Tarzan (1999 film)
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| Tarzan | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by | Chris Buck Kevin Lima |
| Produced by | Walt Disney Feature Animation |
| Written by | Tab Murphy |
| Starring | Tony Goldwyn Minnie Driver Rosie O'Donnell Wayne Knight Brian Blessed |
| Music by | Phil Collins Mark Mancina |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures |
| Release date(s) | June 18, 1999 (USA) |
| Running time | 88 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $130,000,000 |
| Followed by | Tarzan & Jane (2002) |
| IMDb profile | |
Tarzan is a 1999 Academy Award-winning animated feature film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, and released by Walt Disney Pictures on June 18, 1999. The thirty-seventh film in the Disney animated features canon, it is based upon the Tarzan of the Apes series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and is the only major motion picture version of the Tarzan property to be animated. It is also the last "bona fide" hit before the Disney slump of the early 2000s making $171,091,819 in domestic gross and $448,191,819 worldwide, outgrossing its predecessors Mulan and Hercules.
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[edit] Plot summary
In the late 1880's off the coast of Africa, a young couple and their infant son escape a burning ship and land on the unexplored rainforests of Africa, where they build themselves a treehouse in which to live ("Two Worlds"). Meanwhile, a gorilla couple named Kerchak and Kala are traveling with the rest of their group when their infant son is eaten by a leopard named Sabor. Later that night, Kala stumbles upon the treehouse, which has been attacked by Sabor, and although the infant has survived, both his parents are dead. Kala returns the baby to the rest of the group, but Kerchak despises the boy for his appearance. Nevertheless, Kala decides to raise the boy as her own, naming him Tarzan ("You'll Be in My Heart").
A few years later, Tarzan makes friends with young gorilla Terk and an elephant named Tantor ("Son of Man"). Despite his inablity to compete with the rest of the gorillas, Tarzan perseveres and eventually grows into a strong, capable and gorilla-like man. When Sabor attacks the group again, Tarzan successfully kills him, earning Kerchak's respect. Tarzan then notices another group of humans arriving: Professor Porter and his daughter Jane, who have travelled to Africa in search of gorillas, along with their hunter guide Clayton. After Tarzan saves Jane from some angry baboons, she is both confused and entranced by his appearance.
Meanwhile, Tarzan's friends arrive at the trio's campsite and proceed to destroy it ("Trashin' the Camp"). Tarzan returns Jane to camp and departs with the animals before Professor Porter and Clayton arrive. In the jungle, Kerchak instructs the others to stay away from the campsite, but Tarzan protests, believing that the humans pose no threat. Tarzan secretly returns to the campsite and is introduced to the other men, and the three of them teach Tarzan about the human world ("Strangers Like Me"); nevertheless, he refuses to tell them the gorillas' location, fearing Kerchak's fury. A few days later, when the boat to England arrives, the trio, unable to find the gorillas, prepares to leave, and Tarzan is heartbroken to see Jane depart. Clayton explains, however, that they will stay once they find the gorillas.
Tarzan leads them to the nesting site, but Kerchak appears and attacks Clayton, much to the humans' fright. Tarzan puts Kerchak in a headlock, allowing the humans to escape, and as such alienates himself from the gorillas. Sympathetic, Kala takes Tarzan to his biological parents' treehouse, and he decides that he belongs in the human world. Tarzan decides to depart for England with the others, but Clayton and the crew attack them and lock them up; Clayton reveals that he wanted to find the apes to kill and sell them on the black market. As the crew storm the jungle, Tantor and Terk rescue Tarzan and they go off to stop Clayton, who mortally wounds Kerchak with his rifle. Tarzan and Clayton duel among the treetops until Clayton, entangled in vines, falls from the tree, resulting in an accidental death by hanging. Tarzan then finds the ailing Kerchak, who apologizes to Tarzan for his behavior and makes him, as the uncontestedly most capable of the younger generation, leader of the gorillas.
With the crew captured, Jane and Professor Porter prepare to depart for England. However, realizing where her heart belongs, Jane returns to the jungle and is soon followed by her father; the three of them reside happily in the jungle among the animals and gorillas ("Two Worlds Reprise").
[edit] Major changes from book to movie
The film is based on Tarzan of the Apes (1912) an adventure novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Changes from book to movie include:
- Kala, Tarzan's adoptive mother, lives.
