Chain of Memories (film)

Chain of Memories is a 2009 American traditionally-animated fantasy film produced and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Directed by Chris Buck and written by Nathan Greno, the film stars the voices of Meaghan Martin, Jesse McCartney, Tony Anselmo, and Bill Farmer reprise their roles as the titular characters.

It is based around the events depicted in the game, but the lore is elaborated upon, with many inclusions of and references made to elements that appeared and a few differences.

Synopsis
Sora, Donald and Goofy making their way through a mysterious castle and reliving their memories while Riku find a way to beat his inner darkness.

Plot
On the day Roxas is born as Sora's Nobody when Sora transforms into a Heartless, Roxas is found in Twilight Town by Xemnas, the leader of Organization XIII, who names him its thirteenth member. Each day he is sent on missions to other worlds, either alone or accompanied by his fellow members, to destroy Heartless with the Keyblade and release captive hearts, with which the Organization can fulfill their goal of summoning Kingdom Hearts and become complete beings. Roxas is placed under the care of Axel, whom he befriends and spends his spare time with at the end of each day, sitting atop the clock tower in Twilight Town, speaking what's on their minds and eating sea salt ice cream together.

Shortly after Roxas's induction, the Organization sees the arrival of a mysterious fourteenth member, Xion. Her appearance changes from person to person, depending on their relationship with her. Later, when Axel and several other members are assigned to Castle Oblivion, Roxas is paired with Xion. The two begin to bond, and the reclusive Xion begins opening up to Roxas, revealing her resemblance to Sora's friend Kairi, and her ability to wield the Keyblade.

Sora, Donald, and Goofy walk down a long path that seemingly goes nowhere. They see Pluto and start to follow him. He leads them to a crossroads. While deciding which path to take, a mysterious man in a black cloak approaches Sora and speaks to him, but at that moment his words are incomprehensible. The path becomes one and it leads them to Castle Oblivion. The cloaked man appears as they enter the castle and gives them a card. They use the card to proceed through the castle.

The cloaked man from before appears once more after they arrive on the next floor, but a second cloaked man also appears and introduces himself as Axel, challenging Sora to battle. Sora fends him off and is given more World Cards, and as Sora, Donald, and Goofy go through each floor, they relive their memories, all of which are somehow distorted in a different way, and begin to lose their original memories. By piecing together their distorted memories, they eventually discover that a Nobody, Naminé, has been reorganizing their memories at the orders of Marluxia, the Nobody who led them to the castle, in order to put herself in Kairi's place within Sora's memories and thus make him more compliant to the control of the Nobodies. As he makes his way to the peak of the castle, Sora slays the Organization members Larxene and Vexen, as well as defeating the Riku Replica created by Vexen and similarly reprogammed by Naminé to be loyal to her.

Meanwhile, Riku chooses to reject the peaceful sleep of the Realm of Darkness and is pulled through a Corridor of Darkness to the basement of the castle. He makes his way through the castle with the assistance of King Mickey Mouse, while fending off the temptations of Ansem, who has left a piece of himself within Riku's heart and wants Riku to return to being his host, as well as repelling attacks from Vexen, Lexaeus, Zexion, and their Riku Replica, who want to use Riku as a weapon to counter Marluxia's use of Sora. Along the way, Riku discovers that not all of Ansem's temptations were actually made by Ansem—some were instead made by DiZ, who was disguising himself as Ansem in order to test Riku's resistance to darkness.

At the end of the journey, Sora puts an end to Marluxia, freeing Naminé and the Riku Replica. Due to the damage done to Sora's memory, Naminé offers to restore his memories, although it means he will forget everything in the castle and will take a long time. Sora, Donald, and Goofy agree to this and go to rest in Memory Pods provided by Naminé. A few days later, Roxas falls into a coma for several weeks, around the same time Sora is put to sleep to regain the memories he lost in Castle Oblivion.

The Riku Replica instead chooses to reject its given memories entirely, and leaves to find his own purpose. Desperate to prove that he is his own person, he is persuaded by Axel to slay Zexion in order to take his power and become something that the original Riku is not, but he is disappointed when it doesn't make him feel any different. Riku, following advice from DiZ to seek Naminé, runs into his Replica at the Twilight Town basement, and in a rage the Replica challenges Riku to a fight to the death. Riku wins, and tries to comfort his suffering Replica as the Replica fades away. Afterward, Riku finds Naminé and is shown Sora's situation. Naminé offers to manipulate Riku's memories in order to lock Ansem's phantom away, but Riku declines and instead chooses to confront Ansem directly. When he emerges from the basement, DiZ presents him with a black coat to protect him from the darkness and so the Organization won't be able to track him down. He also gives him a World Card to summon forth Ansem from his heart in order to defeat him.

After defeating Ansem, Riku and Mickey go to the crossroads outside the castle, where DiZ appears once again to ask if Riku will be following the road to light or the road to darkness. Instead, Riku chooses the middle road, "to dawn".

Cast

 * Gage Knox as Sora
 * Tony Anselmo as Donald Duck
 * Bill Farmer as Goofy
 * David Reale as Riku
 * Bret Iwan as Mickey Mouse
 * Keith Ferguson as Marluxia
 * Quinton Flynn as Axel
 * Vic Mignogna as Vexen
 * Dave Boat as Lexaeus
 * Vince Corazza as Zexion
 * Shanelle Gray as Larxene
 * Dorian Harewood as Ansem
 * Meaghan Martin as Naminé
 * Joe Ochman as Jiminy Cricket
 * Jesse McCartney as Roxas
 * Daveigh Chase as Xion
 * Corey Burton as DIZ
 * Haley Joel Osment by The Narrator

Development
On December 12, 2007, it was announced that the film which is based on Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories. It was announced that Nathan Greno would co-wrote the screenplay. Production began in late 2006 and the film was released on January 23, 2009. While the Goofy short How to Hook Up Your Home Theater experimented with paperless animation, the artists used traditional pencil and paper that is scanned into the computers. Although a new pipeline for hand-drawn animation using Toon Boom Harmony has been developed at the studio, the actual animation process remains the same. The visual effects, as well as many of the backgrounds, were created digitally using tools such as Wacom Cintiq tablet displays.

The film is traditionally animated but includes some CG elements such as Axel's Eternal Flames, Lexaeus's Skysplitter, Vexen's Frozen Pride and Marluxia's Graceful Dahlia. Supervising animators for the film were Mark Henn (Sora and Roxas), Tim Allen (Donald Duck), Andreas Deja (Mickey Mouse and Goofy), John Ripa (Riku), Nik Ranieri (Axel), Ken Duncan (Naminé and Xion) Bruce W. Smith (Lexaeus and DIZ), Randy Haycock (Marluxia), Eric Goldberg (Jiminy Cricket), Dale L. Baer (Larxene), James Baxter (Vexen), Ruben A. Aquino (Zexion) and Will Finn (Ansem).

Home Media
The film was released on DVD & Blu-ray on May 22, 2009.