Tarzan (1999 film)

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Tarzan
Directed by	Chris Buck Kevin Lima
Produced by	Walt Disney Feature Animation
Written by	Tab Murphy
Starring	Tony Goldwyn Minnie Driver Rosie O'Donnell Glenn Close Brian Blessed Lance Henriksen Wayne Knight Nigel Hawthorne
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	$150,000,000
Gross revenue	$448,191,819
Preceded by	Tarzan of the Apes(1999)
Followed by	Tarzan & Jane (2002)
IMDb profile

Tarzan is a 1999 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 on the story Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and is the only major motion picture version of the story 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. To date, it is the last film based on the fictional character Tarzan to have had a theatrical release, and also currently holds the record for being the most expensive Disney animated film, with a budget of $150 million. It was also the first Disney animated feature to open at #1 since The Lion King. Tarzan is the last movie that belongs to the Disney Renaissance (1989-1999).

[edit] Plot summary

In the late 1880s 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 craft themselves a treehouse in which to live using salvaged ship parts ("Two Worlds"). Meanwhile, a gorilla couple named Kerchak and Kala are traveling with the rest of their group when their infant son is killed and eaten by a leopard named Sabor. The next day, the still-heartbroken Kala hears a distant child's cry and, following it, stumbles upon the treehouse, which has been attacked by Sabor. Although the infant has survived, both his parents are dead. Kala rescues the baby from a still-hungry Sabor and returns with it 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 feisty young female gorilla Terk and an elephant named Tantor ("Son of Man"). Despite his inability 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 her, earning Kerchak's respect. Tarzan then notices a group of humans arriving: Professor Porter and his daughter Jane, who have traveled to Africa in search of gorillas, along with their hunter guide Clayton. Jane then has an encounter with a horde of angry baboons, who chase after her. Jane runs towards a cliff and tries to jump to the other side, only to be caught mid-leap by Tarzan. She screams as she is taken to a branch, where she demands to be put down. Tarzan puts her down, but then the baboons get closer and she screams, "No! Pick me up!" The chase then rages on, but finally, Tarzan gets Jane to safety. Curious about Jane, Tarzan proceeds to examine her, at one point playing with her feet, tickling her. He then notices her gloved hand. Taking off the glove, Tarzan places his hand against hers, and this is when he realizes that he and Jane are the same. He takes Jane back to her camp.

Meanwhile, Tarzan's friends, who are trying to find him, arrive at the human trio's campsite and proceed to destroy it, playing music on various human objects they find in camp ("Trashin' the Camp"). Tarzan returns Jane to camp, but must depart with the other 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, Tarzan 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, prepare to leave, and Tarzan is heartbroken to see Jane depart. Clayton tells him that they will stay once they find the gorillas. Tarzan, eager to have the humans remain, schemes with his friends Terk and Tantor to get Kerchak out of the way while Tarzan shows the humans the nesting site.

Tarzan leads the humans 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 a result alienating 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 so he could kill and sell them on the black market. As the crew storm the jungle, Tantor and Terk rescue Tarzan and they race off to stop Clayton and his men. In the ensuing battle (in which the gorillas are aided by the elephants and the baboons), Clayton shoots and mortally wounds Kerchak with his rifle. Tarzan and Clayton duel among the treetops until Tarzan wrests Clayton's gun away and smashes it. Clayton pursues Tarzan with a machete into a tangle of jungle vines, which Tarzan uses to ensnare Clayton, with one of the vines becoming looped around Clayton's throat. Clayton's wild slashing at the vines to free himself cuts the vines holding him in the air, causing him to fall. The fall is only stopped by the vine around his neck, effectively hanging him to death. Tarzan then finds the dying Kerchak, who apologizes to Tarzan for his behavior and makes him, as the uncontestedly most capable of the younger generation, leader of the gorillas. Kerchak dies, and Tarzan and the gorillas mourn for his demise.

With Clayton's men captured and the crew released, 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 Finale").