- The apes, called "Great Apes" in the novel, are gorillas in the film. In the book, gorillas are enemies of the great apes.
- Clayton is changed from a basically sympathetic but flawed character to an irredeemable villain.
- Tarzan's parents, marooned in the novel, are shipwrecked in the movie.
- Tarzan's main antagonists are lions in the book, leopards in the film. The latter is, in fact, more realistic and accurate. Leopards are the main predators of the African forest (where the story takes place), while lions are denizens of the plains.
- In the book, Tarzan's human mother dies of natural causes while his father is killed shortly afterward by Kerchak; baby Tarzan is saved from Kerchak when Kala seizes the infant and flees. In the film, a leopard named Sabor is responsible for the deaths of both of Tarzan's human parents, and Kala exhibits amazing heroism to save baby Tarzan from the predator.
- In the book Tarzan kills Kerchak in a battle for supremacy over the apes. In the movie Kerchak is shot by Clayton.
- A male Great Ape named Terkoz, Tarzan's enemy in the book, becomes Terk (or Terkeena as called by her mother), a female gorilla, Tarzan's best friend, in the movie.
- Native African humans, who play a major role in the book, are absent from the movie.
- In the original novel, Jane is originally from Baltimore, Maryland, not England.
[edit] Voice Cast
| Actor | Role(s) |
|---|---|
| Tony Goldwyn | Tarzan |
| Minnie Driver | Jane Porter |
| Rosie O'Donnell | Terk |
| Glenn Close | Kala |
| Brian Blessed | Clayton |
| Lance Henriksen | Kerchak |
| Wayne Knight | Tantor |
| Nigel Hawthorne | Professor Archimedes Q. Porter |
| Alex D. Linz | Young Tarzan |
| Taylor Dempsey | Young Tantor |
[edit] Crew
| Crew Position | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Kevin Lima Chris Buck |
| Produced by | Bonnie Arnold |
| Based on the Book by | Edgar Rice Burroughs |
| Screenplay by | Tab Murphy Bob Tzudiker Noni White |
| Songs by | Phil Collins |
| Original Score by | Mark Mancina |
| Associate Producer | Christopher Chase |
| Art Director | Daniel St. Pierre |
| Film Editor | Gregory Perler |
| Artistic Supervisors | Brian Pimentel (Story supervisor) Jean-Christophe-Poulain (Layout supervisor) Doug Ball (Background supervisor) Marshall Toomey (Clean-up supervisor) Peter DeMund (Effects supervisor) Eric Daniels (Computer Graphics supervisor) |
| Supervising Animator | Glen Keane (Tarzan) Ken Duncan (Jane) Russ Edmonds (Kala) John Ripa (Young & Baby Tarzan) Michael Surrey (Terk) Randy Haycock (Clayton) David Burgess (Porter) Bruce W. Smith (Kerchak) Sergio Pablos (Tantor) Dominique Monfrey (Sabor) Jay Jackson (Ape Family) T. Daniel Hofstedt (Captain & Thugs) Chris Wahl (Flynt & Mungo) |
| Associate Art Director Artistic Coordinator Production Manager |
Dan Cooper Fraser MacLean Jean-Luc Florinda |
[edit] Songs
The songs for the film were written and performed by the singer Phil Collins.
- Two Worlds
- You'll Be in My Heart - (featuring Glenn Close)
- Son of Man
- Trashin' the Camp
- Strangers Like Me
[edit] Deep Canvas
To create the sweeping 3D backgrounds, Tarzan's production team developed a 3D painting and rendering technique known as Deep Canvas. This technique allows artists to produce CGI background that looks like a traditional painting. For this advancement, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded the creators of Deep Canvas a Technical Achievement Award in 2003.
After Tarzan, Deep Canvas was used for a number of sequences in Atlantis: The Lost Empire, particularly large panoramic shots of the island and several action sequences.
Expanded to support moving objects as part of the background, Deep Canvas was utilized to create about 75% of the environments in Disney's next major animated action film, Treasure Planet, though the results were less stunning, due to the film's tighter painting style which could have been accomplished without such advanced software. Deep Canvas was designed to accomplish a very loose, brushstroke-based style without hard edges, but Treasure Planet's backgrounds were more hard-edged and clean.
