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Tarzan (1999 film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| 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 Wayne Knight Brian Blessed |
| Music by | Phil Collins Mark Mancina David Zippel(lyrics) |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures |
| Release date(s) | June 18, 1999 (USA) |
| Running time | 88 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $130,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | $448,191,819 |
| 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. 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.
Contents |
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 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 eaten by a leopard named Sabor. The next day, 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 her, 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. Jane then has an encounter with angry baboons who attack her by taking her boot. Tarzan heroically saves her then tickles and plays with her feet. Jane then goes back to camp.
Meanwhile, Tarzan's friends arrive at the trio's campsite and proceed to destroy it by playing music using various human objects the find in camp ("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 then wants Terk to do him a favor. He wants Terk to get Kerchak out of the way. Terk, at first, refuses to help him because she thought that Tarzan didn't care about Terk anymore, now that he was so keen on Jane. Finally, Terk agrees because Tarzan gave her a look that makes Terk say yes. Terk then becomes furious because she told Tarzan that he better not make her do anything embarrassing, but Terk is disguised as Jane (with the skirt and lipstick) and Tantor is disguised as the professor.
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 a kind of long drop 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. Kerchak dies, and Tarzan and the gorillas mourn for his demise.
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").
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, 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.
- 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" because they "don't matter". They are, however, included in the TV series.
- 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.
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Result | Award | Winner/Nominee Recipient(s) |
|---|---|---|
| NOMINATED | Animated Theatrical Feature | |
| NOMINATED | Individual Achievement in Directing | Kevin Lima (Director) Chris Buck (Director) |
| NOMINATED | Individual Achievement in Writing | Tab Murphy (Writer) Bob Tzudiker (Writer) & Noni White (Writer) |
| NOMINATED | Individual Achievement in Storyboarding | Brian Pimentel (Story Supervisor) |
| NOMINATED | Individual Achievement in Production Design | Daniel St. Pierre (Art Director) |
| NOMINATED | Individual Achievement in Character Animation | Ken Duncan (Supervising Animator - Jane) |
| NOMINATED | Individual Achievement in Character Animation | Glen Keane (Supervising Animator - Tarzan) |
| NOMINATED | Individual Achievement in Effects Animation | Peter DeMund (Effects Supervisor) |
| NOMINATED | Individual Achievement in Voice Acting | Minnie Driver ("Jane") |
| NOMINATED | Individual Achievement in Music | Phil Collins (Songs) |
| WON | Technical Achievement in the Field of Animation | Eric Daniels (Computer Graphics Supervisor) (For the development of the Deep Canvas device in the film) |
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
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.
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.
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.
- 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 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' 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.
- Tarzan at the Big Cartoon Database
- Tarzan at the Internet Movie Database