[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:

• Tarzan's parents, marooned in the novel, are shipwrecked in the movie.
• In the book Kala's baby is killed when Kerchak knocks it out of a tree, while in the film it is killed by Sabor after wandering away from the group.
• 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 (although, in a documentary on the making of the film, an animatic is shown that Tarzan's human mother had died of a natural disease, as his father is weeping while looking at a picture of Tarzan's family, which may mean that she had died before Sabor killed Tarzan's father. However, this seen was a story reel, and was deleted to be replaced with the opening scene shown in the movie.). 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.
• The apes, called Great Apes in the novel, are gorillas in the film. In the book, gorillas are enemies of the great apes.
• The jungle's main predators are lions in the book, leopards in the film. The latter is actually more true to fact; leopards are the main predators of the forest (where the story takes place), while lions are denizens of the plains.
• The role of Tublat, Kala's mate and Tarzan's foster-father in the book, is subsumed in that of Kerchak in the film. Tublat does appear as a separate character in the later TV series, however.
• Kerchak, the ape leader, a villain unrelated to either Kala or Tarzan in the book, is a basically sympathetic character in the film who is Kala's mate and Tarzan's foster-father, and who ultimately comes to accept Tarzan. He is killed by Tarzan in a battle for supremacy over the apes in the book, but is shot by Clayton in the movie.
• Terkoz, a male Great Ape and Tarzan's enemy in the book, becomes Terk (or Terkina as called by her mother), a female gorilla and Tarzan's best friend, in the movie.
• Native African humans, who play a major role in the book, are absent from the movie because of racism (in the book Tarzan kills "many black men" and this is accepeted.)They are, however, included in the TV series. But Tarzan doesn't kill them.
• Kala, Tarzan's adoptive ape mother, killed by an African warrior in the book, lives in the film.
• Jane Porter, originally from Maryland, USA in the book, is from London, England, in the film.
• Clayton, is changed from the novel's William Cecil Clayton, Lord Greystoke, a basically sympathetic but flawed nobleman and Tarzan's cousin, to an unrelated brutish hunter and irredeemable villain. Thus, Tarzan's birthname (John Clayton) is never mentioned in the film.

[edit] Voice cast

[edit] Crew

[edit] Annie Awards

[edit] Soundtrack

Main article: Tarzan: An Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack

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 (featuring Rosie O'Donnell)
• 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. After performing for a year on Broadway, the show closed on July 8, 2007.

[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] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• Tarzan is the only animated Disney film which had been dubbed into Bahasa Melayu.
• 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 largely rebuilt and 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. It also did not appear in the manga adaptation. Though the Professor and Tantor do not make cameo appearances.
• Minnie Driver largely ad-libbed the breathless speech in which Jane tells her father and Clayton about meeting Tarzan for the first time.
• All of the actors who voiced gorillas also provided their character's own "gorilla" vocal effects.
• Although the film features many songs, almost none of them are sung by the main cast-instead they are all sung by Phil Collins over various montage sequences. The sole exceptions are Kala's initial lullaby to Tarzan, which starts out in the voice of Glenn Close before shifting to that of Collins, and "Trashin' the Camp," which features scat-like lyrics voiced by Rosie O'Donnell. 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 animated film produced by Disney. The killed characters were Kerchak, his and Kala's child, Tarzan's parents, Sabor and Clayton. Other Disney animated films, notably Mulan, arguably have higher "body counts," but of mostly minor or walk-on characters, and at a greater remove from the action. Treasure Planet features deaths of five secondary characters and one major. Finding Nemo has the most technical deaths with the total being 401 (Nemo's mother and unborn siblings)
• During Walt Disney's lifetime, Edgar Rice Burroughs actually asked Disney to make a movie based on Tarzan. This is the realization of Burroughs's request.
• Takeshi Kaneshiro, Charlie Yeung and Sandra Ng provided the voices of Tarzan, Jane and Terk respectively in the film's Cantonese dub.
• Tarzan, Jane, Terk, and Tantor appear at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts as meetable characters.
• In one scene Tarzan fights Sabor and gets scratched on his chest. In the next scene after he kills it the scratch marks are missing, this is because animating the scar throughout the movie would prove too expensive.
• In the scene after he kills Sabor, Tarzan presents it to Kerchak as a tribute. In the next scene, Sabor is no longer there. Similarly, upon Kerchak's death, he disappears in the next scene, as Tarzan leads the gorillas away from the clearing.
• In the scene where the apes discover the camp, Tantor panics at the sight of all the human objects and cries out "The horror!", a famous line from the novel Heart of Darkness, which is set in Africa.
• Glenn Close, who provides the voice of Kala, also provided the voice of Jane in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. She was never credited for her work though.
• In the German DVD version of the movie 11 scenes are edited for ca. 48 seconds just to become a rated G DVD.

[edit] See also

• You'll Be in My Heart
• Tarzan (musical)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Tarzan at the Big Cartoon Database
• Tarzan at the Internet Movie Database