and really wanted to focus on Sora's adventures with Donald and Goofy and his friendship with Kairi and Riku, and this was at a time when there was only one game.
Seth was also pushing to get a Kingdom Hearts feature film made.
Disney was heavily involved in the next attempt at a script, Seth doesn't like to record after an episode's been boarded because he prefers to let the actors voices dictate some of the character movement. Once the script got approved, they moved on to recording. All the classic Disney characters have their locked-in voices in the "Disney Machine" and none of that would have changed, Seth figures it probably wouldn't change in the future if a KH series was ever made as well. Seth had more control in the recording booth, so the Disney actors got to let loose a bit more.
As for the original characters, Haley Joel Osment wasn't able to do the pilot, so Disney suggested a soundalike who'd been hired to do some ADR and dubbing for HJO during The Jungle Book 2 (in which he played Mowgli). He believes similar situations happened with Riku and Kairi where soundalikes were hired.
He did the pilot outside the Disney animation studios, in his own studio. He didn't do all the work alone, he did the editing and drawing but not the scanning and coloring.
I asked him about the script we saw from Kevin Munroe (Sly Cooper, Ratchet and Clank) that was an episode of a potential Kingdom Hearts animated series that was based on the Jungle Book, Seth confirmed that script wasn't attached to his pilot and that Disney had attempted to get many Kingdom Hearts Scripts off the ground from various writers, such as Henry Gilroy (Star Wars Rebels, Star Wars:The Clone Wars).
The reason why the Animated series never went further was because the second game began development and they didn't want to mess up their working relationship with Square.
Seth wouldn't want to just retell the Disney stories or the game, as that would be redundant. He'd want a different perspective on things, but still wanted to keep it true to the series and still have the main events happen, but happen in a different way or in a different order.
Seth would like to do a do-over of a pilot, and he's been contacting various people across the industry, but there's no way of knowing what Disney's doing. Expectations should be super low. It's unlikely they're looking to start a new animated franchise.
Having said that, here are some wishes and dreams for the series if it happened:
He understands that 15 years later, the series has gotten bigger and that if he were to have another chance, he'd dive into all the various incarnations and entries and aspects of the universe and still go back to the original plan of staying true to the games while creating something unique, and character-driven.
He understands concern about adding characters from recently acquired franchises (Star Wars, Marvel), but he would only add those characters and elements peripherally if given the chance and not make it like Sora hopping into an episode of the Avengers.
Seth would love to work with Steve Ahn (Voltron) Lesean Thomas (Boondocks), director wise he feels like they understand anime more than he does. As far as animation studios, he'd love Mir (Voltron, Legend of Korra) to be involved, definitely wants it to be 2d anime but possibly with some CG elements. Especially with technology being where it is these days.
Seth would be interested in keeping the style close to source material from-world to-world, specifically having the background and environments being heavily stylized. The characters themselves would still look like themselves, but everything would still be unified in a Kingdom Hearts style. With live action and 3D the idea is basically the same, but it would depend.
Seth loved the music from the games, and some of the score of the first game was in the pilot. He feels like anything that's awesome from the games should be carried into a series, the music is no exception.
The show's lengths and formats would depend on the channel, likely 22 minutes with three act story structures and season-length arcs but he has no idea what the case would be. Seth's a fan of Netflix's approach, and the binge factor - he thinks that binge watching is to thank for audiences being more invested in arcs and seasons and storytelling.
As for Square Enix, they weren't involved in the pilot at all - but Seth can't remember if that was because they asked not to be or if it just wasn't happening. He'd rather have the Final Fantasy characters be involved and Square be involved than not but wouldn't be surprised if it was a big legal hurdle.