Deep Canvas was finally used in a more natural setting in restrained doses for Disney's final two traditionally animated theatrical releases, Brother Bear and Home on the Range.
An advanced version of Deep Canvas technique was originally planned to be used in Angel and Her No Good Sister, a Disney animated feature which was to feature bluegrass music. However, since the project was canceled, it is unknown if Deep Canvas will be used on any of the new projects given the Disney/Pixar merger and the software Disney will have acquired as a result.
[edit] Sequels
A TV series spin-off, The Legend of Tarzan ran on Toon Disney in 2001. It was followed by a direct-to-video sequel, Tarzan & Jane, released in 2002. Tarzan II, a direct-to-video midquel, was released on June 14, 2005.
A Broadway musical, also titled Tarzan, produced by Disney Theatrical began previews on March 24, 2006 which an official opening night on May 10 of the same year.
[edit] Awards
Tarzan won the following awards:
- 1999 Annie Award in the Technical Achievement in the Field of Animation category (for the Deep Canvas process).
- 2000 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for the song "You'll Be in My Heart" by Phil Collins.
- 2000 Academy Award for Best Song for the song "You'll Be In My Heart" by Phil Collins.
- 2000 Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
[edit] Controversy
Like many past Disney productions, Tarzan did not go without its share of complaints and criticisms.
Upon the film's release in Israel during August of 1999, several complaints arose from the orthodox Jewish community over Tarzan's lack of clothing which was displayed in advertising posters that had circulated for the film. Many members of the community, mostly rabbis and other prominent religious members, called for the removal of the posters. Disney however rejected the requests for the removal of the ads, calling the controversy "ridiculous". Rabbi Avraham Ravitz, for example, was quoted as stating that such images "did not promote a suitable way of living", in accordance to the Jewish religion's code of dressing from head to toe. Disney argued back that the film promoted family values through the caring of a loving mother for a boy who was lost in a jungle.
Despite the controversy, Tarzan went on to be one of the most successful films of 1999 in Israel, and already had a recorded 500,000 ticket sales at the peak of the controversy.[1][2]
[edit] Trivia
- Tarzan is the only Disney film which had been dubbed into Bahasa Malaysia.
- The teapot and cup that are seen in the scene where Terk and the other animals mess up the camp are of the same design as Mrs. Potts the teapot and her son, Chip the teacup, from Beauty and the Beast.
- One of the toys that falls out from Professor Porter's pockets when he is turned upside down by an ape is Little Brother, the dog from Mulan.
- The treehouse in Disneyland's Adventureland, was renamed Tarzan's Treehouse in 1999 (it originally was the Swiss Family Treehouse).
- Tarzan's home, Deep Jungle, is also a playable world in the Disney/Square Enix video game Kingdom Hearts. Sora, Donald Duck, and Goofy had to work with Tarzan to save his world from the Heartless and Clayton. It didn't re-appear for Chain of Memories or Kingdom Hearts II.
- Minnie Driver largely ad-libbed the breathless speech in which Jane tells her father and Clayton about meeting Tarzan for the first time.
- Tarzan has been adapted from its book many times over the years and is second only to Dracula in the adaptation chart.
- William Cecil Clayton, the character in the book on whom the film's Clayton is (loosely) based, is Tarzan's cousin; Tarzan's birth name is John Clayton, Earl of Greystoke.*
- All of the actors who voiced gorillas also provided their character's own "gorilla" vocal effects.
- Although the film features many songs, none of them are sung by the main cast-instead they are all sung by Phil Collins over various montage sequences. The closest the film comes to a true musical number is "Trashin' the Camp," where the gorillas play music using various human objects the find in camp. This unique approach would later be used in Brother Bear (which also featured songs by Collins.)
- Tarzan features the highest number of deaths in any film produced by Disney. The killed characters were Kerchak, his and Kala's child, Tarzan's parents, Sabor and Clayton.
- During Walt Disney's lifetime, Edgar Rice Burroughs actually asked Disney to make a movie based on Tarzan. This is the realization of Burroughs' request.
- Takeshi Kaneshiro, Charlie Yeung and Sandra Ng provided the voices of Tarzan, Jane and Terk respectively in the film's Cantonese dub.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Tarzan at the Big Cartoon Database
- Tarzan at the Internet Movie Database
| Preceded by Mulan |
Walt Disney Pictures 1999 |
Succeeded by Fantasia 2000 |
