Tarzan (1999 film)

Tarzan is a 1999 American 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 Walt Disney Animated Classics, 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 was the last bona fide hit before the Disney slump of the early 2000s grossing $171,091,819 domestically and $448,191,819 worldwide, outgrossing its predecessors Hercules (1997) and Mulan (1998). At the time of its release, its production budget of $130 million made it the most expensive animated film ever made, until topped by Disney's own $140 million Treasure Planet in 2002. It was also the first Disney animated feature to open at #1 since Pocahontas. This was the last major box office success of the Disney Renaissance.

Plot

In the 19th Century, an English couple and their infant son escape a burning ship, ending up on land near uncharted rainforests off the coast of Africa. The couple craft themselves a treehouse from their ship's wreckage, but are subsequently killed by Sabor, a rogue leopardess. Kala, a female gorilla who recently lost her own child to Sabor, hears the cries of the orphaned infant, and finds him in the ruined treehouse. Though she is attacked by Sabor, Kala and the baby manage to escape. Kala takes the baby back to the gorilla troop to raise as her own, despite her mate Kerchak's disapproval. Kala raises the human child, naming him Tarzan. Though he befriends other gorillas in the troop and other animals, including the young female gorilla Terk and the paranoid male elephant Tantor, Tarzan finds himself unable to keep up with them, and takes great efforts to improve himself. As a young man, Tarzan is able to kill Sabor with his crude spear and protect the troop, earning Kerchak's reluctant respect.

The gorilla troop's peaceful life is interrupted by the arrival of a team of human explorers from England, consisting of Professor Porter, his daughter Jane, and their hunter-guide Clayton. Jane is accidentally separated from the group and chased by a pack of baboons. Tarzan saves her from the baboons, and recognizes that she is the same as he is, a human. Jane leads Tarzan back to the explorers' camp, where both Porter and Clayton take great interest in him — the former in terms of scientific progress while the latter hoping to have Tarzan lead him to the gorillas so that he can capture them and return with them to England. Despite Kerchak's warnings to be wary of the humans, Tarzan continues to return to the camp and be taught by Porter, Clayton, and Jane to speak English and learn of the human world, and he and Jane begin to fall in love. However, they are having a hard time convincing Tarzan to lead him to the gorillas, due to Tarzan's fear for their safety from the threat of Kerchak.

When the explorers' boat returns to pick them up, Clayton makes Tarzan believe that if he shows the group the gorillas, then Jane will stay with him forever. Tarzan agrees and leads the party to the gorilla pack's home, while Terk and Tantor lure Kerchak away to avoid having him attack the humans. Porter and Jane are excited to mingle with the gorillas, but Kerchak returns and threatens to kill them. Tarzan is forced to hold Kerchak at bay while the humans escape, and then leaves the troop himself, now alienated by his actions. Kala takes Tarzan to the treehouse she found him in, and shows him his true past, encouraging him to leave with Jane and the others. When they return to the gorilla home, they find Clayton and his men capturing the gorillas, and are captured themselves and taken to the waiting ship. Tarzan manages to escape with the help of his friends, and races back to the gorilla home. Kerchak and Tarzan together battle Clayton; Kerchak is fatally shot while Tarzan chases Clayton into vine-covered trees. Clayton, in his anger to shoot Tarzan, ignores the warnings about becoming trapped in the vines, and ends up with his neck caught in a vine and is hanged. Kerchak, in his dying breath, accepts Tarzan as his own and names him the leader of the gorilla pack. The rest of the gorillas are freed after scaring away the rest of Clayton's men.

The next day, as Porter and Jane prepare to leave on the ship, Tarzan reveals that he now plans to stay with the gorilla troop. As the ship leaves shore, Porter encourages his daughter to stay with the man she loves, and Jane jumps overboard to return to shore; Porter shortly follows her. The Porters reunite with Tarzan and his family and prepare for a new life together.

Cast

• Tony Goldwyn (Alex D. Linz, young) as Tarzan, a man raised by gorillas who finds out he is truly a human.
• Minnie Driver as Jane Porter, daughter of Professor Porter and a part of an English explorer group. She's the first of the group to meet Tarzan and they fall in love.
• Glenn Close as Kala, Tarzan's adopted mother who found and raised him after losing her last biological son to Sabor. She is Kerchak's mate.
• Lance Henriksen as Kerchak, Kala's mate and the leader of the gorilla troop. He doesn't look too kindly on Tarzan since he is human, but before he dies, he accepts him as his son and leaves him to lead the troop.
• Brian Blessed as Clayton. Clayton is an intelligent, suave, yet impatient hunter who guides the Porters on their quest, armed with a gun and a machete. After realizing how much of an asset Tarzan can be in terms of the gorilla, he soon betrays his group and intends on killing off the gorillas for money. During the climax he meets his end when he accidentally hangs himself with a vine while attempting to kill Tarzan.
• Nigel Hawthorne as Professor Archimedes Q. Porter, Jane's short-sized father and an eccentric biologist.
• Rosie O'Donnell as Terk, Tarzan's best friend, a smart-alec tomboy gorilla. She is also Kala's niece, making her and Tarzan adopted cousins.
• Wayne Knight as Tantor, a paranoid elephant and best friend of Tarzan and Terk. He has Terk step all over him most of the time, but when Tarzan is in danger he steps up and tells her off.

