Kingdom Hearts = Star Wars

[CrashBang]

So, I just finished KH: Birth By Sleep. I know I'm a few years behind but I never owned a PSP and I've been living abroad for a while.

Anyway, it struck me, at the end, that KH has become more and more similar to Star Wars as it has evolved.

Explanation:
An ancient school of pupils (Jedi/Keyblade Masters) learning to wield a special type of sword (lightsaber/keyblade).
School is destroyed by powerful man turned evil (Palpatine/Xehanort) and his pupil (Anakin/Terra).
Pupil is turned into new villain (Darth Vader/reborn Xehanort/Ansem imposter).
Years later, a brave young man (Luke/Sora) takes up the art and the sword, to take revenge and right the world with the help of his friends (Leia, Han, Chewie/Kairi, Donald, Goofy).
He is helped by an older and wiser man, who guides his journey (Obi Wan/Mickey) and eventually trained by an ancient master of the art (Yoda/Yen Sid).

Is this eye-opening to anyone, or is it old news that everyone has already noticed and gotten over?

 

[Kopikatsu]

Pretty much old news. More interesting is that Disney owns Lucas Arts Studios now, so if they really wanted, Star Wars could be a part of Kingdom Hearts 3...

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

All the more reason to see Star Wars in Kingdom Hearts, which is a very real possibility provided Disney is up for it.

Although the world (or Death Star) and story associated would probably just be a giant rehash of The Last Hope, since rehashing the movies seems to be one of the only things Disney is comfortable letting Square do.

 

[Leemaster777]

Pretty much the same thing I thought of when I first played BBS, too.

Didn't hurt that Mark Hamill was in the game, either. I also thought that a Star Wars voice actor being opposed to a Star Trek voice actor was hilariously ironic. RIP Leonard Nimoy.

Incidentally, not to derail things, but now that we are short one Spock, I wonder if he managed to finish up his voice acting for Kingdom Hearts 3? I'd be a shame if he didnt... but it'd be some Heath Ledger-level shit if he did.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

So, I just finished KH: Birth By Sleep. I know I'm a few years behind but I never owned a PSP and I've been living abroad for a while.

Anyway, it struck me, at the end, that KH has become more and more similar to Star Wars as it has evolved.

Explanation:
An ancient school of pupils (Jedi/Keyblade Masters) learning to wield a special type of sword (lightsaber/keyblade).
School is destroyed by powerful man turned evil (Palpatine/Xehanort) and his pupil (Anakin/Terra).
Pupil is turned into new villain (Darth Vader/reborn Xehanort/Ansem imposter).
Years later, a brave young man (Luke/Sora) takes up the art and the sword, to take revenge and right the world with the help of his friends (Leia, Han, Chewie/Kairi, Donald, Goofy).
He is helped by an older and wiser man, who guides his journey (Obi Wan/Mickey) and eventually trained by an ancient master of the art (Yoda/Yen Sid).

Is this eye-opening to anyone, or is it old news that everyone has already noticed and gotten over?

Don't forget Mark Hamill himself voices Master Eraqus, KH's equivalent of Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan to Terra's Anakin.

EDIT: Also I think Donald and Goofy are more on par with R2-D2 and C-3PO: unlike Han and Chewie, they've been around since the beginning (i.e. BBS), and as far as I recall they have very little incidence in the plot beyond their debut (compared to Han's indisputable protagonism). Yeah, they're hanging around having their moments, but that's it. If anybody is Han, that would be Riku: he's on Sora's level of protagonism, but he's older and has a considerable edge on him.

 

[Albino Boo]

Nope it is that they both raid the same source material. Lucas himself has said that both Star wars and the phantom menace are based on an Akira Kurosawa film called the hidden fortress. Most of the star wars plots come out 1950s/60s Japanese samurai movies.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Yes, they share some common elements, like most stories do. So?

They share more than "some common" elements (they share a lot of elements), they also share the same narrative structure: an order of righteous warriors becomes corrupted by darkness and misplaced hearts (literally and figuratively), and many years later their descendants fly through space in a trilogy while trying to right their wrongs and restore the balance of the universe. Not only do they share some actors (Mark Hamill and Christopher Lee), some of the characters are carbon-copied analogues - I mentioned Donald and Goofy as R2-D2 and C-3PO, for exameple.

Of course there's no answer to "so what". Coincidences are fun is all.

 

[Lilani]

So, I just finished KH: Birth By Sleep. I know I'm a few years behind but I never owned a PSP and I've been living abroad for a while.

Anyway, it struck me, at the end, that KH has become more and more similar to Star Wars as it has evolved.

