Watching this is so strange; it’s like déjà vu. It’s interesting seeing what ideas were and weren’t thrown out, such as some of the gags being nearly identical to the final episode, meanwhile many of the recurring characters have entirely different designs. It makes me wonder where this falls on the scale from the first beta pitch to the final product. The tone of the whole pilot feels a lot closer to Amphibia/Gravity Falls s1a, it gives me the impression that the show overall would be a more light-hearted and goofy show filled with silly jokes for kids, but I might be reading into it too much ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also, King wearing his “Burger Queen” crown is absolutely beautiful!

It’s interesting how it’s so similar yet so different to the final product. A lot more interesting and engaging, too, this would’ve hooked me in a lot earlier than the actual show did

• BI as a travel hub? What are all those other dimensions about?
• I wonder if that first demon Luz meets was an inspiration for Kikimora. Obviously it became the fairy and guard in ep 1, but idk, still getting some slight Kiki vibes from it too
• Imo much more convincing reason for Luz to want to stay in the Isles
• Hints of Lumity from episode 1? I wonder how the people would’ve reacted to Luz’s “questing in all the right ways” comment from 1x02 Witches Before Wizards if that happened after this (obviously by “the people” I mean “Twitter” and by “I wonder” I mean "accusations of queerbaiting thrown left and right, bisexuality be damned)
• I wonder if Amity was already planned to be Lilith’s protégé? That would’ve been an interesting conflict as they warmed up to each other
• But Eda secretly working for the Emperor‽‽‽ Certainly doesn’t seem like she was very happy about the arrangement. Really curious about how that was going to play out, especially w.r.t. her relation to Lilith

DIFFERENCES

• Amity was an “exchange student” from the demon realm.
• Luz displays lockpicking capabilities in this draft. I’m sad this was removed, but I guess it gave kids a bad impression.
• The inciting event of the pilot is Amity accidentally dropping her passport (a demon-shaped passport, may I add), and Luz following her to give it back, which leads her into the demon realm.
• The Titan Key possessed the ability to create a portal door and travel between worlds, while in the final series, the key and the door are both needed (although in S3, it’s revealed that only the Titan blood is actually necessary, which kind of leads back to how it used to work in the pilot)
• Travelling between realms was common in the pilot, and tons of inhabitants of the demon realm are shown doing it (using magic doors that reminds me of Monsters Inc.).
• Eda was able to teleport! In the final episode, she instead flies away with her palisman. I suppose they realized that teleporting powers were too difficult to tie into the story.
• Eda’s body-detachment curse isn’t shown immediately (in the series, her hand gets stuck on the palisman stuff after flying to the owl house).
• Eda’s house was actually in the basement, and was more dungeon-like. In the series, it’s just a normal house, and the living room is at ground level.
• The pilot still revolves around finding King’s crown, but this time, it’s not stored in the Conformatorium. Instead, it was taken by Lilith, who was the principal of the school (principal Bump, as a character, had not been conceived yet).
• Eda had the power to turn into a giant owl!
• As you can guess, since the crown is held by Lilith at the school, Luz runs into Amity, but the latter doesn’t recognize her and disparages the “creepy human girl” who she met in the human world. She was still a smart-ass in this pilot like she ended up being in the series, but this time, there’s no Boscha with her.
• Lilith doesn’t have a magical barrier that stops anyone but humans from entering. Instead, she has a safe from the human world, which Luz is able to open with her lockpicking skills.
• Lilith beheads Eda in front of Luz and King (of course her body-detachment curse saves her). This scene is quite similar to the one from Episode 1 where Warden Wrath does the same thing; however, in the final version, the scene has been significantly sped up, and the curse had already been established earlier. In contrast, the pilot features a longer version of this scene, and the curse has not yet been introduced. This setup not only makes for a rather satisfying plot twist but also portrays the scene as much darker than its counterpart in the final version, which I suppose it’s the reason why it was changed.
• Lilith was also able to transform into some sort of were-bat, which is SO cool.
• Luz can use Owlbert to perform all kinds of magic… Including using it as a rocket launcher. In the final version of the story, palismen can only fly, and “true” magic comes from the witches themselves.
• Okay, so, this is the biggest difference so far: During the fight against Lilith, Luz manages to trap her in another dimension using the portal key, then breaks the key to trap her on the other side. In the final story, staying in the demon realm is an active choice made by Luz for the majority of S1, until the portal door is blown up in the final episode, trapping her in the demon realm.
• Lilith loses a hand at the end of the pilot. It’s unclear if she also shared Eda’s curse.
• I take it back, THIS is the biggest difference: Eda was forced to work with the Emperor, and the stone on her chest was some kind of device that kept her under their control. At the end of the episode, she is shown talking with an unknown demon who orders her to bring the human to the Emperor. When she tries to refuse, the demon uses the stone to inflict pain to her and remind her that she is under their control. I wonder if this was one of those things that were “willy-nilly thrown in there that we knew would not make into the show”, or something that they actually had planned.

SIMILARITIES

• The characters were, for the most part, very similar to their counterparts in the series. Lilith and Eda, in particular, were already established as sisters with a love-hate relationship.
• A lot of jokes and scenes were either retained for the final version of the first episode, or reused for later episodes. For example, Eda selling human trash; Rosa Tinella being bullied by Lilith and imprisoned in her safe, similarly to how she is bullied by the Warden Wrath and imprisoned in the Conformatorium; Luz running away from bat!Lilith is very reminiscent to her running away from Eda when she turns into the Owl Beast in Ep10; Luz giving Azura’s crown to King as a replacement for the one he lost; etc…
• BONUS: While running away from bat!Lilith, Luz passes by Amity, and the scene is pretty much a shot-to-shot version of Mark’s A little hint of blue - Chapter 3 Ep 6. Mark was able to predict even this one.
• Hexside’s interiors are really reminiscent of the Conformatorium.