Additional voices include Joseph Ashton, Jack Angel, Robert Bergen, Roger Bumpass, Jim Cummings, Debi Derryberry, Patti Deutsch, Blake Ewing, Jason Marsden, Phil Proctor, and Erik von Detten.

Production

To create the sweeping 3D backgrounds, Tarzan's production team developed a 3D painting and rendering technique known as Deep Canvas (a term coined by artist/engineer Eric Daniels).^[2] This technique allows artists to produce CGI background that looks like a traditional painting, according to art director Daniel St. Pierre.^[2] (The software keeps track of brushstrokes applied in 3D space.)^[2] 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.

Merchandising

Various action figures and plush toys were produced, including a talking Terk and Tantor produced by Gund.^[3]

Music

The songs for the film were written and performed by 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"

"Trashin' the Camp" and "You'll Be in My Heart" are the only songs in the feature to be sung by the characters; all the other songs are background music.

Ty Burr of Entertainment Weekly gave the soundtrack a B-, stating that it was awkwardly split between Collins's songs and the traditional score, was burdened by too many alternate versions of the tracks, and in some instances bore similarities to The Lion King and Star Wars.^[4]

Release

The standard VHS and DVD release of Tarzan was on February 1, 2000. Disney also released a 2-Disc Collector's Edition on April 18, 2000 with behind-the-scenes, music videos, games, and more. Those 2 editions were eventually put in the Disney Vault. On October 15, 2005, Disney released a single-disc special edition.

Reception

Reviews for the film were very positive. It currently holds a score of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.^[5] Entertainment Weekly compared the film's advancement in visual effects to that of The Matrix (stating that the backgrounds are "themselves animated – yet still look as if they were painted with feathery brushstrokes"), and that the film far surpasses previous live-action attempts, in some cases on an emotional level.^[6]

Awards

Tarzan won the following awards:

• 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.

Annie Awards

Tarzan was also nominated for 11 Annie Awards, winning one.

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs:
  • You'll Be in My Heart - Nominated^[7]
• AFI's 10 Top 10 - Nominated Animated Film^[8]

Legacy

Television spin-off

A spin-off television animated series named The Legend of Tarzan ran from 2001 to 2003. The series picks up where the film left off, with Tarzan adjusting to his new role as leader of the apes following Kerchak's death, and Jane (whom he has since married) adjusting to life in the jungle.

Broadway musical

A Broadway musical, also titled Tarzan, produced by Disney Theatrical began previews on March 24, 2006 which had 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.

Video games

There are some video games loosely based on the film:

Disney's Tarzan (also known as Tarzan Action Game) is an action, platformer developed by Eurocom and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation console in 1999. Konami published the game for its Japanese release. It was also released on the PC, Nintendo 64, and Game Boy Color. The player takes control of the eponymous Tarzan who ultimately has to save his home, the jungle, from Clayton, a hunter for gorillas. Tarzan starts up as a child learning the skills of the apes. The game has 3 difficulties: easy, medium and hard. In the easy and medium difficulties, little Tarzan gets tips from his friend Turk. Tarzan's enemies are monkeys, baboons, eagles, and different animals, including some humans and Clayton.

Disney's Tarzan: Untamed (known as Disney's Tarzan: FreeRide in Europe) is a 2001 action-adventure video game released by Ubisoft Montreal for the PlayStation 2 and was a launch title for the GameCube. Picking up quite a while after the defeat of Clayton, Jane and Professor Porter now speak Gorilla-language fluently and Jane is married to Tarzan. However, their lives are threatened once again by a brutal band of British explorers led by the unscrupulous Oswald Gardner, who becomes fascinated with Tarzan and strives to capture the ape-man and take him back to England as a media attraction.

Tarzan's home, "Deep Jungle", is a playable world in the Disney/Square Enix video game Kingdom Hearts released for PlayStation 2 in 2002. It does not appear in any subsequent games in the series, due to Square Enix's failure to acquire the required rights from the family of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Tarzan, Jane, Tantor, and Terk, in their young forms, appear as playable characters in Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure, developed by Toys for Bob and released for PlayStation 2, Gamecube, Xbox and Game Boy Advance in 2003.

References

External links

• Tarzan at the Internet Movie Database
• Tarzan at AllRovi
• Tarzan at Box Office Mojo
• Tarzan at Rotten Tomatoes