Explanation:
An ancient school of pupils (Jedi/Keyblade Masters) learning to wield a special type of sword (lightsaber/keyblade).
School is destroyed by powerful man turned evil (Palpatine/Xehanort) and his pupil (Anakin/Terra).
Pupil is turned into new villain (Darth Vader/reborn Xehanort/Ansem imposter).
Years later, a brave young man (Luke/Sora) takes up the art and the sword, to take revenge and right the world with the help of his friends (Leia, Han, Chewie/Kairi, Donald, Goofy).
He is helped by an older and wiser man, who guides his journey (Obi Wan/Mickey) and eventually trained by an ancient master of the art (Yoda/Yen Sid).

Is this eye-opening to anyone, or is it old news that everyone has already noticed and gotten over?

Well, to be fair, this story wasn't exactly invented by Star Wars either, lol. This model for a coming-of-age story has been around forever. Star Wars just packaged it in a way which was extremely appealing and lucrative, and also very simple and easy to pick out the primary elements (dead parents, elder teacher, "old ways," temptation, power, revenge, etc).

Incidentally, not to derail things, but now that we are short one Spock, I wonder if he managed to finish up his voice acting for Kingdom Hearts 3? I'd be a shame if he didnt... but it'd be some Heath Ledger-level shit if he did.

According to Wikipedia, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Hearts_III] the English voice actor for Goofy revealed in January that he believed the game would be coming out sometime this year and that he'd finished his voice acting for the game. But we still don't have any kind of definitive date of when it's coming out even in Japan, so either way is possible. I hope he was able to finish, there really isn't anybody who could match the quality of his voice, though given the nature of this medium they would at least have to try. I guess it would be no more jarring than when they switched voice actors for Ansem between KH1 and KH2.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Yes, they share some common elements, like most stories do. So?

They share more than "some common" elements (they share a lot of elements), they also share the same narrative structure: an order of righteous warriors becomes corrupted by darkness and misplaced hearts (literally and figuratively),

What order are you talking about? Keyblade Wielders? Explain please, because I ain't seeing it.

and many years later their descendants fly through space in a trilogy while trying to right their wrongs and restore the balance of the universe.

Uh...descendents? See, this is the kind of thing I mean. They are not descended from the others.

Not only do they share some actors (Mark Hamill and Christopher Lee),

Which doesn't matter.

some of the characters are carbon-copied analogues - I mentioned Donald and Goofy as R2-D2 and C-3PO, for exameple.

What makes you think that simply saying they are actually makes them such? Your argument essentially being that they are unimportant to the plot...yeah, not really the best argument.

Of course there's no answer to "so what". Coincidences are fun is all.

Except that I don't see the supposed coincidence. That's what I'm trying to point out. You can explain it. But currently the line of reasoning seems akin to saying that Lord of the Rings is the same story as Little Red Riding Hood because the characters have enemies and are walking around in the wildernis.

Hmno, you're reducing everything I said if you want to boil down to "character have enemies". I brought up structural, thematic, characteristic and narrative parallelisms. I'm not going to expound on it any more, but feel free to re-read everything I pointed out earlier. Or just go here.

http://www.gamesradar.com/7-ways-kingdom-hearts-exactly-same-star-wars/

Kingdom Hearts is as Star Wars as Star Wars can get.

 

[Leemaster777]

Incidentally, not to derail things, but now that we are short one Spock, I wonder if he managed to finish up his voice acting for Kingdom Hearts 3? I'd be a shame if he didnt... but it'd be some Heath Ledger-level shit if he did.

According to Wikipedia, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Hearts_III] the English voice actor for Goofy revealed in January that he believed the game would be coming out sometime this year and that he'd finished his voice acting for the game. But we still don't have any kind of definitive date of when it's coming out even in Japan, so either way is possible. I hope he was able to finish, there really isn't anybody who could match the quality of his voice, though given the nature of this medium they would at least have to try. I guess it would be no more jarring than when they switched voice actors for Ansem between KH1 and KH2.

I was actually aware of this, and that's the ONLY reason why I believe that it's possible. But just because they finished Goofy doesn't mean they were finished with Xehanort. And even if they were, if there has to be any change in the dialog for any reason at all, they're SOL.

I guess we'll find out for sure when we get out first english trailer for KH3.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

What?
Mn, I don't buy it. I see a few bog-standard similarities that just aren't enough to support the statement.

Or maybe i'm in denial because I look at Kingdom Hearts lore as it strikes me as severely brain-damaged. Without the, you know, silly awesome star wars has.